Friends with Benefits

That's my dependable old Audiovox 9155 cell phone. Well, at least it was old dependable. I got it in 2003, to replace another old Audiovox phone. Audiovox is not exactly a chic brand, but these phones have treated me well. It has a larger battery than most and I think better reception. And I haven't had to sign a contract to get a new phone.

But the point of this is that the most used buttons have started to not function reliably. The button is a typical printed circuit keypad, pushing the button forces a conductive layer down on a parallel set of contacts closing the circuit. Similar to TV remotes and many other devices. I tried cleaning it, but no avail.

I looked at the new phones Verizon would give me for signing a new contract. But I couldn't find one I felt it was worth signing a contract for. Instead, I bought the same model phone off eBay and scavenged parts out of it. That's the donor phone on the right.

I am not much of an electrical engineer. Luckily, someone else did all the engineering on this. I just had to take it apart and replace the offending keypad with the one from the eBay phone. I think it involve five small screws and some snap fit joints.

I am really happy I don't have to get a new phone. Learn how to program it, transfer my numbers, etc. And the phones I would have considered, I think Verizon would have tried to make me up my service level for anyway. I am a little concerned though. There used to be hundreds of auctions on eBay for compatible batteries. Now there are only a few. The next time I need to replace the battery, I may not be able to. But I think I probably have a year and half to three years (depending on how good the battery from the donor phone turns out to be). But then I probably will have to bite the bullet and get a new phone. Till then I guess I am foot loose and fancy free...

And in other news, we got about ten yards of poop.

We need to improve the soil in the backfield. We called around and compost was available for $55 a yard, minimum of 10 yards plus delivery. Luckily, my wife has a friend who found us a source of organic cow manure. And we didn't have to put all ten yards in the van! The friend had access to a small dump truck and we got the bulk of it that way. We got maybe two yards of old, dry, well composted manure into the back of the van (on a tarp) and onto a small trailer a friend loaned us. The rest came in the dump truck. Friends with benefits.


Here are some pictures from our first trip away from the house as a family since we got the goats a year and half ago.