September 16, 2012

We lounged around this morning and I eventually made pancakes for brunch.  I decided to take the coffee maker I bought back to Best Buy.  It just isn’t practical for my use.  Because it didn’t clear the cabinet overhead, I had to pull it to the edge of the counter to use it plus when I used the stove to make pancakes the flame was too close to the coffee maker.  I also returned the hands free device I had bought because it didn’t work well with my phone.  When I called my Mom to test it out she said she could only understand every few words I said.  We stopped at Camping World and then went to Best Buy.  No problem with the return.  Monte purchased a new jawbone (hands free device the fits in the ear) because I misplaced his old one. We stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite to eat and then went to a nearby mall.  I wanted to buy a robe.  We passed by a Verizon store and we decided to stop in to see if they had any suggestions for an alternative to our very spotty internet connection with our Samsung tablet.  Paul, the salesman suggested we go with the Jetpack.  It would cost us $50 but we would get that back in the form of a rebate.  So it was kind of a no-brainer because we would be getting an extra gig for the same monthly cost we were currently paying.  Of course that meant extending our contract by two years.   My telephone number was eligible for an upgrade so we went for it. 

When we got back to the car I decided to call Mom.  When I punched in her number I received a message that I was going to be connected to an outside operator who could help me complete my call using a credit card.  HUH?  Apparently our salesman made a mistake.  We took our device back into the Verizon store and explained what happened.  Paul (we found out was a trainee) was assisting other customers so we were helped by Conner.  He tried correcting the problem but since my phone was an ALLTEL phone he could not activate it again.  After he spent 45 minutes on the phone with customer service it was decided that the best solution was for me to buy a new phone (at a very very deep discount) and the problem was solved.  Conner also talked me into buying (at cost) a Jabra hands free device.  He assured me that I would be very happy with it.  I assured him that if I wasn’t he would be seeing me again.

We tested out the Jabra when we got back to the car by calling Mom.  She said the voice quality was okay.  Not exactly an endorsement.   But for now I think I will give the Jabra a chance.

When we got back I tried out our new hot spot and it did great.  I was able to upload pictures at a much faster rate than I had been able to with the Tablet.

Monte washed the rig while I made dinner.  We tested out the Jetpack by logging on to our Roku and watching a couple of show on Huluplus.  It worked great.  In the past when we tried watching the Roku using the Tablet as a hotspot, the reception was very spotty and often we lost the connection.  It hadn’t been a very exciting day but it was a good day and sometimes that is good enough.