Taking on radio silence

Last week while on the TOR version of Cast Away, we went through some serious accessibility withdrawal but nothing could have quite prepared us for our cell phone going completely radio silent. First we got to this secluded island to find that the only way to get cell phone service was to climb to the top of the roof and stand on one leg with an arm stretched way out in the air like some beach-going version of the Statue of Liberty. They after taking out phone to the beach we got bombarded with some ‘this accessory is not optimized for this IPhone’ message which I was told was probably some kind of obstruction which on a beach full of sand is probably not far from the truth. I was able to get past that by blowing into the charging-dock hole as if I’m a kid in 1989 playing Legend of Zelda and then the worst happened. Apparently during my big-bad wolf impression, I either blew up a piece of bratwurst and logged it successfully into the charging dock or I moved whatever obstruction there was already just enough to avoid the ‘accessory not optimized’ message but also enough so that the charger now couldn’t properly connect.

So there I sit on an island in the middle of the Atlantic, miles from shore with no air-spray in sight and nothing but my toothbrush to try to do any technical brain-surgery. Five hours and some crazy carpal tunnel syndrome later, I had discovered where the obstruction was and was able to pinpoint the culprit as a piece of lint or paper.

It had logged into the IPhone so deep that getting there with my bear-paws just wasn’t going to be possible and nobody I was with cared enough to dedicate an evening to trying to fish it out so I was left completely miserable for the final 5 days of my vacation.

Fast forward to Saturday, we land back shore-site and without so much as bucking my seat-belt or closing the trunk, there goes my entire family held hostage as we race to the nearest AT&T store on a 100 degree day with my wife, sister-in-law and kid screaming in the car..

So I decided that from now on i'll keep my Iphone properly sealed to avoid this in the future

I think you'll agree that I handled this entire situation as well as could be expected.