Powerfully connected with tiny cords

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Tom Buske changed my life with a solar battery pack.

To be fair, I could have changed my own life, but I was too stubborn. I’m sure you’re shocked.

I do pretty much everything but write these stories on my phone. I schedule our Facebook page, answer emails, send emails, take a gabillion pictures, take a gabillion screen shots, look for loads, wonder how anyone keeps up with Twitter, check Todd Campbell’s Instagram feed (because Todd Campbell has the baddest old cabovers on the road),
text the kids, video chat with our nieces and nephews, read the news, attempt contact with the aliens, and cast evil spells, all day long.

Needless to say, I race through battery power like an indoor grow operation. My phone once got so hot, NASA put the truck on their radar as an incoming meteorite. My phone case is an oven mitt. I thought I had skin cancer, until I realized it was just burn scars on my hands from clutching my battery-eating, always-tethered-to-the-inverter-or-wall-plug-with-a-charger-cord phone.

I’ll cut you …I’ll cut you …

Here’s where I could have changed my own life, but was too stubborn. One of the issues is that I’m carrying a Galaxy III phone around, acting like it has the capability to do the things my Galaxy V could, before I dropped it for the one millionth, and finally fatal, time. See, we upgrade the phones every two years, when we do the contract thing, so the Galaxy III was put in a drawer a year and a half ago, when I gleefully opened my Galaxy V. Unfortunately, the V didn’t turn out to be as sturdy as the III, and we parted ways when I put it in the same drawer and retrieved my trusty, although power hungry, III.

I know you’re wondering if I’m too silly to have insurance on a seven hundred dollar phone, and yes, we had insurance, but the deductible is $150, and we’re three months from contract renewal and free, brand-new phones, and I’ll be damned if I give Verizon one more thin dime when I have an old phone that still works. Also, it’s my own fault for breaking the dang thing, so I’m suffering the consequences. (Martyr alert.)

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Anyway, when we were at GATS last month, we stopped to see Tom at the Tough Tested booth. We’ve known him for a couple of years. He’s a great guy and we always make a point to see him at the shows. We got to talking, and for whatever reason, I whipped out my phone to reference some obscure information, and it was dead. I regaled Tom with the same story you just had to suffer through, about killing the Galaxy V, because I’m consistently annoying like that.

The next day, Tom sent me a thoughtful gift in the form of a solar powered battery pack. Not only did he send the pack, he sent a charger cord you can plug in either way – no more turning the thing around seventy two times in the dark, or light, or whatever the conditions may be. I swear to you, before the new cord, I had never once hit the hole the first time, and couldn’t do it if my life depended on it. I was so super excited about the cord thing, and a little cautiously uplifted by the battery pack – I had two small auxiliary batteries my phone chewed through like cheap bubble gum, so I wasn’t as jazzed about the battery pack. Until I used it.

I have yet to kill it. My phone has yet to kill it. I don’t know what it’s made of, and I don’t care. It doesn’t get hot, it doesn’t make my phone hot, and it charges with the energy of the freaking sun. It’s magic. I can close my eyes, plug my cord into it and the phone, and do all the things, for as long as I want to, while walking around freely, with my trusty magic power pack. I feel like Bilbo Baggins.

Is my phone still tethered to something all the time? Yes. Yes it is. But that something can move with me, and no matter how many times I drop it, it won’t die. At least it hasn’t yet. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, keep your paws off my battery pack.