Aug 17, 2017
I won’t say that I am brilliant, but I will say that I am amazed
Amazed at how I am figuring out my smart phone. It truly is smart and constantly amazes me.
Today started out with my driving Colin to the dealership to pick up his car. As the Jeep is still under warranty there was no charge. So far it is driving as a car should with no problems. Hopefully the issue has been resolved.
Just for the heck of it I used my very new to me cell phone to take photos of the transfer of equipment from the Lexus to the Jeep. The photo was straight when I emailed it to myself from the iPhone. You just have to tilt your head to the left to see how much stuff Colin had in my trunk.
Okay, the second photo of the trunk of the Jeep has the same problem. I have no idea what went wrong. Frankly I thought that I was pretty darn good for figuring out how to take a photo and then how to email it to my desktop.
So just now I put that photo into my iPhoto on my computer and then exported it back to my desktop. No touch ups at all but the photo is now straight. So there must be a step that I am missing.
Regardless I think that the colors, sharpness, etc look great. So that was my first attempt at using that smart camera. Now I just have to figure out a better way to transfer the photos. Also I could only email one photo at a time to myself. There must be a better way. One day when I have time I really have to figure this stuff out. Do you all just go by the seat of your pants?
Colin has been gone for over eleven hours but he is on his way home finally. However he is back at it early tomorrow morning. Fortunately we only had about 50% smoke today. Tomorrow’s shoot is very lake view orientated so the smoke situation is critical. However over the past 24 hours there have been many small fires crop up here and there within the community and the city of Kelowna. All human caused, deliberately set. Fortunately our fire personal are on top of things.
I was out myself today doing errands and such. Once I got Colin sorted out with his vehicle I had just over an hour to kill before the stores opened so I went the mall and walked. By the time I walked it four times and did my errands I was over 10,000 steps. Now at 11:00PM I am just over 16,200 steps, a new record for me. I will admit to sore feet, well actually sore heels. I may have to start looking into different footwear for all this walking. At least in Mexico most of my steps are on the beach in bare feet.
Still no news about my laptop. I will call them tomorrow. I did get a call back from someone willing to put a used hard drive into my computer for the same price as Apple would charge me for a new one. Not a difficult decision. Of course we have to ascertain what the exact problem is first of all.
One of the things that I was shopping for today was a personal item for each of us to travel with. What we used ( tote bags ) to travel to Venice was not practical. Too much space for things to get lost in and crammed. I am looking for something with lots of compartments for things like the laptop, Colin’s chess set, a few books, travel documents and printouts re hotels, maps, etc. I also want space for snacks, water bottles, toiletries and a change of clothing for those 15 hour plus flights. I found a few that I really liked and I want to show them to Colin first, then I will share them with you. Many folks use backpacks but that is not our style. This item will be in addition to our rolling carry on luggage.
We are still going to Mexico for the winter in the RV but have planned a trip in the late spring to Europe. We will be gone four full weeks. At this point we think that we may need to buy a slightly larger rolling suitcase and travel with that as well as one of our carry on suitcases and since we have to check the larger one we would check them both. This explains why we need a larger bag for our allowed personal item. I really don’t see how we could travel for four weeks in just the two official sized carry on pieces. When we traveled to Venice last June, both of our bags were full to the brim and we used at least 90% of what we had packed. I know that Ruth & Kevin do it all the time with the minimum but again that is not our style. Rae also did it for a full five months, I really don’t know how. We like daytime clothes and dress clothes for the evening plus pants or shorts depending on the weather. I need at least three pair of shoes so that I can do all the walking that we do. I like to have 3 or 4 different sweaters or jackets. Colin changes his shirt every day and he wears a full shirt, not T-shirts which take up less space. It is all a learning curve for us at the moment.
Speaking of learning curves, I got a text from Colin earlier this evening asking me to send information to a client via text. This person only uses text. It was a good deal of info to text but my iPhone surprised me by anticipating the word I was typing which saved a lot of time. It also changed my i to an I when appropriate. I sort of figured out by accident that hitting space space gave me a period and then the next letter was already a capital. Simply brilliant. I was amazed at how quickly I got done what I had to send. Now I just need to find the courage to wake up the mysterious Siri.
Then there is the story that Colin told me of one of the homes he was in today. Everything is controlled by an iPhone or an iPad and the lady of the house is desolate as she can’t figure how to turns things on, never mind off 😯
I know that Rae will respond to this, but it simply amazes me at how quickly this smart phone is fitting into our life. She has been after me for two, maybe three years to get with the program as we used to say. I only wish that I had done it then, as she would have been there to help me. I may just have to fly to Merida, Mexico this winter for lessons.
