The Other Drummer

It’s been about three weeks since I broke up with my hair. I’ve had a few surprises along the way and learned some new things, too. Here they are:

1. Withdrawals have been surprisingly nonexistent. I actually like this.
2. Not having hair is high-maintenance. I have to bust out the clippers every other day to keep it the length I want.
3. Bic-ing should be done with a Mach 3, not a safety razor. Amazing difference. Faster, safer (ironically), smoother. Also, less blood. Thank you Brad.
4. My kids love it. Especially my daughter. Whenever I pick her up she smiles and rubs my head. I love it.
5. A surprising number of guys have come up to me and said they admire me for making the leap and wish they could do the same. Didn’t expect that.
6. My head gets cold. I’d heard it would but it gets cold differently than expected. I was thinking it would be “cold wind blowing on my skin cold”. Instead, it’s “dull ache cold”.
7. I’m actually less self-conscious about my hair now that I don’t have any. I know that seems backwards, but if you’re a dude and your hair is on its way out, you get what I mean.
8. I always thought less hair = less friction. Not so. My head is velcro. Fuzz gets stuck to it and it’s harder to pull off shirts because they stick. Even just two days after Bic-ing it’s hard to rub my hand over it. As a result, I had to learn a new way to pull off beanies (back to front, people. Back to front.).
9. People want to touch it. Sometimes they ask first, sometimes they don’t. I had one coworker tell me they wanted to touch it but then didn’t. Hmmm.

There you have it.

I bit the bullet and am now a full-time Android user. I got a Droid 2 from work and have been using it now for about a week and a half. Here are my initial thoughts as an iPhone Apostate in the form of pros and cons about using a Droid.

PROS

• Highly customizable. Yes, Apple has its beautiful closed garden of happiness and unicorns but when it comes to being able to use the phone the way I want to use it, it’s lacking. I’m still fiddling with different settings and whatnot (see Tasker, below), but I love how I can make the phone do what I want instead of it forcing me to do it the way Dear Leader wants.
• Widgets. With a glance at my phone I can see things like current temperature, who I have a text message from/what it says, my agenda, to-do’s, and the latest status updates from my friends across Facebook and Twitter. With the iPhone I’d have to launch and quit out of each respective application to see those things.
• Notifications. Notifications on the iPhone suck (you can’t, for example, hang up a call until you’ve cleared all the pop-up notifications that have come in since you started talking. Infuriating.) Android’s “window shade” concept is great. There’s also an external LED notifier. This is a huge oversight with the iPhone as I can’t tell you how many times I let texts sit for hours because I was out of the room when the text came in and didn’t have any visual cues to tip me off that I had a message waiting.
• Toggles. It’s a small thing, but being able to toggle Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS and syncing from the homescreen instead of having to open settings and go into each submenu (and back out) for each one you want to turn on or off is wonderful.
• Verizon. I’m now with a carrier that is anti-net neutrality instead of one that gives the NSA unrestricted access to all its data. Woo-hoo!
• Physical keyboard. Liking it more than I thought I would.
• Snappy. The phone is fast. Menus, apps and the like spring to life almost instantly.
• Tasker. I mentioned this as the killer app that could get me to make the switch and sure enough, it’s awesome. My phone now refers to me as “Sir” and “Your Highness” which is exactly how it should be.
• Auto-updating apps/OS. It all happens in the background and OTA – no syncing required. Lovely.
• Google Voice. Awe-some. It means I can do most of my calls/texts/voicemail management through the browser using a nice big 24″ display and full-sized keyboard instead of having to go to my phone every time it beeps. Heaven.
• Apps (Chrome to Phone, Listen, Navigation). Send websites instantly (and I mean instantly) from your browser to your phone (I’ll never have to email myself the link to driving directions ever again), download my popdcasts automatically and over the air (no syncing required) and free turn-by-turn navigation that’s scary accurate. So yes, there’s an app for that… just not in Apple’s App Store.
• Google integration. I live my life in Google (sorry, Hugh) and the tight integration makes life grand.
• User-replaceable battery. This is actually a big one. Apple doesn’t have an (easily) replaceable battery. As a result, I wouldn’t use the phone to its full potential/got frustrated turing Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS on and off (see Toggles, above) because when the battery is shot I’d have to:

1.Send it into Apple and be without a phone for a week and
2. Be out the $60 they charge to replace the battery.

With the Droid 2 I can burn through batteries like toilet paper – new batteries are only $7 and I can swap one out in 15 seconds without any tools (let alone a soldering iron).

