Random Minutia

I washed the car yesterday - not that it's easily discernible now.  I wanted to get Sully clean while it was sunny and (relatively) warm out.  Nights are still in the single digits, and I don't want to end up having the locks freeze.  (Although it'd be significantly easier to climb in through the back of the Xterra than it was in the Geo Metro.  Thank goodness I only had to do that once!)  Anyhow.  Because it's warm the snow and ice are melting - which is fantastic! - but that means that I didn't even make it home before Sully was covered in dirty road spray again.  So he's less dirty now than he was before, but I suppose he won't be "clean" until the snow is gone, roads are dry, and the weather's nice.  Maybe never.

With the last of the clean wiped off the car - at least the front windshield was still looking freshly washed - I picked up Greg and we headed out for lunch and what ended up to be some shopping (which I mention because it was for ME and I'll be posting a picture of my new toy later... *happy dance*)  [That's an awfully long sentence, but it's full of happy thoughts - except the new dirt on the recently cleaned car.]

We had a tasty burger at Kriner's Diner - our fist time eating there.  Plus we found out it's owned by a member of a family that owns a restaurant in Soldotna that Greg used to hang out at (and the food is very similar), so it brought back memories of days gone by for him.  If you haven't been yet or you come up to visit, you should definitely give this place a shot!  We both ordered the same burger (I asked for mine without barbecue sauce), and had part of a homemade cinnamon roll for dessert.  I say part, because that sucker was HUGE!  And tasty!!  We had the rest of it for dessert tonight.  And now I'm sitting here wishing that I had another one - or at least another part of one, since I think I'd make myself sick if I tried to eat a whole one all by myself.  I think I might try it, though.  On a weekend, when we go there for breakfast - so I can go home and be sick or sleep off the sugar crash, should the need arise.  I'm going to order a cinnamon roll and some bacon.  (What!?!  I can't eat just sugar.  It'd make me sick.  And it's unhealthy.  If I add bacon, I'm getting some protein to balance out the sugar-coma that I'll be putting my body through.  I hope they cook bacon the way I like it.  I guess there's only one way to find out - and the results of that test (should I survive) will be the subject of another post.)

In the process of eating lunch and conversing, my phone became the topic du jour.  Mostly because I've had some [user] problems texting.  Nothing that's terribly embarrassing.  If I don't pay attention, Nita comes out bits and apparently we don't have any pistachio buts (well, we didn't but Greg picked some up at Costco last weekend).  It's because the keys share letters, autocorrect cannot read minds, and I sometimes don't re-read what I've typed before I hit the send button.  So not entirely my fault.  Autocorrect should learn what I mean to be typing, as well as what options are available with that combination of letters.  Anyhow.  I've been wanting a different phone for a while now, just felt a little guilty getting a new one when my current one works just fine.  Well, I bit the bullet and yesterday we retired my old phone.

I had specific features I was interested in, when I was scoping out my options.  I want a touch screen, the screen size has to be bigger than my current phone (I almost *never* use the data package we're paying for now, because it's such a huge pain in the ass to navigate and see anything on such a small screen.), and I want a better keyboard.  I was comparing the Blackberry Torch and the iPhone.  Screen size is comparable (iPhone is slightly larger) and both are touch screen.  The Blackberry has a physical keyboard or you can use the touch-screen.  iPhone only has the touch-screen keypad, but it has cool apps like Angry Birds and that one that'll tell you the constellations when you point your phone at the night sky.

I *love* my new phone!  (I picked the Blackberry Torch - in burnt orange, so we can tell it apart from Greg's work phone.)  It'll take me a while to get used to some of the changes and figure out the nuances of my new toy, but I'm up for the challenge.  I've already been surfing the internet on my phone.  Unheard of before now.  YAY!  I was up until 3am this morning (well, 2am really but then the time change happened) installing software on my computer to manage my phone.  I know.  That sounds odd to me too.  Why do I need to use my computer to manage my phone?  Well, it's easier to get everything transferred from my old phone.  And it's easier to surf the 'net for free ring tones (ALL the default ones on this phone suck!) and download them to the computer.  Did I mention that the camera on my phone is pretty good?  It has auto-focus and even built-in flash.  I can play music or watch a movie... and I haven't even tried the video recorder on my... phone.  Calendar, notepad, reminder, alarm, calculator, password keeper, email, rolodex, games, and internet.  And that's not everything.  Remember your first mobile phone?  I wouldn't go back, but sometimes I feel a sense of nostalgia for the way things used to be... (mostly when I can't get the stupid extra features to work like I think they should.)

Because I was up so late playing with my new toy, this morning I got up at 11am (which was really 10am).  I only like Daylight Savings Time in the Fall - when we I get an extra hour of sleep.  I *hate* it in the Spring, when I lose an hour of anything - particularly sleep, but I could have had one more hour today to... play on the computer, update my phone, work on my blog post, do laundry, or any number of other things (which I might have done, probably wouldn't have done, but now it's gone and I don't even get the choice).  I understand that now we'll have light longer in the evening, but I was enjoying the extra morning sunlight.  I know I'll get adjusted in the next day or two, but until then I'm prone to be a bit grumpy.  At least this is yet another indicator that winter is almost over...