On To The Boat

Waking up in Mobile, we were greeted with another overcast day.  But, since it wasn't raining...yet...we decided to make a quick detour to the gulf coast. We drove down to Dauphin Island to see the ocean...and to give our youngest dog, Tucker, his first taste of it.

He was a little unsure of the water and waves but seemed to be having fun overall.  We had a nice walk along the beach, then it was time to get back on the road.

The weather deteriorated throughout the day with more cloudiness and rain...just not the weather to do much sightseeing.  Since the weather was forecast to last several days, we made the decision to just make a run for the boat.  The hotel stays were getting expensive and annoying anyway, and I think the dog's "big car ride" was getting to be more car ride than even Madison liked (and she loves car rides).

We made it to Tallahassee, Florida, that evening.  We could have pushed and made it all the way to the boat by late that day...but I didn't want to arrive at the boat late in the evening and then have to clean it up and prep it for a stay that same night.  We stopped at a Sonny's BBQ for dinner and were surprised by the crowd that was still there at almost 9pm...until we found out that they were doing a tax day special.  I completely forgot it was tax day, and they were having a 2-for-1 rib special that was a nice treat after a long day on the road.

The next day we departed Tallahassee for the last leg of the drive.  It was mostly an uneventful trip, covering much of the same part of I-10 that I took the first time I made this drive.  The only thing of note is that I came up with a new axiom for driving across the U.S.  If you see a pickup truck with Texas plates and it is not in Texas, there is a 1 in 3 chance the driver is a jerk.  I don't know how many times I saw trucks weaving in and out of traffic, cutting people off (including semi trucks), and generally just being discourteous drivers, but in almost every case it was sporting a Texas license plate.

A Jerk that almost took my bumper off .

The truck pictured above apparently felt he was more important than the other cars trying to pass a semi and so he sped up in the right lane and then cut me off.  Guess he just couldn't wait the additional 3 seconds to be two cars behind me...where he would have been if he were courteous.

We made it to the boat around 3pm on Thursday.  I would have made this post then, but unfortunately when we arrived at the boat we found the dehumidifier had malfunctioned at some point.  Don't know how it came to the decision that the "tank was full" when the tank was bypassed with the hose that led directly to the sink drain...but it apparently shut itself off at some point.  The result was that the boat was a bit stale and musty smelling with a little mold starting to appear in spots on the walls.

So, the last couple days we've been on mold patrol.  Cleaning and re-running some laundry and generally drying out the interior of the boat. We also spent some time getting the systems back in operating order. It's good now, and the sun is even coming out for the first time since we arrived so it may be time to wash the outside of the boat...after a visit to the beach.

Unlike my first marathon trip that took just over 3 days, this one took 6 days and just over 2100 miles.  It was a much more pleasant trip than the first one. Too bad we had to skip a few of the things we wanted to see along the way...but with the boat we should be able to check them out at some point if we want to. And the house is under contract too.  Things are finally coming together.

Cell Service: My First Month With A Low Cost Carrier

In recent posts I described my goals for finding a new cell phone service and took a look at a few interesting providers.  The service provider I decided to try was Ting.  They have had some favorable reviews, the rates for our estimated usage should be under half of what we are currently paying, and supporting both CDMA and GSM networks (on separate handsets) we should theoretically have increased coverage by having a handset that works on each network.

ting

Before the final decision, I contacted Ting once by phone and once using their online chat help system.  I wanted to see if being a discount provider meant there would be very limited support.  While they didn't quite meet their goal of "always have a real person to answer the phone and never put you on hold", their response times were no worse than I've experienced from Verizon or T-Mobile.  I guess that Sprint changed some policies regarding activation of handsets that has driven up recent support call volume (at least that is the excuse they are providing for "breaking their no hold promise"), so their response times might improve.  But they seemed good enough to give a try.

