Update

Last night I watched the Steel Magnolias on the Lifetime network. I think this was the first time I had watched the movie from start to finish. I saw several things in the movie that I had seen on the trip to Natchitoches. The round brick columns where the character played by Shirley MacLaine struggled to tie up her dog were pointed out to us by the guide. The church where the wedding took place was draped in so much pink fabric that I hardly recognized it. The Christmas light display along the river was very similar to what we saw. Our guide told us the movie was shot in the hot part of summer and the actors really suffered in winter clothes in the Louisiana summer heat. There was also a street scene in the historic district that was close to where our group went into the coffee shop to get out of the cold.

My check from Aetna for my flu shot finally arrived in the mail yesterday. They paid only seventy percent of the cost. I am just glad to be able to check this off my list of irritants. Next year I will just walk in and show my Medicare card and get my shot. My wish for 2006 is that I have very few dealings with insurance companies.

There is not going to be a Treo 650 smartphone in my Christmas stocking. I have studied all the rules and obstacles that SprintPCS puts in the path and decided it is not worth the cost. Verizon and Cingular also offer the Treo 650, but their data plans are more expensive than Sprint’s. In order to get the $150 discount from Sprint I would have to sign a two-year contract. There is a $35 activation fee for a new phone. Also the voice plan that I am currently on would have to be changed to one that costs $6.50 more a month plus I would have to pay $15 more a month to get web and picture mail access. This is just too much. I have been a customer of Sprint’s since 1999.

When I first got a cell phone, I read about prepaid plans and got the impression they were for people with bad credit ratings that could not qualify for regular monthly plans, and the per minutes costs were much higher than regular plans. I have a friend who told me she is on a prepaid plan and what her monthly costs run. They are considerably lower than mine. I rarely use more than half of my minutes each month.

I started looking at T-Mobile’s website. They have what they call a Pay as You Go plan. It has a number of nice features: no contract, nice phones and once you spend $100 on minutes you get a bonus of at least 15 percent on purchased minutes and once the $100 threshold is passed the minutes do not expire for a year. T-Mobile offers the silver Motorola Razr on the prepaid plan. It is a quad band GSM phone that works around the world. Local SIM cards can be purchased and used in an unlocked GSM phone. I called T-Mobile and asked them if their phone was unlocked. I was told the phone is locked, but once you have owned the phone for 90 days they will unlock it. I sent them an email. I want them to confirm that they will unlock the phone in writing. I looked at T-Mobile’s coverage maps for Beaumont and for Frisco, Texas. They claim to have decent signal strength in both areas. They told me the phone can be returned within 20 days if I am not pleased with their service. I printed out their agreement and see there may be a restocking fee for a returned phone, but still they seem to have fewer obstacles than the other providers.

Apple has already sent me the FedEx tracking number for the iPod earpads that I ordered yesterday morning. I thought that was remarkable considering that I placed the order on a Saturday. This was the first time I had placed an order with them. Amazon.com and Alldirect.com have not even gotten credit authorizations on my card. This is always the first step when an order is being processed.