Jon's Pez

I just created a website for my Pez collecting hobby.  It's up and running, but still needs a lot of work.  I need to change some photos, add photos, work on some fonts, etc.

www.jonspez.com

I'm alive

I still have this blog.  I have blogged on average of once a year or so.  I will attempt to blog more, but if you really want to keep up with me, other social media platforms are better.

Catch Up

So, I haven't blogged in years...  Time to catch up.  Below will list some significant things from each year since my last post.  Yes, each year.  It's been a while.  I'm not going into detail on, but if you want to know more about a particular item, just let me know.  These are literally just pasted from other sources.

2016
Home repairs
Newspaper/burgers
Clark was born
Met Adam West
Second Bat Suit
Four years of marriage
Batman mask presentation
Moto VP
Met Kris Draper
Guns n Roses
Michigan Ren Fest
Mustache
TV Show
Gary's swimming
Home automation


2017
2017 has truly been an incredible year for my family! We worked hard and played hard! Rachel says that this was The Year of Pez!

In February I participated in and won a Joe Short Look Alike Contest at my favorite restaurant! Joe was there and it was really cool meeting him.
At the end of March, The Year of Pez began as we took a road trip to Orange, CT to go to the Pez Visitor Center. Gary saw photos of this place online and wanted to go to celebrate his birthday. It was incredible to see his face light up seeing it all. Clark couldn't care less about being there tho.
In the Spring, I got to try on a World Series Ring during a business trip to Chicago. This was really cool for me, having a background in jewelry.
I met Sting. The wrestler, not the singer. I was dressed as Batman.
Rachel and I celebrated five years of marriage in June! Time flies!
Have I mentioned that I'm very thankful for my job? It isn't perfect, and like everyone else, I'd like a larger salary, but my job is really cool. In July, I took my first trip to New York City for a phone announcement press event. It was quite the shindig. What's crazy is that my cousin, Caroline, was working the event as a promo model! What are the odds of that?
The year of Pez continued in August as my family attended Michigan Pez Convention! I've been a Pez collector for over 20 years and this was my first convention. It was so much fun! We participated in all sorts of games and activities, met tons of incredible people of all different ages from all over the world, and bought a lot of Pez.
The highlight of my year was this fall when I was able to stand up in my friend, Neil's, wedding. Neil and I have been friends for several years and I couldn't be happier for him. He found a really good one!
More Pez stuff... I got a large Pez tattoo on the back of my right leg. It cost a bit so we're calling that my main Christmas gift this year.
If you know my family, you know that Halloween is our thing. The boys and I were Scooby-Doo characters per Gary's request. I think Clark stole the show as Fred.
I ran in my first race this year! Since I'm not in good shape and hate running, I started with a .5k! Yes POINT FIVE. The event was a fund raiser for Toys for Tots and was a lot of fun. I got a medal, t-shirt, racing bib, and one of those oval bragging stickers to put in the back of my car (I didn't). I'll run this again next year.
Home automation was a trend last year that continued into this year for us. We now have smart speakers in four rooms, 15 connected lights, Chromecasts on all TVs, a smart thermostat, smoke detector, and smart garage door opener. It can all be controlled via phone or voice.
Our Christmas tree was decorated with colorful lights and Pez dispensers this year. Turned out pretty cool!
I'm not sure how many breweries I visited this year, but I'm up to 169 total now. Traveling for work has some advantages.
I'm very thankful to God for the great family and life that I have. It's been a wonderful 2017!

2018
Lost three young friends (John, Amy, Heather)
Travel to San Antonio, UP, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Dallas, Green Bay, Salt Lake City
Toured Makers Mark
Met William Zabka & Tom Welling
Celebrated six years of marriage
Quit BDS
Pop Pez/Cap'n Crunch
Started at Samsung
Rachel's new job
MI Pez Con/newspaper
Six pack sold for $212 at auction
Pez Visitor Center
Met Steve Glew
Halloween/Goblin King
Gary swimming

Project Fi - A Few Months Later

A lot of people liked my blog back in August of this year about my brief experience with Project Fi.  I thought I would post an update.

This will be pretty brief, but feel free to ask questions too.  In short, I still love it!  The service is great, but not perfect, just like any other carrier.  I have found the coverage maps online to be accurate.
This month, I switched to a lower plan.  I haven't been using nearly as much data as I thought I would; and thanks to how Fi bills, I haven't paid a cent for that unused data.

Google has added two new devices to the officially supported list; Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P.  I haven't tried these out, but a lot of people that I know seem to really like the 6P.  I've been using my Nexus 6 by Motorola until this past weekend.  I just switched to a Moto X Pure Edition.  This device half ass works with Project Fi and it is not officially supported.  I just really like this phone a lot and had one laying around so I thought I'd try it out.  MXPE treats the Fi sim like a standard T-Mobile sim.  It calls, tests, does data on TMO's network without issue.  It DOES NOT, however, connect to Sprint at all or do the auto-connect Wi-Fi thingy that makes Fi so awesome.  So...it's basically like I'm on T-Mobile but being billed differently.  We'll see how it does.  I really so like this phone a lot and I wasn't a huge fan of Nexus 6.  The code name for that was Shamu for a reason.

