Miracle in Pasadena!

This is the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena which spans the Arroyo Seco (which means dry stream in Spanish).  This afternoon a friend of mine who works in the area took me on a beautiful walk through the canyon below the bridge.  California is in a drought condition, so the stream lived up to its name.  It was still a very beautiful walk right in the midst of busy Pasadena.  The bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places.  As is typical of many landmarks in this part of the world, it has featured in various movies and TV shows.  In 1989 it was declared a seismic hazard and for 4 years it was closed to traffic while it underwent a retrofit. 

For a few more pictures from the canyon, check out my Flickr album.

The time with my friend (with dinner afterwards) was a welcome break from my dramas of the last couple of days! 

I woke up this morning and still no sign of my missing bag.  My iPhone still wouldn’t turn on. (see my last 2 entries)

I spent some time trying to decide which phone to get to replace my iPhone 4S and again wandered down to the Apple Store late morning.  I had a new person help me and as I started explaining to him about my dead phone it suddenly decided to come to life!  Miracle!  Although this has been an ongoing problem – my phone turning itself off for several hours, I’ve never had such a lengthy dead period as this and this time the power button wouldn’t even budge.  So I really was shocked that it turned on again.  There IS a fix but Apple would have charged me $200.  Not worth it.  

Since the phone turned on we were able to make sure it was backed up, but I decided to buy a replacement anyway as it was long overdue.  I will keep my old one to use in the US with my US SIM card until it dies completely and then I will go back to switching SIM cards as I’ve been doing for the last year.  I even found an ‘independent’ Apple repair store around the corner where I hoped that for a minimal price they could do a fix that would stop this problem reoccurring.  While it didn’t need an actual fix they did tighten up a couple of screws inside that were probably causing the problem.  No charge.  Sweet! 

So…I finally made up my mind.  I bought an iPhone 6 as I decided that the 6 plus was too big for my needs.  I much prefer to have something to carry in my pocket.  The screen is still larger than I’m used to and now with 128GB of storage, there will be plenty of space for my movies and TV shows.  I can always hook up to the TV screen in my hotel rooms with an HDMI cable, as I have done with my iPad in the past.   

I can't use my new phone yet until I get a new SIM card from my UK provider, but I was very glad to have my old phone back to be able to take pictures again!  It is the only camera I take with me on my work trips!   

Now if my suitcase would just turn up!