finder

[calimac]

My anniversary present from B. came on a trip to the mall. We were driving back from elsewhere and decided to stop at West Valley on the grounds that if the thing that I wanted actually existed, it'd be at the Sharper Image store.

Well, West Valley no longer has a Sharper Image store. (It also seems to have lost the candy store that carried the one treat that I, not fond of most sugary stuff, like that nobody else does: chocolate-covered gummy bears.) But it does have a Brookstone and B. knew that that was a likely substitute.

What I got is called a key finder. It's a button-shaped item about an inch in diameter and close to half an inch thick, with a ring clip to fasten it to another ring. The point of this is that it comes with a large remote-control-like device, and if you press that device, the button beeps. That enables you to find it, and if it's attached to something that you keep misplacing, how useful that is.

As the name suggests, it's intended to go on a key ring. But I almost never misplace my keys - maybe half a dozen times in all my life - so I don't need it there. What I keep misplacing is my calendar/address book: what I'd use a PDA for if I had a PDA and weren't still wedded to a paper version.* I constantly need to check it when I'm various places around the house, and sometimes I leave it either intentionally or otherwise in my car, and I can never remember where I last had it, and it's deucedly hard to find on a quick glance.

This item has taught me that "It's always in the last place you look" is a false bromide. Sometimes it's in a place you previously looked, and you have to go back there two or three times before you can find it. Sometimes it's in no place at all, and you have to wait for it to show up later. This gets tiresome.

The address book is a tiny ring binder about 6 x 4 inches, and I can fasten the button to one of the rings. I hope it will stay on when I stuff the thing in my trouser pocket. I'm not happy that the button is so honking large - I was hoping for something more like a paste-on RFID chip - but it needs to beep and there's a huge button battery inside that's apparently necessary for that. So no attaching another one to my watch or my eyeglasses, which are the other items I spend the most time looking for.

So far the only time I've actually used the device is when the button slipped when I was trying to attach it and rolled under my desk where I couldn't find it. But patience; it will prove itself soon enough.

B. got the serpentine earrings we'd been admiring at the last local arts festival we attended.

*I have never seen a digital calendar app that's anywhere near as flexible or usable for my needs as a simple paper monthly grid is.

Comments

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Hope the new toy works as you desire.

I have never seen a digital calendar app that's anywhere near as flexible or usable for my needs as a simple paper monthly grid is.

I, OTOH, could not live without the combination of a calendar and ToDo list on my iPhone (previously on my Palm Pilot) that I have with me at all times. But everyone to their own system.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

We could discuss comparative needs and priorities. I do not have many appointments per day. What I do have is a strong desire to be able to see everything for the month at once. PDA calendars in high overview mode are too abbreviated in their listings for me.

Does your IPhone have any rings or clips to which the button I describe could be attached? From what I recall of seeing them, they do not. I'd worry terribly about misplacing mine.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Does your IPhone have any rings or clips to which the button I describe could be attached?

The iPhone itself doesn't but you could certainly get a thin case for it that would - many people put the phone in a case regardless (including me)

[ckd]

Alternatively (or supplementarily), there's a "Find My iPhone" app/website combo that will, among other things, let you cause your phone to make a noise even if it's in silent mode. (Assuming that it's on and has some charge and some connectivity, but for the usual "I left it in here somewhere" case that's likely.)

It can also display the phone's location on a map, which is handy for the "I'm at work and I don't have my phone -- did I leave it home, drop it somewhere here, or something worse?" case. (Most recently for me, "my iPad's not in my bag" because I'd forgotten to unplug it from the charger and put it in my bag....)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

This reminds me that I have, on a couple of occasions, lost my cellphone. But I don't generally leave it on, so calling it and listening for the ring was not an option.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

You do realise that what you will in fact lose first is the remote device that enables you to make the button beep?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That would be ironic, yes. But probably not, seeing as the reason I keep losing the pocket calendar is that I have to keep taking it to different places. I don't need the remote device except to find the calendar with, so it can stay in one place. Things that stay in one place, like kitchen utensils and the tv remote, don't get lost.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Gosh. How are you with kitchen scissors? I can't remember how many pairs of kitchen scissors I bought and lost utterly in my last house. Karen tries to keep a beady eye on hers here, but I mislay them daily. Even though they never leave the kitchen.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Only if I take them out of the kitchen.

Apparently personal experiences in these matters vary a great deal.