My Side Door

Today, for almost no reason at all, I decided that I wanted the new iPhone 3Gs.  It has nearly nothing important over my iPhone 3G that’s just 1 year old, but for some reason, I wanted it.  The video doesn’t really matter to me.  The better camera doesn’t really matter to me, although a zoom lens on the camera might be handy…depends on how well it works.

At the same time, I thought, “What will I do with my old regular iPhone?”  Immediately, I thought, “Give it to Jan”.  Then I thought, “If Jan is going to move from Verizon to AT&T, what are the family talk plans from AT&T?”  And that prompted, “Should Hayley and Emily get an iPhone?”

Moments later it was decided:  The whole family might as well start drinking the Apple iPhone Kool-Aid.

And there you have it.  A call to AT&T to set up a FamilyTalk plan and a trip to the new iPhone store at Scottsdale Quarter, and we are now a 4 iPhone family.  Currently, my new iPhone 3Gs is synchronizing with iTunes, downloading all of my apps, songs, pictures, and what not.

Next up, each of the girls’ new iPhones (they got the $99 iPhone 3G 8Gb version), and then the port of Jan’s number from Verizon to AT&T, followed by setting up her iPhone.

Oh, and just as the real Apple love affair was starting to really set in tonight, the first call I placed on my new iPhone dropped twice.  I was checking in with my sister Shannon, who had surgery on her ear last week, so you know…nothing important (sarcasm).  The first drop was while I was driving through my neighborhood (that was somewhat expected), and the second time while in my house, after we had been talking just fine for 10 or 15 minutes.  No reason at all for the second drop, other than AT&T just deciding I had talked long enough, I guess.  That first call was a 3G call.  I’m going to give 3G a workout over the next few days to see if it’s worth trying to go 3G yet, but I’m already expecting I’ll need to switch back to the tried and true Edge network.

The Wii Fit was #1 on my shopping list, but turned out to be much harder to purchase than I expected. Craigslist found me a reasonable seller today.

Unfortunately, my brother-in-law Chris was laid off his 17 year job at CSK yesterday.  This came as a surprise to him, even though he was aware that some people would be let go as the company did some restructuring.  The restructuring involved eliminating duplicate regional positions, but he was handling a national thing, relating to their on line presence, so he had figured he was safe.

The good news, is he gets 4 months to find his new gig, which I’m quite sure will be no problem.  I suggest he take a bit of relaxation time and recharge the batteries.

My family and my brother Robert’s family came up to our house in Pinetop for the long weekend.  It’s so relaxing up here, it’s tough to ever want to leave, and it makes us wonder why we don’t come up even more.  Our Pinetop house is at ~7000 feet, so temperatures are fairly cool.  It’s surrounded by tall ponderosa pine trees, and backs up to the tenth green of Pinetop Country Club, so temperatures are rarely much over 85, and this weekend, I don’t think the temp was every much over 75.

Robert and I went to ride the Country Club loop trail on Saturday, but unfortunately it started raining on the first go-round, so the plan to ride it twice (clockwise and counter) was cut in half.  That’s life during the Monsoon in Arizona. 

Earlier we had gone to the local Indian Casino and played in a poker tourney.  Robert was the first one eliminated, choosing not to throw another $30 at it and re-buy.  I lasted to around 15th place out of 35 or so, which was basically horrible, considering how weak the field was.  Still, at times you need to get some cards, and when I had cards, I just didn’t get the right action.  And when I got action, I had some brutal suck-outs against me.  Oh well.

Today, Robert and I decided to ride a bit earlier (around 2pm), hoping to get ahead of the afternoon Monsoon.   That seemed like a good plan, except it rained again right as we headed for the trailhead.  The light rain ended about the time we started our ride, but we rode through a bit of mud on the flatter sections.  The ride plan called for a ride on what I had heard was the White Mountain’s premier trail:  Los Burros.  Reviews were mixed, but I was hoping to finally find a trail up here that was enjoyable and repeatable.

Los Burros is a 14 mile loop.  The early mud had us both thinking we may have made a mistake attempting a ride, but alas, what mud there was wasn’t really that bad, and the ride turned out to be pretty good.  The scenery is nice, and the single track is truly special.  It’s that narrow single track that you just so rarely see any more.  Because of this, I did my very best to stay in the track, even when there was a little mud, rather than ride in the grassy track adjacent to it at times.  Riding in today’s conditions was certainly borderline.  I worried we’d damage the trail, but I really don’t think we did.  Much more rain though, and it would have been inconsiderate to ride.

As to the trail itself, I’d liken it to Pemberton in McDowell Regional Park.  A long loop, but for the most part a casual ride.  There were a couple of tasty sections, but they were short to be sure.  It seemed like we climbed for 10 or 11 miles, only to give back the elevation in a tremendous hurry.    One stretch of trail did work my lungs hard, even if it didn’t work my legs.  This is the first steep section of trail I’d found, here in the Pinetop area, so I was happy to find something that presented at least a bit of challenge.

The tour of the White Mountains uses all of these trails, plus some forest roads and more, which is a ride in early October I’m seriously considering.  The big decision would be which distance to attempt.  At a minimum I’d go for the 41 miler, but the 52 and 66 miler also seem appealing.  I’ve got until 9/8/07 to register, so I best get my act in gear and decide.