Apologies for infrequent postings of late, bliss of life without a cell phone!

I suppose I could be moblogging using a palm phone or cell phone, but hey– mine actually DIED a couple of weeks ago, and I was so flabbergasted that the Sprint folks regard a $600+ Treo smartphone to be a disposable technology device (they will not fix it and say they cannot even attempt to, I just need to buy a new one) that I have taken some actions many might consider rash and outrageous in our age of (almost) 24/7 access to people and their ideas. I have:

– Cancelled my family cell plan with Sprint
– Switched over my wife to a Cingular plan and new phone
– Decided that if my employer wants to have cell phone access to me, they can begin footing the bill for the monthly service (instead of doing it myself, as I have for 3+ years)

Why Cingular? Monthly costs are less, coverage in rural West Texas is better, no roaming at all / ever– if you make the call then it is part of your minutes, still have nationwide calling, free nights and weekends, and ROLLOVER MINUTES. Are any Sprint reps reading this? Rollover minutes are a HUGE reason to switch over to Cingular. And we got a really cool new phone that weighs less than 3 ounces for free. After we’ve received and paid for a few months’ bills hopefully we’ll still be pleased with this decision, but at this point it almost seems like a no brainer.

Not sure what the eventual outcome of this will be as far as me not having a cell phone– I suspect I may end up with one again before too long, but if not and in the meantime it is actually quite nice to be inaccessible via a digital leash. Inaccessibility is a wonderful benefit of camping in the mountains of New Mexico, particularly in the Jemez Mountains west of Los Alamos where we love to go– so being in my “normal routine” of life without a cell phone is quite a novel experience.

I would highly recommend it, incidentally. 🙂 As an admitted and publicly professed “new-Luddite” when it comes to many technology issues, this reaction should actually not surprise those who know me well.