Birthdays... as most of you reading this probably know my birthday is fast approaching. Nearing thirty is making me reflect on my first 30 years of life. I think I've reached every goal that I've set, and I feel pretty amazing about it all. I wonder and look forward to the next thirty years and ponder all the amazing things that will happen to me.

Of course that is not what this rant is about, we'll save that for when I actually turn thirty. I'm fortunate enough to have all of my grandparents still with me. In fact I just recieved Grandma's birthday invitation in the mail today! Over 90! Can you believe it? When places like livingto100.com and deathclock.com are telling me I'm only going to live to around 82, thats around the year 2054 for those of you counting. I think turning 90 anything is awesome!

But you ask her, what does she want for her birthday? An mp3 player? A new car? A winning lotto ticket to pay off all her debt? Although she'd probably take the winning ticket and cash it to buy more, she really doesnt want anything more. She has everything that she could want really, if you could box up and give her a cure for arthritis she'd probably be shocked and take that, right?

I'm nearing that age in some ways. I don't know what I want for my birthday... Sure an iPod would be cool, or a new computer or laptop. Perhaps a telescope? A loan to get me out of debt? Sure, sign me up. How about an amazing vacation to someplace I've never been. I guess the point is its not the simple things anymore. Way back when all I wanted for my birthday was the latest Erector set toy, or the latest Zelda video game. Now I wish I had time to play the latest Zelda game in the first place.

So whats the point? I think the point is to enjoy your birthday, congratulations on beating the odds of surviving another year in todays day and age. Don't worry if you didnt get the present you really wanted. You wont remember in 10 years if you did or not right? But do sit back and relax, reflect on the past years memories, and cherish the people that around you helping you celebrate your birthday, I mean I only have 45 of them left right? And don't forget to take lots of photos, so you can look back on them in years to see how much fun you had!

posted by Bryan at 8/25/2004 09:04:00 PM

Telephones have drastically changed in the past few years. Take a look at my personal phone owning experience. I started out with Mom and Dad's phone at home... boring. Not even call waiting till I moved out of course. I get my first cell phone, with Sprint. Well their coverage stinks in the Rochester area. I get my own place, and get another line, hardly ever use it since I have a cell phone right? I then find the love of my life, and find myself calling long distance. Well a few 100 dollar long distance phone bills, and you start looking into other options. I switch to Verizon for cell phone coverage. Theirs rocks. We also get a Vonage internet phone. Now of course I have DSL since its better than Cable for a high speed internet connection. Which means I cant cancel my home number since I need it for the DSL, strip off all the options and put on call forwarding. Vonage internet phone is amazing, the features are just unreal, something I never dreamed of with a phone line.

1) voice mail is emailed to you as a wav file
2) I can take the vonage phone box with me anywhere there is a high speed connection. (We took it to england with us, yes unreal)
3) Call forwarding... or mutiple ring, vonage phone rings at home, and also rings my cell phone whichever is picked up works!

The only slight draw back I've found is call quality when you are using say a file sharing program, in which case you just answer it with your cell phone anyway. So you have the following daisy chained...

Home phone forwards to the Vonage phone, which will ring your Cell phone, then dump to voice mail, which gets emailed to you!

Problems I've found... 1) Telemarketers and other people that call you... they reach you wherever you are, in the car driving, in a meeting, or say in another country. One telemarketer called us in england at 9pm est. which is 2am GMT. I answered very upset, and they guy had the audacity to fight with me over the fact that he called my Rochester number, and I couldnt possibly be in england.

Which brings me to my point. Marla and I are the only ones I know who utilize this technology to the fullest. Everyone else that knows about it, doesnt care that much, look at my friends, I doubt they know my home phone number, and just always call my cell phone. Secondly there are too many people that dont even know about such technology, and pay outrageous fee's every month for long distance or features that they could get for free. Why shouldnt everyone demand that their voice mails get emailed to them! Thirdly the ignorant people who call the people who do have the technology... yeah I won't even go there. Anyway... bottom line, streamline your phone process. Or just switch to a cell phone.

Another point how many phone numbers do we need, you should only have one, and I have 5, home, cell, work, fax, vonage. Sick... fix that problem too. Cheers.

posted by Bryan at 8/22/2004 01:45:00 AM