I've heard stories about varying ease or difficulty when porting over an existing cell phone number to a new service.  It is typically supposed to happen within 24 hours (longer if the phone number was a land line number).  In our case we were porting over two numbers from T-Mobile to Ting, one was being switched to a CDMA device while the other would be assigned to a new SIM card for an existing GSM device.  After the new device and SIM card arrived in the mail, we initiated the port.  Requesting the port was a pretty easy process of just filling out a form on the Ting web site.  The hardest part was that I needed to call T-Mobile to get a pin number to allow the port and, naturally, T-Mobile wanted to try to keep me as a customer (although to their credit, they didn't push nearly as hard as Dish Network did).

The port of the GSM phone number to the new SIM card went off without a hitch.  We initiated the port about 8pm one evening, and by the next morning my wife's phone was up and running with the new SIM card installed.  The port of my number from my old GSM device to the new Ting CDMA device didn't go as well.  That next morning my port was still showing as "pending" on the Ting site.  And that didn't change by the afternoon.  Finally, as we were reaching the 24 hour point, I gave Ting a call.  They informed me that there was a "glitch" in the porting system the night we submitted the requests and some of them didn't go through.  The tech support person then cancelled and re-initiated the port request.  Sometime around midnight I received the email that the port was successful.  When I tried activating my phone the following morning, it still wouldn't complete the activation.

This may have been my fault though.  You see, while I was waiting for the initial activation, I decided I would go ahead and configure the phone the way I wanted it.  I ignored the messages about the phone failing to register with the network, and connected the device to my WiFi.  I then downloaded the apps I wanted installed, changed the ring tone and wallpaper, etc.  In order to get the phone to complete the activation, I had to do a factory reset of the phone.  I lost all of the configuration that I had done, but the device completed activation just fine after that.  Unfortunately, the phone also started updating all of it's pre-installed software (the Google browser, mail, and other OS bits) before I could get it attached back to my WiFi...and ran up my data usage 14MB.  Oh well, at least it was connected.

Performance of the phones so far seems fine.  My wife's phone is the GSM phone and, since Ting's GSM service uses T-Mobile, I didn't expect there would be any change.  My wife reports that service might be just slightly improved, with her phone no longer dropping calls at one point in her commute that usually had that problem...but I'm betting it has as much to do with atmospheric conditions so I think I'll call performance "the same".  Since I was working at the house, I didn't have as much experience with the Sprint service.  The phone only reports one bar out of five in the house, but the phone still seems to be able to make and receive calls just fine.  On this trip to the east coast, I haven't found any areas where I didn't have voice coverage (I am using very little data, but LTE was there when I tried using it) although again I rarely see full bars on the signal strength meter.  Sound quality isn't the best on the new phone (it is a bit tinny sounding), but that is caused by the handset and not the service (and was one thing the reviews noted about this phone...but being water-resistant I went with it anyway).

Since we are now on a plan that charges based on usage, we've been kind of playing a game similar to when we bought the Prius.  Instead of seeing who could get the best gas mileage, it is now a game to see how low we can keep our first months bill while still using our devices.  I've found a number of tips that can cut down data usage on an Android device (shutting down or reducing update frequencies on all those programs that like to notify you of things...like the current weather, who just posted on Facebook, etc.).  I even installed a toolbar that will let me shut down the cell data connection (LTE) so the things that can't be easily configured to stop polling the internet would be denied access when the phone is not in use. For our trip, I installed a turn by turn navigation program called Navmii that allows you to download maps and navigation data and then use those items when you are without a data connection (or in my case, download them on WiFi and then turn off the data connection so we aren't constantly pulling map data on the cell data network).

I've been watching our various usages over the course of the month.  Most everything came in at or below where we expected it would (based on previous usage).  I did note a strange billing item on my wife's phone where it was showing calls forwarded from her number to voicemail.  I called Ting to inquire, and the support person claimed that they charge for calls to voicemail.  This seemed bizarre to me, but since it was only happening on my wife's line and not on mine, I did a bit more digging.  The Ting web site says "Calls that you don't answer, including ones that go to voicemail, are not considered billable airtime".  Technically their GSM support is still in Beta, so I guess I may have found a bug...and I think this tech support guy just wanted me off the phone. When I contacted them again, they clarified with me that they don't charge for calls to voicemail and this was indeed a glitch in their system that they are working on correcting and I should see it corrected before I am billed.

