Walt's Corner

TLDR: Having two iPhones with the same Apple ID wreaks havoc with my text messages, voicemail, and hotspot. Change the password on one for the hotspot and it changes it on the other. Throw an iPad in the mix and have one iPhone’s hotspot turned off, the iPad will turn that hotspot on and connect. Apple ID was the culprit. My fix was to ditch one of the iPhones and replace with a droid. Problem solved and an extra $100 in my pocket per month for switching to T-Mobile.

Full story. My first cell phone was circa 1996. Was a Motorola StarTAC flip phone. Battery was thicker than the phone. I want to say my carrier was Cellular One. 20 minutes of talk-time came with the phone. There was no texting. Talking to other people on the same network didn’t count towards those minutes, provided they resided in large area that encompassed us both. My sister had one too on the same carrier so we got to chat as long as we wanted, limited only by our battery packs. And you kept a couple of those bad boys at arm’s length at all times.

Then I moved to Texas and had to change both my number and carrier, but kept the phone. Details are hazy to this old memory, but I think that the carrier changed names because it was bought by another – VoiceStream. Within a couple years after that VoiceStream was bought out by T-Mobile. It was at this point I had a flip phone. Can’t even remember the brand but it did the job. Made phone calls, had voicemail, and rudimentary texting via the keypad.

In 2004 appeared the first phone that I actually wanted because of what it was – the razr by Motorola. It was sleek. Sexy. Metal. Shiny. Damn thing cost $500 with a 2-year contract. First time I ever paid for a phone outside of the usual 2 year contract. Before then your phones were usually free as long as you honored the contract.

When I tried to get one, T-Mobile would not sell me one. They said it was for new customers only. I said fine, terminate my account and let’s start a new one. Ported my phone number over to the new account and got my new razr. Since I was technically a repeat customer of T-Mobile and not one coming over from another network I had to pay full price for that motherfucker. And I did. I wasn’t happy about that, but that’s how bad I wanted that phone.

I was quite happy with that phone until murmurs of an Apple iPhone started sounding. Something that would merge the convenience of my cell phone and my Palm Pilot, akin to the BlackBerry but without the button keyboard. Being a long-time fan of the defunct Apple Newton, this seemed like the next logical step. June 2007 would be my long anticipated date of getting my hands on one. In the meantime, I would have to settle for having the iPhone’s signature ring-tone played over my razr. That was pretty funny too. When that ring-tone would go off peoples’ heads would snap! WHO HAD AN IPHONE ALREADY?

Knowing that the iPhone would only be released on the AT&T network, we started working towards that goal early on by switching the rest of the family over to AT&T prior to the event. I’d be the remaining holdout on T-Mobile with the razr until I replaced it with the iPhone. I got up early, headed to the AT&T store and got in line. Early. Rumor had it only 100 phones would be available. I was number 3 in line. It was a long wait that day too. The store opened. But there were no iPhones yet. They were scheduled to be delivered by FEDEX to the store that day. The shipment arrived to the store around 10:30AM and they didn’t start seeing us customers for the iPhones until around 11:30 or so. By 2PM I had mine and was out the door. We then immediately started our summer vacation by using the Maps app on the phone to get to my folks new house in Jackson, MS. I had never been there yet.

We stayed with AT&T from that point until just this month, with me leap-frogging every other iPhone year since I’d be on a 2-year contract.

During COVID I wanted to have another line dedicated to work since most of us were teleworking at the time. I did not want to give out my personal phone number to a hundred different customers every month. I ended up getting a burner phone and that worked out OK. Having the convenience of this second phone grew on me and eventually I just added an additional line to our existing AT&T account and would get the iPhone SE. It ended up costing about as much as having my burner phone. And of course the phone was free. Or near free. I think they charged me a dollar for it. I chose the rose gold one. Because if I had to pay THAT much money for it, it better be gold. After a few years, I ended up getting the iPhone 15 Pro Max (hereafter referred to as just “15”) while my “work” phone was an iPhone 12 mini (hereafter, “12”).

Here are where my problems started getting bigger. I had already worked through the issues of texting on two different lines with one Apple ID. I had to instruct my 12 NOT to use iMessage. Otherwise my customers would end up knowing my iMessage account and I didn’t want that. I couldn’t find a fix for the other problem I was experiencing – voicemails for both lines were showing up on both phones. Another issue is that I use my 15 as a hot spot for my iPad. I didn’t want my iPad to connect to the work phone’s hotspot, so I would turn that hotspot off. But that didn’t stop the iPad from turning it on and connecting to it. Crazy right? Why the fuck is my 12, that has its hotspot capabilities turned off, turning on and allowing my iPad to connect to it? I took it a step further and designated a different password for that hotspot. That’s when I realized some strange things were afoot at the Circle-K.

When I gave the 12 a different password than the 15, some fuckery started occurring. The iPad would still connect to it. Even though I never typed that password into the iPad to join that network. So I looked at the settings on the 15 and guess what? That hotspot password had changed to the hotspot password of the 12. More experimentation provided the same results in reverse. Change the password on the 15 and it would automatically change on the 12. Turns out Apple ID was the culprit. I don’t want to have two separate Apple IDs, so my fix was to get an android device for the work phone.

And guess what Android device I ended up getting? The new Motorola razr 2024. I’ve come full circle. It’s not as elegant as my iPhone to be sure, but it is a nice phone. I’m getting used to the external display. Not to mention all my issues have gone away now. My voice mail is separated. My texts don’t combine. And my iPad hasn’t once connected to my razr.

The cherry on top? We are paying about $100 less per month with T-Mobile.

