equipment hassles

First to the leather store, where I splurged an bought myself an Italian leather wallet. I'm so tired of using a nasty cheap wallet that was (literally) coming apart at the seams. The old wallet was in such bad shape, I'm afraid of my credit cards falling out everytime I open it. Which really needed to be taken care of before the trip. This wallet was more than I'd hoped to spend, but it ought to last a lot longer too.

Next to Best Buy. Got a giant CD travel case, since we'll need lots of music for the trip. I wanted to get a card reader for my camera, but the one they sell said "Mac OS 8 & 9" but didn't indicate whether it worked with OS X. I'll have to get one from either the Apple store or from Amazon.com.

Last stop, the cell phone store. I had just taken a look at my cell phone bill, and compared the service with what's being offered these days, and realized that I was being completely ripped off. After the contract expired they had jacked up my monthly fee without adding any services.

So anyway, since I need a cell phone for this trip, and was going to be borrowing Lisa's, now seemed like a good time to upgrade my own phone instead. I figured we'd get one of those plans with tons of night and weekend minutes, and we'd use it instead of our home phone for long distance. I checked out several websites online and ended up at Cingular. I hate their advertising, but they had a plan that was exactly what I wanted. Picked out a phone, endured the endless banter with the sales guy, brought it home only to get the dreaded "No Network" message! Argh!

We live on the outskirts of town, and it looks like Cingular doesn't have service here. The map in their store said we'd be covered, but apparently the map was more optimistic than accurate. He said I have 30 days to take it back and get a full refund. But it still stinks to have wasted my time. Oh well, I know that Verizon works out here, so I guess I'll get a phone from them.