Here's my new phone next to the ruined one:
About a week ago, my beloved cell phone got sent through the washing machine. Apparently this doesn't mean sudden death for all phones, but mine was still turned on. We let it dry out for 3 days and put it back together. The battery could charge, but it wouldn't read the SIM card, which would render the phone useless. We hassled the T-Mobile guy in Heber and all he could give us was a cheap phone plus a 2-year contract extension. I really liked my old one and was confident I could find another one on Ebay. There was a company that had many phones up for grabs for only $1 (plus $9 shipping), but there was a lady who decided to come in at the last second and buy almost every single one of them! She seriously bought 8 of them within 10 hours. The ones that weren't won by her were grabbed by all sorts of people. I finally bought one (buy-it-now) for less than $20 from another company.
I've been mocked before for not having an up-to-date phone that flips and has a camera, but there is something to be said about the brick:
- Durable. You can drop it on tile, break into 5 pieces, put it back together and it works just fine!
- Amazing reception. I get bars in places where Bevan's phone doesn't.
- Long battery life. With normal daily talking, about 3-4 days of life!
- Thick phone holds well against your shoulder when you need your hands. Skinny phones slip.
- Not too complicated, but just enough features that you would really need.
- Deters theft. I mean, who would steal this?!
- I also couldn't believe how high in demand these phones are. This particular model has gotten rave reviews from real people. At a good price, this phone will be bought quickly.
So anyway, I feel like Greg Kinnear in "You've Got Mail" when he writes about his love for his typewriter. It's not how new your phone is or how fancy all the extras are, but if it fits what you need it to do. And what I need it to do right now... is to make an interesting blog post. Hope it worked!
I never realized how huge Deer Valley is. Normally you're assigned to a certain part of the resort and just ski that area. It was a goal of ours for a couple years now to ski a run off of every lift. To ski every run is crazy since there are 99 documented runs at Deer Valley. To ski every groomed run is also almost impossible since there are usually 60-65 runs that get groomed. So just for kicks, we wanted to know how long it would take us to ride every lift. We started at the Gondola and worked our way over to Empire. Then back to Bald Mountain, and finally the 2 bunny lifts and the base area high-speed quad to get us back to our car. Ironically the lifts that took the most amount of time to ride were those 2 bunny hill lifts. There was a huge line of kids, the lift was going super slow, and Bevan liked to stop and chat with the lifties, whom he normally supervises. It was a fun experience and we left extremely tired and hungry (who can afford food at Deer Valley?). Here's a picture of us at the Gondola. Actually, we took this last year. We forgot our camera. 
