I Have Emerged Victorious

Last December first, Kevin and I became "smart". We purchased iPhones and life is forever changed.

Kevin, the super techie, uses his phone to graph every bicycle ride-including his altitude - of course, in Chicagoland the information he gets is that he has ridden at an altitude of 14 feet - but, yes, it's cool. He can use it as a GPS unit on bike and car. He can video-tape a performance or practice session and then download it to his computer and analyze his performance ad infinitum. The texts fly all over the country as he keeps in touch with percussion buddies and he has several thousand pictures and songs on the ready.

I'm not quite at Kevin's level, but LOVE having access to e-mail and texting when I'm out and about, especially when traveling. Early on I thought it was cool to hear "ping" every time I got an e-mail. After a while that novelty wore off - especially when I had a visceral urge to check my phone at every ping only to discover yet one more Viagra ad - so my phone now sits obediently quiet and I'm much less likely to get either a ticket or, worse, have an accident while driving. I don't have video, but love having iTunes, Pandora, Fandango and a host of cool apps including my new favorite, Farkle.

Recently Kevin's phone wouldn't take a charge. He was given a new phone by the kind Apple people because the first year warranty was still in effect. He also found out that a replacement phone in year two of our plan would cost upwards of $600 even though our original purchase cost much, much less. Suddenly the $69 for a second year warranty seemed like a good deal.

So, having become so much more tech-savvy in the past year, extending my warranty should be a piece of cake, right? Wrong.

Ordering the new warranties on line was a piece of cake. Registering them was not.

Yesterday afternoon I spent two hours on this simple project. Remembering my Apple password was the first challenge but, after an e-mail , was assigned a new password and then was able to change it to a password that I actually WROTE DOWN for future reference!

Back to the registration process..... After finding and then entering phone ID numbers and registration numbers - "simple" 14 digit combinations of letters and numbers - I was informed that my phone was not activated. Funny, I seem to have been using it for a year. After a trip through the AT+T website, Apple seemed satisfied that my phone was, indeed, activated.

Next the Apple site tells me that "this device is not eligible for activation" but, if I disagree with that assessment, I can send them my proof of purchase. So, after a hunt through the filing cabinet, I find the agreement and go downstairs to scan it. No problem with the scanner, but, when I tried to e-mail it to myself (from downstairs desktop to upstairs laptop), nothing happened. Although the desktop says the e-mail has been sent, nothing arrived on my laptop. Three tries....no arrivals.

Oh, I also get an e-mail from A+T thanking me for changing to paperless billing. Huh? I guess somewhere in the activation snafu that got changed.

At that point, I had to leave all this fun to go to a wake. Although I am very saddened by this friend's death, I must say that the wake was actually a better experience than my computer frustrations.

Later that evening, I discover that my scanner document did arrive on my phone's e-mail. So I forwarded my phone e-mail to myself and, this time, it arrived on the laptop.

After water aerobics to prepare my cardiac system for an Apple re-try and the funeral to get my priorities straight, I again went to the Apple site this afternoon. By now, Kevin had sent me his phone's ID number, so I tried to register his phone. Bing, bing, bing....it worked! No effort at all!

OK, I thought, piece of cake. My phone should be easy! Wrong! My phone, purchased on the same day as Kevin's, is still ineligible.

So, here's where I picked up the phone....the land line, no less....and, after answering the robot's many questions, finally talked to a human being. Who solved my problem in about two minutes.

A second call to AT+T restored my paper bill in about one minute.

And I'm now free to drop my phone in the toilet, run over it with my car, or accidentally cook it in the microwave....until next Dec. 1 when I'll have to start again..........