All day I have been listening to the local police scanner. I keep it on because if there's an emergency that isn't being broadcast on the local news channels, I can usually get some information from the scanner. Plus after years of having worked as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and disaster preparedness/response person, I'm just addicted to it.
So today's noteworthy broadcasts have been about a small black bear that has wandered into town. It's not hurt anyone; it's not gone into the residential areas; and it's trying to find its way back to the woods. At first someone thought it was a dog when it was near a residential area but it stayed over by the local airport (not an overly busy one). It has been wandering around and I'm not worried about it coming over into the area where I live because it would have to cross a large Interstate highway plus the busy traffic at the intersection that crosses over it. The state conservation agents have been working with the county law enforcement to track the bear and make sure that it keeps heading towards the woods.
Sadly, though, all the yokels in town have been coming out in droves to see it -- especially after the story was aired on the local news. Now the police are being called by the businesses in the area next to the Interstate highway because people keep trying to get closer and closer to the bear so they can take pictures of it. Some have brought their dogs with them, like the conservation agents need that little bit of "help" with a bear that really doesn't want to be where it is in the first place.
Right now it's up a tree next to the local Pizza Hut. It wanders between one of the banks, the Pizza Hut, a furniture store, and a Captain D's restaurant. I'm sure it smells plenty of trash from that area it would love to eat. Hopefully the conservation and law enforcement agents will get rid of the crowd before the bear hurts itself. The poor thing just wants to get back to its home (with a snack to-go if it can grab one).
Here's an idea -- if you want to see a close-up photo of a bear, pick up a book! If you want to see a bear in person, go to a zoo! If you see a bear in the wild, then lucky you -- but for cryin' out loud, stop trying to get in its way!
Well....at least now there's something else to listen to. Some drunken fool is chugging a Mountain Dew and whiskey outside a local grocery store and has pushed carts into the major 4-way intersection of town. Now that sounds more like an average night.
Showing posts with label photo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photo. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
I have a stupidphone and I'm not afraid to use it!
I was sitting here staring at the screen just begging my brain to come up with something worth blogging about. Husband suggested politics. I quickly shot that down because everyone's blogging about it. Youngest Son said I should write about not being able to think of a subject. I've already done that one this month. And then, it happened.
The "incoming message" tone on my cellphone rang. I looked at the screen and saw that it was from Biological Mother. I opened the message and there was a teeny-tiny photo of some sort that even if I had 20/20 vision I'd still not be able to see it. I sent a message back to her stating that I couldn't see the photo and reminding her that my cellphone isn't like hers. She replied that it was a photo from PeopleOfWalmart.com and that she thought my phone could show any photo she sent. I had to text her back to explain (for the I-don't-know-how-many-th time) that my phone doesn't work like hers and I can see photos she takes and sends but not something forwarded from the Internet. I sat my cellphone down and started to get comfy on the couch before it rang and vibrated again -- only to show her incoming message of "OK."
Gah!!! I hate that!!! I really used to hate that when I had to pay for every message I sent or received and she would send "OK" or "K" after anything I texted to her. I would tell her that her little ending notes were costing me money, but she'd only remember that for a few minutes and I'd get tons more messages. When we had a horrendous ice storm in January 2009, we lost power and in order to save our batteries I sent a text to family members that we were fine and would only call or text if something important happened. I lost track of the number of texts Biological Mother sent asking questions about things that didn't mean diddly-squat when we were trying to keep ourselves from freezing.
And she's not the only one in my family who does that. Half-Sister does it too. She and our mutual mother have a thing about wanting to send stuff by text. As a matter of fact, while I've been trying to type this far into this post, Half-Sister has already attempted to forward the same thing to me.
Both of them have smartphones. You know what those are, right? The cellphones that can do all of the neat photos and videos. They run applications that are useful, entertaining, and occasionally both. People have been known to line-up outside of stores for days or weeks waiting for the latest and greatest to be released. Some even now will talk back to you if you ask it a question. I guess that's good for those who are too enamored by their techno-gadgets to have relationships with real people. And Biological Mother and Half-Sister have both, at one time or another, offered to "give" me one of theirs that was being replaced by a newer model.
