I’m trying to track my mom’s flight from Japan. I have to get up at the same time I always do to drive out to PDX to pick her up tomorrow. It’ll be nice to see her home, but I wonder if she’ll like the cold wet weather. It looks like it was in the 60°F’s and sunny there.

I was surprised that I didn’t have that much hassle upgrading to my new iPhone 4S. I paid (in scientific terms) a metric shit-ton for an official, unlocked phone from Apple and all I had to do is pop out the SIM card from my iPhone 4 and pop it into m iPhone 4S. Then there was the requisite painful restore-from-backup but that’s because I have (in scientific terms) a buttload of crap on the phone. Compare this to the purchase of an AARP-approved phone for my mom. That took me a half-hour of waiting and then another 15 minutes of going through all the paperwork. To be clear, she used to have my old Blackberry with all the damn buttons when what she really wanted was a phone with speed dial for my sister and for me. Fortunately, AT&T still has those phones for sale!

I got my cell phone bill from Japan and it’s a bit expensive. I rent a Japanese phone for the convenience of having a Japanese number and using my US phone in Japan would be even more ridiculously expensive than this. The “Web” and “Adjustment for Web” are what really get me, since all I did was look at the “Maps” app. I also didn’t make that many phone calls, so I’m not sure why it cost me $70. But again, it’s still cheaper than using my US phone because the calls would have the cost of going from my phone in Japan, to the US, and back to a Japanese phone. Oh, and the US prices I have are an estimate, because I’m not sure what exchange rate they’re going to use.

And there you have it. For a guy who still has two separate wired phone lines to the house, I sure do have a bunch of cell phone drama.