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Tha smart phones are amazing at what they can do, Suzie loves hers and I have played with it a few times down stuff. Not a heck of a lot you can screw up fooling with it.
Good luck with your laptop.
I screwed up today and it shut down totally but thanks to Dr. Google it came back to life.
Ahem, it was NINE full months, not five. 😉 End of June to end of April. I had a colour palette that let me mix and match and was realistic about the activities I expected to do. I generally don’t go to higher end places the way you and Colin do, but the few times I did, I was able to put together something suitable using my better quality pieces.
As for sending pictures, once you’ve selected the first one and come to the screen that lets you decide how you want to send the picture, you can tap others (they have a little circle) and a little check will appear to show that they were selected to be sent.
Can’t help you with the rotation thing — still stumps me. I fix it on Photos on my desktop or directly in WordPress!
Sorry, nine full months, next time I will add the details to my calendar. I did go with the mix and match pallet but then I have different shoes and a different purse for the evening not to mention the jewellery. Some sweaters were only for the evening etc. I have lived this way my entire life so it is a challenge to tone it down. Why do you think that we have 40′ bus and that 3/4 of the closet space is mine?
in a book store I saw several books over one inch thick about how to use smart phones. one even For Dummies. not saying you need that one but it looked easier to understand. And be careful when it chooses a word for you – sometimes you can get some strange texts.
Thanks for the suggestion Ann. I will look into into it this weekend. My concern of course is that there are so many iPhones but likely the basic premise is the same.
Our longest stint living out of our suitcase/backpack was 7 months. We sortta of started getting tired of having the same clothes over that amount of time but it really wasn’t a big issue. As for long sleeved full shirts Kevin carries one and it is actually lighter to carry than a T-shirt and it dries faster too. We always do a hand wash at night and normally clothes are dry the next day but we always have more than just one change of clothing anyways. Like Rae, we mixed and match our stuff. We even managed to do our trip to Romania and Moldova with just our carry ons and that was with warmer clothing. You are right however, it all depends on how you travel and what you do on your travels. It works for us but I am sure it wouldn’t work for the majority of people.
Ruth
I so admire how you travel so light but I don’t think it is in my DNA. However I am still a work in progress so you never know.
I always take half the clothes and twice the money I think I need… 😉
So Peter are you saying that you buy extra clothes or is that just for your wine?
Tap the little microphone on the keyboard to the left of the space bar, and you can dictate your emails and texts via voice rather than having to type them. You can even add punctuation by saying the word “comma” or “quote.” Now THAT’s time saving!
Are you serious Suzanne? That is over the top but I thank you for your advice.
ALL phones are smarter than me!
…me as well but for the sake of travel I just had to get one. Really the only reason.
Rather than taking more clothes it is so worth washing it yourself or paying someone else to do it. We did a bit of both on our recent trip to Greece and that allowed us to pack lighter. I do think owning the right luggage makes sense though, nothing worse than feeling like you’ve lost things when you haven’t.
As it is I am trying to arrange that every second Airbnb had laundry. Of course that means that I have to haul laundry soap. We are very happy with our new personal items and perhaps that might make the difference. We really truly do not want to check luggage as outbound we have a 17 hour connection and on the return we need to overnight in Toronto.
“. . . . have to haul laundry soap.” What I have to keep telling myself when packing for a long trip is to not pack so much of one thing, like laundry soap, because where we are flying has stores just like we have at home. In Europe we try to blend into the population, particularly in the cities, for safety reasons. So, we do not wear flashy or expensive jewelry, clothes, etc. Colorful scarves, belts, and sashes can change up outfits for evening wear. We spend more time choosing a medium weight jacket and sweater for cool climates than anything else because at least you can layer them if it turns out to be cooler than usual. In order to wear your outer clothes longer, we carry a lot of underwear. We carry a stain stick, like Resolve, to use in case we spill something on our clothes.
Here is how you rotate photos on your phone
Open the photo and on the bottom of the screen there will be 3 vertical lines with small circles.
Touch that and you will see a small square with directional arrows. Touch that and you can edit, straighten and rotate the photo. To rotate touch the small white square and the image will turn.
Hope this helps.
Welcome to the comment section of the blog Elaine. If there was a prize you would win it. I think that your comment has helped more that me. Gracias!
Contessa – just wanted to let you know I haven’t forgot you. We recently moved from NC to TN and are still trying to get settled. Good News – we booked flights to Maz for April and May. Maybe we can meet this time! We’ll be staying in Centro near Plaza Machado.
Sounds like you have a great trip planned to Europe. I’ll be anxious to hear all about it.