CONS

• Design/UI. “Inelegant” doesn’t begin to describe the user interface. If someone at Apple took this to Steve Jobs as a first draft of a wireframe they’d be kicked in the shins and fired on the spot. Then he’d kill their dog. It’s that bad. Fortunately, Matias Duarte, the guy who designed the Palm Pre UI (which is awesome) is now at Google and the next Android update (Gingerbread) is said to be mainly UI improvements and due out before the end of the year. Keep your fingers crossed – right now Android is losing to Apple, Palm and friggin’ Microsoft when it comes to user interface. Sad.
• Hardware. I picked up my iPhone the other day and was shocked at how sleek, solid and well-built it felt. The Droid 2 simply feels cheap in comparison. Granted, it has moving parts which are harder to make feel sturdy.
• Keyboard. While I like the physical keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is terrible compare to the iPhone. It’s inaccurate and doesn’t seem to “learn” your style over time to improve like the iPhone’s keyboard does.
• Touch screen. Similar to the keyboard, it’s often inaccurate. It regularly clicks below where I’m putting my finger – terrible when you’re navigating websites on a teeny screen.
• Sluggish. I mentioned how snappy the Droid 2 was (and is)…except when it’s not. I have no idea why, but randomly it will become completely unresponsive. Drives me nuts. [UPDATE: This was due to a custom launcher I installed. I replaced it and sluggishness gone.]
• No MMS. Google Voice doesn’t allow for picture messages yet. I’ve requested they add it here (and maybe you should, too).

CONCLUSION

Overall, I’m glad I made the switch. The iPhone 4 has had nothing but problems and, while it’s a nice evolutionary step, the fundamentals of how the phone can be used as a tool have been stagnant, if not lacking (e.g. it took two years to get a video camera and copy & paste). The thing is, it would be really easy for Apple to implement a lot of the things on my “pros” list – widgets, revamped notifications, Google Voice integration, better APIs, etc. And if they do, or come out with something really groundbreaking, maybe I’ll switch back.

For now, I think I’m going to try and upgrade to the rumored HTC Incredible HD. It comes out next month and should take care of a lot of the build quality/UI issues so I can have a pretty phone and a subservient phone. Imagine that.

I volunteered to clean the Conference Center last Wednesday night from 9:30 to midnight. I did so with a purely selfish hope – to see stuff you normally don’t see when you attend for an event.

When I helped clean the Salt Lake Temple I got to see all kinds of cool things like the Assembly Hall, go up into the 9th floor of one of the spires, climb scaffolding in the Celestial Room to get an up-close look at the pioneer artistry on the ceiling, etc. Sadly, all I did Wednesday night was vacuum. The main auditorium. For two hours.

See above picture.

It seems bigger when nobody’s in it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to serve and all that. Just kinda wished I got to go back in the choir area or see some cool tunnel or something. It took about 15 of us two hours to vacuum just half of the Conference Center and we were told it takes the regular staff two weeks to clean up after General Conference.

Quick fact: the Conference Center is 1,400,000 square feet and that is very large.

Mad props to my wife who spent an hour and a half painting this on my gord (get it? Gord? HA!).

UPDATE

Since my work’s Halloween party, I’ve received some initial feedback on my costume.

Most common comment: yamulka. Yes. It is in yarmulka position. That’s not just because I’m pious. I had it painted there because if I put it on top of my head nobody would have been able to see it (I’m 6’4″). That being said, it may have been worth it to move it because of all the comments.

Second most-often-heard comment? Simon.

Overall, very few people got what it was. Could this mean I’m a bigger nerd than general population?

P.S. This picture makes my neck look extremely small.

Last night I Bic’d my head in preparation for my nerdy Halloween costume. Despite advice to the contrary, I used a safety razor.

I’d always heard head woulds bled profusely. Turns out this is true.

An hour and some wooziness due to blood loss later, my head was shaved. It was also covered in  little scabs (gross) and razor burn (ouch), but it was shaved. It was then that I discovered yet another wonderful use for ice cream.

Rolling a half gallon of ice cream on your recently shaved head feels really, really good.

I spent a total of two hours with cold stuff on my head last night including ice cream, blue ice and frozen okra. It was feeling pretty good by the time I was ready for bed. Then I pushed my luck.

As I rubbed my hand over the gord I noticed a rough patch. I couldn’t see there was hair there, but I could feel it and I knew it would drive me nuts if I didn’t do something about it so I pulled out the razor and tried to do a quick touch-up. I cut myself again and it bled for 45 minutes.

Lesson learned.

After Halloween I think I may just leave the stubble I had before I Bic’d it. In the meantime, any guesses as to what my Halloween costume is? Leave word in the comments and I’ll post pictures next week.

Image courtesy of foshydog.