Trapped

Killian #2. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“I’m talking to the phone.”
I have to say that lest anyone in earshot call 9-1-1.
Yrs Trly uses voice-recognition to do iPhone texts, lists, and e-mail. It’s fairly accurate if I speak slowly, although often I hafta edit.
“Bob, ya don’t need to do that,” says my hairdresser, the guy who got me into Smartphones. Uhm, no edit = undecipherable gibberish. I had a friend doing that. Hours got blown trying to figger what he said.
I attempted to do a text the other morning, and got stopped by wondrous technology. The “send” button is within the text window. Get near it, and yer text sends complete with errors.
I needed to fix something, but the text filled the window just shy of the “send” button.
Trapped. That text had to wait. Try to fix and yer text sends complete with errors.
I have a new dog; his name is “Killian.” Rescue Irish-setter #5. He’s nine years old, and is another divorce victim. I (we) already had one divorce victim, Irish-setter #4, rescue #2. —We also had a previous “Killian,” IS #5, rescue #3.
Killian-2’s previous owner wanted to be heavily-involved handing over his dog. We both have iPhones, so I texted him often, including iPhone pictures of my recently acquired Killian serenading critters, prewashing dishes/pans, etc.
Recently I texted questions to him directly from my vet.
The other day “I’m at my Town Clerk trying to register Killian. They need proof of neutering.”
Crash! Wondrous technology blossoms again. This time the text wouldn’t fully display in my iPhone, and wouldn’t scroll. I can’t experiment = “try this and see what happens.” My Town Clerk is waiting.
That text wasn’t sent. Another put-aside. Who programs these things? Do they have any clue at all?
Voice-recognition is a nice idea, but fat lotta help it can be when you actually use it. Why is that “send” button where ya can accidentally breathe on it?
In which case I gotta send a correcting text. That’s the five minutes voice-recognition saved.
I know, if I became a tub-thumping CONSERVATIVE everything would be hunky-dory. Merrily goosestepping to Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
I’m also told I was born in the wrong century.
Uhm, if some teenybopper starts addressing his Smartphone, I bet the adults call Homeland Security.

• RE: “I (we).....” —My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I still miss her. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I needed one. She actually liked me.

Voicemail

“Will you please stop!” I shouted.
I was at my weekly eat-out with my fellow widower friend, and saw I had a voicemail in my iPhone.
I triggered it. One minute 27 seconds = a record.
My iPhone occasionally gets voicemails, since I don’t answer if that caller ain’t in my phone. Often a business has multiple landlines, and I may only have one number in my iPhone. Calls from such numbers don’t get answered — voicemail for them! If it’s that important, they’ll voicemail.
The unknowns are always after my wallet: charity solicitations, reduced interest on my credit-card balance — I don’t even owe anything. Neither a borrower nor lender be. “Please press one to speak to an actual viper.”
I just got a new dog, a rescue Irish-setter. My vet noticed a fair amount of tarter on my dog’s teeth, and recommended dental-cleaning.
I did so a while ago to a previous rescue Irish. I’m leery. Doggy dental-cleanings require anesthesia. The results are frightening.
This dog is nine, fairly old, but very lively.
“Yada-yada-yada-yada!” One minute and 27 seconds. Most voicemails are only a couple seconds. One minute 27 seconds requires sit-down with intense concentration.
I shut it off. No way can I cogitate all that while consuming broccoli and a cheeseburger.
An entire night passed, including bedtime. I also walked that silly dog this morning at the park — probably almost three miles, if not more.
Now to siddown and glom my cereal. Unholster iPhone, then trigger that message. My cereal had to wait until I listened through. One minute 27 seconds of ceaseless yammering. I felt like I was listening to “War and Peace.”
Yesterday at the Canandaigua YMCA, oldsters in the locker-room complained. “I couldn’t get away from that guy,” one said. “What that guy likes most is the sound of his voice,” another said.
I hope that vet contact doesn’t read this blog — I don’t wanna hurt her feelings.
But SHEESH!

• My new dog, “Killian,” is a “rescue Irish-setter.” He’s nine, and is my seventh Irish-Setter, a very lively dog. A “rescue Irish setter” is usually an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. — Killian was fine. He’s my fifth rescue.

Can I back out?

