CLIMATE
CREW
INSIGHTS
My Military Grade Cell Phone
Posted : December 6, 2005
I'm doing bills last night, and I keep hearing this 'thunk.. thunk.. thunk...' emanating from the washer.. I stopped the cycle, opened the door, felt around, didn't see or feel anything weird, (other than wet soppy jeans) but noticed mary (my wife) decided to wash the dog's bedding, so thought maybe one of their dog toys got stuck in one of the zillion holes they chewed in their bed.. door closed, wash cycle resumed, thunking resumed, but ignored..
30 minutes later, mary comes downstairs, opens the wash to turn it over, and finds all these plastic parts & pieces in the washer, and we discover that my cell phone just made a full trip through the washing machine.. you know, the ones that have the front loading door and use gravity to wash the clothes? guess that explains where the thunk was coming from.. so much for my dog toy theory. I found the battery, the phone, the cover soaking wet, I literally drained the water out of the back of the phone and it was still drizzling through the key pad.. You would have thought that there would have been less water after a 10 minute 1500 RPM spin cycle, but oh well.. after a quick consolation pat on the back from mary, she headed upstairs; I'm still standing there, feeling like an idiot, and still in disbelief that I did that to my phone. As I sat there contemplating what model phone to buy next, I was momentarily interrupted by the gentle humming sound of the dryer.. I looked at the phone parts, back at the dryer.. hmmmm.. I went into the garage, and pulled out one of my heavy duty motorcycle boot socks.. that should protect the phone.. in go the phone parts, tied a knot, tossed it into the dryer.. cycle set to 'Delicate'... 20 minutes couldn't hurt any worse.. back to doing bills.
Bzzzt.. okay, let's see what happened.. opened the sock, took out the toasty warm cell phone parts, snapped the battery back in, and re-attached the cover plate.. looked at the front.. a little hazy still in the corners but man the phone is so clean now! Smells nice too.. what the heck.. pushed the button.... .. .. . nada.. oh well It was a long shot..
So I'm driving to work this morning, and I look down on the passenger seat and saw that for some reason, I obliviously took the cell phone with me as I would any other day. It's sort of just a rote habit, I forgot that the new phone 'plan' was to live a new life as my son athan's first toy cellphone. .. driving driving on, I looked back at the phone on the seat, and thought: hmm... what would happen if I plugged it into the DC charger cord? Plugged it in with a half glimmer of hope that the thing would magically spring back to life... uh, .. nope.. ya sure, nice try rob.. flung the thing back on the passenger seat, still plugged in. 60 minutes later..., I'm stuck in traffic, I'm looking out the window, I go to change the channel on the radio, and glanced back over at the passenger seat to see a dim 'Sprint' logo on the screen.. it was all garbled with black pixels, but sure enough there was *something* on that screen... I picked it up, the cell phone was now warm from being plugged in for an hour.. I pressed some buttons and saw that while I could barely read anything, it was alive! I decided to call mary to freak her out... The phone rang... she picked up ... and held silent for a minute.. "Um, how the $@##$ are you calling me?!!" She burst into laughter and didn't even give me time to respond... she interrupted the laughter, (which we both were doing at the top of our lungs), in a fit of what can only be described as jealousy.. see she of all people, knows how many times I've lost something, only to *miraculously* manage some brilliant recovery of the lost object... (some of you remember my glasses falling down the elevator shaft to LL2, and recovering them w/o a scratch, my hike though the woods earlier this spring only to loose my phone (again) and go on a hunt to recover it before dark, and actually FIND it in the middle of no where, in a leaf covered forest, the list is endless..) .... "no way... NO WAY!! ..." she said, all I could reply was "way ..." and that was that.
somehow, someway I manged to beat the odds on that one, I am not a particularly spiritual person, but days like today do make me wonder... I am most grateful for sure.
was a good laugh for us, thought I'd share the hilarity.
