When technology fails...

At the end of the month I'm doing a booth presentation at the BYU Women's Conference with my sister Haley and our adopted sister Emily.  Our topic is this:

Social Technology: Good, Better, Best

We're creating a booth for the sharing stations about how to make the best use of time, talents, and spirituality using all these social networking tools available on the Internet and elsewhere.  I think that it's going to be a neat experience and one that I can put on my resume.  Oh wait.  I don't have a resume anymore.

That however isn't the point of this post.  Just a plug.  Really, just a good segway, if you will, into what I really wanted to blog about.

My stupid iPhone.

You see, I got an iPhone two years ago for my birthday.  It was a lovely surprise.  I was a little sad and overwhelmed because the Chick was itty bitty and life felt to hard.  I spent the weekend of my birthday with a malfunctioning blackberry and I was freaking out because my communication device wasn't communicating.

Then I opened my birthday present and it was a spanking new phone and my husband was sneaky, sneaky slowly turning off the service of my old phone and messing with my head.

Fast forward nearly two years.  I wanted an upgrade.  In a huff because I was probably ticked off I went to the closest AT&T store over a month ago to get a new phone.  I had cash.  I thought I had an upgrade available to me.

I had an upgrade.  My husband had used it to get HIS phone.  Something that didn't register with me at the time and I wasn't even listed on my cell phone account so I couldn't do anything anyway.

Grrrrr....

In the end, Ross came through and got me my new phone.  But then I didn't activate it for almost a month.  At Disneyland, I carried around two phones.  The one I used to call and text and check e-mails and the one I was taking pictures with.

Super dork.

A week and a half ago I had Ross activate the phone for me.  It was a hassle because he'd bought it through work - technically for his phone number and he had to have a discussion with the tech folks.

I finally had my new phone, sans a good case, and was ready for action.  What did I do?  I started obsessively planning angry birds and fighting Elliott for bird time on the phone.  Seriously.  I'm that big of a loser.  Together we were conquering the evil pig empire and loving it.  He'd sit on my lap and we'd take turns.  We'd even let our little brother have a chance to shoot birds the wrong direction and into rocks.

But, I digress.  After only about 10 days of using the new phone I was on a call with Ross last Thursday when out of nowhere the call dropped.  Not only did the call drop, but I got the ugly "no service" message where I should have seen bars.

I turned the phone off and on and tried to reset it about 6 times.  Nothing was working.  I was frantic and panicked.  I sent e-mails.

I HAD NO PHONE!  Even worse - NO TEXT.

It dawned on me to plug the phone into a computer.  I got a nasty message telling me that the apple network whatever wasn't installed and working.

Oh no.  How did that happen?

On Friday morning Ross called AT&T and after a good 30 minutes or so on the phone realized that they couldn't help him.  I took the phone to the closest store Friday morning.  The girl helping me put in a new sim card.  Nothing.  She looked at me and said,
"I'm sorry.  I cannot help you.  This isn't an AT&T issue.  Your going to have to take the phone to the Apple store.  I'm really sorry.  I can help you schedule an appointment."

Dun, dun, dun.......

Take it to the apple store?  Schedule an appointment?

WHAT?

You see, the apple store is so busy that you have to make an appointment to get help.  Even if you just walk into the store to purchase something, they won't help you without an appointment.  It's that busy.  It's that crazy.

I made my appointment for 6:40 Saturday night.  I got a dinner date out of the deal, so it worked out nicely I suppose.

How does this long store end?  Like this.
1) I had to wait 20 minutes past my appointment time to get help.  During that time my husband was grumpy and grumbly and ready to yell at someone.
2) The guy that helped me at the apple store was awesome.  Tall, cute, nice.  He gave me a new phone and didn't really ask me too many questions.
3) Annie has a phone that works.  Yeah.  Even though the back up we did right before taking it to the store didn't seem to stick and now I have a new phone and no apps.

What does that mean?

You guessed it.

The boys and I have to start over on angry birds.