No signal
The vacation was great. But no vacation would be complete without some misadventures.
There was Wife tripping over a very small tree stump while carrying Littlest at a park in Thorp, Wis. (She skinned her knees pretty good, but didn't drop the baby). There were meltdowns by overtired kids (on any trip like this, avoiding overtired kids is tough). There was our rental car losing power in stop-and-go traffic in Minneapolis (it started right back up thankfully, and no, we weren't near I-35W).
And then there was the saga of my cell phone. We arrived at Wife's sister's family, and while the ladies went to the store, I took the kids swimming in their inflatable 3-foot pool. As I was getting ready, I put my phone in my pocket, thinking I wasn't dumb enough to not take it out of my pocket before I got into the pool. I brought it along in case of an emergency, that was a responsible thing to do, right?
Turns out, I was that dumb. All the kids were in the pool (except Littlest, who went with Wife to the store), I climbed in, my nephew noticed my waterproof watch, causing me to realize the phone was still in my pocket. This was only a 3-foot pool, and I hadn't jumped in, so the water was more lapping the phone for a minute or so, rather than it being completely submerged. Still, the damage was done. The phone was no longer operating and wouldn't turn back on.
I immediately got out of the pool, dismantled my phone and hoped for the best. I was so pissed at myself, I thought for sure my phone was toast.
My hope was that it didn't get that wet, and that if I let it dry out, it would return from the dead. For about 18 tense hours, nothing happened. Then I tried Wife's battery in my phone, and it worked! So I just needed a new battery, which I got cheap ($30, would have been more, I bet, at a Verizon store). The main screen was a little faded, however. I could live with that. Then, it went totally white, even though I could still call out on the phone. I couldn't live with that. I dismantled the phone again, it dried out some more (probably the remaining moisture) and then it worked fine.
We went swimming a couple more times on the trip, and I'm happy to say, the cell phone didn't meet the pool again. It's worked fine since and should, at least until the next time I do something equally dumb.
There was Wife tripping over a very small tree stump while carrying Littlest at a park in Thorp, Wis. (She skinned her knees pretty good, but didn't drop the baby). There were meltdowns by overtired kids (on any trip like this, avoiding overtired kids is tough). There was our rental car losing power in stop-and-go traffic in Minneapolis (it started right back up thankfully, and no, we weren't near I-35W).
And then there was the saga of my cell phone. We arrived at Wife's sister's family, and while the ladies went to the store, I took the kids swimming in their inflatable 3-foot pool. As I was getting ready, I put my phone in my pocket, thinking I wasn't dumb enough to not take it out of my pocket before I got into the pool. I brought it along in case of an emergency, that was a responsible thing to do, right?
Turns out, I was that dumb. All the kids were in the pool (except Littlest, who went with Wife to the store), I climbed in, my nephew noticed my waterproof watch, causing me to realize the phone was still in my pocket. This was only a 3-foot pool, and I hadn't jumped in, so the water was more lapping the phone for a minute or so, rather than it being completely submerged. Still, the damage was done. The phone was no longer operating and wouldn't turn back on.
I immediately got out of the pool, dismantled my phone and hoped for the best. I was so pissed at myself, I thought for sure my phone was toast.
My hope was that it didn't get that wet, and that if I let it dry out, it would return from the dead. For about 18 tense hours, nothing happened. Then I tried Wife's battery in my phone, and it worked! So I just needed a new battery, which I got cheap ($30, would have been more, I bet, at a Verizon store). The main screen was a little faded, however. I could live with that. Then, it went totally white, even though I could still call out on the phone. I couldn't live with that. I dismantled the phone again, it dried out some more (probably the remaining moisture) and then it worked fine.
We went swimming a couple more times on the trip, and I'm happy to say, the cell phone didn't meet the pool again. It's worked fine since and should, at least until the next time I do something equally dumb.
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