iPhone Incident...The Second Episode

Maybe my iPhone has bad luck…or it’s cursed…or I’m not supposed to have a working iPhone…or the iPhone-gods hate me, but I am now in possession of iPhone 3 (iP3 for short). iP3 replaces iP2, which replaced the original iPhone, which had to be replaced because I dropped it in a toilet. (Really, if you've never read the iPhone incident story, I suggest you do...it really is the event that kicked off this blog).

So here’s the story of how I came to be in possession of iP3…a blog entry which was originally titled: “One big fat sucky weekend…” It also has almost nothing to do with running...

It all started with this email from my father, which I opened at about 9:10 Friday morning. It began with:

About 9:00 PM last night I took Mom to the emergency room at the Hospital. She is there now. I came home about 4:00AM. She had been developing high blood pressure and some chest pains...

There was more...but at that moment I was thinking WTF..."mom was in hospital at 9:00 last night, and I'm finding out about it NOW??? by EMAIL...GAHHHHH!!!!

So, the next three hours or so go something like this...phone calls to dad (mom seems stabilized, but is still in the hospital for observation)....phone calls to my two dear sisters who live in So Cal, one in Orange County, one in Manhattan Beach...We share and lament our incredible lack of information about what's going on, we discuss who's going to go to Vegas? Fly? Drive? Call. Call. Call. Email. Email. Text. Text. Text... DS1, the one who lives in OC, suggests that we drive together. DS2, who lives in MB, can’t decide if she should drive with us, or fly. All three of us have kid’s weekend plans for soccer, football, birthday parties, harvest festivals, you know the usual, to re-route, reorganize, and recoordinate the details of because, of course, this is the weekend that we are responsible for bringing the team snack...

Oh…did I mention that I had an appointment with my eye doctor? I was desperately in need of a new contact lens perscription...so I fit that in. My pocket buzzed the whole time the eye doctor is checking my vision. (which is clearer 1 or 2? 2 or 3? I hate those questions...but eye doctor is a runner, so we also chat about marathons and 1/2 marathons we've run this year).

Came home, packed, decided to take DramaGirl to Vegas with me (she begged to go, and I hoped that seeing 1st grandchild would make mom and dad happy...and I like having her with me because she makes me laugh...for many reasons, this turns out to be the best decision I made all weekend). Really my goal was to get on the road as quickly as possible because driving to Vegas from So. Cal on a Friday is a crazy thing to do...as there is wicked traffic. I was out of the door by 12:35.

Then, while driving to OC, I was talking to DS2 on iP2 (see…I’d get back to the iPhone story) and in the middle of our conversation, as I'm driving through Camp Pendleton, the screen goes white, and then black, and the call drops.

I have AT&T…I’m used to dropped calls, but this one seems especially bad because the phone won’t back turn on AT ALL...no combination of pressing the home button, and the restart button has any effect…AT ALL. DramaGirl plugs iPhone into laptop, and again...NOTHING. iTunes doesn't see my phone at all (and not a toilet in sight). It's a brick.

GAAAAAHHHHH...

DramaGirl and I spend several minutes discussing whether it's funnier to call it a brick or a paper weight. I argue that "brick" is funnier because a single brick is almost absolutely useless and serves no purpose whatsover. DramaGirl asserts that calling it a "paperweight" is funnier because it's a word that has more syllables and longer words are funnier.

So in the midst of this family emergency, I am without cell phone. Luckily, DramaGirl has her cell phone. We call all family members to let them know that I have a brick/paperweight for a cell phone and that if they need to get ahold of us, they should call DramaGirl's cell phone.

By that time, I was in OC, moved bags to DS1's car, and I finally got to call Apple Tech Support to see if they have a magic cure that I could conjure that would fix my brick/paperweight/phone. Tech Support, of course, had no cure, but was able to call me back after the call drops on the 241 Toll Road (impressive) because, I was using DramaGirl's phone, and did I mention we have AT&T? Apple Tech Support girl did make an appointment for me to go to the Apple Store in Vegas to talk to a Genius there...an appointment that I rescheduled at least three times in the next 24 hours.

About this time DS1 mentioned that she really only wanted to stay in Vegas for one night (gosh I wish she would have mentioned this before I drove to OC to drive with her...as I'm not sure how long I'll want to/need to stay).

