Dunkirk NY – Nothing much to report today on the knee. It’s coming along fine. Tomorrow starts physical therapy, bright and early at 8:30 AM. I’ll probably get an evaluation and begin the exercises. I also contacted my brother, who is himself a physical therapist, and he gave me a list of things to try at home as well. PT is actually a bit boring, but it does offer something to do at any rate. Put on some headphones, and just keep repeating the exercises over and over. Tedious, but necessary.
More exciting is the fact that I went and bought a Pixel 3a phone, upgrading from my current Moto G5+. I’m not a big believer in paying large sums of money for phones. In fact, most of my tech is quite minimal in scope. The 3a went on sale for $300 on Sunday, and I could not resist buying it, but not so much to upgrade my phone experience. By all reviews, the camera is supposed to be excellent, and so I bought it mostly for the camera features.
When I am out on vacation, it’s always a toss-up as to whether I will take pictures with my SLR or my phone. The phone wins more often than I care to admit, because it’s just convenient. My SONY A6000 is a good camera, but of course it’s clunky to carry around, and it’s heavy. It takes far better pictures, however, especially when I have the 50-200mm lens attached. If I am in one location where I know I’ll take a number of pictures, that’s the camera I want to use.
On hikes or just walking around, though, the phone is really hard to beat. I’ve also bought a small pocket camera, but then you’re carrying two devices. What’s the point of that? So in buying the Pixel 3a, I am thinking about it as buying a camera upgrade rather than a phone upgrade. I am simply not as dependent on my phone as working people are, so a $300 phone from which I can make calls and do minimal communication work (email, text, chat) is all I care about and need.
Once it arrives I’ll enjoy getting it up and running. I’ve been trying to get a new VPN router going so as to have a higher level of security on my WiFi, but it has eluded me thus far. I think somehow it can’t get past my cable modem’s gateway or something. Technology puzzles are always nice challenges, but this one has me stumped for the moment. The Pixel should be much easier to handle. There are some nice deals on a lot of stuff out there, and when you’re laid up with little to do, internet shopping becomes a way to pass the time. I bit on the Pixel, but I have to resist the rest. Living on a fixed income requires discipline! -twl