You "Should" Use Airplane Mode More Often

So, I have a pretty decent phone plan.  Well, it's okay.  The price is right.  Anyway...  We recently spent about a week at our trailer and within the first hour of arriving I receive a text message.  "You've exceeded your monthly data by 1GB so far this month."  Well damn.  I'm not near WiFi and don't plan to be for a week, so damn, what do I do?  I instantly placed my phone on Airplane Mode.

The first day wasn't so bad... What am I saying! It was awful!  Checking my phone has become such a habit that I was still looking at this thing constantly even though I could only use it for phone calls (ew) and pictures.  We eventually decided to go sit by the lake and so I left my phone behind.  It was such a relaxing time that I completely forgot about my phone.  We watched these white and grey birds dive in and out of the water catching fish.  We argued over whether they were Kingfishers or Black Skimmers.  We read books.  We splashed around in the lake.  It was great.  By the time we made our way back to the trailer, refreshed and sunburned, my phone was not even on my mind.  We fired up the barbecue and had a couple of cold drinks.  After dinner we continued to just relax and read and watch the sunset (super cheesy but also super adorable).

The next day went much smoother.  My phone stayed inside and we, for the most part, stayed outside.  I would occasionally grab my phone to play a quick round of some little tank game that does not require internet, but for the most part, I was free.  A few more days of a phone-less existence went just as well.  No.  It went better.  I had not felt as relaxed as that in a long time and it was all because my obsession with my phone put me over my data.  Well, and my fear of being charged an obnoxious amount for doing so.

What I learned from this was, Airplane Mode is a really good thing.  After a while of not receiving any notifications, I slowly disconnected myself from my phone.  We spent the rest of our trailer time chatting with neighbours, having a few drinks, taking our dogs for a swim and relaxing at the beach.

Before I get into the "People need to disconnect more" speech I'll start with this: I know you can't just disconnect.  You're busy, I'm busy and not having that phone handy is not really an option.  Once my billing period reset I flipped that Airplane Mode switch so hard my screen cracked (not really).  After a day or so of heavy phone usage, I checked my used data.  To my surprise I had used nearly 1GB already.  After seeing that figure, I decided I needed to make a little change, at least for the rest of the summer.  I'm turning off my data.  That way, I can still use WiFi when at home or a friends and calls (ew) or messages will still come through.

I'll leave you with this:

Disconnecting is not always an option, but shutting off your data access can be.  You can at least disconnect from data heavy social media sites.

Thanks for listening!

D.S. Cannon

I'll Finish This Later...

I've said those words more times than I can count. From the two unread books next to my bed, the countless Netflix series, the four unpublished blog posts on this site and other writings I'm not sure if it's just the summer months or my "busy" life but I just cannot seem to finish things these days.

My attempt at getting back into reading came after Game of Thrones Season six ended, I know that was a while ago, but I set out to read the first book before Season seven aired.  It's a long read, but I had a year to do it.  So, I went to Chapters in Toronto just before a plane ride to Nashville and picked up the book.  I had it all planned out, I have the time spent waiting at the airports for our flights, two plane rides and some down time on our trip to get to reading.

So, we get to the airport terminal and we had about three hours to kill before our flight.  The military taught me very early on that if you're not early for something, then you're late.  As I rummaged through my bag for my newly purchased copy of A Game of Thrones my phone buzzed.  I delayed my search for the book to check my phone, after all it could be an important message from a family member.  It was definitely not important.  It was my phone asking me if I would like to connect to the airport WiFi since it remembered the connection from a previous trip.  This is great, I thought.  Now I can watch Netflix.  So I delayed my plan to spend a couple of hours reading, after all I still had the plane ride and everything after.

On the plane and ready to taxi to the runway, I cracked the book.  As I began to read I was relating the story to the show and it was great.  Putting faces to the names, understanding why some things were different and trying to figure out why some things were changed.  I spent the duration of the flight (only 3 hours) reading A Game of Thrones.

And that's where I left it.  The book went back into my backpack and didn't see the light of day for nearly two years when I pulled it out to switch my bags around.  I told myself the entire trip that I need to get back into it, but I always put it off for something else.

Maybe A Game of Thrones was a daunting read for someone who is not much of a reader.  So, maybe I need to start somewhere easier.  Recently, my wife and I purchased the complete Harry Potter series.  She was really interested in getting into them and so we made a trip to a book store and picked them out.  Now I have another book reading plan.  Wait for her to finish a book, then we watch the movie, then I read that book.  And so, I hope with her pressing me to read a series she's interested in maybe I'll get through a book.  Maybe even a series.  I'll let you know how it goes though.

Oh, and for those unfinished blog posts.  I'll finish them later...