Unfortunately, my early-ish start to Vegas was not that helpful and the drive from OC to Vegas took almost SEVEN MORE HOURS so it was about 9pm by the time we got there. Mom had been released from the hospital though (which is good news) and was home, so we went there. She looked exhausted. We left, so she and my equally tired looking dad, could get some sleep.

My sisters, DramaGirl, and I got a room at the Red Rock. Ordered room service at midnight (because we really hadn't eaten much other than crackers, and DramaGirl was being such a trooper through all of this, and she LOVES room service). In the morning, I did get a short treadmill-run in, (if ever in Vegas, and you're really not into staying on The Strip, I really recommend Red Rock Hotel. Excellent beds and workout room...and isn't that the really important part of a Vegas stay?).

Of course, all sorts of other sister-drama ensued...which always happens when all three of us are together. I'm often amazed that the three of us came from the same parents, we are all so different in how we approach our lives. I guess the same is true of DramaGirl and TurboBoy. They have very different personalities, and maybe as they get older, those differences will become even more pronounced, but I hope that at the core, they'll have the same values...the ones that Walter and I have instilled in them. I love my sisters, but we are just so very different, it is sometimes hard to see how we all came from the same place.

We spend the rest of Saturday at my parents place. Mom looked much better, although was still rather shaky and tired. Apparently, there was some miscommunication, and my mom was told to stay on a clear-liquid-only diet for 10 days and was taking some pretty strong antibiotics for a second bout with diverticulitis, on top of having high blood pressure. The nurse swears she told my mom that her diet needed to include clear liquids and low-fiber foods, but my mom swears she was told clear-liquids only. So, the antibiotics on an empty stomach made her pretty sick and weak so her blood pressure dropped. My mother (the retired nurse, which is sometimes a dangerous thing) decided to not take one dose of her blood-pressure medicine because her blood pressure was so low. Her blood pressure spiked. Then because her elyctrolites were so off because of the diet, the blood pressure medicine stopped working correctly at all... thus, the visit emergency room.

GAAAHHHHH...It sucks that my parents live in Vegas, where I can't keep a closer eye on these things...

About 3:00 yesterday afternoon, DS1 decided it was time to get back to SoCal, and since she was my ride, and since my car was in OC, I had to go back with her. Other silliness ensued. DS1 had an errand to run in Henderson (about 20 minutes south of The Strip) before we left town, so we had to go there first, but she didn't think it would be convenient to drop DramaGirl and I off at the mall so that I could deal with my iPhone issue, and I didn't feel like fighting with her about it, so I just decided to go along (I hoped that I was modeling good...sometimes-you-just-have-to-decide-to-not-fight-with-your-sibling-behvior for DramaGirl). Then, when we were in Henderson, DS2 called because she left her backpack in the car, so we ended up having to meet up with her somewhere...which worked out for me because we decided to meet at the mall where the Apple Store is located... Yeah, you guessed it, the one that was too inconvenient to get to earlier (I call it Karma).

At the Apple Store, the Genius confirms that I do have a dead phone, probably due to the charging port, which we can see has parts that look completely fried. He mentions something about maybe there was some water damage, and I almost tell him that I have no problem admitting to water damage when it actually occurs, but in this case I was just talking on the phone while it was plugged into the charger and it died, but I decide he doesn't need the information about the previous phone and it's water damage.

I'm thrilled when he goes to the back and comes out with a new iPhone for me (not a new G3 one...that would have been SWEEEEEET, but a new/old iPhone nonetheless).

I dub thee iP3. It is pretty and shiny.

We leave Vegas at 5:00pm, get back to OC before 9pm and DramaGirl and I were back in San Diego before 10:30...5 1/2 hours back after the 8 1/2 hour trip to Vegas was a nice change...and I got to talk to Walter all the way home from Camp Pendleton to almost my front door.

I haven't run yet today. I do want to get at least a 6 mile run in this weekend. Luckily it's cooled off considerably, so I can go run in the middle of the day. I need to do laundry. Get planned for the week. Do some grocery shopping for the week. Start packing for SF because I'm leaving Friday morning. Oh...and did I mention that we're going to a Jimmy Buffett concert on Thursday night?

Just got off iP3 with mom...she's feeling even better today...