At the end of the month, here is how it compared.  On T-Mobile our bill was running just over $114 per month ($100 per month plus taxes and fees).  This month with Ting, we had the two lines of service ($12) and fell into the Medium minutes bucket ($9), Small text messages bucket ($3), and Small data bucket ($3). That is only $27 for the base charge for BOTH phones this month.  Including taxes, the total came to $31.97.  So, this first month, we saved $82.03 and I'm very happy with that.

To be fair, we did try to cut our usage some.  So, if we took our usage from our last T-Mobile bill, we would have been in the Large Minutes bucket ($18), Small text message bucket ($3), and Medium data bucket ($12) and that comes to $45 per month for both phones (I'm guessing that will be around $50 after taxes).  Still less than half what we were paying.

So, looking back at my original criteria...

• They have to be reasonably priced.  My T-Mobile bill was $114/month for two phones ($100 + taxes, fees, pain and suffering) and it had to be at or below that.

$27, or even $45 is far better than $100, so we nailed that one.

• They have to have decent coverage in the U.S.  T-Mobile wasn't that bad, except in Deltaville, but I did want better if I could get it.

One phone is on T-Mobile's network and the other one is on Sprint with voice roaming to Verizon, so this should be better as well...but we won't know for sure until we are back in the Chesapeake.  A tentative Yes.

• They have to support GSM phones (since CDMA is only used in the US and I think Japan and I would like the option to use any phone I buy elsewhere).

My wife's unlocked GSM phone was ported over.  That's a check.

• They need to have the ability to suspend service without disconnecting the number for times I am out of the country and don't want to use that service.

You don't actually have to suspend anything since you are charged by the bucket.  If you use no minutes, texts, or data in a month, all you have is the base $6 line charge and people can still leave you messages.  That should work nicely as an automatic suspension when we are out of cell phone range for a while.

There have been a couple glitches, but overall I'm happy with the service.  If you want to give them a try, I can even help you out a bit.  If you use the following link, you should get a $25 credit with them as well.

$25 credit towards new Ting cell phone service

Disclaimer: The link above will not only give you the $25 credit, but it gives me a credit too.  This doesn't change my opinion of the company, but I thought you should know.

And The Rains Came

Before we left Austin on Monday, my wife wanted to see the state capitol building. I guess after spending so much of her career in the one in Colorado (no she is not a politician), she likes to compare them. So I walked the dogs around the grounds while she went and took a peek inside.

We also met another friend of mine for lunch before heading on. I met Jean when the company I was working for at the time hired her company for an online billing system solution. In a similar fashion to some of the people I've met through my blog, we became friends using electronic communications long before we ever actually met. Since I didn't know what route we were taking for sure until Saturday morning and since I only had her work skype contact, I wasn't able to get in touch with her until Monday morning when we were in Austin, but we still managed to meet for lunch...how cool is that. We had a nice chat before heading on down the road.

The drive through Texas was quite green and pretty...sorry I keep saying that...but it is very different from all my memories of Texas road trips. Maybe it was due to the fact all the family trips were either middle of the summer or during the Christmas school break, but most of my memories are of a much more bleak landscape.

We made it to Iowa, Louisiana (no, that's not two states but a town in Louisiana just east of Lake Charles), where we spent the night.  Not much to be said about the place except it had a LA Quinta (important since it is a hotel chain that has WiFi, allows dogs, and seems to have a reasonable standard of cleanliness). We spent most of the evening pouring over the flood of 14 offers we received on the house in the 4 days it has been on the market. That is a lot of legal mumbo jumbo to read through...but I'm not complaining...I know we are very fortunate the market is so hot in Colorado right now.

The next morning we awoke to the rain the weather men have been threatening would happen all week.  In fact, they had some poor slob out reporting about flooding in New Orleans when we flipped over to The Weather Channel (why do they always send someone out to a place to tell us not to go there?). Guess where we had hoped to visit today. Oh well, guess we can check it out by boat sometime...probably a better option anyway.

The rains sound like they will be sticking around all week, so we are debating if we should just drive on to the boat. That is what we are doing as I type this...heading down I-10 in the rain, making our way to our next hotel stop near Mobile, Alabama.  There we will be digitally signing paperwork so the house will be under contract and rejecting the 13 other offers.

Wife just made the comment that she bets California would like to have some of this rain. I know Texas is glad to have it and I agree there will probably be a lot of thirsty Californians that wish they had it too.

So, past rains made for a pretty drive through Texas. Then it rained legal paperwork on us. And now we have some actual rain to deal with. Guess the weather men were right after all...depending on your perspective.

Cell Service: Some Interesting Options

In my first installment on this subject, I went through some of the things I am looking for in a replacement cell phone service.  I also noted a few technology issues and limitations that may be particularly interesting to cruisers (or anyone that wants to use their handset world-wide).  This time I want to take a brief look at some of the different low-cost carriers out there.

As you saw from the list of virtual operators that I linked to in the last post, there are a lot of them out there. Some of the more interesting ones have come up with some potentially fascinating concepts meant to reduce your monthly cost of of having a cell phone. Many of them start off by not subsidizing phone purchases. That means, if you need a new device, you will have to pay for the entire thing up front instead of getting "a really good price" in exchange for signing up for a long contract. Fortunately, some of them also allow you to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) if you have one that will work on their network, buy a used device that will work, and have some more economical new handsets.  Here are a few of the more interesting carriers I found that you may have never heard of.

Red Pocket

This seemed to be one of the more traditional sounding carriers.  They have a number of unlimited talk and text plans and the price seemed to vary based on how much high-speed internet you wanted to include.  The interesting thing about this provider is that they offer service on all 4 of the major carriers.  If you have an existing phone you would like to continue using, there is a fair chance they will be able to support it (please check with them before signing up if you are interested).  I didn't find their pricing to be overly compelling compared to my existing T-Mobile bill, but if you are on Verizon or AT&T you might find a plan with them that could save you a fair chunk of change each month.  They appear to be able to offer a bit better pricing because they act similar to a pre-paid service where you have to fill up and top off your account periodically instead of the tranditional monthly billing process.

Republic Wireless

An interesting low cost carrier with plans ranging from only $5 to $40 per month, the price points are definitely nice.  The theory behind Republic wireless is that WiFi is so ubiquitous in our lives these days, that there isn't likely to be much time where you are not connected to one.  Their service attempts to use WiFi whenever possible (even for voice calls) and only uses cell-based services when the WiFi is not available. Actually, their $5 plan is WiFi only, so the phone will only work when it is connected to WiFi.  The $10 plan offers voice only, with data support still coming from WiFi.  Their other two plans do offer mobile internet connectivity, with the price differentiator being how fast of data access you want.  All of their plans appear to be "unlimited everything" except for the restrictions on connectivity/speed noted above.

Since Republic tries to route your calls over WiFi when available, their phones have special software to switch between WiFi and cellular networks.  This means you cannot bring your own handset and they only offer a limited number of handsets on their service.  Their service is through Sprint (CDMA), but they can roam to Verizon so coverage is good within the U.S.  One user I know did note that the unlimited plans are not so unlimited if you are roaming onto Verizon's network a lot.

Ting

This company has decided to turn the usual cell phone plan on it's ear.  They have no "Unlimited" plans at all.  In fact, they really don't have any "plans" at all.  Instead, they divide service into various levels, or buckets if you will, and then charge you based on what bucket you land in at the end of each month.  Each service type is divided into these buckets: phone minutes, text/SMS messages, and data.  So, if you use very few minutes but a lot of data, then you get charged just a couple bucks for your minutes and a bit more for your data usage.  Their claim is that by doing it this way, most people save money versus those unlimited plans.

Traditionally, Ting has used the Sprint CDMA network for their service, but recently started rolling out a T-Mobile based GSM offering that is currently in a public beta program. The biggest downside to their approach seems to be that your bill may vary month-to-month so it may be hard to budget accurately for their service.  The other catch with this service is they require you to have a credit card on file.  Since, unlike most carriers, they bill you at the end of the service period (otherwise how could they know how much to bill you) this made sense to me.  Still not sure I like companies automatically billing my credit card, but at least there reason is a bit more valid than most.

