Michelle and I purchased our iPhones when Apple released the 3G model in July of ‘08. It is hands down, the best gadget I have ever owned. Shortly after the new year, I noticed that there was a stuck pixel on my iPhone’s screen. The pixel would always be the opposite color of whatever it was supposed to be. Shortly after I noticed that pixel, I noticed another that was stuck.

I called the nearest Apple store and made an appointment to meet with someone to discuss my pixel issue. The next day Michelle and I went to a very crowded Apple store and looked at all of the beautiful electronics until my name was called. I showed the Apple employee my phone and told him about the problems. He also pointed out some dust that had apparently gotten under the glass screen. He said he needed to talk to someone else about it, then went into the back room. A few minutes later he came back out with a small box. Inside that box was a brand new iPhone. He slid a piece of paper in front of me, and I initialed twice and signed twice. He then handed me my new phone and wished me a happy day. 

Michelle was a little annoyed that my phone was now newer  and shinier than hers, but I she got over it. I, too, quickly got over the excitement when the screen stopped responding the next day. I thought that maybe the phone was just frozen. (iPhones aren’t perfect, they freeze on occasion and have to be rebooted.) I pressed the sleep button on the top of the phone, and instead of the screen turning black, it turned white. I did a hard reset (turned it all of the way off, then let it reboot) and that seemed to fix the problem. Until the next day. Apparently it was a reoccurring problem, and no matter how many reboots I performed, the issue remained. At times I was even unable to turn the phone off. So I called Apple support. They suggested that I restore the phone to factory conditions to see if the problem still persisted. When I plugged the phone into my computer, iTunes did not recognize that anything was plugged in. After more troubleshooting with Apple support, I finally got the phone to be recognized and restored. 

As soon as the phone booted up, it locked up and turned white. Apple support determined that it was a hardware problem, and suggested I take it to an Apple store to have it replaced. So, I made another appointment at an Apple store to meet, once again, to have my phone replaced. Michelle and I arrived 15 minutes late for my appointment. If we had arrived one minute earlier, they would have seen me right then and there. Unfortunately, due to the high volume of traffic in the stores, I was placed on standby until a space opened up. We played with the computers for about 30 minutes until someone else missed an appointment. I handed the phone to an employee. He went into the back room and brought out another brand new iPhone. I initialed and signed twice more, and walked out of the store with another new phone.

This phone, fortunately, has not caused me any problems. Until I dropped it in a cup of coffee a week ago. I was sitting in the living room playing on the phone and drinking a cup of coffee (brewed with my Keurig coffee maker). Somehow, (no thanks to gravity) I dropped the phone into the coffee. It fell top end first into a half empty* cup. The music immediately stopped playing (I cussed profusely), but the screen did not seem affected. I quickly dried it off,  turned off the power, and took out the SIM card. I had been saving all of the silica gel beads I could find for just an occasion. I emptied the beads into a tupperware container and tossed in the phone. After a while I took the phone out and used a cotton swab to dry out the earphone jack and the SIM card slot as much as possible. Apple places a small piece of paper in the bottom of the earphone jack that is white, until it gets wet, at which point it turns red. This way when someone brings in a broken phone, they can look to see if it had been dropped in the toilet, or a cup of coffee. Amazingly, the water sensor was still white. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, the speaker was still not working. The phone went back into the silica gel beads while I scoured the internet for solutions. Most forums suggested using compressed air or a hair dryer. One person said he put his in the oven. Since I didn’t have any compressed air, and I didn’t want to bake my phone, I tried a hair dryer. 

The phone worked fine, other than the speaker issue. I couldn’t hear anybody on the phone, so I grabbed my bluetooth headset and went to work. After using the headset a couple of times to make and receive phone calls, the speaker miraculously began working again. 

And I lived happily ever after.

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* I’m not a pessimist. I see the cup as half full if it’s in the process of being filled, and half empty if it’s in the process of being emptied. If I were to come across a random container filled/emptied to the mid-point, I would just say it’s half.

The picture above was slightly time consuming. There’s the large iPhone, which has this page displayed on it. The iPhone in the iPhone also has this page displayed, as well as the one inside of it (even if you can’t see it). The things I do to entertain myself…

Happy New Year!

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I switched my web site’s servers over the past couple of days. For the most part, everything went smoothly. Unfortunately, all of the photos that were in my posts are now gone. I’m not sure where or why they went, but they’re gone. I don’t intend to get them back. The ones that were hosted on other web sites are still intact, but mine are gone. The Photos page was unaffected because it’s just a portal to my Picasa pictures.

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Michelle and I went to Hiawassee for Christmas. It was the first time since I’ve started this job that I’ve had Christmas off. We love going to Hiawassee. We love it so much, that we’ve decided to move back at the end of March. We’re going to finish Michelle’s grandmother’s basement, and make it our home. The planned layout for the basement is pictured below. I used floorplanner.com to create it. The left side of the picture is the front of the house. That is the only wall of the basement that is underground. The basement is completely unfinished. The only walls are the cinderblock walls on the perimeter.

We plan on framing, insulating, dry walling, and carpeting. There’s only one bathroom in the house, and it’s upstairs. We’ll install a bathroom in the basement underneath the existing bathroom so we don’t have to do too much plumbing work. We may or may not put in a kitchen. We don’t plan on the basement being completely independent from the rest of the house, but it would be nice to have a small kitchen in case it was needed. The area in the diagram labeled “Storage” has no floor. It’s just dirt. Since we’ll be living on a farm, complete with vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, we’ll line that area with shelves for storing canned fruits and vegetables.

