Weekend Recap

As seems to be my tradition for a while now, here's my mid-morning Monday review of the weekend!

Friday night I really wasn't feeling good, both due to not sleeping well last week for various reasons and still fighting the nasty head congestion I had all last week.  We were supposed to hang out with friends at their house but I canceled, partly because I didn't feel good and partly because I didn't want any of them to get sick too (especially with a 6-week old baby!).  So Bill and I ended up staying home and watching some TV.

I got quite a bit of sleep Friday night and really started feeling better on Saturday.  I did the usual chores of laundry, some cleaning, etc plus got a bunch of homework done.  Bill spent the afternoon helping to get our church set up at the temporary location for Sunday's service.

Saturday evening we headed over to the Verizon store to check out a promotion we had received about upgrading to smart phones (the ones that have Internet access and such, functioning more like a cross between computer and cell phone).  The deal was really good - buy one get one free on any smart phones, which usually cost a couple hundred dollars each.  The catch is that all smart phones have to have data plans, which is an additional cost beyond the regular cell phone minutes plan.  We looked at our usage, however, and realized we could save the cost of one data plan just by lowering our plan, since we hadn't been using anywhere near all our minutes anyhow.  But, both smart phones would need to have their own data plan, so our bill would be raised the cost of one (about $30/month).  Not thinking that was justifiable when Bill is out of work, we came up with a deal.  Since there's a 30-day guaranteed return policy (i.e., return the new phone within 30 days and they'll re-activate your old one), we have some time to decide whether or not we should stick with this.  So, if Bill has a job in less than the 30 days, he'll keep his smart phone, otherwise it's back to a regular one for him, and our overall cell phone bill remains about where it was before the new smart phones.  If Bill is employed within 30 days, we'll be able to afford the added monthly cost.

So what phones did we get, you may ask?  (Or you may not, if you have no idea what I'm talking about! :-) We both got the Palm Centro, because I love the Palm OS.  I've been using a separate Palm device (the z22) primarily to manage my school stuff, and we can now sell that since it's redundant for me.  (Anyone out there interested?  Gently used Palm z22, purchased September 2007 - let me know!)  So far I'm loving the Centro; it's like my Palm on steroids! :-) My one gripe so far is the size, since I like to keep my phone in my pocket at all times and women's pants pockets aren't built for larger cell phones.  But it's still relatively small, and I'm getting used to it.  It's also weird talking on a "brick" phone after having a flip phone for around 5 years.

I think I'm nearing getting things set up on it the way I want them, with shortcut buttons and so forth.  I wasn't willing to pay the $10 for Verizon to transfer my contacts, so I weeded a bunch out while typing them in fresh on the Centro.  Integration with Google Maps is definitely spiffy - if you have a person's (or business's) address in your Contacts, just click on their name then the map button and it maps it for you!  Too cool.  I've gotten things set up for checking my usual stuff - Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and weather - and installed all my previous Palm programs and data, so I'm nearly there I think.

Anyhow, back to the weekend... Sunday morning we had church at a temporary location out by the mall, and it was such a beautiful day (and I was feeling better) so I rode my bike there.  It was about 7.5 miles round trip; took me 30 minutes to get there, and 20 minutes to get home because of the wind.  Definitely a nice ride, though!

Sunday afternoon I worked on homework, and Bill finished up some painting he did for me (more details on that when the project is finished!).  Late afternoon my dad arrived, making a stop in Findlay on his way home from visiting my grandparents in Ft. Wayne.  We had a nice visit, including a dinner out at Steak 'n Shake, yum!  Cheddar cheese fries are awesome. :-)

And that about sums up the weekend!  This week should be better than last one, since there's no more flooding expected and I'm basically over my head congestion.