Follow-up from Yesterday's Post: Verizon vs. AT&T

Yesterday I talked to my adventurous daughter who is a kayak guide in Valdez, Alaska. Thinking about my post yesterday, I asked the all-important question of which mobile phone service seems to be more ubiquitous, Verizon or AT&T. I knew not to ask about T-Mobile because last year she showed up to help guide with a T-Mobile phone. Unfortunately T-Mobile doesn't have a presence in Alaska and while her phone worked for 30 days, they informed her that if she didn't get her phone back to the lower 48, or continental United States, they would stop providing service. Fortunately she had to head to Anchorage  and she switched her service to AT&T. Yes it costs significantly more but she could continue to have a wireless phone and didn't have to result in turning her phone off for the remainder of the summer.

I asked my daughter if there are any other guides in Alaska that she works with who use Verizon for their wireless plans. She said there are quite a few. Next I asked if they had service when she doesn't or vice versa. Her response indicated that the two services are fairly comparable with Verizon slightly edging out AT&T. I probed a bit more and asked what she used to compare the two. She said that when they leave Valdez to head out to the Columbia glacier, she will lose service before those with Verizon. On the way back, those with Verizon will regain service earlier.

I felt that seemed like a pretty good test even though it is only anecdotal and not statistical. She elaborated that last year before she switched from T-Mobile, she lost service even earlier. I can't think of any place more remote than parts of Alaska and this corresponds with my experience in remote places throughout the United States.

Now remember I do own stock in Verizon and my intent is not to have you switch your carrier simply because their wireless phone service is available in more places. The new technology being rolled out, specifically 5G networks has all mobile phone carriers upgrading their networks. The old CDMA technology that Verizon used for 2G and 3G will eventually be replaced. Until then, they seem to have the broader coverage. I'm not sure that will continue but could be wrong. I know the moment I switch from T-Mobile to something else, the playing field will be leveled and all services will be equal to each other. So for now I am sticking with my current mobile phone carrier. 

No Internet Service for 5 Days

I just got back from a houseboat trip in Tennessee last night and spent 5 days without any Internet service. Talk about being off the grid. I have to say I really enjoyed it. Even if I wanted to check e-mail or find out what is going on the world, I couldn't.

I use T-Mobile as the carrier for my mobile phone and have found that it is pretty much on par with my previous provider, AT&T. My son has his work phone through Verizon, which is a company whose stock I own. I bought it because they have a generous quarterly dividend, not because I think their stock will appreciate. That being said, my son had Internet service on the trip and kept feeling tempted to check e-mail. When his wife would catch him on his phone, she would remind him that he was on vacation. I should have taken the chance to snap a picture of him on the phone like he did of me in Yellowstone a few years ago.

I have another buddy I travel with to the most remote places in the country and he has Verizon for his carrier as well. Most of the time I don't get service, he still does which has me questioning if I should get a cheap Verizon account too. I thought that Verzion just had better coverage in Utah but now I am discovering it is nationwide. I pass this information along not to help my stock investment but to share my anecdotal experience as I often travel to very out-of-the-way places in the country for various outdoor adventures.

Last night I arrived at the airport and decided I would check my e-mail before boarding my non-stop flight back to Salt Lake. I had an insane number of e-mails but not one needed my attention before today. This morning I checked my work e-mail and had the same results. Naturally I had an auto-responder for my work e-mail so everyone knew I took some time off. That gives the added benefit of people asking about my trip.

The only reason I would have needed to be reached on this past trip is because of a once-in-a-hundred-year storm that hit near my house. We received 2.28 inches of rain one evening and it came down so fast it caused significant flooding in the area. My house received no damage that couldn't be cleaned up with a broom (mulch needs to be pushed back into the flower beds is all). Had my basement flooded like some nearby, I would have wanted the person watching my house to give me a call. Unfortunately there wouldn't have been anything I could have done about it in Tennessee but I think that is one of the things you want to prepare for before arriving home at 11pm on a Sunday evening.

I have to say that I am fine being out of Internet service while on vacation. Hopefully you feel that way too. If you find yourself in the other basket and wishing to remain connected, think about Verizon if you are not already using them for your carrier.

Trending Content: Good or Bad

Yesterday I had a meeting right in the middle of my morning and so I couldn't go out on my usual morning bike ride. At this time of the year, it gets too hot to ride much past 11am and the roads are too crowded before 9am. Instead of riding outside I rode in my nice-cool basement.

To help keep boredom away and excitement levels up during my exercise routine, I listened to music. Sometimes I listen to Pandora and other times Spotify. I don't pay for either service and so I get the pleasure of listening to ads and I do my best to ignore them. Yesterday I had one ad catch my attention. It talked about trending content and if you listened to this particular podcast you would know about all the latest Internet content that everyone is following. That got me wondering if trending is a good thing or not.

