It’s been a long week here at Mosquito Hill. We’ve had two major storms in less than a week, both of which caused serious disruptions. The MH compound is served by a municipal electric company. The local guys do a great job of maintaining the lines and keeping the lights on; however, there’s not much they can do if the transmission lines coming into town fail.
Which they did.
TWICE.
I am not a fan of National Grid right now.
We quickly learned something unexpected about our technology. Our cell carrier has virtually no redundancy in our area. The moment the power grid failed, their network became unusable. We still had service, but nothing was getting through. (This morning, 36 hours after power was restored, I received a bulk dump of 28 texts from during the storm.)
Meanwhile service with the OTHER major carrier was fine. I sat at work watching my partner tether his laptop to his phone while I could not send a simple text to my wife.
We resolved to change carriers as soon as we possibly can. Due to contracts and fees that may take a while.
Hold that thought. . .
——————————-
I went on a photowalk today with friends. We discussed our experiences attempting to limit the volume and influence of social media in our lives. One friend has had great success. He has carried multiple ‘dumb’ phones as experiments, and he has reduced his social media profile to Instagram only. I kind of envy him.
I have tried a dumb phone before with disastrous consequences, but I rushed headlong into the change with no backup or warning. You can probably see where this is going.
On the way home this afternoon I listened to my phone ding and boop with multiple alerts which I don’t need to answer. I’ve reduced them as much as I can, yet still it demands attention. A plan was hatched.
So I’ve done it again. I bought a prepaid dumb phone on my new preferred network. This time I didn’t deactivate my iPhone, but I plan to park it in a drawer. I will check it for important incoming calls or texts twice a day.
My goal is 30 days with the burner. I quit Facebook by staying off one day at a time. I hope to do the same with my attention-sucking, twitch-inducing smartphone.
Wish me luck!
Notes from Mosquito Hill 