Pithy update: Melika and Nazy’s iPhone soaked in Chateau Lafite
It has been an event-filled week here in beautiful Santa Barbara. Work continued on THE STORAGE. The week began with boxes stacked high in Melika’s driveway. (The week ended with boxes stacked low in Melika’s driveway.) The family attacked the problem in different ways.
Mitra took photos of everything that was ‘hers’ and then, bewildered by the plethora and unable to down-select, she put everything into Stefan’s van and took it back to Los Angeles. (It is still in Stefan’s van.)
Darius had a large collection of books and had somehow cajoled Nazy into letting him add ‘his’ storage into ‘our storage’. He began the sorting task by re-reading all of the books. He found a piece of Mars and the Berlin Wall (at left) and a bottle of Chateau Rothschild LAFITE (2000) that had been stored for (many) years. He checked the prices and..
“This is a great bottle of wine, Dad.” Darius claimed.
“It’s been in a warehouse in Santa Barbara for years, Dar. Do you think it’s still drinkable?”
“I could put it on e-Bay.”
“Do you have to tell people where you kept this valuable bottle of wine?” I asked. “In particular, should you mention that it was wrapped in a pair of sweatpants?” I thought.
“We’ll just drink it, Dad.” Darius replied. “And hope it’s gone bad.” Darius thought.
As soon as we tasted the wine, which was great, we realized that, from a financial standpoint, it would have been wiser to sell it.
We also found Darius’ collection of airline wings. When he was five years old, he wrote a letter to ‘all the airlines’ asking for them to contribute to his ‘wing collection’.
Background note: In those (good old) days, the the domestic airlines were classy. Not only did they provide food (sometime even edible food), they gave away decks of cards and plastic ‘junior pilot’ wings to children. Darius wanted a complete collection. He had several real pilot wings that real pilots had given him when he talked to them while we were deplaning. He got a few more from his letter. Nazy sewed a display ‘snake’ for him. We found that in the storage. We also found pieces of the Berlin Wall that we had collected from suburban Berlin in early 1990.
We found about 40 boxes of books. Even though my library now fits on my iPad, I find it hard to discard books. In fact, all of us found it difficult to discard books. And, whenever we stopped to look through the books we ended up playing with Tiger or Arrow. Accordingly, we left that task for last. And, on Darius’ last full day in Santa Barbara, it..
“… rained overnight, Dan.” Nazy exclaimed. “The books are wet.”
“That’s too bad,” I replied. “That should simplify the sorting problem,” I thought.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) depending on how you look at it, most of the books were undamaged because: Santa Barbara August ‘rain’ is almost moisture-free. In fact, non-locals might mistake an August ‘rain’ for light fog. And..
“Fortunately, Nazy,” I said, “my college yearbooks were all spared.”
In the midst of the agonizing decision processes, I asked my siblings for advice. My brother David responded instantly:
“I have a very simple principle: Put it away, or sell it away, or give it away or throw it away.”
I replied quickly:
How very helpful, Dave. If I asked you for cooking advice, you probably say boil it, bake it, fry it, sauté’ it or eat it raw.
“Always happy to provide pithy advice,” David replied.
“I didn’t know you could write with a lisp,” I retorted.
“I knew you were going to do that. You should thank me for setting you up so nicely.”
We also found some more cool photos. We had a set of professional photos done right before we left Memphis for Vancouver. The photographer came to our house for the shoot and, while she was taking pictures of Nazy (the most photogenic), I was outside by the pool watching the children. Melika, racing round the pool on her tricycle, did not realize that the back wheels stuck out. She wasn’t happy when she fell into the pool.
And, speaking of submersion, Nazy dropped her iPhone 6 into a ‘sink’ full of water and she didn’t realize that it was submerged for several minutes. As soon as she retrieved it, she turned it on and triumphantly:
“It’s still working.., eh.”
Newsflash: You should not turn the phone on after it has been submerged.
Because Nazy’s phone had only a few more months on contract and because a new iPhone version is coming in a few months, we decided to swap my phone for her phone; I would fall back to my yellow Nokia 1020. And then:
“Your phone doesn’t charge, Dan.” Nazy claimed. Accurately.
We took my iPhone to Apple where a confident engineer pulled out a ‘lint removal tool’. But..
“Did you use a hammer attempting to charge that phone?” He asked … me. “It can’t be fixed,” he continued. “You can buy a new one,” he looked around, “Or.. you can go to a kiosk across the street, they can install a new charging port. Don’t mention my name.”
And, $25 later, we have a functional iPhone.
