Something that is not about the Hugos
Jul. 28th, 2014 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillBecause while I haven't been writing about it every day, most of my last set of posts have been on that subject and I'm starting to feel like I need a break.
I went to Atlanta for the weekend. I had a lovely time visiting Alice and Beth and Marie, and met their foster child M, who was a lot of fun all weekend (at least when I was around.) I went for two walks with her and spent two one-hour sessions playing in the pool with her and Alice and perhaps got a little overtired.
There was a filk circle and Neil and Felissa's house that was a lot of fun, with great food, and good company.
And, not incidentally, Marie pointed out that I really needed a case for my iPhone (which I got for my half-birthday this summer) and gave me one of her spare cases--and otterboxalike (not a real otterbox, apparently, but something similar.)
I am still working out how much of my current arrangements the iPhone is going to take over. It was worth its weight in gold when Jake and Kip and I went to Washington DC--I was constantly checking where things were on the map, or looking up the bus schedules, or what times things were open. It can sort of do the job my Garmin does (and is considerably easier to use.) On the other hand, when I put it on the dash where the Garmin usually sits, it gets quite hot in the sun there, and I'm worried that it will overhead and be damaged. Running the map function makes it get kind of warm anyway, even when it's not sitting in the sun. But it will show where the traffic is bad, and the Garmin won't (it's kind of an old model and it doesn't do that) and knowing whether the budding traffic jam lasts 2 miles or 20 is kind of useful. But taking my eyes off the road to fool with it is dangerous. So there's that.
It did a New Thing yesterday evening as I was driving home. I started in a beautiful sunny day and drove north, and the last hour or so of my trip it clouded up and started raining, sometimes quite hard. About five minutes out from home something started wailing. I pulled off the road to find out what was making that noise. Eventually I clawed my iPhone out of my pocket and discovered it was the source of the sound; it wanted to tell me there was a tornado warning locally.
Well that is a good thing to know, but there were no bridges or overpasses to get under, so I drove home, watching for funnel clouds.
I pulled into the driveway and it was pouring down rain, so I stuffed everything handy (I thought) into my bag, and made a dash for the house. However my iPhone had still been resting on my lap, where I had left it after stopping the horrible noise, and when I leapt out of the car, it fell, unnoticed, onto the pavement in the pouring rain.
Inside I took everything out of my bag and realized I didn't have my iPhone. Perhaps I had just left it in the car but it occurred to me I might have dropped it. I pulled on a jacket, dashed outside, and found it lying by the car, so I picked it up and dashed back inside.
I took a rag and dried off the otterboxalike case, then checked to see if the phone still worked. And it did. I'm not positive the case made the difference, but the pavement it was lying on was awfully wet, so I'm very glad the phone was in the case.
On the downside the case is kind of bulky and has a rubber sort of gasket thing that makes it hard to get into and out of my pocket, especially when I am sitting down. The rubber gasket thing also covers the home button, which means the fingerprint recognition, which I *really* like, doesn't work, unless I pry the gasket thing off every time which kind of destroys the convenience of it. And also, when I took the case apart, there were a few drops of water inside that I had to mop out, so it probably was a good thing I didn't leave the phone in the case for a long time.
Maybe I should go online and look if there are water resistant cases that still let you use the fingerprint recognition of the home button.
I went to Atlanta for the weekend. I had a lovely time visiting Alice and Beth and Marie, and met their foster child M, who was a lot of fun all weekend (at least when I was around.) I went for two walks with her and spent two one-hour sessions playing in the pool with her and Alice and perhaps got a little overtired.
There was a filk circle and Neil and Felissa's house that was a lot of fun, with great food, and good company.
And, not incidentally, Marie pointed out that I really needed a case for my iPhone (which I got for my half-birthday this summer) and gave me one of her spare cases--and otterboxalike (not a real otterbox, apparently, but something similar.)
I am still working out how much of my current arrangements the iPhone is going to take over. It was worth its weight in gold when Jake and Kip and I went to Washington DC--I was constantly checking where things were on the map, or looking up the bus schedules, or what times things were open. It can sort of do the job my Garmin does (and is considerably easier to use.) On the other hand, when I put it on the dash where the Garmin usually sits, it gets quite hot in the sun there, and I'm worried that it will overhead and be damaged. Running the map function makes it get kind of warm anyway, even when it's not sitting in the sun. But it will show where the traffic is bad, and the Garmin won't (it's kind of an old model and it doesn't do that) and knowing whether the budding traffic jam lasts 2 miles or 20 is kind of useful. But taking my eyes off the road to fool with it is dangerous. So there's that.
It did a New Thing yesterday evening as I was driving home. I started in a beautiful sunny day and drove north, and the last hour or so of my trip it clouded up and started raining, sometimes quite hard. About five minutes out from home something started wailing. I pulled off the road to find out what was making that noise. Eventually I clawed my iPhone out of my pocket and discovered it was the source of the sound; it wanted to tell me there was a tornado warning locally.
Well that is a good thing to know, but there were no bridges or overpasses to get under, so I drove home, watching for funnel clouds.
I pulled into the driveway and it was pouring down rain, so I stuffed everything handy (I thought) into my bag, and made a dash for the house. However my iPhone had still been resting on my lap, where I had left it after stopping the horrible noise, and when I leapt out of the car, it fell, unnoticed, onto the pavement in the pouring rain.
Inside I took everything out of my bag and realized I didn't have my iPhone. Perhaps I had just left it in the car but it occurred to me I might have dropped it. I pulled on a jacket, dashed outside, and found it lying by the car, so I picked it up and dashed back inside.
I took a rag and dried off the otterboxalike case, then checked to see if the phone still worked. And it did. I'm not positive the case made the difference, but the pavement it was lying on was awfully wet, so I'm very glad the phone was in the case.
On the downside the case is kind of bulky and has a rubber sort of gasket thing that makes it hard to get into and out of my pocket, especially when I am sitting down. The rubber gasket thing also covers the home button, which means the fingerprint recognition, which I *really* like, doesn't work, unless I pry the gasket thing off every time which kind of destroys the convenience of it. And also, when I took the case apart, there were a few drops of water inside that I had to mop out, so it probably was a good thing I didn't leave the phone in the case for a long time.
Maybe I should go online and look if there are water resistant cases that still let you use the fingerprint recognition of the home button.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 02:07 am (UTC)I have a Speck case for my iPad. I like it a lot.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-29 06:02 pm (UTC)Also, please don't think that under a bridge or overpass is a safe place to take shelter from a tornado. The folks that put a video on YouTube a few years back doing that were very lucky. It seems that the wind actually is worse under those structures, and can result in you being pulled out by the wind. Better to keep an eye on the sky, and keep moving, as you did. If you spot a funnel, trying to drive perpendicular to the path, if you can, is a better bet.