grace.kindness.peace.disruption.pain.processing.rinse.repeat.have a nice day.

Seeing as I soon will be going jobless again to enter the halls of academia, I'm looking for ways to save cash. To help me in this endeavor my parents offered to put me on their Verizon family cell phone plan. I'm very thankful for their offer as this should save me about $40 a month – which in Seattle equates to many pounds of salmon. Now I'm not (too) picky, but there are a few phone features that I will want. Ever since my Siemens S46 (may that battle horse rest in peace) I have enjoyed address book syncing between my home computer and my phone. I will never go back, if I can help it. And today, I can help it. The choices of Verizon phones that sync with Macs is limited. My choice came down to the pink RAZR V3m or the silver V3m. Having recently donated all my pink clothes to Goodwill, the choice was obvious. Stephanie, a somewhat glum sales associate for Verizon, pulled my silver V3m out of the box at the store. Twenty minutes later Verizon sent me a message to inform me that I was indeed on their network. My days at Cingular were over, at least for the next two years.

When I arrived home, I put on my geek hat and began the process of syncing my phone via Bluetooth. After pairing the device via Bluetooth Preferences, I opened iSync to transfer data. To my chagrin, the calendar syncing option was greyed out. No bueno. On a positive note, the Address Book synced smashingly.

But then I slept. And dreams of complete cellular satisfaction caused me to rise with new motivation. Forty-five minutes of web surfing later I found a long rant, from which I mined some gold. It turns out that my phone was recognized as a RAZR V3c, instead of a V3m. I came to learn that this didn't matter, as calender syncing was, by default, turned off for both. But to fix it I'd have to modify one of the system files. If you're not sure what you're doing, then find a geek. They're around.

1. Close iSync if you have it open.
2. Open a Terminal window (if you don't know what this is just spotlight "Terminal")
3. From the command line run the following (it's small, but it's there):
   • vi /Applications/iSync.app/Contents/PlugIns/ApplePhoneConduit.syncdevice/Contents/PlugIns/PhoneModelsSync.phoneplugin/Contents/Resources/MetaClasses.plist
4. The file you need to modify should now be open in the text editing program called "vi".
5. Then type a colon (":"), the number 1863, and hit enter. This takes you to line 1863.
6. Disclaimer: I don't know what version of OS X you have, or what version of iSync. This may or may not work for you. Do not blame me. These steps worked for OS X 10.4.9 and iSync 2.4.
7. Ok, look up about 16 lines. There should be a line that says something like "RAZR V3c". If not, you're file is different from mine. Find the section for the RAZR V3c. If you don't know how, find a geek. If you don't know one, donate some money to my grad school fund (forthcoming PayPal link) and drop me an email.
8. At this point line 1863 should say false (within < />) and should be just below a line that says "supportsCalendarsSync" (within tags that say "key").
9. To change the false to true, use your mad vi skills. If you don't have mad vi skills, first try the following:

• type a colon (":")
• copy the following and paste it in the Terminal window: s/false/true/
• hit enter
• "false" should now be "true"

10. you'll want to save and close the file by doing the following:

• type a colon (":")
• type "wq" and press enter

That's it. Now open iSync and tell it to sync your calenders with your phone.

I hope that setting your V3m to sync calendars is as easy for you as it has been for me. There's no guaranteeing this, as I've seen many people complaining on the Internet over this very issue. However, we must remember that Verizon is the real culprit here as the phones they sell are designed to do these tasks, but the man locks them down so that the functionality doesn't work, or you have to pay per service. O how I would like to copy my own ring tones and pictures to my phone, but Verizon says otherwise.

I signed up for the Indy Mini many moons ago with high hopes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. While I gave up those hopes within 15 minutes of completing my registration, I still desired to run and finish the Mini. Fast-forward several lethargic months, add in effort and desire to sell my house, and throw in a knee that is reminding you that you don't deserve to visit Boston, let alone dream of running the marathon, and you have my current situation.

I can't let good money go to waste, so I'll show up the day of the race and spend several hours working my way toward the finish line … if I have to. However, if you would like to run the Mini, but did not register in time, I'd be willing to work out a deal with you. It's too late to officially transfer my registration to you, but you'd have the race packet to run the race (and a t-shirt that screams "I take initiative"). Your time would be listed under my name (so you'd better get training), but it would most definitely be your time.

If you're interested, please let me know by calling me or by emailing me.