Mitra took photos of everything that was ‘hers’ and then, bewildered by the plethora and unable to down-select, she put everything into Stefan’s van and took it back to Los Angeles. (It is still in Stefan’s van.)
Darius had a large collection of books and had somehow cajoled Nazy into letting him add ‘his’ storage into ‘our storage’. He began the sorting task by re-reading all of the books. He found a piece of Mars and the Berlin Wall (at left) and a bottle of Chateau Rothschild LAFITE (2000) that had been stored for (many) years. He checked the prices and..
“This is a great bottle of wine, Dad.” Darius claimed.
“It’s been in a warehouse in Santa Barbara for years, Dar. Do you think it’s still drinkable?”
“I could put it on e-Bay.”
“Do you have to tell people where you kept this valuable bottle of wine?” I asked. “In particular, should you mention that it was wrapped in a pair of sweatpants?” I thought.
“We’ll just drink it, Dad.” Darius replied. “And hope it’s gone bad.” Darius thought.
As soon as we tasted the wine, which was great, we realized that, from a financial standpoint, it would have been wiser to sell it.
We also found Darius’ collection of airline wings. When he was five years old, he wrote a letter to ‘all the airlines’ asking for them to contribute to his ‘wing collection’.
Background note: In those (good old) days, the the domestic airlines were classy. Not only did they provide food (sometime even edible food), they gave away decks of cards and plastic ‘junior pilot’ wings to children. Darius wanted a complete collection. He had several real pilot wings that real pilots had given him when he talked to them while we were deplaning. He got a few more from his letter. Nazy sewed a display ‘snake’ for him. We found that in the storage. We also found pieces of the Berlin Wall that we had collected from suburban Berlin in early 1990.
Darius' Airline Wing Collection
In contrast to Darius and Mitra, Melika, although she did keep the Barbie Doll collection, was ruthless with ‘her’ stuff. I believe that this efficiency results from both personality and the fact that all the stuff was stacked in her driveway.
We found about 40 boxes of books. Even though my library now fits on my iPad, I find it hard to discard books. In fact, all of us found it difficult to discard books. And, whenever we stopped to look through the books we ended up playing with Tiger or Arrow. Accordingly, we left that task for last. And, on Darius’ last full day in Santa Barbara, it..
“… rained overnight, Dan.” Nazy exclaimed. “The books are wet.”
“That’s too bad,” I replied. “That should simplify the sorting problem,” I thought.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) depending on how you look at it, most of the books were undamaged because: Santa Barbara August ‘rain’ is almost moisture-free. In fact, non-locals might mistake an August ‘rain’ for light fog. And..
“Fortunately, Nazy,” I said, “my college yearbooks were all spared.”
In the midst of the agonizing decision processes, I asked my siblings for advice. My brother David responded instantly:
“I have a very simple principle: Put it away, or sell it away, or give it away or throw it away.”
I replied quickly:
How very helpful, Dave. If I asked you for cooking advice, you probably say boil it, bake it, fry it, sauté’ it or eat it raw.
“Always happy to provide pithy advice,” David replied.
“I didn’t know you could write with a lisp,” I retorted.
“I knew you were going to do that. You should thank me for setting you up so nicely.”
We also found some more cool photos. We had a set of professional photos done right before we left Memphis for Vancouver. The photographer came to our house for the shoot and, while she was taking pictures of Nazy (the most photogenic), I was outside by the pool watching the children. Melika, racing round the pool on her tricycle, did not realize that the back wheels stuck out. She wasn’t happy when she fell into the pool.
And, speaking of submersion, Nazy dropped her iPhone 6 into a ‘sink’ full of water and she didn’t realize that it was submerged for several minutes. As soon as she retrieved it, she turned it on and triumphantly:
“It’s still working.., eh.”
Newsflash: You should not turn the phone on after it has been submerged.
Because Nazy’s phone had only a few more months on contract and because a new iPhone version is coming in a few months, we decided to swap my phone for her phone; I would fall back to my yellow Nokia 1020. And then:
“Your phone doesn’t charge, Dan.” Nazy claimed. Accurately.
We took my iPhone to Apple where a confident engineer pulled out a ‘lint removal tool’. But..
“Did you use a hammer attempting to charge that phone?” He asked … me. “It can’t be fixed,” he continued. “You can buy a new one,” he looked around, “Or.. you can go to a kiosk across the street, they can install a new charging port. Don’t mention my name.”
And, $25 later, we have a functional iPhone.
For last week's letter, click here
More on Darius’ trip next week. In the meantime, a few photos from 1983
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