This is a good replacement for a cell phone right?
I’ve been carrying this clock around in my pocket all day. I love pulling it out to tell the time. Why have I been using this old school LCD clock?
My wife’s cell phone died this weekend, so she is borrowing my phone for a few days. That means I have a few days without a cell phone on me at all.
I do need to be able to tell time, especially since I’m taking the Metra to a dentist appointment tonight; and then taking a Metra back home. For non-Chicagoans, the Metra runs on a strict schedule. It’s not a “every 10-15 minutes thing” like the CTA trains in Chicago. You need to adhere to a specific schedule.
I pulled out a watch from a storage box in the basement. A brand new watch—never worn—that I’ve had for about eight years. Of course, the battery was dead. And I couldn’t get the back opened. (Nor did I want to pay a watch repair person $5 or $10 to replace the battery).
Instead of a watch, I am carrying around this digital LCD clock.
It’s actually the clock that is connected to my toothbrush via Bluetooth. When I turn on my toothbrush, the clock changes to a stopwatch so my teeth get brushed for at least two minutes.
It also comes in handy as a clock in your pocket.
Since I’m not carrying around my cell phone, I’m also not carrying around a camera. There are times that I really miss the camera, like, being able to take a photo of this silly clock.
The Xerox machine can make a pretty handy camera. That’s how I got the image of this clock. Totally rad, right?
What else do I miss from not carrying around a cell phone?
- Checking into Swarm
This is the old Foursquare location check-in app. Since my wife is using my phone, I still have location services on. When I get home at night, I can check into locations where she has been. So I check into Lisle High School. That rather amuses me. - Making reminders via Siri
I miss this all the time! I’m constantly pulling out my phone saying things like, “Siri, remind me to take the laundry out in 50 minutes” and “Siri, remind me to pick up baby wipes at 11am.” I should just keep a sticky note pad in my pocket and jot down my reminders. - Checking the weather right before I leave in the morning
Now instead I just go outside and see how it feels. - Authenticator
At work, we use an authenticator app to log into our email. No authenticator, no access to email. I totally forgot about this until I got into work after the weekend. Oops! No email for me at work for a couple days! Haha. Actually, our tech team was able to get a workaround for me. - Podcasts
I walk 1 hour and 15 minutes every day as part of my commute. Although I do have older MP3 music players that I’ve been meaning to use to binge on entire downloaded archives of podcasts.
Benefits of not carrying around a phone
Other than the obvious peace and quiet…
- Using a xerox machine instead of a camera is really cool.
I’ve been meaning to do more xerox selfies, because the act of a xerox selfie is just hilarious. But now I’m rediscovering the Xerox machine as a camera. (btw, I learned how to do graphic design, not on a computer, but on a Xerox machine. It’s true. Story to come some day). - I have an excuse to not respond to text messages.
Although, I like replying to text messages, so this isn’t really a plus for me. I can still respond to text messages via the MacOS Messages application on my laptop.
In fact, it’s a little weird, because any message that I send to someone, it’s actually going to my wife right now. Which is kinda fun. She gets to see insights into my communications. I’m open like that.
But since my wife is a teacher, she doesn’t exactly need a ton of text message alerts throughout the day. - It’s VERY amusing sending text messages to myself in order to communicate with my wife.
And when she responds to me, it’s me responding. It’s like I’m having this real-life conversation with myself — and I honestly don’t know how I will respond to my own texts. This sort of talking-with-myself-but-actually-talking-with-my-wife thing is much like marriage. Two people united into one. Anything that unites us closer together is a great thing.
