Blog Number 291

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

On Thursday is was time to get a new cell phone.  My old cell phone still worked as well as it ever did (that is to day, it locked up every few days requiring the physical removal of the battery in order to get it running again).  Every time you renew your cellular policy, you can get a new phone.  My wife's phone was destroyed in the crash and has been sitting on top of the mantle in 2 pieces since the accident.  When I was digging through the van for anything salvageable, I found the top of the phone in the front of the van and the bottom of the phone way in the back.  My mother had dropped her phone in the toilet some time ago and was actually using someone else's old phone in the mean time.  Anyway, even though I did not need a new phone, I figured I might as well get one since it was free.  I was pleasantly surprised when the Verizon person did not try to talk us into higher priced (e.g. not free) phones but once we said "show us the free ones" we were quickly directed to our choices.  The wife and I selected the Model: VX8350 Bluetooth Music Phone (mine was gray, hers was burgundy) and my mother selected another model (in pink).  They transferred out contacts from our old phones to our new ones (except for the wife's as it was non functional) and we were in and out in probably 30 minutes.  I stop by Chick-fil-A on the way home and we were good to go.

One thing that I could not do on my old phone was to get any pictures off of the phone without paying a fee to email them to myself.  The picture quality was not that good (and given that it was not free) so I never bothered taking pictures with the phone except to change my wallpaper.  I am sure there was some sort of cable that I could have bought to transfer the pictures buy I never looked into it.  This new phone has a slot for a micro SD card and will take one up to 2 GB in size.  The picture quality is 1.3 megapixels (which is not too shabby for such a little device).  The Verizon person did try to sell us a micro SD card in the store but I knew that I could get one for a better price elsewhere and seeing as how I had survived this long without having the ability to transfer pictures, a few more days would not hurt me.

I have a card reader that will read 8 different kinds of memory cards and one of them is SD so all I needed was a micro SD card with a SD adapter.  My mother, on the other hand, does not have a reader so she would need one.  After searching around a little, I found the Kington's MBLY/2GBKR model kit which as a 2 GB micro SD card (the max my phone will take), a mini SD adapter, an SD adapter, and a USB reader as well.  It was not much more money than getting just a micro SD and SD adapter so I opted to get 2 of those (one for me and the wife and one for my mother).  Newegg has these for $13.49 each (retail is $21 per Kingtons's site).  Originally I was going to purchase 3 but there was the matter of shipping.

When I added (1) of these to my cart, my cheapest shipping option was $2.14 for standard USPS.  However, when I bumped the quantity up to 3, the lowest cost shipping was USPS Priority for $10.50.  I tried lowering the quantity to 2 and low and behold, my standard USPS option was back (for $2.50).  This seemed odd to me.  I mean, the box this comes in cannot weigh that much so why couldn't I get these shipped standard USPS if I ordered 3?  Not willing to give up just yet I clicked on the Live Help link and had the following (very useful) conversation with "Stephen"...

info: Thank you for contacting Newegg. My name is Stephen. How may I assist you today?
Jon: Looking to buy (3) of Item # N82E16820134545
Jon: shipping options for (2) include USPA (2-4 days) for $2.50
Jon: When I update to qty, (3), that option disappears and lowest shipping cost is $10.50
Stephen: Let me take a look into that. One moment please . . .
Jon: other than place 2 separate orders (for 1 then 2) is there a way to keep shipping option?
Jon: zip code is 75070 if that matters at all
Stephen: Unfortunately, USPS shipping is not available for this if 3 or more are ordered.
Jon: interesting
Jon: thanks for checking for me
Jon: likely will place 2 separate orders to save $6-$8

Now, I was hoping that "Stephen" could shed some light on this mysterious shipping issue but he provided a phenomenal lack of information about this.  In the end I decided only to order 2 and got out for $29.48 ($13.49 x 2 + $2.50 shipping).  I will have to let you know how well this works.

Well, I can smell the muffins coming out of the oven so until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon