I’ve got a slow few days ahead of me so lots of spare time…and it’s time for me to do some high-tech shopping, my favorite kind but sadly it means replacing my beloved laptop and cell-phone. Both have been with me through thick and thin but are battered and beat-up horribly. My laptop’s screen no longer stays up without being braced and the plastic has been scarred and stained after taking a bath in some gasoline. The fans shriek occasionally and the left edge of the screen is all rainbowed from a big magnet. I still love it though; it feels like I’m putting down a faithful old dog.

As for my phone, it recently began acting up and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. When I fly I have a really nice headset that simultaneously lets me use an MP3 player, a Bluetooth cell phone, and the aircraft radios. We always fly with the phones connected to send and receive updates from the ops folks and I hardly ever go anywhere without my music. But whenever connectivity between my phone and the headset was established, it began randomly starting its built-in MP3 player and streaming music over the Bluetooth connection. Mildly annoying but I just kept turning it off. Then it began including everyone in my phone book in my send-to list for flight update text messages. It gets expensive sending text messages to 100+ numbers scattered over 4 continents, and then receiving confused replies. The funniest was from an awesome lady who almost became my mother-in-law awhile back. She texted me something like, “R U OK? I DN’T KNW WHT THT ALL MEANS, U NEED HELP? CALL YOUR MOM?”

And the final straw was when it began dialing numbers from my phone book at random.

The first time was pretty funny, at least to me, which means it gets put in writing here. Sometime last week my bird was empty in the back except for me as we flew back from a base called FOB Wolverine so I was laying down taking a well-earned nap and listening to my music. “November Rain” by Guns & Roses was playing when I heard a voice mixed in with the music saying, “Dude, what’s up? Hey...are you there? Hellooo...” In my sleepy state I figured that the pilots were trying to say something to me so I reached up and hit the push-to-talk button on the intercom and mumbled a whaddyawant and got back a “wtf blah blah blah...” in Russian so I killed the intercom. Meanwhile the voice was getting angrier and then I realized it was Dan, one of the Army ops guys I met years ago over here who is back for another tour. We spent a few confusing moments asking each other what we wanted, then each of us saying that we each called each other. Good thing we’re not women or we would have been at it all day, instead I just said I’d talk to him later. Later that day it dialed a weather briefing hot-line and then my sweet but oh so bubbly and talkative friend, Angel who said I called at the perfect time (we were on short final to a really busy LZ) for her to bring me up to speed on life in her corner of the country.

So yeah, now I have to make the decision about which phone to get. I need something tough and gnarly but also somewhat stylish and modern. Right now it’s a toss-up between the quad-band Samsung B5702 and the Pantech C810.

The dual SIM card capability of the Samsung is something that really appeals to me because between AWCC and Roshan, there is coverage over most all of the areas of Afghanistan that I fly to. Plus I might be able to get the company to spring for buying it because that’ll save a bundle of cash in sat-phone charges for calls that I make outside of the Roshan coverage area. But I’ve still got a broken thumb from my nasty accident in Iraq and it’s so hard to text on that style of phone. The QWERTY keyboard sure looks appealing.

Pantech

Samsung




I haven’t even begun searching for the replacement computer but I guess this will all be my early birthday present to myself. That and a big kabob dinner. I’m so easy to please I scare myself sometimes.