--
Robert V. Cavaleri
Sr. Technical Director
CREW
INSIGHTS
Posted : December 6, 2005
I'm doing bills last night, and I keep hearing this 'thunk.. thunk.. thunk...' emanating from the washer.. I stopped the cycle, opened the door, felt around, didn't see or feel anything weird, (other than wet soppy jeans) but noticed mary (my wife) decided to wash the dog's bedding, so thought maybe one of their dog toys got stuck in one of the zillion holes they chewed in their bed.. door closed, wash cycle resumed, thunking resumed, but ignored..
30 minutes later, mary comes downstairs, opens the wash to turn it over, and finds all these plastic parts & pieces in the washer, and we discover that my cell phone just made a full trip through the washing machine.. you know, the ones that have the front loading door and use gravity to wash the clothes? guess that explains where the thunk was coming from.. so much for my dog toy theory. I found the battery, the phone, the cover soaking wet, I literally drained the water out of the back of the phone and it was still drizzling through the key pad.. You would have thought that there would have been less water after a 10 minute 1500 RPM spin cycle, but oh well.. after a quick consolation pat on the back from mary, she headed upstairs; I'm still standing there, feeling like an idiot, and still in disbelief that I did that to my phone. As I sat there contemplating what model phone to buy next, I was momentarily interrupted by the gentle humming sound of the dryer.. I looked at the phone parts, back at the dryer.. hmmmm.. I went into the garage, and pulled out one of my heavy duty motorcycle boot socks.. that should protect the phone.. in go the phone parts, tied a knot, tossed it into the dryer.. cycle set to 'Delicate'... 20 minutes couldn't hurt any worse.. back to doing bills.
Bzzzt.. okay, let's see what happened.. opened the sock, took out the toasty warm cell phone parts, snapped the battery back in, and re-attached the cover plate.. looked at the front.. a little hazy still in the corners but man the phone is so clean now! Smells nice too.. what the heck.. pushed the button.... .. .. . nada.. oh well It was a long shot..
So I'm driving to work this morning, and I look down on the passenger seat and saw that for some reason, I obliviously took the cell phone with me as I would any other day. It's sort of just a rote habit, I forgot that the new phone 'plan' was to live a new life as my son athan's first toy cellphone. .. driving driving on, I looked back at the phone on the seat, and thought: hmm... what would happen if I plugged it into the DC charger cord? Plugged it in with a half glimmer of hope that the thing would magically spring back to life... uh, .. nope.. ya sure, nice try rob.. flung the thing back on the passenger seat, still plugged in. 60 minutes later..., I'm stuck in traffic, I'm looking out the window, I go to change the channel on the radio, and glanced back over at the passenger seat to see a dim 'Sprint' logo on the screen.. it was all garbled with black pixels, but sure enough there was *something* on that screen... I picked it up, the cell phone was now warm from being plugged in for an hour.. I pressed some buttons and saw that while I could barely read anything, it was alive! I decided to call mary to freak her out... The phone rang... she picked up ... and held silent for a minute.. "Um, how the $@##$ are you calling me?!!" She burst into laughter and didn't even give me time to respond... she interrupted the laughter, (which we both were doing at the top of our lungs), in a fit of what can only be described as jealousy.. see she of all people, knows how many times I've lost something, only to *miraculously* manage some brilliant recovery of the lost object... (some of you remember my glasses falling down the elevator shaft to LL2, and recovering them w/o a scratch, my hike though the woods earlier this spring only to loose my phone (again) and go on a hunt to recover it before dark, and actually FIND it in the middle of no where, in a leaf covered forest, the list is endless..) .... "no way... NO WAY!! ..." she said, all I could reply was "way ..." and that was that.
somehow, someway I manged to beat the odds on that one, I am not a particularly spiritual person, but days like today do make me wonder... I am most grateful for sure.
was a good laugh for us, thought I'd share the hilarity.
--
Robert V. Cavaleri
Sr. Technical Director
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