For the past couple years, Yr Fthfl Srvnt has been driving a Smartphone.
I started with a Motorola Droid-X, but quickly tired of its many foibles, like calls to strangers in the middle of the night.
And complete removal of the battery to reboot the phone. which I had to do often.
The Motorola Droid-X was “Android,” Google’s Smartphone platform at that time.
My brother in northern DE suggested an Apple iPhone, like he and his wife.
This despite my siblings telling me Apple was the Devil incarnate, that I’m “rebellious” to use an Apple computer.
“Jesus uses a Windows PC,” I was told.
I started with a -5, then I upgraded to the iPhone-6 I now have. Each came with a contract renewal, so didn’t cost much. My cellphone service is Verizon.
Every couple months Apple debuts a new operating-system for iPhone. I dutifully installed each upgrade as it came.
The other night they wanted to upgrade to iOS11, so I eventually let ‘em.
As always, things are different, but in my humble opinion worse.
Where, pray tell, are the scroll functions for voice-recognition text and e-mail?
I also use VR to do my grocery lists.
Ya know, there are people out there, me for example, who like to fix the errors voice-recognition makes. VR is pretty good, but unlike many I like to make my texts and e-mails readable (gasp) instead of challenging.
For example, if I say “too,” VR will put “2.” The average dork can figger that out, but sometimes VR is so off-the-mark what I meant is lost.
With no scroll-buttons I can’t just scroll to the fix. I gotta hope my finger locates the curser nearby, then delete everything after the error. Do that, and I’m doubling my time to fix things.
Plus iOS11 wants my thumbprint just to log-in. It gives me the option of password log-in, but to go to that is an added step = five seconds.
Five seconds; La-dee-dah! Except that’s five seconds 10.6 didn’t require. 11 thereby slowed phone operation five seconds.
So goes instant gratification!
So “do the thumbprint log-in, dude.”
I did, a few months ago. It was so erratic I switched back to password log-in.
Maybe it’s better now, but I have better things to do than spend an hour setting that up.
What upsets me most is loss of the scroll function.
Can I go back? Uninstall 11 and go back to 10.6?
iOS upgrades need a “command-Z.”

• “Command-Z” is a computer key stroke that reverses what you just did = a mistake, for example. My word-processor has multiple “command-Zs.” —Upgrading to iOS11 was a mistake.

“Oh SHADDUP!”

“Sorry Robert, I didn’t get that!”
”Oh SHADDUP!” I said.
I was at Boike Counseling the other day in nearby Canandaigua.
I go there to discuss the death of my wife.
I was at the window reporting, taking my iPhone out of my pocket.
Siri (“sear-eee”) came on, the iPhone thingy that follows your voice commands.
I had inadvertently activated a button.
“Sorry Robert, I didn’t get that,” she said.
“Oh SHADDUP!” I shouted.
The entire waiting-room started laughing.
“What are you all laughing at?” I asked,
“Done the same thing!” they said.
“You should see me with the GPS-lady,” I said.
Exiting a plaza “turn right on Gibson St.”
“What you been smokin’ girl? Gibson is one-way, and that’s the wrong way.”
I’m in Williamsport, PA.
“Right lane for 15-south.”
“NO WAY JOSÉ! Ain’t doin’ it! The Keed is takin’ the expressway!”
Wondrous technology.
Actually Siri is pretty good; although I don’t do much. E.g. “Call Jack mobile” my brother-in-Boston, which she hasn’t goofed yet.
Siri will also search out stuff on the Internet when so commanded.
GPS is pretty good too. It gave me a better route to Altoona (PA) where I chase trains.
GPS is my iPhone; I use GoogleMaps.
How come Google, in its infinite wisdom, has my house 500 feet south of where it actually is?
I tell everyone to disregard GoogleMaps and look for my mailbox.
My iPhone has its own GPS app, but my cellphone store told me GoogleMaps was better, so they installed it on my phone.
No idea. In south FL, visiting my niece in Fort Lauderdale, my brother-in-law, who lives nearby, texted me a restaurant for an eat-out.
It was underlined, so my niece said “hit that.” My AppleMaps gave me the location, and GPSed a route. Lord-a-Mighty! A new iPhone trick, and it was even the same GPS-lady.
I used AppleMaps to GPS me to the restaurant = 20-25 miles, deep into Boca Raton. Into a tree-shaded parking-lot crammed with cars. Slowly circling behemoths waiting for someone to leave — maximum speed perhaps 2 mph.
My wife, having died, misses all this.
She also misses Trump as prez.
I got my first Smartphone just before she died, a Motorola Droid-X®. It wasn’t too bad, but total reboots required removing the battery = taking it apart.
My brother-in-DE had an iPhone, despite Apple being described as Satan personified. That led to my iPhone-4, an i-5, and now an i-6. All were contract renewals — my cellphone service is Verizon.
At first my iPhone was mainly a phone. It became more, but I’ve yet to master its potential.
What really blows me away is how good its camera is. It’s not my Nikon, but often my blog-pictures are my iPhone.
What impresses me most is how it can shoot available-light inside = no flash.
Also its depth-of-field; so much is in focus. It must be shooting through a pinhole, f/64 or even f/128.
I discovered Siri by surprise; didn’t know I had it.
Every once-in-a-while I activate Siri by mistake.
“Sorry Robert, I didn’t understand that!”
”DIE-DIE-DIE!” I say.