I must be the only person who despises smart TVs. I want a dumb TV. I mean, I can’t even walk into Walmart and pick one out that I like.

We cut the cord over a decade ago and never looked back. Relying on over the air broadcast for our local news. And that’s pretty much all we use local TV for – their morning and evening news shows. I certainly don’t sit down any evening at a given time to watch a certain show from, say, 8-7PM. 20 years ago, yes. But that was also the beginning of my transition from over-the-air/cable/satellite broadcast to online streaming. I’d buy the “season pass” to Lost, and would no longer have to make sure my butt was parked on the sofa for an hour the show mandated during my week. I’d watch it at my convenience without trying to have it being recorded by some other device.

Which takes me to my smart-TV dilemma. Fuck these smart TVs and their clunky interfaces. What happened to just turning on your TV and BAM! There was your channel. Instantly. No waiting for it to “update.” No trying to change my channel through some awkward keypad on the screen that doesn’t even correlate to the keypad on the remote (I’m looking at you, Vizio). No more TV trying to make me watch my over-the-air newscast via streaming over the internet just. Because it can. The fuck is that all about? My TV told me my Channel 7 can be streamed instead of watching it over the air and oh wouldn’t I just get all happy for that? Fuck. That. Shit.

Hard.

So yeah. I found a nice Westinghouse 24 inch on Prime Day to replace that piece of shit Vizio Smart TV I had hanging in the kitchen. I cannot express how happy I am with it. Turn it on and immediately it’s on the channel I left it on.

Freedom! That feeling I got when we cut the cord over, what? A Decade ago? No more cable or satellite subscriptions. Paying for shit that I didn’t need.

I recall one year DirecTV offered me some NFL ticket for free as part of my package. I politely refused. I don’t watch sports. “But sir, that’s a $400 a year value!” Not to me. How about fuck your football and just comp me the $400? No? Didn’t think so. Must not really be worth $400 then, eh?

I’ve felt the same way with 1Password for a long time now. Ever since they switched over to a subscription model. But I was trapped! I had all my passwords in there, and the included password keeper that came with my iPhone or iPad just wasn’t snazzy enough to meet my minimal needs – passwords and notes.

Until now. Before i/iPadOS 18 the built in password app was part of a device setting. Now it is its own full fledged application, icon and all. And it has everything I need. I saw it on the horizon; knew it was coming. In preparation, I cancelled my 1Password subscription back in July and made sure all the passwords I needed, as I used them, were entered into the system password settings app.

If 1Password only had kept the buy once per major numerical version, they’d still have me. As it is, I’m super-stoked with the new Passwords app on my iPhone.

Thought I would try something different this weekend and it turned out pretty darned good. This will eventually be the Fiesta Burger

For starters, I like to use ground sirloin for all my ground beef needs. It just tastes meatier. Steakier. Yeah, I just made that word up. Straight sirloin – unless I’m literally smoking a burger – then I mix sirloin with some ground chuck for some fattier beef that renders down to meat juice when smoked. But this was not going to be a smoked burger. This is going to be my take on the TexMex burger.

For this burger I used straight ground sirloin. I seasoned them with some Fiesta brand Fajita Seasoning instead of salt and pepper. Liberally on both sides. I started the cook on the indirect side, covered, and let the patties come up to medium well. At this point, I removed the cover and threw the buns over the direct coals to toast the buns. They don’t take very long. This also allows the coals to get a bit more hot being exposed to all that open air and the burgers are ready to sear.

I placed the burgers directly over the hot coals and brushed a little melted butter over the top so that it drips into the coals causing a flare up which helps to sear the first side to a charry, buttery finish. Flipped the burger to sear the other side and about halfway through my desired char level of that second side I added a slice of pepper jack cheese and let it finish searing and removed from the grill.

I placed the melted cheese-topped patty on the bun, added some fresh made pico de gallo. For the initial tasting of this experiment I also had a wee bit of mustard. I wanted to see how well the flavor of the cheese and pico got along with the burger. It was delicious. Pico recipe will be listed at the end. Served up with fries cooked in peanut oil and Heinz Chili Sauce for dip.

Next step to this burger will be to lose the mustard and put a layer of guacamole on the bottom bun, followed by the pico on the guac, then the burger with the pepperjack and some sour cream on top of the burger. Placing the pico on the guac will help hold the pico in place. It wanted to fall all over the place.

Pico is super easy to make. This recipe will make you about a quart container full. For my batch I use:

• 8 romas, diced
• 6 jalapeños, diced
• 1 small red onion (I usally sub bunch of green onions but I couldn’t find any decent ones), diced
• half a bunch of cilantro (don’t be scared of them stems), chopped
• juice of 3 small limes, and
• kosher salt to taste.

Self proclaimed coffee expert, James Hoffman, tries the most expensive cup of coffee to see it’s worth it, but in my opinion leaves out the most important information – was the cup and spoon made from real gold and did he get to keep it?

He does a good job explaining why island coffees are as good as they are and how production costs can factor into the final result. Where an excellent coffee bean can be had for around $10/pound raw, a similar island coffee such as Kona or Blue Jamaican can run upwards of $30-40/pound. At least that is what it would cost me as someone who buys raw coffee cherries (beans) and roasts my own for brewing.

What I want to know is how much is that cup and spoon, and do you get to keep it? If that cup and spoon set costs $300 on the open market, and they are charging $35 for the actual espresso, than maybe it is worth it in the eyes of someone who wants that cup set.

Only a few people on this planet have tasted my coffee beans roasted here at Casa Basil. Very rare. Perhaps I should think about going commercial?