I have a friend that I used to work with that despised trending content. He likened it to everyone being sheep and following each other around. He's not wrong as there is a lot to be said for individuality. Given the relative ease of selecting your own music content, shouldn't we all have highly specialized music playlists with only our favorite songs. There are a lot of popular songs that I just can't stand and none of them are on my playlists.

The flip side of individual content is that of discovery. How do you know if you should listen to a new song? A coworker of mine that does a lot of work in the music industry listens to a lot of different music just to make sure she doesn't miss something new that she might like. If you always listen to the same songs, they become routine and eventually like all the other pop music played on the radio that everyone has come to hate.

There are a few songs that come to mind when I think about trending music. The first time I heard "Shut Up and Dance" from Walk the Moon, I instantly liked it. I didn't need to hear it a million times. However without it trending, I wouldn't have ever heard it in the first place.

We live in a wonderful time where we can choose what music we listen to. We can do the same with movies, television shows, and YouTube videos. We are not constrained by being forced to watch or listen to that content on someone else's schedule because we can stream it at will. We also don't have to be influenced by what is popular. However we can let trending content help us decide if it is worthy of our time. Like I wrote, it is a wonderful time right now.

The Latest News Updates

Every once and awhile a news story captures your attention yet it doesn't seem that important to others. Fortunately we have the Internet that allows us to stay on top of the latest developments. That happened for me this week.

Two days ago, I received an e-mail from one of the sailing magazines I read regularly. They shared a story about a fellow sailor having problems off the coast of Mexico. He is in the process of bringing a record-breaking sailboat to Baltimore where he will begin to make some records of his own. Unfortunately he had some problems with his boat and is now considered lost at sea.

This is a story close to my heart as once I embarked on a trip from Honolulu to Los Angeles in a 37-foot sailboat. I left Hawaii a day or two after a hurricane came close to the Big Island. Once outside the reach of mobile phone service the only communication I had with my wife was via expensive satellite phone or e-mail using ham radio. One night early in the trip, she awoke panicked that my boat might be in danger and she waited anxiously for my daily e-mail. I'd spent 3 days sleeping off sea sickness and really didn't do much other than my 2-hour watches every 6 hours. Otherwise I was fine. 21 days after leaving Hawaii, I landed in Los Angeles and quickly caught a flight back home to Salt Lake. My whole family was very glad to see me.

Having crossed an ocean in a small boat, I know what Donald Lawson is going through as he tries to sail his boat on a vast body of water. Fortunately for me, I had 3 other guys on the boat with me and we all worked together well. Donald is alone and we don't know his fate yet. I keep an Internet search page open with several key words and update the search every hour to see if there is any news. I'm hoping he is still alive, as I'm sure his wife and family do too.

So far we know that the Mexican Coast Guard has found his overturned boat, which is a good starting point. The US Coast Guard has joined the search and as of several hours ago has confirmed they are also near Captain Lawson's boat. Unfortunately we don't know any more than that. I keep hoping there will be good news.

Normally I would go to major news networks like CNN to catch updates on the story. Unfortunately this is such a niche story, they are not even covering it. The Baltimore Banner has regular updates but they seem to keep repeating the same information over and over. They also have a cap on the number of free stories you can read from their site without subscribing. As this is the only time they will have a story I am interested in following, I don't feel the need to pay money.

I looked at the US Coast Guard's official site. They have a number of daily press releases but nothing yet on this story. I have also scoured Twitter without any luck. Usually they are a great resource for the latest updates and I use Twitter during ski season to find the latest updates on snow-induced road closures.

I sincerely hope there is a happy ending to this story. Unfortunately as each day passes, those chances diminish. I hope that when we do find the outcome, whether good or bad, it is not something that appears as a footnote instead of a headline, which it deserves. Until then, I'll be looking for updates.

I Hate my Ring Doorbell

I've had a Ring doorbell for a couple of years now and I have decided that I don't like it. I hate it so much that I don't have it connected to my home network any more and don't feel the need to fix it. Perhaps you feel different about your Ring doorbell.

Part of the problem is that the device just can't seem to stay connected to my home WiFi, hence why it is not connected now. If it was as simple as pushing a button, that would make it easy to fix. Unfortunately it would also make it easy for bad actors to disconnect it from your home network. When it falls off the network, I have to physically remove the device from the front of my house using a special wrench to get to the reset button. Then there are a number of steps to get it reconnected. If it was a bit more reliable, I wouldn't have to reconnect it all the time.

Another contributor to why I hate my Ring doorbell is that people refuse to use it. The thing is large enough you can't not see it yet strangers prefer to knock on my front door. Perhaps they don't want to leave a record of their visit, which happens when the doorbell is used. I don't know people's logic but I got a lot more doorbell rings before I replaced my old button with the Ring device.

