We’ve been putting in some long hours the last week or so, getting the new issue printed and ready to mail out, and frankly, we needed a break. So when Jan White declared yesterday an official play day, it didn’t take a lot of convincing to get us to agree. Basically, Jan said “Let’s go play” and we said “Okay!!!” 🙂
So we all piled into Greg and Jan’s truck and drove to Mishawaka, about ten miles west of Elkhart. This is where you will find most of the shopping in this area, as well as a good selection of restaurants.
Our first stop was the Verizon store, where Greg got a new 4G Droid Charge smart phone. I’m like a kid in a candy store in a place like that, so I spent the time playing with all of the tech toys on display while Greg was taking care of his business. By the time they got it all set up and all of the paperwork done, it took over an hour. Our next stop was Bargain Books, a closeout bookstore that we always enjoy visiting. All four of us love to read, so we seldom pass a bookstore without stopping in.
We each found a couple of things, and then we went down the road to University Park Mall. A while back, my iPad stopped connecting to the AT&T 3G service, and every time I tried to, I would get a message asking me to log onto their customer service website with my e-mail and password. The problem was, it rejected the password every time, and even though I knew I had the correct info, when I clicked on the link they had to restore my password and e-mail address, I had to first enter my password and e-mail address to get to the restore page. Can you see the problem here?
Apparently the folks at AT&T couldn’t, because when I called their customer service number, I was told to, you guessed it, go online and log in with my e-mail address and password! So I went to the AT&T store at the mall, and it took me 20 minutes or so to convince the people at the desk to actually call tech support. They finally did, and after another 30 minutes, they realized that somehow the e-mail address had been changed on their end. Nobody wanted to take any responsibility or explain how that had happened, but they did tell me that during the period I could not access my account, they had changed me from the unlimited 3G plan I had to a plan with a 5 gig limit, for the same amount of money! Well, wasn’t that nice of them? 🙂
I told them that was not acceptable, and that I wanted my original unlimited plan, and they informed me that was impossible. I had a better idea, I told them that I would just cancel the plan all together and use the iPad off our wireless router’s WiFi signal, or my new Verizon MiFi. Suddenly their “Customer Retention Department” wanted to talk to me, and as it turns out, they were willing to “bend the rules” and restore the unlimited 3G service I have been paying for all along. Naa… I’ll pass. And you can stick your “customer service” up your… well anyway, I canceled it. 🙂
Arguing with the AT&T dweebs made me work up an appetite, so we grabbed an early dinner, then hit Sam’s Club and WalMart, and finally, Dick’s Sporting Goods, before we headed back to Elkhart. And, of course, just about the time we got to town, somebody (okay, me) suggested that a stop at Dairy Queen would be the perfect way to end our play day.
We got back home in time to check some e-mail, watch a little television, and write this blog post. It was a fun day off, and we don’t feel even a little bit guilty for having a play day! 🙂
Thought For The Day – When your wife says “What?” it’s not because she didn’t hear you. She’s just giving you a chance to back up and avoid the fight your last words are about to start.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Just curious about your iPad… I understand you can run it off your (and other) wireless hotspots. But aren’t iPads specific to either ATT or Verizon if you want to connect directly? Will you be changing out your iPad to a Verizon model?
Judy, I believe that the only 3G iPads are AT&T. The Verizon models are WiFi only as I understand it, and you get online with a MFi device.
Again, the telcos WAY oversell their capabilities and then under deliver.
I rest my case.
We run our Samsung Droid tablet off of the Samsung 3g/4g WiFi card. Works great as my wife prefers the tablet instead of a laptop. Just be sure to keep your eyes on the data usage on the Verizon website… we are halfway thru the month and have used 2 of 5 GB plan. It’s easy to stay in plan if you are not streaming movies. Or use your phone’s data plan for web and email work as we always have plenty of bandwidth there.
Nick has an original iPad, not an iPad2, the original 3G only works with AT&T but all models can do wifi. You can get 3G iPad2’s for Verizon.
Nick will a veriron aircard work fast enough for like net flick streaming trying to figure out a way to have streaming when we go on the road next yr. figured you would be the guy to ask read your blog daily
Phil,
I don’t do any streaming, so I’m afraid I can’t help you there. Sorry.
Happy to hear you both took a day off to relax and recoup. We do not have any of toys like you so we cannot help you. Mike is still wanting the I pad but he will have to wait a bit longer. Stay safe
Did you keep the air card and cradle point when you got your mifi? We are thinking of trading in the air card (almost new) for the mifi. Free. $10 less/month but 5G limit. With 2 Druids and the Xoom we never go over 5G in the air card. But still hard to give up the unlimited plan.
We heve kept the air card for now, we’ll see how this works out befrre we drop it, since it is unlimited.
Nick, Glad you had a play day, but I think that you’re supposed to decide yourself if you’re gonna take the play day and not have your friends tell ya to take a day off. Regarding data plans, Millenicom was mentioned several days earlier and no one ever replied back saying if it was good or bad. Has anyone ever used it? Their plan sounds good as it could give me four times what I get now with my verizon mifi. Any thoughts from you, Nick, or anyone?