• “Robert” and “The Keed” are of course me, Bob Hughes, alias “BobbaLew.”
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.
• RE: “chase trains......” —I been a railfan since age-2; now 73.
• “Depth-of-field” (that part of an image in focus) is determined by “aperture-size” = the part of the lens that passes light (the image). The larger the aperture, less will be in focus = “depth-of-field” is decreased. Pretty good depth-of-field is rendered at openings of F/4, f/5.6, F/8, and F/11, aperture sizes typical for the past few years. Years ago you might see F/2, F/1.4 or even F/1.2 — needed to pass enough light for film used at that time; usually available-light-no-flash on Kodak’s Tri-X. At that aperture depth-of-field was minimal. The greatest depth-of-field is rendered by a pinhole, except it doesn’t pass much light.

Talking pants pocket

“Bob?”
NOW WHAT?!
A semi-familiar voice was emanating loudly from my right-rear pants pocket.
Must be my cellphone, which I keep in that pocket.
Seconds ago I hung up a call from Urology Associates of Rochester, which I fielded a half-hour earlier, because wondrous technology decided I never hung up — like I didn’t swipe the hang-up icon hard enough.
I guess — ya never know with these things.
At which point Urology Associates of Rochester kept blabbering their introductory recording at me.
Which I finally stopped a half-hour later when I heard it from my pants pocket.
“Are you all right?”
My caller-ID said it was Cheryl Anne Brewer, my aquatic-therapy coach at the YMCA.
“This one a’ them butt calls?” I asked.
I never called Cheryl Anne, or at least didn’t intend to.
Cheryl Anne had just e-mailed a response to my e-mail about future appointments.
Her card had appointments scheduled next week, when I had appointments galore, and was also gonna be outta-town.
Regrettably I wouldn’t be able to continue therapy until the following week. Her e-mail rescheduled to that.
So now, to her, my butt call seemed follow-up to her e-mail.
I guess I don’t have the proper attitude. I consider things like this to be foul-ups instead of blessings.
I hope Cheryl Anne doesn’t think I’m crazy, although at my age I suppose that’s plausible.
Part of it is the sheer madness my iPhone keeps lobbing at me. I guess I’m from the wrong generation.
So how did I inadvertently call Cheryl Anne?
Butt calls are history, or so it seems.
I decided I never put my phone to sleep before putting it back in my pocket.
It was on “recent calls,” one of which was Cheryl Anne.
So if I breathed on it — whatever — it could call Cheryl Anne while inserting in my pants pocket.

• Almost a year ago I had a complete knee replacement, and it seems my balance has degraded since — or before. We started aquatic therapy (in the YMCA pool) about two weeks ago, hoping to reverse that.

What today?