Finally I hate all of the notifications that Ring sends me. We are expecting really hot weather Sunday and Monday this week, Ring seems to send me a notice about it every couple of hours. Today is Friday but this has been going on for the past 3 days. It is like the boy who cried wolf. My phone sends me a notification that sounds like a text message so I pull my phone out only to discover the same message sent two hours earlier. I've tried to go into settings and turn things down so I only get important messages like someone being at my front door. Unfortunately no matter what settings I use, it seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition.

I think the original concept behind the Ring doorbell is brilliant. Who wouldn't want to have a camera to see who is at the front door before you open it? The problem is that the service has been overloaded with features to the point nobody rings the doorbell any more and the add-on notifications are overly abundant. Perhaps it is time to hack the device so it does exactly what I want it to and doesn't link into Ring's stupid notifications.

The Future of Trade Shows

I think the first trade show I attended was COMDEX and I enjoyed it. I loved being able to go to different booths and see exciting new technology. I also liked all of the giveaways and free swag. I went again the next year and refined my technique somewhat. Eventually I decided I didn't need a lot of free garbage and only paid attention to the technologies I really felt merited my attention. If they didn't have a giveaway, it didn't effect my opinion one way or another.

Fast forward a few decades and I rarely attend trade shows. Yes, there are a few I would like to attend but I have to be careful with my time. I also work for a large global company that every technology vendor would love to sell into. That means I refrain from providing my Sony credentials unless it is worth receiving hundreds of e-mails and phone calls.

Fortunately Sony is a large enough company that I have noticed a new trend in trade shows, thanks to the rapid advancement of virtual meeting technology. A few weeks ago, Microsoft put together a 90-minute meeting with just Sony employees in the United States where they showcased some of their newest products. We got to see demos tailored specifically to Sony's needs. Furthermore, I didn't have to get on a plane and waste countless hours traveling to an event. It opened my eyes to the next evolution in trade shows.

Not every company is large enough to warrant their own personalized meeting but it got me thinking about how to do a similar event for a number of smaller companies. A large vendor like Microsoft could put together several niche meetings and invite a number of customers from small to mid-sized companies tailored to their needs. With the skyrocketing costs of travel I am seeing, this would be one way to stretch people's time and budgets.

Yes I do miss the days of running around and competing with colleagues to find the best giveaways, but not enough to convince my boss to let me travel unnecessarily. Perhaps you feel the same way too.

Murder-Mystery Dinner

My wife's cousin celebrated a significant birthday on Sunday and her close friends hosted a murder-mystery dinner. Naturally my wife and I were invited to a very fun evening as we tried to discover motive and the identity of the killer. Everyone came dressed up and enjoyed getting to know friends of the birthday lady.

Our invitation to the party came in a very ornate envelope via the US Postal Service. We get so little mail these days it was kind of fun to open a physical envelope filled with an elaborate invitation and two sealed sets of instructions. We were to read our own character details and be sure not to share them with anyone, including each other. I got to play the part of Stephen Goldring, a wealthy American traveling on the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul. My wife played the part of Patty Hunt, a recently widowed woman with a shadowy past.

Upon receiving our invitation, we both had a number of questions and so I did an Internet search and found the game online. We got a few more details but didn't discover any secrets about our mystery. Should you be invited to the same event, I won't reveal any more specifics about our particular game. I will say that we had a wonderful time and really enjoyed ourselves.

We arrived at our host's house at the appointed time and and received more information about our characters as well as some instructions for the first part of the evening. We enjoyed the bar car (front porch of the house) while waiting for everyone to join. As none of the attendees drink alcohol, all of the drinks available were mocktails and added a bit of fun to the event. The host pressed her son and the sons of the birthday lady into service to take orders and mix up the various concoctions. One of the get-to-know-you activities included finding out everyone's drink of choice. My character enjoyed gin and tonic, which for me looked an awful lot like water, as that is really all I drink.

Next we moved into the dining car (dining room inside the house) where we enjoyed a spectacular meal. It amazed me that the host could accommodate all of the various dietary restrictions for around 20 guests. Nowadays it seems you can't get that many people in a room without 2 or 3 exceptions to whatever you prepared. The host did well and meal lived up to the haute cuisine one would expect on the Orient Express.

After dinner we moved to the sleeping car (family room) where we had a clue-finding activity after discovering one of the passengers had been murdered. The murdered passenger then switched roles to a doctor traveling in the coach car and provided his expert opinion to help with the clues. We also made sure to enjoy birthday cake and had a marvelous time solving the puzzle of the evening. Prizes were awarded to those that figured out the killer as well as a few other mini-games that made up the mystery. To me it seemed if everyone had a good time. My wife and I spent the ride home reminiscing about the evening and the fun we had.

Should you find yourself invited to a murder-mystery dinner, do not hesitate to go. If you have other plans that evening, cancel them so that you can attend. If you find yourself wanting to host such an event, I highly encourage you to spend the $50 to get a pre-packaged kit with all of the details necessary to pull off a spectacular evening. I know we had a lot of fun and they include a lot of tiny details that really matter when you try to solve a whodunit mystery.