I did choose one of these as our provider and have just completed my first month with them.  I will tell you about my experience in an upcoming post.  And if you are interested in giving the one I'm using a try, I may be able to save you a few dollars your first month with them too.

Friends and Family

After getting to the big town of Snyder Texas at midnight, we got a bit of a late start.  We opted for the "free" hotel breakfast and spent most of the morning visiting with my aunt.  We went to the local park and took the dogs for a nice walk, and I think they appreciated getting out and stretching their legs more than just the rest stop breaks we had the previous day.

The trip Sunday was much shorter, only about 6 hours, to Austin, Texas.  A good friend and former coworker lives there and I wanted to say hi.  My wife also has a fascination with state capitols so I thought she would like to check it out.

The drive was nice.  For a state that has historically been big into oil for as long as I can remember (my dad used to tell stories about working for oil companies), they sure seem to have embraced alternative energy...at least wind generation.

Field of...windmills

I guess central Texas has been getting some much needed rain, and it was actually green and quite pretty.  Very different from the trips I remember as a child...or the one through the panhandle yesterday.

Roadside wildflowers south of Abilene...I think it was.

We got to Austin and checked into the hotel around 6pm...after making a bit of a detour.  The highway system around the hotel is undergoing some construction and is quite confusing.  The turn by turn guidance program we are using (Navmii...which allows you to download maps for offline use so you aren't using so much cellular data...more on this in upcoming posts) didn't have the correct exit number and we ended up getting a scenic tour of the hotel area.

Traveling with the dogs has made finding hotels a bit more tricky.  I had heard that more and more are allowing people to bring their pets, but it isn't universal yet.  So, finding reasonably priced and clean hotels that have free internet and accept dogs has been a bit tricky but we are doing OK so far.  Some hotels, such as the Baymont in Snyder charge an extra $20 per dog while the LaQuinta we are in today lets them stay for free.

Traveling can be tiring

It was nice to see my friend John again and finally meet his family.  They treated us to some Texas BBQ (having family from the area, I love good Texas BBQ) and good conversation.  I know we were a bit tired from all the travel, but hope we were good enough company. Thanks for your hospitality John and Michelle, we will definitely need to return the favor on our boat sometime.

On tap for today we will go visit the capitol, make our way east...somewhere, and meet with our real estate agents who reportedly have some good news for us.

On Our Way

Once we managed to get the house cleaned up and on the market, it was finally time to pack up the car and head out to our new life.  Of course that sounds easy until you try to condense all of your possessions and necessities into a Prius...the very same Prius that is supposed to carry two people and two medium-sized dogs. Well, thanks to the skills gained when I worked at UPS, we got most of the stuff into the Prius.

Practice for stowing things on the boat.

After a farewell dinner with family and one last load of laundry, we departed Denver Saturday morning. The original goal of the first leg was to head south to see my aunt in Texas. Of course, weather in Texas and the I-10 corridor had us second guessing that decision...but after realizing that similar weather was also predicted for the middle of the country, we decided to press on.  We left Denver around 11 AM, a bit behind where we probably should have as that will put us at our destination quite late. We made the very familiar trip south along the front range past Colorado Springs and on through Trinidad (at one time we considered buying property in southern Colorado and made several trips there).

The Air Force Academy grounds near Co. Springs.

We crossed the border into New Mexico and turned east out of Raton and headed toward Amarillo, Texas. Just outside of Clayton, New Mexico, we ran into the only bit of bad weather on the trip...if you can call it that. There were a couple rain showers that came with a lot of wind. The wind caused a bizarre migration of tumbleweeds like I had never seen before. It was like they were being herded across the highway in lined up groupings as if they were part of some tumbleweed ranch herd.

We passed through Amarillo just about dusk and didn't arrive in Snyder, Texas, until just around midnight. I had always told my wife that making this exact trip a number of times as a child was one of my justifications for getting my pilots license...and now she understands.  Most of the dry, flat, beige New Mexico and Texas panhandle are better when viewed from 9000 ft and 150 mph.

