I was out of town 3.5 days for a conference last week, followed by 2 days of vacation at a cabin.  I checked my email on a laptop twice between Tuesday and Sunday afternoon. Once at the conference, once quickly while unpacking/repacking.

So where will this put me over the next 20 days without my iPhone? Very, very, very behind and disconnected.

I had 393 incoming emails between Tuesday and now.  With the iPhone, I was able to read/delete/reply all but 35 of these.  So when I sat down this afternoon to achieve inbox zero, it did not take long.

How much time do you think you save by multitasking every week and keeping up with email while sitting somewhere, whether it’s at a restaurant, a conference, a cabin, an airport, in the car, etc?  I think I am soon about to find out.

The iPhone leaves America tomorrow for Tom in Norway.  And I’m already making plans for July 11th.

I let Tom in on the site here, and he has already commented on the last post. He’s going to join in on the site and film the receiving/unpacking in Norway when the phone arrives.

As it turns out, Paypal refuses to ‘confirm’ international addresses, even though his account is ‘verified’. Very strange business model, isn’t it?

After the money clears to my account, the iPhone will be on it’s overseas adventure.

3,984.27 miles to Norway!
(Or, for Tom’s friends, 6412.06km from Indiana, US!)

Tom from Norway had an unconfirmed account on Paypal, so I asked him to confirm it before I would accept the money, so we are both protected by Paypal for the transaction.  I had to send the initial payment back to him, and it has yet to hit his account.  Once it hits his account, he’ll resend the $400 and then the iPhone will be shipped.  I leave for a conference tomorrow, so I guess I’ll have to take the GO Phone and the box with me in case the money gets to me while I’m out of town… because I’m a good eBayer like that.

Every extra day I have with the iPhone is a bonus, especially while I am traveling!

My parents are in town, and my dad wants to grill out for supper.  The problem: we didn’t have a grill yet. BUT, we did see one for really cheap at Menard’s last weekend. $69.99.  Nothing fancy, no side burners, etc.  Just what we needed though since we rarely grill out and we haven’t built our deck yet.

Background of story: A friend of the family had just purchased the grill the last time we were home, and she said she paid $119.99 for it.  SO when I saw it for $69.99 I had to chuckle, and I took a picture with my iPhone and emailed it to my Mom.  I also took note that the sale ended 6/15, in case we wanted to come back and get the grill.

Today: We head to Menard’s, and get back to the grills to find it.  And we find it, marked $89.99. WHAT?! So I pull out my phone, and find the picture.  Sure enough, there it is for $69.99. My wife tracks down a worker, who happens to be the asst. manager of the store.  He tells us it WAS $69.99, but the registers were ringing it as $89.99 so they just changed the sign (rather than the register? hmm….). He says he will honor the price, but only because I have proof in the picture. SCORE

So we get to the register, and I tell the cashier that we were told that we could have it for $69.99.  She calls over a supervisor, who pages the asst. manager to confirm.  ENTER THE MANAGER FROM HELL. (This is at the Menards on 96th St. in Indianapolis, IN for anyone at corporate Menards).  He tells the supervisor over the radio that he absolutely will not sell the grill for $69.99.  So we ask to speak to him.  He comes over, determined.  Well, he’s never met the Ward family before.  I show him the picture. He stumbles words.  He says “If you would have bought the grill while the sign was on it, I would have honored the price.  The sale changed.”  I again tell him the sign said “Through 6/15″, he again says “the sale changed.” I tell him the Asst. Manager told us what happened with the price mistake, he says “Well he should have never told you that and he should have never honored that little picture without my approval.” I can just see this guy’s head swelling, either from anger or arrogance.    I ask for the district manager’s number, and he says “let me see what I can do.”  And he walks back up to his ivory tower behind the glass, and radios the supervisor to honor the price, not showing his face again.

SUPERBAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The iPhone saved me $20 today.  I think I’ll go buy 5 gallons of gas.

What did your iPhone do for you today? What could you have done with an iPhone?

Not only will I miss out on saving money like this for 26 days, I’ll also miss out on being able to take pictures and upload them to Flickr or email them to myself like this. Bummer.

Today we had to run a lot of errands, so I jotted notes on my iPhone as the day went along.  Here is what all I used it for:

• Find Indy Tire.  I had a free tire rotation/balance, and wasn’t sure where the closest one to me was.
• Look up Jen’s pin # for the Library.  They use keychain cards + pin # to self-checkout books.  If I wanted to go one step further I could scan the card in and use my phone…. but my wife is old-school and likes the tangible factor.
• Price compare grills at Lowes, Home Depot, and Meijer while at Menards.
• Check to see if I got off the waitlist of an MBA class (I DID!)
• Answer all work and personal emails that came in within 15 minutes, leaving an hour of extra free time once I got home.

And that’s just for about 90 minutes. 

What all do you rely on your iPhone for?

I went to Best Buy today and picked up my phone for the next 26 days. It was $14.99 and you can find it here.

If you’re attempting to do this as well, then here is some more information on how to switch from your iPhone to the Go Phone. It’s really easy.

Seriously? I have to mail it in 2 days?  My parents are in town this weekend, so it should get some pretty good usage before I ship it off.  After that, it’ll be me, my Flip Camera, my notepad and pen, and my Go Phone to document.

I already see that this site will suffer as a result of not having an iPhone on me.  No updates from the road to the blog or Twitter.  Can’t check email and approve comments if need be.  So I apologize in advance.  Just consider it a part of the experience.

Tonight we went out to eat with co-workers Pam, Chris and Megan, who were all present at lunch when the idea of this began. They were all amazed that I had a site up already. It made me think of everything I did on my iPhone between work and home:

* registered domain on godaddy.com
* registered gmail, twitter, and youtube accts
* set up domain on my hosted server
* changed nameservers on GoDaddy
* Installed Wordpress on the sit

Pretty impressive. And yes, my commute IS that long. Once I get 3G, I’ll be setting up like 3 sites a day, don’t you think? Once I got home I found the template, had my wife take the picture, made the header and the site was ready to go. Saved me about 45 minutes of work time at home by getting it done on my drive. I also fielded 3 or 4 emails, updated Twitter, and the weather on the way home too.

While at supper, the phone stayed in my pocket for the most part.  I had it out once and the waitress said “is that the new iPhone?”, so I told her the story and the blog address.  So if you’re reading this, Ms. Puccini’s Waitress, the food was excellent and the service was even better.  We’ll be back for sure.

I just sold my 1st generation iPhone for $350 on eBay to a kid in Norway. I can’t wait for the 3G iPhone to come out on July 11th, but I know I’ll miss having my iPhone a lot in the time between.

This is my last weekend with the iPhone. I ship it out Monday. And then begins… 26 days without an iPhone.