Virgin Mobile

Virgin-Updated-Logo-300x300I bought my first cell phone in 2002 against my partners wishes because he didn’t think I needed a cell phone, which if truth be told I really didn’t.  I mean, I don’t go to work everyday and need to make important phone calls, in fact I really hate talking on the phone lol.  I will call people from time to time, but I don’t spend a lot of time on it.  The main reason I wanted one was because I was traveling to visit family on the Greyhound and Amtrak busses back then two or three times a year and I didn’t like having to use dirty pay phones when I got there to have them come get me.  It was also difficult making and receiving long distance phone calls on their home phones, so I needed my own cell phone to call home.

nokia 3390 The cell phone that I bought was with T-Mobile and it was the Nokia 3390 which was fine at the time.  I had that phone for maybe 8 years and I hadn’t really used it for the last 4, but I kept paying for it just in case I needed it.  I had Gold Rewards, so I only had to pay for 1 month, but got a whole year of time.  I forgot to buy another card for another year and lost the number and the phone was no longer valid.

samsung-T401G-net10-hero-lg My next phone, which I am still using is a Samsung T401G, which is a great phone for texting, but the internet sucks on it and my signal is so weak that it drops calls on me all the time.  I got a “Are you there?” thing going on.  I have it with Net10 so I don’t have Gold Rewards which means I have to buy a $20 card every month to keep it even though I never use it.  I would use it more if it had more features though.

That’s where I am at now.  I really want to buy a smart phone to keep up with the times.  I have been shopping around, but nobody has given me any really good prices.  My partner has an iPhone with Verizon and he pays more than $100/mo for his service and he is stuck in a 2 year contract with 1 more year to go.  I don’t like that their smart (Android) pre-paid phones are $50 a month.  Net10’s smart (Android) pre-paid phones are also $50 a month, but they won’t sell one to me through their website and they are too expensive in the stores.

That brings me to Virgin…

I saw a commercial for Virgin, and even though I have seen this commercial a million times, it never clicked until last night.  They have Android smart phones and you never have to sign a contract.  You get 300 minutes with unlimited data and unlimited texting for only $35 a month.  That’s $15 more than I pay for my Net10 phone.  They also have another plan which is the same, except you get 1200 minutes for $45 a month and then unlimited everything for $55 a month.  That’s not bad.  Although I would get the $35 plan since I never use my minutes, I just want to use the apps with the unlimited data and texting.

What I really want a smart phone for is for certain apps that will make me money.  Like Staree which pays you when you take a picture and share it on Facebook and Twitter.  Viggle also pays you (with gift cards) when you check in when you are watching TV.  I mean, it’s not a steady income, but anything helps.  Plus I would like to read Kindle ebooks that aren’t available for my Nook without needing to buy a Kindle.

I also want a smart phone so I can do Facebook and Twitter updates and check email when I am not at home and don’t have a computer nearby, like at the doctor’s office while I’m waiting for him to come in the room for example.  I would also like to be able to play certain games that are only available on cell phones too.  My Samsung T401G has games, but they are nearly impossible to play with the numpad.

htcevov-gallery-angle-3 So, this is my Christmas wish.  I want a new HTC EVO V 4G Prepaid Android Phone (Virgin Mobile) .  Right now, this phone is $249.99 but on sale for $189.99 on the Virgin website, but it is on sale for $199.99 on Amazon.  Of course I don’t have the money for it now, but I will put money in PayPal every month until I can afford it.  I’m always broke so it’s difficult to save any money, and paying this much money up front for something like this would break me for the rest of the month. It’s not easy to just make a decision to spend that much money when I really don’t need to lol.

I chose this phone because it looks like a good phone.  It has a front facing camera and a 3D camera for video and pictures in the back.  According to a review, it’s good for playing games.  Even though this isn’t my main focus, I’m not going to buy a phone that doesn’t want to play games, because if it doesn’t play games well, then how would I expect it to run apps very well?

If/when I do buy this phone, I will probably give my current phone away to someone who doesn’t have a cell phone.  I won’t be able to keep my phone number, but I haven’t really given it out to too many people anyway, so changing my number won’t be a real issue.

I really don’t need this, but I want it, and why shouldn’t I have something cool, eh?

Oh and by the way, this is my commentary on my experiences and my wish for a new phone.  I am not getting paid for this.  It’d be cool if I were (hint hint wink wink Virgin Mobile).

Update: This is edited.  Previously, I chose the Kycera Rise and then I decided on the HTC One V.  I then decided that I wanted to spend a bit more and buy the HTC EVO V 4G.

Obviously I don’t have the money for this phone, but like I said in the paragraph with the phone, I will have to save up the money for it because this is a good phone.  Who knows, maybe by the time I have the money saved, it will go down in price and I’ll actually be able to afford it.

Diabetes Update

Last month my doctor gave me a new medication to help lower my triglycerides called Gemfibrozil 600MG that I take twice a day.  I was told to make sure I take them exactly 12 hours apart for it to be effective.  I created a schedule on my cell phone to remind me twice a day, once at 10am, and then once at 10pm to take my pills.  It has worked out so far and today is day 30.  We went to the doctor’s office on Thursday and they drew blood to test it to see if it helped so I will find out on my next appointment which is May 24th.

In the meantime, he gave me a prescription for a blood glucose meter to check my blood twice a day.  He told me to check it in the morning before I eat and before I have dinner at night.  So far it hasn’t been that high.  Thursday night I did a reading and it was 112 then the next morning it was 132, last night it was 100 and this morning it was 112 again.  Why is that so important?  Well, when they did that blood glucose test a few months ago I was near 200, so this just tells me that I have gone way down.  I have been eating a lot of chocolate lately, this just shows me that it hasn’t really affected me as much as I thought it did.  Although now that I have this meter, I have been staying away from the bad foods because I know if the number goes high, it will make me feel guilty.  Perhaps guilt is the kick in the pants that I needed to get me to stop eating so much sugar.

This is my new meter, the One Touch Ultra 2.  I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it because Darrin has a meter, but it’s a different one with different strips.  He couldn’t get the hang of his and he was going to just give me his since he stopped using it, but I didn’t want his, I wanted one of my own because, well I just did :p.

The needles that you use to prick your finger with (in the zippered pouch on the left) aren’t very painful.  The skin on my fingers on my left hand are so thick that even at the highest setting, which is 7, hardly any blood comes out so I have to use my right hand.  I have to really milk the blood out because even at the highest setting it still doesn’t penetrate enough.  So when I say I am thick-skinned, I’m not exaggerating LOL.  My first test was an error because I didn’t milk it enough, but I learned to really get as much blood out as I can so I don’t waste test strips.  The wound heals up so fast that I am only able to get that one little drop, if I try to milk out any more after the test, nothing comes out.  Not that I need to, but I was curious to see if any more would come out for S&G’s.

So this is what it has come to, I have to test my blood every day, as if the constant medication every day for 18 years isn’t enough.  I really hope that the triglyceride medication and the guilt from the meter really helps me lose weight so I am no longer diabetic.  I hope the day finally comes when I no longer have to go through all of this nonsense with health issues, although we both know when that day will occur, and it’s not going to be a good day.  Oh well, life goes on.

Games on my Samsung T-401G with Net10

When I needed to buy a new cell phone, it wasn’t for playing games on, it was for those emergency phone calls while I was riding my bicycle, which by the way I never had, an emergency that is.  So I wasn’t buying it for games since I have a PSP, games on my desktop, games on my CR-48 netbook and even my Nook has games.  I’m good on games, I don’t need another gaming device.

However, there are times when I’m sitting in a waiting room bored out of my mind and Sudoku on my cell phone just isn’t doing it for me.  My phone also has another game called JumpBoy which is really difficult to play.

We went to the doctor’s office on Thursday and while I was waiting I decided that I wanted to buy a game from the game store on my phone.  I bought Lego Batman.  I have Lego Batman for PSP but I wanted to see how it played on the cell phone.  It was $4.99 or 49 minutes and I had plenty of minutes that I never used so I bought it with my minutes.

It starts to download and it gets to about 82% and I lose my connection because the Net10 service really sucks here in Bakersfield.  I never have a full strength signal so it wasn’t shocking to me that this would happen, although I wasn’t thinking about it at the time.

I tried to download it 4 more times and I got a message telling me that I have downloaded it too many times.  What?  I have attempted to download it but I haven’t successfully downloaded it.

When we came home I tried to download it again, not to download it but to get the phone number that is listed in the message.  I called the number and went through the menu and they told me to email support@gameloft.com.  I sent them an email telling them what happened and they emailed me the next day.  I am very glad that I’m a patient person.

They gave me a link to download the game again so I tried it 3 times at home and it still didn’t work so I rode my bike to the mall and tried it there.  2 more times and no go because I downloaded it too many times.

I email support again telling them what happened and I get another email within 24 hours telling me that there was a glitch in the game download file and offered me a new game.  I don’t know what to do so I log into gameloft on my cell phone and this is what I see.

I had to crop it and I added the :p face and the “lame!” lol.  Notice my signal strength?  That is normal for my phone.  Half the time I have 2 bars and the other half of the time I have no bars.

At this point I don’t know what else to do so I went to the gameloft website and I don’t really see anything I want so I just told them in the email that I wanted Green Farm.

So I get the email from them today with the link for Green Farm and tried to download it 3 times at home with no success.  I went to the store because the signal is stronger there but for some reason when I tried to download it, it got halfway then said I had no signal.  Even though it still showed that my signal was strong, 5 bars.

WTF!

I go home and think, I only have 1 more shot at this, I think what I’ll do is download it with my netbook then email it to myself.  No problem right?  So that’s exactly what I did.  I emailed it to myself then connected to my email account on the phone and I downloaded it and it worked.  It got to 100% and then it installed.  I’ve been playing it for like 20 minutes and it plays great.

Unfortunately I still cannot access the gameloft site through my phone and in fact, there are links missing in the browser to connect to gmail and to connect to weather and what not, not like I use those but still.

So I think this game is the last game I will buy for my phone.  If I had this difficult of a time downloading Lego Batman and Green Farm then I’m done.  If I had better cell phone service then I think it would be worth it to try it again but until that day comes I think I’ll just stick with using my PSP to play video games with.  Well, besides being able to play Green Farm on my phone lol.

I don’t blame GameLoft, heck I don’t even blame my phone for what happened to me.  I blame Net10 for having such crappy service.  Come on Net10, give me a better signal here will ya?  I am so sick of this crappy signal.  I can’t count how many times I wanted to throw my phone against the wall.  If it weren’t for the fact that it’s an $80 phone I would have.

Gnats Gnot Gnice!

Several times per week I wake up at 4:30am and leave the house at 5am to go bike riding for exercise.  I took this picture at sunrise this morning because I wanted to show off how cool the moon looked with the sun shining on it.  Unfortunately my cell phone takes crappy pictures.  I took 3 and this one was the best one.

But that’s not the reason for this post.  I love riding almost 23 miles every time I ride but the one thing that I do not like are the gnats.

Sometimes I will run into these little buggers.  They are so gross lol.  I can’t see them until they are coming towards my face and sometimes I can’t see them at all and I have no time to duck my head to the side to avoid them.  Occasionally I’ll get a straggler that’s flying solo that just flies into my mouth as I’m singing, and you know if you are on the bike trail by yourself with headphones on it’s pretty difficult to not sing.  Imagine singing an Alanis Morissette song “It’s like RAAAAYYYYAAAAYYYYAAAAIIIIN” where you practically have to unhinge your jaw to sing that one part.  A ton of gnats gets in then.

One thing these disgusting little things do is when they do run into my face, arm hair or chest, they latch on and go for the ride.  When I get to a point where I usually stop to take a break they let go and swarm me.  So one thing I like to do is stop maybe 20 feet or so from the place I like to take a break at so they will let go then take off so they can’t follow me.  Although some do catch up with me but not all of them.

During my breaks I like to take off my helmet and skull cap so I can dry my head and replace it with a dry one.  My breaks aren’t spent slacking off, they are spent getting dry to continue going the way I came, back home.  If I don’t do that then the skull cap I’m wearing will start dripping in my face.  23 miles is a long way to go with a soaking wet skull cap.  Usually as I’m opening my energy bar and taking a bite is when the gnats finally catch up to me then it’s dodging gnats all the way home lol.

It’s a very strange existence.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a gnat, flying in eyeballs, noses and mouths, latching onto clothing and sitting there while I’m being taken away from my gnat family.  No, I don’t think I want to live in that world.

I don’t even want to think of any diseases they carry *shivers at the thought*

Ok my skin is crawling, I can’t think about this anymore lol.

Straight Talk

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Straight Talk for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

When I got my first cell phone 9 years ago, I was afraid of getting a phone with a contract because they were just so darned expensive.  I went with a prepaid phone with maybe only 250 minutes per month for $25.  That was perfect for me because I don’t really use it that much.  I only use it when I’m traveling or on the bike trail.  That old phone is long dead and I’ve been looking for a new one.

Straight talk has phones with everything you need such as the “All You Need Plan” with 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30mb of data for only $30/mo.  They also have unlimited plans for only $45 a month with calls, pictures, text, web and messaging..  That is a huge savings if you are currently paying $75 to $100 per month.  I love that I would feel richer with those savings.  What would you buy with the money you are saving?  I think I would be buying more groceries, then again I might buy some music or books, who knows.

Straight Talk has an international option for only $5 more so you can call a friend in Mexico, Germany, England or anywhere you need to call.  I see people buying these phone cards from the store on the corner for Mexico and I just think they are wasting their money.  They can just get one of these prepaid cell phones and call their family for only an additional $5 with their international plan.

Scott Canterbury talks about Straight Talk in this YouTube video hook, line and sinker.  He talks about how much money he is saving each month and as a family he’d be saving much more.  Watch and see.  It’s just such a good plan to go with, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to.  They even have refurbished cell phones for as low as $10 with a camera, mp3 player, web and blue tooth.  They even have smart phones with touch screen, apps, maps etc.   There are no activation fees, contracts or credit checks.  You can’t beat that in a cell phone.  So watch the videos (links) and save some money for crying out loud.

Visit Sponsor's Site

Stepping Up My Bike Rides

bike trail water.jpg

I’ve been riding 15 miles every time I ride on the bike trail.  As soon as I get to my halfway point which is at Manor St., my legs are ready to give and I have to stop and rest.  Instead of going further I usually just head back home.  I think 15 miles is a good ride.  But I think it’s time to step things up and go the distance so I kept going today and rode for a total of 18 miles.

This picture above is what I see on the Bakersfield Bike trail on the other side of the bridge from Beach Park.  I thought it was too beautiful to not take a picture.

Herbie.jpg

And here’s Herbie hehe.  I saw this just as I was coming into Beach Park this morning.  I have seen this car driving throughout Bakersfield since at least 2000 when we moved here.  Every time I see it I want to take a picture and I never have a camera with me and it just so happens that now I have a cell phone that can take pictures lol.

I’ve already weighed myself and I have lost a couple lb’s so I think adding miles to my bike ride is going to help me lose more weight.  It doesn’t have to come off faster, just as long as it comes off, that’s all that matters.

My legs are jello right now and my back is in pain so that’s all I have for now.

Back On The Road To Being Healthy

I made a commitment to start riding my bicycle again regularly as soon as I got my new wheel for my bike last month and I didn’t start riding as regular as I had liked because I was too out of shape from not riding for a few years.  I went out with a friend a total of 3 times in the last month and it just isn’t enough so I have made that commitment again but as a solo act.

When I was riding with the friend I was riding with, I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of the experience.  First of all, she was riding so slow, which I can’t blame her because she is more out of shape than I am, but it was too slow for me.  I wasn’t even breaking a sweat.  I came home with a dry t-shirt every time.  If I don’t come home with a soaked shirt then I know I didn’t try.

Summer is coming and this week is supposed to be in the mid 90’s which means bike riding is not going to be very pleasant during the day.  If I wake up at 5:30am and leave at 6am then I can get out on the bike trail and hopefully be back by 8 or 8:30am before the city starts to heat up too much.

Last night I set the alarm on my cell phone for 5:30am and I got up just as I wanted to and got ready to go and yes, I did go.  My bicycle computer isn’t registering so I can’t say how many miles I rode or how long or calories burned or anything.  All I can say is I rode my ass off and my thighs are in pain to prove it.

When I came home and took off my camelbak then took off my t-shirt I knew I did a good job because the back of my shirt was completely soaked.  I feel like I was beyond productive and I’m very satisfied with the solo ride.  I don’t think I will be riding with anyone anymore unless they can keep up with me and go my route instead of wanting to take shortcuts.

My new schedule will be 5 days a week from 6am to 8-8:30am.  I can’t make any promises on how much weight I may or may not lose but I can promise that I will do my best.

Cycling Again

Last month I bought a new back wheel for my bicycle so that I could start getting exercise again.  The same exact day, Chips deceased cousins girlfriend bought a vintage 10-speed road bike because I told her I was getting my new wheel and that if she had a bike we could go bike riding together.  We rode exactly 2 times together last month.  I didn’t ride on my own though.

This month we rode once, yesterday and I told her that if this is going to work we are going to have to do this more often, like every day at least.  Since we are both out of shape then perhaps every other day until our leg muscles are more used to it.

I spent a long time figuring out the perfect route for bike riding and unfortunately she doesn’t like my route because it’s the same thing every time and she likes to take short cuts, which defeats the purpose of the ride.  My route has no heavy traffic to cross, all neighborhoods and when we are on the busy roads they have bike lanes.  I pride myself on my organization skills whether anyone likes it or not, typically nobody likes it but me.

My cell phone hasn’t worked in years and I really need to keep a cell phone with me at all times when I’m out on the bike trail so I bought a refurbished Samsung T401G from Net10 which is the same exact phone Darrin has, only I paid $25 for mine since it was refurbished and it comes with a $25 phone card.  Basically I got the phone for free hehe.  But it’s a very nice phone compared to what I would have gotten had I gotten the cheaper phone if I had gone to Sears to buy it today.

Even though we are going to ride every other day, I am going to ride every day if I can (as soon as my new phone arrives) because I have more weight to lose than she does and I am determined to lose it.

I will be suggesting an alternate route for her which is her car.  We were crossing such heavy traffic yesterday and it really freaked me out so if she wants to do this she can drive her bike there and I can meet her on the trail.  I think that is a good plan.  I get more exercise and she gets the amount of exercise she is satisfied with, it’s a win win for everyone involved.

More Christmas Pics

You know I totally forgot about the pictures on the cell phone.  After we left Chips brothers house in San Diego we went to the beach so the dog could walk on the sand.  It’s not too often when she gets to see the beach.  Here are some of the pictures.

Dirty Text Message

Darrin was at work the other day and his phone gave him that text message ring.  It’s 1 little ring with a vibrate so it doesn’t say “answer me” just that “you got a text”.  Unfortunately, he got it while he was helping a customer and since he is new to having a cell phone, he doesn’t know the difference in the rings.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and saw the message on the screen and pushed the appropriate button and downloaded the text.  This is what he saw:

FWD:FW: Fw: New Message

“Ricky has broken his leg and his buddy Mick comes over to see him. Mick says, “How you doin?” “Ricky says, “Okay, but do me a favor mate, run upstairs and get me slippers, me feet are freezing.” Mick goes upstairs and sees Ricky’s gorgeous 19-year-old twin daughters lying on the bed naked. He says, “Your dad sent me up here to have sex with both of you.” They say, “Prove it.” Mick shouts downstairs, “Ricky, both of em?” Ricky shouts back, “Of course both of em, What’s the point of f***in one?”

First of all, Darrin barely has a sense of humor and second, he just bought the phone so his phone number is brand new so he can kind of understand that people are going to be getting the wrong number but wouldn’t you think you would have your friends correct phone number in your contact list?

Darrin called that phone number up and when the voice mail picked up he starts screaming into the phone saying (I’m not quoting him) that this sexual lesbian pornographic text message was sent to his 10-year-old daughter blah blah blah.

The point he was trying to make was that this message could have gone to a child instead of an adult.  Basically saying, get the right number from now on or you’re gonna be in big trouble.  He threatened to call the cops but that was just to put the fear of god into them.

My point for blogging about this is that if you are going to send text messages to people, whether they are clean or not, make sure you got the right number because you could end up sending nude pictures to the wrong person, next time it could go to a FBI agent or a child.  Either way, you could end up going to jail because it is illegal to send nude images in emails and I’m sure, in text emails over the phone, especially to children.

Note that I blurred out the certain body parts and faces of the women in the image above and I cleaned up the “f-word” so it doesn’t offend.