Day: 20 September 2016

The Apple Event

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By many I am considered a fan of Apple products. I guess I am however that’s only because they make good stuff. When they stop making goods product I’ll stop buying them. That’s an old argument since many don’t realize I’ve owned many an android device so I have my opinion of Apple-based first-hand experience between both platforms.

I have mixed opinions on the product updates that Apple recently announced. For the Apple Watch I am very curious if the series 2 watches are fast enough that there is no lag when I lift the watch to my face to look at the time. That was a huge annoyance for me and one primary reason why I sold my original Apple watch. I will wait until the series 2 watches are available in the store to test it myself. Until then I  am still happy with a nice classic analog watch.

When I first saw the specifications for the iPhone seven I realized there was no compelling reason for me to upgrade. I have a success plus as my personal phone and there was virtually nothing that stood out and said who I need to have that. Last year forced touch was compelling enough for me to try it however afterwards I realized it wasn’t a worthwhile upgrade. I had several conversations with friends about the same topic. Then I spoke to someone I met via the parent meet up groups. I think even admitted wasn’t much of an upgrade however he was upgrading anyway. It got me thinking why he would do that. It turns out you might be right. I buy my phone out right when i get one. I have for doing that because I set aside money every month for my “tech fund”. Why sell something on eBay I put it back into the fund. When I buy a new iPhone I typically sell the old one on eBay and put it that sale amount towards buying the new phone. I usually get about 30 to 50% of my money back depending on the condition of the phone. What this friend said was that you could do the same thing with apples purchasing plan and still get a new phone every 12 months. I did the math last year and for some reason didn’t think it was compelling. Looking back I think it was because I didn’t want to be locked into something and also because apples purchasing plan includes the extra cost of AppleCare. Thinking about it now I want AppleCare anyway and the price of the phone is no different than me buying it unlocked. The fact that it’s still an unlocked phone even though I’m in a purchase agreement doesn’t matter either.

After weighing all the options using apples purchase plan in essence you can’t get a new phone every year. Now if I was a different person  this might not make sense. If you upgrade annually you’re constantly in an agreement to pay for phone. If you want to upgrade every three or four years then upgrading constantly is not for you since you wouldn’t want to be continuing to make payments. For me however buying the phone every year or two anyway. Even if I did an upgrade to the iPhone seven this year I would definitely be upgrading next year. I amortize the price out over two years that means I’m always paying a fee for my phone anyway. By buying into the Apple purchase plan it just makes it easier to get a new phone every year.

The W Sisters and The Story of A’s Paddington Bear Origin

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Paddington Bear No Arms

I previously wrote about T and her Dee Dee monkey http://scottodyssey.com/2014/11/29/the-story-of-dee-dee-and-that-other-monkey-we-will-never-speak-of/. Today I wanted to write a bit about A’s favorite stuffed toy. For one thing I believe it’s a good story however my driving force for writing it down is so I will remember it.The first thing I want to get out there is I thought I wrote about this a while ago however searching my own blog I noticed I never actually wrote any stories directly mentioning how A came about to have her Paddington bear.

The story begins with a trip I took late April into early May 2014. I went to London for some training with my group right after a reorganization. Since I was going to be in London that week I was missing in other culture training that was being held in the US at the same time. As I was canceling that culture training it was mentioned that the same training was being held the following week in London. I wasn’t sure it would’ve been possible to stay for the training since I would already be in London however I figured I would ask. It turned out that my boss thought very highly of the training and said it was worth it for me to stick around if I could for the second week in London. What I didn’t realize at the time of booking the trip was it was a national holiday in the UK the weekend I was staying over. Apparently I found out later that means if you’re “in country” you get a holiday. This is all relevant because usually when I’m traveling you do not have a lot of time to do anything other than work. For this trip I ended up having a three-day weekend to myself. It was an odd change of pace since home I had a five month old and a year and a half-year-old.

One of the things I want to do while I was there was some shopping. As I was wandering around the city I stumbled across Hamlets. I really didn’t realize where I was or that it was a famous store. I was walking by and I saw there was a toy store and figured I should really get something for the girls. It was a pretty cool place however walking in I had visions of FAO Schwartz in New York City. Both are cool places, even though FAO felt more over the top I have bad memories of being stuck there listening to the welcome to our world songs over and over again so children’s toy stores aren’t exactly on the top of my fun list. Since I took the time to get a local Sim card for my iPhone I was able to have high-speed data coverage my entire stay. Since we live in the age of wireless data I decided to Face time with M at the store to see if she liked what I was thinking about getting.

For T I saw a cute bear book bag. For A I saw a my first little stuffed bear. When I showed M she was like oh yeah it’s Paddington Bear let’s get it or something to that effect. I had not really known what Paddington Bear was. It made sense that he was famous since the store had tons of them. With those gifts picked out I paid for them and went about my sightseeing for the weekend. I was just glad I remembered to get something. Side story it took me until being at Heathrow on the way home to find what M had been asking for.

When I got home we introduced both gifts to the girls. Writing this years later it’s hard to remember if A immediately took to Paddington Bear or not. That of course is the reason why I am journaling in the first place so I can remember the details over time. What I do know is definitely within a few months A had herself a Dee Dee. That was the name of T’s lovie animal. We were not wondering where A got back from. Once it became apparent that Paddington bear was the one and only stuffed animal for A I scrambled to order additional clones of him. I’ve written about how we did something like that with T. I was lucky to find a store on the Amazon marketplace that was selling the British version of the my first Paddington Bear. I bought two of them so we had enough of them in case something happened to one or even two of them.

Thankfully with T her three monkeys have been plenty. A on the other hand has grown fond of biting her Paddington bear. She will bite his hat. She will bite his arms. She will bite his arms until he frays and then she will pull all the stuffing out of his arms. That is what she did to two of the three original Paddington Bears. M

sewed one of them up but he had stumpy looking hands. We could really use him since he wouldn’t look like the others. Then A ate the second one and we had to with defects. For some reason we couldn’t find the third one and we were getting very concerned. That is when I bought two more of them online.

We warned A that she has to be careful since we might not be able to “fix” Paddington if she keeps biting him. We said that as we gave her a new one. A proceeded to destroy the arms of that one. My memory is a bit fuzzy on if we did give her yet another one and she destroyed those arms as well. I could go check in my stash of Paddington bears however is lazy so let’s call it that she definitely eat one if not two more of them. It was then that I ordered yet another one or two from the same shop. At that point I said I’m done and no matter what she does these things I was not going to buy another one.

I do not know if we just got lazy or we wanted A to understand the consequences of the biting so we have not replaced her bare with no stuffing in his arms. I had the idea to take the hands with no stuffing and stick them inside the coat that the bear wears. She’s been generally good with that so we haven’t replaced the ripped bear with a new one. We still have at least one if not two new ones in a box. After I got the last batch of bears I just left them in the shipping box that they came in and through them in my closet somewhere.

T is probably too smart for her own good since she is almost ratted us out on the whole Bear conspiracy a few times. At one point she told A that daddy was going to buy her a new bear. T also hinted at the bear replacement a few other times however specific details are eluding me as I write this. I’m not really sure if she understands what we’ve done or if she’s just saying stuff. I don’t recall ever actually talking about buying a new Paddington Bear in front of T so either she’s guessing or we’ve slipped up. On the other hand on some level I feel like A knows and doesn’t care that Paddington is more than one bear. To be safe nobody reading this should say anything about it to her. By the time she finds this post and can read our own am pretty sure it’ll be safe for her to know what went down.