I Think I'm in Love

Well, I am, but not really with this phone.



Toshiba TG01

Okay, so let me tell you where I am now. Several months ago, I purchased one of these.

HP iPAQ 210 PDA.


This is considered the Enterprise product, but I bought it because of the 4 inch LCD, the largest that I know of personally. Now, I am a big guy, and I really like the big screen. I have been very happy with it. I like Windows Mobile, and I like the fact that there are thousands of applications already available for it.

Now, back in December I got a new Cell Phone. I looked at a few different things, like the Blackberry Storm, and the HTC Touch Pro. Both are available from Verizon, but when I went in to look at them, I was struck by the same thing...tiny screens. The Storm might work, with a 3.2 inch screen, but the 2.5 inch screen on the Touch Pro is just to small to do anything important on. So, I ended up with...

LG Voyager


I like the phone too. It has a qwerty keyboard for text messaging, and it plays music, video too, if I can find something to convert video to the required format.

In addition to the problem of size on the available smartphones (from Verizon at least) is the problem that getting one of them will require an extra $30 a month for a data plan. Between the two, it was a deal breaker, but in a couple of years when I can get a new phone from Verizon, I want to combine the two, my phone and my PDA.

So, I set off on my quest to find a smartphone that offers the features of my PDA, as well as phone functions that my iPAQ lacks. I know others may disagree, but I am sold on Windows Mobile. I am familiar with it, having used it extensively for many years, dating back to my first PDA, a Dell Axim X5 (I don't think I need a picture of that old thing). Well, there are already a few contenders.

The Samsung Omnia has the advantage of being offered by Verizon, my present provider. It runs Windows Mobile, but has only a 3.2 inch display. It also have additional internal memory, but as far as I can tell, Verizon only offers the 8MB version. Very short sighted of them. If I had decided I was willing to pay for a data plan, this is probably the one I would have chosen.

The HTC Touch HD and Max 4G up the ante to 3.8 inches on the display. They both run Windows Mobile. The problem with them is that they are not available in the US yet. Now, remember that I am looking two years down the road, so these are definitely on the short list for the future.

But now, they are all running second fiddle to the just announced TG01, Windows Mobile, 4.1 inch LCD, sounds just like what I am looking for.

Some people want smaller, but not I. I am a big guy. I have big hands, and I do not mind a big phone, especially if it allows me to get rid of one device from my pocket. Please, Verizon, get the Toshiba TG01 when it comes to the US later this year. They can work out all the bugs and have it ready for me in 2010.

I'm Back!

I had not really expected to take such a long hiatus, but such things happen. I have been going through another extended period of depression, and while I cannot say that it is ended, I have decided to actually do something about it, rather than simply waiting for it to end.

And, what I have decided to do it write.

It is my intention to finally try to act like a writer and see if anything comes of that.

Around the age of 22 or 23 I decided that it would be fun to write science fiction stories. I was still in college (for the second time) then and I never did really devote the necessary time to my goal. Yes, I did write a couple of stories, and I did send them off to Asimov's SF Magazine. I am rather proud of my short stack of rejection notices. I consider it proof that I did more than dream about it.

After three years (well almost) at Utah State, I moved to Texas. It was supposed to be a temporary move, but after nearly 28 years, I am still here. I continued to write, a bit haphazardly at best, but I did write, and I collected more rejection notices.

For long periods I did not write very much, but I did keep a journal, and I began writing essays in notebooks. I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and this gave me another outlet for my writing. I wrote articles and book reviews for our local newsletter. Once again, my natural lack of drive hindered me. I had several articles planned that were never written.

I went to work for Dell, and after a year answering the phones, I got a job answering technical support by email. This played very much into my abilities, as I have always been very good with being able to express myself clearing in the written word. While working at Dell, I learned the importance of voice. I learned how to aim what I wrote at my projected audience. Many tech support documents at Dell were written for technicians, and I found I had a knack for turning those into documents written for the general public. I went on from email to working on the Dell Forum. Here I learned how to word bad news so that it did not cause an explosion on the forum.

The final stage of my development as a writer (so far at least) came when I began to play Neverwinter Nights (NWN) on a Persistent World (PW). I began writing stories about my characters, and then moved on to actually writing the lore, the background myths and legends of the world. I wrote prayers and stories for the first PW that I played on, and then after moving on to a second PW, I was given the position of lead writer. I wrote lore, and more stories, and I edited what others wrote. I finally moved on to a third PW, where I was given the job of lead writer almost from the start. I continued to write stories for the PW and lore, but by now I had almost given up writing anything that was not related to the PW.

I still have that job, and I intend to keep writing lore and possibly even a story or two, but now I want to move forward with my own writing again, and this is the start of that. I have not said anything to anyone. I have not made promises to myself, or declarations about things changing now. I have done that far too often in the past and I had to repeat my mistakes. I do not know if my determination will hold, but I intend to try.

I think that my history has made me a pretty good writer, and now I want to see if I can push it even further.

And it starts here.