File this in my “What fantastical new iPhone trick am I gonna learn today” box.
Similar to grocery-store visits: “Who am I gonna see today?”
The other day (Sunday, November 29th, 2015) I ate out with my niece, her young daughter, and my niece’s mother, my sister-in-law.
My sister-in-law is my wife’s brother’s first wife, and my niece is their only child.
My niece was born in 1969, which makes her 46. Her daughter just turned 21.
Her daughter and I have iPhones, and she is much more tech-savvy than me.
Back-and-forth with wisecracks, snide remarks, putdowns, verbal potshots.
I drove city bus, so parried much worse. Fortunately my potshots make her laugh.
“Okay, what do I do here?” I asked.
Not too long ago I clicked my iTunes music-icon, and it locked up my Apple music page.
I was expecting that to still happen, at which point I would have said “now what?”
But the Apple music-page displayed a previously unseen radio-button that accessed my iTunes files.
So of course young Miss Tech-Savvy clicked it in a nanosecond, implying I was stupid for not seeing it.
Well, no radio-button before.
Apple’s iPhone operating-system instituted a password feature a few years ago. The phone won’t work unless the password in entered — a feature the NSA hates; they can’t load up your phone with porn, and arrest you as a prevert.
So every time I use my iPhone I hafta get past that password lock, which only I know.
“What about your thumb?” niece’s daughter asked.
iPhone has some trick to recognize your thumbprint to unlock your phone.
“So show me,” I said.
Niece’s daughter already uses that on her iPhone. She no longer enters her password.
We fired up my settings, and went about setting up my thumbprint to unlock my phone.
After maybe three minutes, well beyond the attention-span of my niece’s daughter, I had it recognizing my thumbprint.
This takes place under the “home” button.
But all it is is a quicker way to unlock your phone; the thumbprint function doesn’t disable the password function.
Which means the NSA could still unlock my phone after 89 bazilyun tries on their super-computer.
So how does Apple do that? Read my thumbprint on top of the “home” button?
Willikers! I learn some fancy-dan iPhone trick every day.
No wonder the Windoze guys think Jobs was the Devil personified.
They copy some Apple-trick, then advertise the Hell out of it, as if they invented it.
Like Apple’s “Siri” (“sear-eee”), for example, or cloud storage. Siri was such a whiz-bang idea, Microsoft copied it, then rolled it out while still wonky, so it embarrassed the Microsoft head-honcho when it muffed a command.
(Although Apple’s Siri was merged from an outside company.)
Microsoft advertises cloud-storage like they invented it. Apple had it first, but didn’t trumpet it.
This has happened with my iPhone before.
Not long after I got it, I wanted to put my own MP3 of a steam-locomotive whistle — I’m a railfan, and have been all my life — on my phone as its ringtone.
Back in 1993 my brother-and recorded a video of a restored steam-locomotive down in WV.
I had the same ringtone on a earlier Android phone.
I did this because years ago I took a railfan trip down into PA, and all the others on the trip had a diesel-locomotive horn as their ringtone.
They all had the same ringtone. A phone would ring and “Whose phone is that?”
A “Ringtone-Maker” app made that MP3 my ringtone.
So now if someone calls I know it’s my phone.
You can also individualize ringtones for a specific caller, but I haven’t done that.
Then I discovered “Siri.” Now just about all my phonecalls are by Siri, although sometimes Siri doesn’t work.
I guess Siri is over the Internet, so doesn’t work if I’m not connected.
My car has Microsoft “Sync” with a Siri equivalent. But it’s much less reliable.
Siri works.
Not too long ago I was shown how to reboot my phone, and how to move app icons on my “home” screen.
So now it’s recognizing my thumbprint. What next?
Thumbprint function established, my niece’s daughter observed she could never teach old people.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’m 71 years old and had a stroke. I ain’t supposed to be able to do this.
I do it by asking questions” (gasp).
“How did you get there?” I ask. “Fat lotta help you are. You’re not showing me anything. You’re just doing it yourself.
Well sorry, I ain’t tuning out! I’m gonna drive you nuts with questions.”
At the Messenger newspaper, where I began as an unpaid intern after my stroke, I fell into the habit of developing computer tricks to reduce our production time.
“I don’t know what he’s doing, or how he does it. All I know is producing that stockbox went from three hours to five minutes.
“Stockbox in five minutes? That’s not possible! Page 2A was always the last page filed. We were waiting for that stockbox.”
“Can too,” I said.
I showed him the trick.
“You had a stroke? You’re not supposed to be able to develop stuff like this.”
“Grady, if I have Meg doing the Post websites, I need your magic macro on her computer.”
“Beep-beep-beep-beep.” I heard her working it; it triggered her computer’s alert-sound.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• “NSA” is National Security Agency.
• “Jobs” is Steve Jobs, deceased, founder of Apple Computer.
• “Grady” is the nickname I was given at the Messenger; see info at right. We also had an employee named “Meg Lund.” —The Messenger was also the Post suburban newspapers beside the Canandaigua Messenger = Messenger-Post Media.

“Every time I come here....

