Grandpa Time

This morning at 12:11am PDT I became a grandpa. My oldest son's wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. I tried to stay up late as I knew labor had started and it was only a matter of hours before the baby came. Of course my son made sure to take a few pictures and send them to the family. At 4am the birds that like to hang out on my boat started making noise and woke me up. I checked my phone and saw the pictures sent by text message. My first thought is how much my new grandson looks like my oldest son at that age.

Fortunately I have Do Not Disturb set up on my phone. Otherwise I would have been bombarded by a constant stream of text messages as family members awoke to the good news. My phone patiently waited until 7:30 and then alerted me to all of the congratulatory messages.

This evening I had a meeting with coworkers in Japan and knew I wouldn't be able to drive down to San Jose to see my new grandson and so I went at lunch. Yes I took a long lunch but more than made up for it by staying late at the office. My son took a picture of me holding the baby and once again sent it out to the family by text message. Naturally that elicited a number of new text messages being sent by everyone.

Technology is great as it allows us to share life's miracles much easier. I look at all of the messages being sent and the participation allowed even though great distances exist between everyone. I think it is great.

Text Messages at 4am

I was rudely awoken this morning at 4am from a text message claiming that Chase approved me for a $1000 instant loan. I had a similar message yesterday at the same time. Yesterday's message said I could stop these text messages by replying with the word, "STOP". As it was 4am, I stupidly sent the message. This is always a bad idea because then the company knows there is a real person connected to the number.

Both Android and iPhones have a "Do Not Disturb" function that I decided to investigate today. As I have an iPhone, I played with those options and recommend anyone with a smart phone do the same. The first thing I did was turn on the Do-Not-Disturb feature in my phone's settings. Then I went into the notifications section and turned on the "Scheduled" function. That means my phone will not ring, buzz, or turn on the screen should I get a call or text message between the hours of midnight and 7am.

My reluctance to set this up in the past has been in case there is an emergency and someone needs to get a hold of me. There is are 2 ways around this. The first is to populate my "Favorites" list. Anyone on the list will cause my phone to notify me during the Do-Not-Disturb period. If you are not on the list, your first call goes unnoticed. If you call back immediately after, it will ring through.

My hope is that I will be able to sleep through the night without getting another notice that I am approved for some high-interest loan I don't really care about.