Technology Lost II

Thursday night, for the Cowboys/Packers game, we met K and A at The Corner to see the game on the NFL channel. That was the same night as the Cleve Jones lecture and presentation of the AIDS memorial quilt on campus, so I left to go shoot and then returned at about half time. I was only carrying the basics with me and E offered to put the camera gear in the car for me. It was around this time that K arrived and sent me a text. I replied to her so she could find us.
Because we had good seats at the bar, we did a decent job of passing drinks back to other patrons and money up to the bartenders. One time, long after we had handed off a Miller Light but before that person had moved on, someone dropped a full bottle behind us. Beer and glass went everywhere. We promptly got up and moved our chairs so the bar back could get to the glass. It was too crowded, though. So, we just re-claimed our seats and sat over the mess.
(It is likely that my phone went missing from the holster around this time.)

Later, I wondered what time it was and reached for my phone. I looked in the holster, all around the bar and on the floor. Nada. It was nowhere to be seen. I was crushed, but we really all looked everywhere. When we got ready to leave, we gave B, an owner, one of my cards with an accessible number on it. I told him, “It’s here somewhere. I texted it from and haven’t left the bar since.”

The next day, we got a message that they found it, but never found the battery. We guess that when it fell, it broke into a number of pieces and the battery was never recovered. The screen was black and murky like the Oliean from X-files. E filed on the phone insurance (yes, B, you aren’t the only one who needs that stupid thing![1]) and the phone was due to be here by Monday. Three. Whole. Days. Later.

For those of you who have seen my addiction to Twitter (Thanks, M), you know that this was quite difficult. Plus, I couldn’t take care of tasks in the car on the way to or from anything. And, running errands was awful because I couldn’t check to see if E needed anything from the same place.

Finally Monday came and so did my phone. I put the new battery in the old phone and, despite its horrid appearance, did a successful sync. Then, I put the battery in the new phone and sync’d again. Another battery trade allowed me to erase all my personal data from the dead Treo.

We shipped the dead phone off to the warranty/insurance company and I’ve been babying this one ever since. We’ll see if I can keep it safe.

[1] The day we met B’s husband, M, I was gesturing with my (then new) Treo 600 phone and case. The phone went flying out of the case, sailed off the porch of the Chicken, and landed in the Northgate promenade. Yeah, I’m kind hard on technology.

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