Our contract with Sprint is up. We're on a family plan with 700 minutes plus data plus text (with limits) for about $130/mo. But since I'm not in an office all day and can't get free wi-fi where I spend most of my time, it's time to upgrade to a smartphone. Sprint has offered me the new customer deals on phones, plus free shipping, no upgrade charge, and an unlimited family data plan for the same price. Pretty good. I think I'm going to use T-Mobile as leverage to get Sprint to offer a better deal on phones. Since Jennifer has a computer at work that she can check her mail on, and I don't, she doesn't need a smartphone, but she likes sending pictures back and forth, so we need a data plan for her. My only sticking point is that the reception in Jen's office is crappy. No one can get service in there, but her co-worker's phone can at least get enough signal to receive calls, although he has to go out to the hall to answer. He's on Verizon, and the other band director is on AT&T, same deal. So no one really wins the reception battle.

I'm looking at the BlackBerry Curve 8330, which by all accounts is awesome. But I'm concerned about its browser. There's been many a time when I've been out and about and realized I forgot to set TiVo to record something. The beauty of TiVo (at least one thing) is that you can schedule recordings online. But rumor has it that the browser in the BlackBerry is awful, and I'm afraid it may not render TiVo's site well enough to allow me to schedule. I can do it on the iPhone, which is great, but AT&T isn't an option due to the expense of the iPhone's data plan, plus activation fee and hassle of new accounts and stuff. I've also started looking at the Instinct, but I had a Samsung phone before and it sucked major balls. Now, it wasn't near the level of the Instinct, but I get the feeling that Samsung phones aren't the best quality. So if I want to stay on Sprint and get a good smartphone, the Curve is for me.

The only problem now is actually getting to demo one. Jen and I went into the Sprint store tonight, but their Curve didn't have the browser activated, and the Instinct was slow. Plus they were about to close, so I'll try again tomorrow.

On another note, this Saturday marks the last day of drumline. Kind of sad, really, given the amount of time and work these kids have invested. Hopefully it will pay off for them. They compete in the Lone Star Drumline Contest hosted by Marcus HS at Lewisville's stadium. It's a great contest and many top groups from around the state attend. It's the only time every year these kids get credit for what they're doing. Sure, all the marching band contests are fun, but there's no real Percussion category like there is at DCI. The book is good and the kids have been doing this show for almost four months now. The only problem is that they have new drill (without the band, the old drill wouldn't work well), and I hope it doesn't affect their hands. Rehearsals have been like pulling teeth this week, but they insisted back in August that they wanted to do this, so we're holding them accountable. They got fourth last year in their class, which is very respectable considering the groups they were against. So wish us luck! We're taking both JV and Varsity lines, so it's going to be a LONG day. Show up at 8:30, JV performs at noon-ish, back at 1, Varsity shows up at 2, leave at 6, perform at 9ish, home by midnite. Long day.

And don't get me started on not being able to golf this weekend. :(