The iPhone Experience
I’ve been an iPhone user since about 6 months after they came out. I love this thing. You can’t even really call it a phone, it’s more like a tiny laptop. I don’t even bother taking my laptop on trips anymore. I just don’t need it for 90% of my travel computing needs.
Now even though I really dig my iPhone, I don’t live for it. I’m not one of those guys that stands around in little packs with other iPhone users and tweets and texts and surfs while ignoring the people right in front of me. But I do think it’s incredibly handy to have on me when I need to check the weather at the place I’m driving to, or need quick directions, or need to find a good restaurant, so I was a little bummed when I dropped the darn thing Sunday night.
I was leaving church and jogging out to my car because Michelle was waiting for me to open the doors and it popped out of my jacket pocket and hit the edge of a curb. At first it didn’t look too bad, just a nice dent in it’s aluminum back and a scuff of red paint from the curb. But I quickly realized that it had internal injuries. The volume buttons no longer worked, and the touch screen would not respond to my loving caresses.
I was bummed. Not so much about the phone, but about the replacement cost. This is no economy to be spending $100 on a phone. At least not for me. So I figured, hey, I can fix this thing! So I grabbed a screwdriver and pried the sucker apart.
I soon realized there was no way I was fixing this thing. After pulling 15 of the tiniest screws I have ever seen out of the innards of my beloved iPhone, I realized I would never be able to get them back in. My fingers are too fat and my eyes are too old to have any hope of getting that thing back together, even if I could magically figure out which component was bad.
But luckily I had a back up phone to use. Unluckily it was my daughters old RAZR; in stunning pink. Yeah, that really bolsters my bad boy image. On top of that, the thing is a piece of hot pink crap. I tried to type a text message on it and suddenly realized why I got an iPhone to begin with. No, I think I’d rather not have a phone at all rather than fight with this hunk of garbage. But you can’t just go around without a cellphone in this day and age right? So I decided to go down to the Apple store and get me a new phone. And this is what I really wanted to write about because the shopping experience at the Apple store is amazing.
I went online to order one and they give you the option to pick it up at a store. I figured that would be better than waiting for them to ship it to me. So I select the store I want to get it from and they ask my name and then tell me when it will be waiting for me.
I walked into the store and told the guy I reserved a phone online. He asked my name and then looked me up on his iPhone. He then tells me to have a look around and somebody will be up with my phone. I drooled over the new 27″ iMac for a few minutes and then a guy taps me on the shoulder and asks if I’m ready to check out. He’s got my iPhone in one hand and a portable credit card reader in the other. He takes my id and punches in a few things. Then he takes my credit card and swipes it. He then asks me if he can email my receipt to me and I say yes. He then hooks the phone up to a computer, activates it and then hands it to me. Done.
Within 5 minutes I had an activated iPhone in hand. No swapping SIM cards, no calling headquarters, no paperwork to sign, and they were FAST! None of the B.S. that I’ve always gone through when buying phones at the AT&T store. And what else was cool is that this is all while standing in the middle of the showroom, they don’t have registers, or lines, at the Apple store. Brilliant.
So I’m back in business with my new iPhone. I gotta say I kinda miss my old one. I really liked the aluminum back versus the plastic back that the new phones have, but it’s way better than the pretty, pink RAZR, that’s for sure.
21 Years
21 Years. That’s how long Michelle and I have been married. It’s kind of an insane amount of time when you think about it. How many people under 45 have been involved in any one thing for that long? Or look at it this way; I’ve now been married for over half of my life. Wow.
So inevitably people ask me, as if I have some incredible insight, how I managed to stay married for so long. What I’ve discovered is that each year I have a slightly different answer, and I think it’s slightly different because each year I get a little older, and a little more experienced. I’m able to look back and see where I screwed up to be honest, and that’s a good thing. The opposite side of that is that I realize now matter how long Michelle and I are together, we still have more to learn about how to get along and relate to each other. There’s still growing to do. Nobody ever has it totally figured out.
I will say though that over the past four or five years especially, I’ve really learned that marriage is not just about “Me”. It’s not about what I can get out of it. It’s not about how it pleases me. This was kind of a huge revelation for me because I think so many marriages fail because people view their marriages like they view buying a car. How will I look in it? How will it make me feel? How will it benefit me? The problem with that is, cars lose their luster over time and then you want a new one.
So how should we view marriage? Well, since God created marriage, you have to go to God to find out. Ephesians 5:25-30 says:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself: for no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ also the church; because we are members of his body.
That’s some powerful stuff right there. Love your wife as Christ loved the church (church meaning us). So how did Christ love the church? Well, most notably, he died a horrible death for it. That’s some pretty serious stuff. But he also taught it, he cared for it, he led it, he set an example for it. He didn’t show it off, or demand pleasure from it, or demean it, or exploit it, or ignore it. He served it. Wow.
So we are called to do that for our wives. How many of us really view our marriages as an opportunity to lead, to teach, to set an example for, much less to die for? What about the part about loving your wife as you love yourself? How many of us guys can honestly say we care about our wives as much as we care about ourselves? Think good and hard before you answer that.
There’s some choice stuff in Ephesians for you women too. But I’ll let you look that up for yourselves because I honestly believe that the majority of marital problems start with us men. Looking back at 21 years of making mistakes in my own marriage, and looking at the marriages of my friends, I can say that with complete confidence. If only us guys got ourselves in line with Christ’s example, I would bet that the divorce rate would drop from 51% to probably around 20% or less. It’s on us guys. Time to step up.
So those are my thoughts for year 21. Wow, year 21. I am incredibly blessed.
TasteFresno.com
So being the secret geek that I am, I attend a monthly usergroup meeting where we get together and talk about the best way to build websites. Turns out one of the guys in the group just released a really cool food website called TasteFresno.com. It’s a website dedicated to recipe sharing and rating Fresno’s restaurants.
So if you want to find someplace new and cool to eat, want to avoid a stinker, or want to share your favorite tri-tip recipe, this is the place to be. Check it out.
Halloween
Halloween is too much fun!
Hey Jude
My duaghter sent me this and I thought it was cool. I present you with the flow chart for The Beatles’ song, Hey Jude:
