Gadget Geek

You’d think we had never traveled before.

Seriously, Kathryn and I behaved just like girls fresh off the farm at the airport on Saturday. We couldn’t figure out how to get in the parking garage. We couldn’t figure out which floor to take the elevator to in order to reach the terminal. We didn’t know what skycap service was (despite the fact that I have actually used skycap service before, DUH) and I’m such a moron that I actually asked the skycap how much I was supposed to tip him. We didn’t know if you were supposed to get the food out of the cooler and then pay for it, or ask for it and have it brought to you after paying. We couldn’t figure out how to get a Link shuttle to the hotel, and once we did we couldn’t figure out whether to purchase a round-trip or one-way ticket. We stressed out briefly about whether we had enough ones to tip the bellhops at the hotel if they had attack-bellhop service, because we didn’t really need bellhops but didn’t want to be unable to tip if the bellhops attacked us with helpfulness. We couldn’t find the entrance to Benihana in Peachtree Center, and ended up walking outside and then walking back in to locate the main entrance we’d totally missed on our first trip by. Kathryn asked the host if there was a bar. The bar, as it turned out, was directly behind the hosting station, in plain view of both of us. What can I say? Traveling, it would seem, is hard work.

Later that night, in the hotel, Kathryn and my cell phone both got sick. Kathryn survived after a day or so of feeling just terrible. My cell phone did not fare so well.

On Sunday morning when I went to turn it on for the day, I got the Motorola load-up M and then it just went “waah” and died. My attempts to revive it were fruitless. After a call to the superawesome Verizon customer service hotline, they tried their best to help me but ultimately said there was little they could do if the phone wouldn’t start up all the way.

So the next day I skipped some of my afternoon stuff and took Marta up to Buckhead and walked about another mile (which was fine, the weather was good) to the Verizon store, where my technician, who bore a striking resemblance to Bernie Mac, told me my phone was well and truly dead.

If the warranty hadn’t expired a week ago they’d replace it for free, but since that wasn’t an option I could pay the $50 insurance deductible and they’d replace the dead phone, or I could look around the store and see if I wanted to buy a new one, since my contract was up for renewal and I could get the promotional price on a new phone. I guess I could have been upset about the whole thing, but the friendliness of the CS staff really went a long way toward keeping me in a good mood. Besides, I’ve never had problems with Motorola phones before, and I realize that electronic equipment just craps out sometimes. The problem was fixed quickly and to my satisfaction, so I’m happy.

With the help of Briton, the awesome frat-boy salesman, I ended up with a Motorola V265 cameraphone, two Jabra headsets, a car charger, a package of extra clips, and a leather case. For FIFTY DOLLARS. It totally should have cost me twice that much, according to the details on the card in the store.

So now I’m a cameraphone gal, complete with a Flickr photostream. As a matter of fact, there’s a picture of all the stuff I got in there somewhere, which also features my old dead phone and my left big toe. Between the iPod mini and the cameraphone, I’m suddenly turning into a gadget geek – which is fine with me. I never thought I needed a cameraphone before but now I’ve had one for like four days and will never go back. And we are back from Atlanta safely and I am busy as crap.

Have I mentioned that Verizon Wireless is the best wireless service provider in the entire universe? I love them.