.....I leave with more knowledge of my iPhone,” I said to the solitary clerk at “PC & Wireless Shop” in Canandaigua.
I came with a question about my iPhone GPS apps, like how I had gotten Google-Maps to prompt through the phone, instead of my car’s speakers; yet still take BlueTooth phonecalls through my car.
With Apple-Maps I have to turn off BlueTooth. I also wondered if I could get Apple-Maps to do the same as Google-Maps.
The poor guy was flustered. Did I want Google-Maps to prompt through my car?
No. As a stroke-survivor I get this a lot, inability to make myself clear.
I didn’t wanna change anything. All I wanted to know was how I could.
Poking around: “Oh, I see you have a lotta apps on,” he said.
He started shutting things off; it’s just a finger-swipe.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What are you doing? I’m not familiar.”
He showed me what apps were still on.
“So how do I get to that?” I asked.
“Just double-click the ‘home’ button.”
“I thought switching apps shut off the app you were in.”
“No, it doesn’t. That app will run until ya swipe it off.”
Another iPhone trick gleaned unexpected from PC & Wireless, where i bought the phone because they’re allied with Verizon, my cellphone provider.
I suppose I could pose my questions to some pimply geek at the Apple-store, or take an iPhone course.
PASS!
All I want are answers, not a sales-pitch. Just because I don’t fully understand my iPhone-6, doesn’t mean I want the new 6s.
And I can imagine trying to get answers at a Verizon-store. Get in line. Take a number.
And of course being a stroke-survivor means I can’t handle a SmartPhone. Like I should drive a 50-year-old rotary.
PC & Wireless also answered my GPS question. There was a a “Settings” in there, and often as a stroke-survivor I don’t see such things.
Visual overload!

• I have a friend whose wife got mad at her Dell computer. So she went out and bought another Dell. Go figure!

“You have to play with it!”

Last night (August 19th, 2015), as I do every Wednesday night, I shared dinner at a restaurant with Jim LePore (“luh-POOR”).
Jim, like me, is a recent widower. He also is a car-guy.
At first I ate out with Jim because he was rather distraught after his wife died.
Plus eating out is a meal I don’t hafta cook.
But since then -a) he is no longer as distraught as he was, and -b) we share an interest in cars.
One of his daughters came along. Her name is Connie; she’s one of two.
Her coming was a pleasant surprise.
Talk turned to taste in music. She took her father to task for liking music of the ‘60s.
“‘60s?” I said. “That’s even after my time.”
I unholstered my iPhone, which has various pieces from the ‘50s I purchased.
I fired up my iTunes icon, intent on playing something by Jerry Lee Lewis.
“NOW WHAT!” I yelled.
“Why is it every time I fire up anything on this here iPhone, it’s something completely different?
Can’t they ever leave well-enough alone?”
I guess it’s Apple’s new music-app.
Connie took over my iPhone, and I was happy to let her.
We poked around, and stumbled on my short “tunes” list.
“Wait a minute!” I screamed. “How did you get that?”
“You have to play with it,” Connie said. The old waazoo; try this and see what happens.
“What if I don’t have time nor inclination to ‘play with it’?”
Every time I try to fire up some iPhone example of some neato thing I did, I get a curveball.
I swear they change things every week or two.
Connie’s phone is Android, an LG, and has 89 bazilyun image-files. I have about 125 spread through five folders. I don’t know how they were created, or why pictures get assigned where they go.
This is why I get mad at Facebook; I never know what is happening. And obscure meanings for words get assigned I don’t know yet.
Question-after-question, and utter frustration.
And the fact I’m lost means I’m stupid and clueless.
“You have to play with it” — not the first time I’ve heard that.
Like I have time to dork around when I have lawn to mow, laundry to do, etc., etc., etc., etc.
And further more, what if I’d rather sling words instead?

• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

Another geezer triumph

I’m 71 years old and had a stroke. I was told I wasn’t supposed to be able to do this.
My wife, now gone, was told I’d be a vegetable.
The other day (probably Monday, June 1st, 2015) I called some medical establishment with my iPhone6, which I promptly put on speakerphone.
Then I fired up my virtual telephone keypad, since office telephone systems often want you to key in a menu option.
I got referred to a human to reschedule an appointment.
Sometimes speakerphone is a mess. It goes in-and-out. My contact reported a bad connection.
“One second,” I said. I would switch off speakerphone and start using my smartphone like a regular telephone. That usually works.
Can’t. My keypad has masked my speakerphone option.
This has happened before. Gloriously trapped.
I was at the YMCA in Canandaigua, in the locker-room after workout.
A guy came over and looked at my phone.
“I have no idea,” he said.
“Still there?” I asked my contact.
“I guess I can’t get out of speakerphone; we’ll have to wing it.”
Call ended, I stewed.
“This can’t be rocket-science,” I thought. “There’s gotta be some way to switch.”
I called my landline at home; switched on speakerphone, and the keypad.
I noticed “hide” on the keypad.
BAM! Tried it; the old waazoo: “try this and see what happens.”
VIOLA! There it is, back to where I can switch off speakerphone.
“Finally got it!” I said.
I collared some poor guy changing clothes in the locker-room. “I finally got it,” I crowed.
“Thanks for being my de facto audience,” I said, as he walked out.
“It ain’t often an old geezer figures out one of these newfangled techno-toys.”

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester [NY].)

Geezer triumph

The classical-music radio-station out of Rochester (NY) I listen to, WXXI FM 91.5, has an “app” for getting its stream on your SmartPhone.
I have a SmartPhone, an Apple iPhone6.
The other day my niece’s daughter fired up iTunes radio on my SmartPhone. We wanted to add a station, so I suggested WXXI.
My niece’s daughter apparently got the WXXI app from Apple’s app-store.
So there it was, WXXI on my SmartPhone.
But it wasn’t 91.5. WXXI has a number of radio-stations, one of which is AM 1370, talk and news radio.
That was what was playing on my SmartPhone.
I thought my niece’s daughter had used an app she had gotten through iTunes radio. So I wondered if I could get 91.5 without getting the WXXI app. But you can’t. iTunes radio, like Sirius, has a classical music feed, but it’s not WXXI, and you can’t get WXXI. You have to have the WXXI app.
So now I attempted to get a 91.5 app.
This was the source of my confusion, that each WXXI radio-station had its own app, like AM 1370, FM 91.5, etc.
Not only that, the WXXI app displays as 1370 at Apple’s app-store.
But the single WXXI app can get all the streams. Once fired up, you select which stream you want.
Around-and-around we went. My hairdresser, who got me into a SmartPhone in the first place, tried to get a 91.5 app. You can’t; although you can get a 91.5 stream from Streemer.com.
We were supposed to be doing a haircut, yet here we were horsing all over the universe.
I departed without getting WXXI on my SmartPhone — although my hair was cut.
It just so happens I’m friends with Brenda Tremblay (“trom-blay;” as in “trombone”), morning host at 91.5. We’re both graduates of Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), although I much earlier than she.
She’s the daughter of people who graduated Houghton a year or two before me.
So I asked if she could help me.
I got a follow-up call from a WXXI tech-guru, and began to realize the WXXI app might be “one app gets all streams,” after which I select the stream I want.
I’m not desperate. It’s not like I’m gonna play 91.5 on my SmartPhone every waking minute.
But I surmised installing it shouldn’t be rocket-science, and Brenda told me it was a “piece of cake.”
Once I ascertained it was “one app gets all,” I downloaded the app and installed it.
I then fired it up.
VIOLA! Victory for the Old Geezer.

iPhone5

An iPhone5 in white (similar to mine).