Google also recently added data only sims to its offerings.  They will give you up to nine for free.  There are a few tablets that are officially supported to work with them  (Nexus, iPad, etc.) but Google says that these sims will work in many other unlocked phones, laptops, and tablets that can connect to T-Mobile's network.  There is no additional charge to use more devices on your account!  They just pull from your same bucket of data.  How cool is that?  I ordered one of the sims just so I'd have it in case I needed it.  I don't have a compatible laptop or tablet right now.

Google has continued with the free gifts too.  I got Legos as a Christmas gift that I could build into a phone stand or a cable organizer!  I made the stand because it looks cooler, but haven't really been using it.  I'll probably build the cable organizer later this week.

All in all, Project Fi still works great for me.  It is still an open beta.  It's not perfect, but I'm happy.

Life Is Good

A lot of the content on the internet is negative.  People are complaining about life, work, relationships, products, businesses, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I've got crap in my life too.  My life is not perfect.  But, focusing on the negative and continuously sharing the negative with friends, family, and strangers online just seems dumb. 
I love my life.  I am thankful to God for all that I have.  I'm not trying to brag, but I do want to share what I'm thankful for.  I bet you have a lot of these same blessings.  Are you thankful too?
I'm pretty healthy for my age.  Thanks be to God.  I also understand that the size and shape of my body is very much in my control.  If I get into a shape that I don't like, I'll make some changes.
I have a great family.  Part of this is luck.  We can't pick our parents or siblings.  I'm very blessed to have intelligent and caring ones.  I DID, however, pick my wife.  Kudos to me for choosing a great woman to marry and have a family with.  I'm very thankful that God put her in my life.  Our son, Gary, is great too.  He's such a great one year old.  I'm very excited about our second son who will be arriving early next year too.  My extended family (including my in-laws) is fantastic too.  Very thankful.
A lot of people take our daily luxuries for granted.  I'm very thankful for my house, running water, food (including all the free burgers at Bagger Dave's), clothing, our cars, and the ability to afford all of this.
There are many things that I'd rather be doing than work.  I think most people would agree with this and that's fine.  That being said, I work for a great company led by a good Christian man.  My job is great and I'm very blessed that I fell into this company accidentally 12 years ago.  I don't think my wife enjoys her job as much as I enjoy mine, but we are both thankful for her job too.  She gets to work in her field of study and supply additional income for our family.  Life is good.
I'm thankful for this country.  Our government is not perfect.  I know this.  Perfection is not realistic.  Even with the flaws, we live in a great country and I'm thankful to have been born here.  I see so many people complaining about living here.  To those people I say, suggest the changes you'd like to our political leaders, vote for leaders with ideals similar to yours (or run for office yourself), and if you still hate this great country so much, leave!  I don't want that to sound mean, but if you'll be happy someplace else, move there.  I want you to be happy!  There are about 200 countries on this planet.  Surely one will suit your needs and be willing to let you move there.
Celebrate the little things.  It's fun to get excited about good things big and small!  Seriously, try it!  I just found out that the place I eat lunch at every Monday serves strawberry malts.  I love strawberry malts!  I'm going to get one next week!  How awesome is that? 
Life is so much better when you choose to be happy.  I love being around other positive happy people.  Again, I'm thankful for all the blessings God has given me, including the wisdom to choose to be happy.  I love my life.  Life is good and I'm going to keep celebrating. 

A Few Days With Project Fi

I'm a huge Google fanboy.  I use many of their services and devices including: Search, Android, Gmail, Calendar, YouTube, Drive, Docs/Sheets/Slides, Voice, Ingress (which will soon no longer be Google), Maps, Photos, Chrome (browser and OS), Play Music, Play Movies & TV, Google+, Nexus 6,  Chromecast and now Blogger.  There are probably a few that I missed in there.  Naturally when Google announced that they wanted to be an MVNO, I was interested.

Many of you know that I do work in the mobile industry, but I do not work for a carrier or for Google.  I will be the first to admit that no carrier is perfect.  The needs of every person are unique and different carriers will cater to those needs differently.  These are my opinions as they apply to me and my situation.  Yours may be different.