I have a stupidphone. You've probably never heard of one of those. Actually, if you've ever had a cellphone prior to the days of touchscreens and voice recognition, you've had a stupidphone too. These are the ones that allow their owners to place calls, take a photo, or even send a text message. But not all at the same time and certainly not with any great fanfare about it. I do not have an unlimited data plan or worry about how many bits/bytes of memory I've sent over the airwaves each month because I can't do those things. I have unlimited texting, but that's because it's a family plan and when you have Youngest Son receiving messages from his friends who also cannot remember that you have to pay for every message, it gets expensive.
Another reason I have a stupidphone is because I can think of many, MANY other things I'd rather spend my hard-earned cash on instead of a piece of plastic that will scratch or break easily and the "privilege" of using it by paying outrageous phone charges along with the basic plan and taxes. I don't Titterbook or Fweet on my phone and as a serious sufferer of ADD, I don't need something like that distracting me.
I'm not a technophobe. I try to stay as up-to-date as I can. But I'm not going to bankrupt myself and my family to fling birds across a screen.
Now that I've spent over an hour trying to type this while still having to send texts back to the two of them explaining why my phone doesn't do what theirs does, I'm going to end my post, put my phone back on the charger, and maybe watch a movie or two. It's Friday night -- gotta have some fun sometime!
The "incoming message" tone on my cellphone rang. I looked at the screen and saw that it was from Biological Mother. I opened the message and there was a teeny-tiny photo of some sort that even if I had 20/20 vision I'd still not be able to see it. I sent a message back to her stating that I couldn't see the photo and reminding her that my cellphone isn't like hers. She replied that it was a photo from PeopleOfWalmart.com and that she thought my phone could show any photo she sent. I had to text her back to explain (for the I-don't-know-how-many-th time) that my phone doesn't work like hers and I can see photos she takes and sends but not something forwarded from the Internet. I sat my cellphone down and started to get comfy on the couch before it rang and vibrated again -- only to show her incoming message of "OK."
Gah!!! I hate that!!! I really used to hate that when I had to pay for every message I sent or received and she would send "OK" or "K" after anything I texted to her. I would tell her that her little ending notes were costing me money, but she'd only remember that for a few minutes and I'd get tons more messages. When we had a horrendous ice storm in January 2009, we lost power and in order to save our batteries I sent a text to family members that we were fine and would only call or text if something important happened. I lost track of the number of texts Biological Mother sent asking questions about things that didn't mean diddly-squat when we were trying to keep ourselves from freezing.
And she's not the only one in my family who does that. Half-Sister does it too. She and our mutual mother have a thing about wanting to send stuff by text. As a matter of fact, while I've been trying to type this far into this post, Half-Sister has already attempted to forward the same thing to me.
Both of them have smartphones. You know what those are, right? The cellphones that can do all of the neat photos and videos. They run applications that are useful, entertaining, and occasionally both. People have been known to line-up outside of stores for days or weeks waiting for the latest and greatest to be released. Some even now will talk back to you if you ask it a question. I guess that's good for those who are too enamored by their techno-gadgets to have relationships with real people. And Biological Mother and Half-Sister have both, at one time or another, offered to "give" me one of theirs that was being replaced by a newer model.
I have a stupidphone. You've probably never heard of one of those. Actually, if you've ever had a cellphone prior to the days of touchscreens and voice recognition, you've had a stupidphone too. These are the ones that allow their owners to place calls, take a photo, or even send a text message. But not all at the same time and certainly not with any great fanfare about it. I do not have an unlimited data plan or worry about how many bits/bytes of memory I've sent over the airwaves each month because I can't do those things. I have unlimited texting, but that's because it's a family plan and when you have Youngest Son receiving messages from his friends who also cannot remember that you have to pay for every message, it gets expensive.
Another reason I have a stupidphone is because I can think of many, MANY other things I'd rather spend my hard-earned cash on instead of a piece of plastic that will scratch or break easily and the "privilege" of using it by paying outrageous phone charges along with the basic plan and taxes. I don't Titterbook or Fweet on my phone and as a serious sufferer of ADD, I don't need something like that distracting me.
I'm not a technophobe. I try to stay as up-to-date as I can. But I'm not going to bankrupt myself and my family to fling birds across a screen.
Now that I've spent over an hour trying to type this while still having to send texts back to the two of them explaining why my phone doesn't do what theirs does, I'm going to end my post, put my phone back on the charger, and maybe watch a movie or two. It's Friday night -- gotta have some fun sometime!
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