Yrs trly is now the owner of an Apple iPhone5.
You’ll notice I didn’t say “proud owner.”
That’s because after blowing two hours standing around in the store watching frenzied techno-mavens pull their hair out trying to open my phone photos in Photoshop-Elements on this computer, with no idea on my part what they were doing, I’m left befuddled.
I bought my iPhone for a number of reasons.
—1) I was due for an upgrade anyway, per Verizon, my cellphone service.
—2) My ancient Motorola DroidX, at least two years old, had thrown mysterious hairballs at me, and now had black marks on its display-screen that made it hard to read, and it couldn’t be repaired.
—3) My younger brother in northern DE has an Apple iPhone 3 or 4, and tells me it always works. (My DroidX could be wonky.)
—4) The Apple iPhone is pretty. My Droid seems like a clunker.
So it came down to Apple versus the Droid platform.
A supposedly reliable phone versus something I’m familiar with that also throws hairballs.
My problem with all SmartPhones is the virtual keyboard. My Droid was a challenge.
I could only drive it rotated with the keyboard across the length of the screen.
The iPhone is smaller than the various Droids. Could I stand it?
So I looked at an iPhone at the store. It looked bearable. Plus it’s not a clunker.
It had to not overwhelm my back pants pocket. The various Droids seemed too big.
So now the Apple iPhone5, in a protective hard case, resides in my back pants pocket.
Like my previous DroidX, it’s essentially a phone, that also displays my e-mail, and occasionally surfs the web when out somewhere I can’t carry this laptop.
—Like chasing trains in Altoona, PA. I need to access my weather-site to see if a shower is coming.
(I’m a railfan and have been since age-two. I’m now 68.)
So back to Apple’s elegant architecture, which this here computer is.
Like this MacBook Pro, my iPhone is nice to look at, as gorgeous as my 1980 Ducati SS motorcycle (“dew-KAH-deee;” as in “odd”), which I often parked in front of my house in Rochester (NY) just to gaze at it.
Pretty as it is, what I really do is drive it, and it hasn’t failed me yet.
Sometimes apps freeze, but with OS-X they don’t take down the whole computer.
With OS-X I can force-quit just the hung app.
I hope this iPhone is as reliable; my DroidX wasn’t.
But all I could think of as I stood there in the store watching the frenzied techno-mavens pull their hair out trying this and then that was: “Steve, Steve; where are you? It shouldn’t be this hard.”
USB-ed to this computer, my DroidX was seen as a device.
With an iPhone it’s engage iTunes = engage guile and cunning.
I found it interesting the virtual keyboard on this iPhone was much easier to drive than my DroidX.
Sensitivity on my Droid’s virtual keys was apparently much wider than the iPhone, so you were often keying mistakes.
I can even drive the iPhone’s tiny screen-width virtual keyboard. Sensitivity of its virtual keys is apparently a mere pinprick.
Although my relationship with my MacBook Pro is hardly elegant.
But at least I don’t have flame-paint on its case. The MacBook Pro at the store did, and spider-web decals surrounding a skull and crossbones.

• “Steve” is Steve Jobs, inspiration and one-time head-honcho of Apple Computer. He was obsessed with making computer-interface easy. Jobs died not too long ago.

Wonders never cease!

The other day (Wednesday, March 7, 2012) I got a call to my SmartPhone while driving home from the Canandaigua YMCA, where I work out.
I didn’t answer it. I don’t. That SmartPhone stays in my back pocket while driving.
My cellphone service has voicemail. I’m not about to be distracted while driving. Not after what I saw cellphone use could do while driving.
It took me across the double-yellow. I’m not having that. I ain’t answerin’ that phone!
A missed call; from an unknown number. My SmartPhone identifies calls from people in my contact-list. This was not one of them.
A message had been left, so I fired up voicemail.
It was a machine. Wonders never cease. A machine left a message.
It was MVP, my healthcare insurance. They wanted to ask a few questions. They left an 800-number that wasn’t the caller number.
So I called the 800-number later after I got home.
A machine answered.
“Blah-blah-blah-blah.”
I guess it had voice-recognition.
“Do you consider your health improved, about-the-same, or worse over the past year?”
“Improved,” I said.
If it were an actual human, I would have said “slightly improved.”
But I knew a machine couldn’t crunch that.
“Blah-blah-blah-blah.” Various questions amidst long dissertations that sounded like my mother.
“Wear your rubbers! Look out for your health! Blah-blah-blah-blah.”
Then “did you discuss exercise with your doctor last visit?”
“No,” I said.
The machine seemed crestfallen, but a machine can’t crunch a more specific answer.
“Blah-blah-blah-blah. You should discuss exercise with your doctor. Exercise is beneficial.”
The machine and its programmers erroneously presumed I don’t exercise.
Most people don’t.
What usually happens is I initiate the discussion about exercise by saying “I work out.”
The doctor is not suggesting I exercise; he’s not initiating the conversation.
What usually happens is my doctor tells me to keep it up, and then he wishes he could exercise as much as I do.
A machine can’t handle that.
Which is why my health improved slightly. I’m not short of breath, and my heart doesn’t pound.
I don’t see stars, and I can get up if I fall, which happens occasionally.
I also can climb stairs. I’m way ahead of the average person at age 68.
I see people younger than me in powered wheelchairs, and I don’t have a handicap tag like my much younger brother. —He’s 13 years younger than me, and thinks exercise a waste.
I don’t have arthritis, and my knees are what I was born with.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)