Request & Sign-Up Process:
I requested a Project Fi invite on 4/23/15.  After my request, Google sent an email stating that I would receive an update within a month.  They never said that I would receive my invite within a month.  Many others that requested invites misunderstood this and became very upset.  I don't really pitty them.  They should learn to read better.  Being the nerd that I am, I joined an unofficial Project Fi community on Google+ that week.  I would check it at least once a day to see who was being invited and their thoughts on the service.  Most people were very happy; a few were not.  Everyone was really loving the "surprise" gifts from Google for being an early adopter.
Fast forward to this week.  I got my invite on Monday.  It was sitting in my inbox when I checked my phone after my son's swim lesson.  As soon as we got home, I hopped on my desktop PC, requested a Project Fi sim and selected my plan.  I already had a Nexus 6 which I wasn't using.  I did as much as I could to set up the phone prior to the sim arriving.  My sim arrived Wednesday night and setup was a breeze!  Everything is done via the Project Fi app.  I downloaded the app, inserted the new sim, and after a couple clicks I had ported my Google Voice number over to Fi!  My phone prompted to do an OS update.  That took a few minutes.  Then I was up and running!

Hardware:
Nexus 6 by Motorola is a great phone if you like huge screen phones.  It is also the only phone that works with Project Fi right now.  I like this phone a lot, but it is a little too big for my personal tastes.  Aside from being a bit big, I do love this device.  It is the fastest phone I've ever used.  I like using Android without a skin to clutter it up and slow it down.  As I said, I do like this phone a lot.  I am excited, however, to see what other phones will be options in the future.

Service:
This is probably what most of you are curious about.  For the past few years I've been using Verizon for my personal phone line and my main work line.  I have been very happy with the service that Verizon has provided to me.  I'm trying out Fi because I'm a nerd and wanted to be one of the first to try something new.
When I first activated the service, I quickly downloaded an app called Fi Spy that I had learned about in the above mentioned Google+ community.  This is a simple third party app that lets you know what network you are on.  Fi itself does not make it overly apparent which network you are on, just the type (3G, 4G, etc.) and signal strength.  I haven't used Sprint or T-Mobile in a couple years.  I had lines with both of them until about two years ago.  T-Mobile was always very fast for me and had good service in cities and suburban areas.  Rural areas, not so much.  Sprint flat out sucked when I used them before.  At that time, they still did not have any sort of 4G is southeast Michigan.  I was actually surprised that my phone was connected to Sprint's network on Wednesday night when I activated.  I was at my house, so I was also connected to my home wifi.  The next day I had to visit some customers around town for work.  I was connected to Sprint all morning and speed tests showed that their speeds were better than acceptable.  That afternoon, the phone switched over to T-Mobile.  Speed tests on T-Mobile proved to be slightly better than Sprint, but both were fine.  I expected to stay on T-Mobile most of the time around home, because I thought they had the better network in my area.  For the next two days I stayed connected to T-Mobile exclusively.  The phone did automatically connect to several wifi hotspots (Verizon store, pizza place, etc.) during the first couple of days too!  That was exciting and should help a lot with data consumption.
I traveled to Grand Rapids on Saturday morning and held service the whole way there.  For a couple miles on I-96, I did drop to T-Mobile's GPRS (2G) service.  It was just a couple miles and I wasn't near a major city.  This is where Verizon wins, rural areas.  I knew this going in and am ok with it.  I still have a work phone with Verizon and I can handle two minutes on the freeway with 2G coverage.  As I type this, my Nexus 6 has switched over to Sprint LTE service.  I'm assuming that Fi analyzes both networks in real time based on capacity etc. to determine which to connect to.  That's pretty cool.
Calls have been great too over cellular and wifi.  I've done both.  I can now call from any room in my house which is nice.  Also, my dad's basement is a dead zone for almost all cellular carriers.  I was able to have a conversation there last night with zero issues.  Hand off from wifi to cellular has been flawless too.  It just works.  I noticed no change in sound quality, etc.
Billing:
With Project Fi, you pay for your month in advance.  Any credits or overages go onto your bill for the next month.  I got my first bill the day after I activated.  I picked a 3GB plan ($50) and with the taxes and fees, my bill totaled at $53.40.  I expect my next bill to be lower.  I don't think I will use 3GB of data so a credit on my next bill will be nice.  The Project Fi app is actually very simple and useful.  It shows data consumption day to day and also has tabs for billing and support.

So far so good for me with Project Fi.  It works.  It doesn't transform your cellular experience into something magical or crazy, but it wasn't intended to.  It simply works.  I'm happy and I love only paying for the data that I use.  

Hit me up with questions if you have them.

-Jon

About Me & This Blog

If you're reading this, you probably already know me.  If you don't, get to know me.  I'm a nice guy and enjoy meeting new people.  I'm a husband, father, Christian, friend, beer snob, techy, Diamontologist.  Also, I'm Batman.

My likes:
God
My family
Positive attitudes
Craft beer
Food
Trying new things
Movies
Cooking
Travel
Technology
Disc golf
Hockey
Tattoos
Gem stones
Ingress
Walking
Android
Super Mario Bros. 3

My dislikes:
Mustard
Negativity
Stepping on Legos

This blog is for any of my thoughts that I want to share and can't fit into a tweet.  Pretty simple.  No theme.

You can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram @pezdudejon