Sunset with no Mountains...not in CO anymore.

Cell Service: Time for a Change

A few times I've mentioned on the blog that I've been considering a new cell phone service.  You might have read when I was up in the Chesapeake I found that T-Mobile didn't have the best coverage (Ok, I only had coverage if I was standing literally on the north shoreline of the peninsula). Then, when my phone started acting up just as I returned to Denver, I decided that it was time to pull the trigger and make the switch.  But this decision isn't an easy one due to the different and competing technologies out there. So, the next several posts on the subject may get a little technical, but will hopefully give you an interesting insight into the world of cell phones and providers (as best I understand them anyway).

Most people reading this are probably at least somewhat familiar with the four big cell phone providers in the U.S.  There's Verizon, which seems to have the best overall coverage (in the U.S.)...and a price tag that says they know it.  Then AT&T is the other Goliath name in the market.  Behind those two stand Sprint and T-Mobile to round out the group.  These are the ones that own (or at least contract with a maintenance company that owns) all the cell phone towers in the U.S., and if you are making a cell phone call in America, you are likely using one of these towers to do it.

But, those aren't the only cell phone companies.  You might have heard of (or even use) Boost, Consumer Cellular, Cricket, Straight Talk, or Virgin Mobile. Then there are a bunch of other even lesser known brands as well.  All of these companies are what are called Mobile Virtual Network Operators (or MVNO's) and they basically "rent time" on the major cell providers networks and towers. For example the MVNO Boost uses Sprint, Cricket uses AT&T, and Straight Talk is talking straight through T-Mobile.  If you want to see all the different MVNO's out there and what networks they use, this link should take you to a pretty good list on Wikipedia.

So, there are a ton of cell phone companies out there, how do you narrow them down?  Well, in my case I had some very specific criteria as a cruiser:

• They have to be reasonably priced.  My T-Mobile bill was $114/month for two phones ($100 + taxes, fees, pain and suffering) and it had to be at or below that.
• They have to have decent coverage in the U.S.  T-Mobile wasn't that bad (except in Deltaville) but I did want better if I could get it.
• They have to support GSM phones (since CDMA is only used in the US and, I think, Japan and I would like the option to use any phone I buy elsewhere...like, you know, the Bahamas, BVI, etc.).
• They need to have the ability to suspend service without disconnecting the number, for times I am out of the country and don't want to use that service. 

I guess there is one more "feature" I need to talk about.  The GSM phone needs to be unlocked.  Many cell phone companies lock the phone you get to their service.  This is done since they subsidize the cost of the phone and lock you into a contract to help offset the cost.  By doing this, you can't get that top of the line phone for $25 and then switch to another service the next week.  Recent laws and rules in the US now require the carriers to unlock the phones once you have fulfilled your obligation with them (typically a year or less).  The trick here is that you have to request it...so if you are planning to go outside the U.S. with your GSM cell phone, make sure you request the unlock before you leave.  

The reason you want to unlock the phone is simple.  In many places you go you can buy a pre-paid SIM card on the local wireless network and use it to make calls. This is often much cheaper than if you use your U.S. plan's international roaming rates.  With an unlocked phone, you can swap these SIM cards with your existing one and effectively swap your service without having to buy another handset.

There is one more problem with using one phone in multiple locales, though.  While unlocking a phone will allow you to use the phone on multiple "foreign" networks, some of the more advanced features may still not be available.  You see, even in the GSM and CDMA worlds, the carriers apparently have differences. Often the higher speed data access (those things labeled 3G, 4G, and LTE in all the marketing material) are done on different radio frequencies for different carriers in different countries.  Many of the phones don't have all the possible radios inside them to use all the different frequencies.  So, even with an unlocked phone, you may find your data connection is limited depending on the capabilities of your handset.  Best you can seem to do is to find a handset that uses at least some of the frequencies in the locations you intend to travel...and in the rest you may be limited to lower data speeds.

Well, that covers some of the things I'm looking for and some of the pitfalls that can be encountered.  Next time I'll take a look at some of the more interesting discount providers of cell phone service that I have found.