The Cell Phone Saga

First, let me be clear: Art hates smart phones. Which for someone who built his first radio at the age of eleven is pretty strange. He says he refused to have a phone that is smarter than he is! He doesn't like the touch screens. He wants real buttons to push and switches to switch.

Art had a motorola flip phone quad band opened for use with any provider. We don't use our cell phones a lot and neither of us have a plan, just the pay as you go. Art found that a $100.00 Rogers card lasts him the full year.

We have sim cards for Mexico, USA and Canada and even got one for Ireland when visiting there last summer which he was able to use in Portugal the following week. On the return from Europe he left it in the seat pocket on the plane when changing in Toronto. Never been seen since.  Fortunately it still had the Irish chip in it with only a few euros of time left. Unfortunately it had all his contacts in it.

Back in Victoria he eventually got around to thinking about buying a new phone. Gillian had spotted one in a the  store (tiny Best Buy outlet at Mayfair Mall) so he had no more excuses. There he found an inexpensive new Samsung phone ($49.95) which they unlocked at no charge!  Art was delighted and bit by bit began to add to the contacts list. Two weeks later it malfunctioned! It somehow appeared to have re-locked itself, reporting "unrecognized sim".

Back to the store. They had no idea what had happened to it and were unable to unlock it again. They offered him a used Blackberry that someone had traded in. Reluctantly, he accepted. It had no charger but the charger for the Samsung worked with it. The store did not want the Samsung back so for some reason Art decided to keep it rather than have them throw it out so took it home and tossed it in a drawer.

Now it gets interesting. But dinner is ready, I haven't finished my Spanish homework, so:
To Be Continued.



Gillian had an unlocked quadband smart phone as well as an old Mexican cell phone so when we arrived in Mexico we put Art's Telcel(Mexican) sim card in her smart phone and she continued to use her old one.

This served us well enough, throughout our time in Zihuatanejo though Art continued to get frustrated with the smart phone and had it not been Gillian's he probably would have thrown it in the sea long since.

In Puerto Vallarta, bemoaning the loss of his contacts, he decided to see if his new but non working Samsung, which somehow had been loaded into the Motorhome along with all our other electronic devices, could be coaxed into at least coming up with a contacts list.

He removed the sim card from the smart phone and inserted it into the Samsung, and turned it on. There was still a charge in the battery! However, there was nothing in the contacts list! But neither did the the Telus logo that had always come up before. In fact, there was a lovely little Telcel icon showing a connection!

He tried to call Gillian's number: It started to connect,  then nothing. Gillian's phone remained quiet. Then we tried the other way--she called him, same result. Next dial *333 and up came the automated Telcel system giving his balance! Strange. Oh well, it was a good try. We'll try perhaps later. We had once before had this sort of thing happen while using the smart phone.

Gillian went off to do some grocery shopping while Art and the dogs stayed home. Suddenly he remembered something he had wanted Gillian to get at the store. Why not give the Samsung one more try before transferring the sim card? He dialed her number and it began to ring. I mean her phone really began to ring. It was plugged into the charger on the dinette bench opposite Art! By the time he got up and around to pick it up it had stopped but a missed call showed.

When Gillian returned he related what had just occurred, that he had forgotten that he was almost out of Becel (all of which he had brought from Canada!) but she had remembered him mentioning some days ago that he was running low and she had bought some margarine for him!

Anyone interested in an old troublesome Blackberry?

They say "if someone hands you lemons, make lemonade". 

Maybe I should cut it up it into 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937. . .  pieces and make a Blackberry Pi.