Null Zone

We live in the land beyond cell phone service. Mountainous regions have places where the signal just doesn't reach. My house is in one such pocket. It doesn't bother me. The land line works just fine -most of the time.

I do own a cell phone of sorts. It's one of those cheap, pay-as-you-go phones. On the road, it's nice to be able to make the occasional phone call. Since the death of pay phones, it's my last option. When my favorite campgrounds removed their pay phones, I had to do something. There are no killer applications on my phone. It's . . . a phone . . . for talking. Please don't send a text message to it, I don't know what to with it.

New visitors to my place stare in dazed amazement at the lack of connection. Going to a window doesn't help. Going outside doesn't work either. However, hike a few short miles down the road and it's sometimes possible to get weak spotty reception.

Saw a cool thing with an iPhone. My friend demonstrated it's GPS function. What it produced was a dot in the middle of a blank screen. Turns out, the phone gets its maps over the cell phone connection: no connection, no map. I guess it's possible to download a map before heading into the null zone, but you've got to remember to do it.

One thing living in the null zone has taught me: people check their darn phones an awful lot. It's funny the first five or six times a guest checks their phone, but it gets kinda sad after that. What is it about out society that insists we be on call all the time? I once had a job where I was on call all the time, but I was paid for the inconvenience. People do realize it's an inconvenience right?

So yeah, I'm a bit out of touch. Try leaving a message on my home phone. By the way, Fairpoint, the landline phone company that provides my phone service, well, they went bankrupt.
I wonder if I'll have no phone service at all one of these days. It'll sure be nice and quiet.

-Sixbears