Quick Trip to Texas

We’re headed out to the San Antonio/Austin area for a couple of days, to finalize a rental house.  Our house in Atlanta hasn’t yet sold, and we need to be in Texas, so we’re going to rent.  We have a few choices – a two-building cabin setup, on the river; a three-bedroom house on the fringe of a horse farm; a big house sort of on the two-lane highway across from the high school; a two-bedroom house with a detached loft apartment.  None of these places are very big, and none are what we ultimately want – we just need a place to be, and we need to get going.  We’ve got pictures of some of these places, but we’re not comfortable making this choice from the Internet – so we’re headed out to look at the places, have dinner with the inlaws, write a lease, and get an address.  

I’ll probably take my PC, the blackberry, and a personal cell phone.  Wonder how long it’ll be before I can get away with a two-day trip without the PC?  Email – check.  Reading attachments – check.  Getting to a number of IBM websites – check.  Creating/Editing quick Powerpoint charts and Excel spreadsheets seem to be my downfall.  Even if I had something like the Tilt or Centro, I’m not sure I could really get what I need done.  Seems a shame.  Wonder if the iPhone SDK will address my issue?

Kids and Cell Phones

Now both kids have a cell phone.  Kendall has had one for about a year, and I have to say it’s come in quite handy.  He’s done a great job of managing the use of his phone, and controlling the urge to use the phone inappropriately (whether time of day or types of downloads).  We got Kiana a cell phone this week, and we gave it to her last night, as a part of the end-of-school-year celebration. 

We got her a cell phone for a couple of reasons.  Primarily, when we move to Wimberley at the end of the month, we’re going to cut the cord – we’re not getting a land line.  So – we’re reasoning (rationalizing?) that all four of us need a cell phone, to remain accessible.   Secondarily, we want her to feel like part of this digital family.  We noticed that spend a lot of time engaged in digital pursuits, and although Kiana has an iPod for communication, and a Nintendo DS for gaming, she isn’t able to take part in the messaging and phoning that we all do amongst each other.

We “solved” that with a new Blackberry Pearl.  It’ just like Mom’s phone, it has a keyboard for all of the texting she’ll do, it’s small enough for a little purse or pocket, it’s a candybar so there are no hinges or sliders to break, and we’ve found the Blackberry to be a little workhorse and not prone to easy breakage if dropped.  Kiana absolutely loves it.  She’s still figuring out the functionality, and because both Mom and Dad are BB users, she’s got lots of questions and is intent on getting the right answers.  

We know this isn’t something we would have done this summer, had we not been moving.  We’re a little early on the whole kids and cell phones thing, with our 11 year-old.  That said – we think we’ve covered all of the appropriate parenting bases – but I’m sure there are some yet uncovered.  We had the conversation about appropriate usage, we subscribe to the unlimited family plan with texting, we’ve put on the parental controls feature, and we’re monitoring the usage.  I’ll be watching closely – hope this goes well… 

Our kids didn’t get them *this* early…