Click on the picture below for a larger view. Click here to take a 3D tour of the floor plan.

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I’ve always enjoyed a good cup of coffee. When I was little, my mom would make us what we called “coffee milk”. It was coffee, milk, and a lot of sugar over ice. Whether or not she knows it, my mother is responsible for my addiction to coffee. After high school I got a job at the Mystic Mountain Coffee House in Hiawassee. This only fueled my addiction. Not only was I introduced to a whole different world of coffee, but I learned how to prepare these coffees. 

Anytime I go into a store that has kitchen appliances, I always linger in the coffee maker aisle. I own a four cup coffee pot, a 12 cup coffee pot, an espresso maker, as well as an assortment of coffee presses. I’ve been intrigued by the single serve pod coffee makers. The idea of just popping in a pod, pressing a button, and having an instant cup of coffee seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately, the coffee makers and the pods were too expensive for my taste. Taste was another thing that I was worried about. How good would the coffee be? Would it be worth the cost-per-pod? I decided that I would put off on buying this new coffee toy. 

A couple of days ago I was at BJ’s Wholesale and saw a special edition Keurig. Not only was it discounted from its regular price, but it came with 88 pods. I did some research and found that Keurig makes a reusable pod. The regular pods are use-once-then-throw-away. The reusable one is basically a small filter that you use in place of the pod. The research (which was conducted on my iPhone) also revealed overwhelmingly positive reviews of the Keurig products. 

I’ve been very pleased with the purchase so far. The drinks have all been enjoyable, and it makes them incredibly fast. As soon as you hit the button, the drink begins pouring out. The water pump is a little loud, but bearable.

Michelle doesn’t drink coffee, but she was pleased that it came with tea pods and hot chocolate pods. 

Barack Obama will be the next president. I’m not too upset; mostly because I voted for him. There will never be a perfect candidate. There will never be someone who has the “right view” on all of the issues.

<rant=”#1″>
Here’s my stance on politics: Leave religious beliefs out of it. Period. I see myself as a very religious person. I also see myself as a very patriotic person. I do not believe that in any circumstances these two things should be combined. There’s a very good reason that there is a separation of church and state. Unfortunately, the separation is not great enough. Our government still denies two men (or two women) from entering into a legal contract together because of religious beliefs. There is a HUGE difference between being married in the eyes of the government, and being married in the eyes of a church. Those eyes should be two different sets, but they are not. When Michelle and I went to the probate court to get our marriage license, the only questions they asked us were if we were related, and what we wanted our names to be. They then asked us for $26, the judge signed a piece of paper, and we were married in the eyes of the state. Where is God in that? Where is religion in that? It was simply a civil contract that we both entered into. 

So why does our government deny people of the same sex from entering into this contract? Because religion still plays a huge role in the government. If our government decided to let two people of the same sex marry, what difference would it make in your life? What difference would it make in your religious beliefs or in your church? None. Since there is a separation of church and state, the state can’t require that the church does anything. If the government says that gay marriage is legal, it doesn’t mean that churches will have to acknowledge that marriage. If the government did influence religions, there would be riots in the street. Why should there not be riots, then, when religions influence the government?
</rant>

<rant=”#2″>
A lot of people are worried that Obama will make this a socialist country. First of all, our country will always be a democratic republican country with capitalism at its heart. It’s not going to change. Secondly, we’re surrounded by (and dependent upon) socialist programs. For instance: when you call 911 because your house is on fire or because you’ve just been robbed, does the dispatcher ask you what your preferred payment method is?  When I respond to a dispute and arrest someone for sexual battery (like I did yesterday), do I give the victim a bill? When I take said abuser to jail, does the jail send the family a bill for housing and feeding their abuser? No. These things are all paid for by taxes, and are therefore social programs. They are things that are paid for by everyone, for use by some.

When you go to the library and check out a book, it’s free because it’s paid for by taxes. When you send your children to 12 years of public education, it’s free because it’s paid for by taxes. Everyone pitches in to pay for these things. People who have never visited a library help pay for those that visit daily. People who don’t have children help pay to educate the children of others. Similarly, when you send your monthly payment to your car insurance provider, you’re helping to pay for medical bills of the family who’s father/mother/brother/sister/whoever was crippled by a drunk driver (who was subsequently arrested by a socialist police officer). We’re all pitching in to help others.

When the victim of family abuse needs help and has no where else to go, they go to a domestic violence shelter and speak to someone like my wife, a social worker. She helps them get their lives back on track. She helps them find government housing, because at this point in their lives they are refugees and have nothing to their name. She helps them find a job. She and the other staff help them obtain protective orders against their abusers.

These things can happen because we have socialist programs in place for the good of the country. We have socialist programs in place to help those who are less fortunate. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the Christian thing to do. “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). In the end, are you going to be judged by how much money you earned, or how much of it you gave away to help those who need it the most? 
</rant>

Let the comments begin!

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**Here’s a brief introduction to HTML (the language that makes up the Internet).**

Everything in HTML is enclosed with tags. To make something bold, you enclose the words in bold tags: <b>These words would be bold.</b> To change the font, you’d do something like, <font=”Verdana”>This font would be Verdana.</font> When done correctly, the tags don’t show up and they have the desired effect.

At some point, nerds realized that they could use these tags to express emotions. Sometimes you may see in a blog someone use “sarcasm” tags: <sarcasm>Sarcastic sentence.</sarcasm> There’s no “sarcasm” tag in HTML, but it gets the point across while being cleverly nerdy. So that explains my “rant” tags, in case you were wondering.