The 411 on 818

[Note: This column originally appeared in a shorter version in the April 16, 2009 edition of the former Crescenta Valley Sun newspaper – a Times-owned publication.]

This Saturday, April 18, the way we make calls from the 818 area code is changing. Yep, because life already isn’t complicated enough, starting tomorrow, every number we dial will require at least ten digits. I’m not kidding, from Saturday on, any and all phone numbers we call from this area code – from your next door neighbor to the gleaming global headquarters of the Crescenta Valley Sun – will require ten digits or more.

What chucklehead thought this was a good idea, anyway?

Actually, the new mandatory use of our own 818 area code in dialing is due to the California Public Utilities Commission’s approval to add a new area code overlay, 747, to the same geographic area covered by the 818 area code. Confused? Join the club.

According to the telecommunications technocrats, we’re close to running out of unassigned 818 phone numbers due to the ever-growing number of new cell phones, fax machines, security systems, pagers, land lines and internet connections coming online every day. (The fact that hundreds of thousands of unused phone numbers are kept “off the market” for possible future sale to specialized groups/companies, etc. doesn’t seem to matter to the bureaucrats who never met an ordinance they didn’t want to pass.)

This has been happening locally since 1957 when the 805 area code was assigned to Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, all formerly in the 213 area code. In 1984, the Crescenta Valley, Glendale and Burbank lost our 213 exchange and – along with the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valleys – have comprised the 818 area code ever since.

However, unlike in 1984, this time we all get to keep our existing phone numbers. So, address books, business cards, stationary – all stay the same. However, since there will soon be new local phone numbers with the 747 area code, we “818”ers need to actually dial 818 to call each other. Whew, it sure is getting complicated to communicate.

Then again, I’m old enough to remember – barely – rotary dial phones, too. I also remember when my maternal grandparents moved away from their beloved but increasingly congested Glendale to the rural south San Diego county town of Escondido, where at the time, avocado groves outnumbered residents.

To visit Grandma and Grandpa required a three hour drive. Calling between our two homes was considered “long distance,” which meant whoever initiated the call was charged extra by the minute. Both my grandparents and parents would do just about anything not to pay that extra cost, so upon arrival home after a visit, instead of calling and saying a hurried, “stop worrying, we made it home!” my mom or grandma would call the other’s home number, let it ring twice – only twice – and then hang up. This was code that they were safely home. And because the other party didn’t pick up the ringing phone, it was not a completed call and therefore, wasn’t charged to the calling party. Can you say, “cheap?” Or, excuse me … frugal.

Considering this, it’s quite ironic that each of my kids had their own personal cell phone before they were out of elementary school. Okay, now can you say, “spoiled”? Then again, social and technological developments like this are precisely why so many phone numbers across this great gadget-loving land are already used up. Guilty as charged, your honor.

Heck, today even my dear mother – the same one for whom a 1-minute “we’re-home-safely” call to Escondido was too expensive – has her own cell phone. The truth is, my wife and I added a line for mom onto our own family cell plan so she could stay in touch when traveling, or if she has car trouble, or whatever. And yet, even though it doesn’t cost her a nickel to use, she doesn’t use it. The thing almost never leaves her purse for fear of spending a few cents that don’t need to be spent.

No matter how often I try to explain to her that her use of the phone is already paid for, whether or not she uses it, doesn’t seem to register. And so the phone stays in her purse, turned off. I guess if old habits die hard, frugal ones are downright immortal. Of course, the other consequence of her inability to take advantage of the technology is that – inevitably – the few times in the past several years that she actually has had a need and/or desire to make a call on her cell phone, it hasn’t worked because the battery was dead when she turned it on. Sigh.

When it comes to communications technology, like many things, I guess change is inevitable. So the fact that we will now have to dial ten numbers to make even local calls should be no big deal. However, I can’t help but think Ma Bell is turning over in her deregulated grave at the thought of neighbors needing to dial a marathon of digits to talk to each other.

I’d call somebody to complain, but … I don’t have time to dial all those numbers.  See you ‘round town.

This version © 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Tech Time

I spent the better part of two hours a couple of weeks ago waiting for my wife’s delayed flight to come in to LAX. At least I think it was two hours. Few builders of public spaces seem to bother installing clocks on the walls these days. And like a majority of people, I stopped wearing a wristwatch years ago. Who needs one? Every cell phone I’ve owned as far back as I can remember has been able to give me the precise time whenever I need it. It’s just one of the amazing benefits of ever-improving wireless technology – when I can find the clock/time function, that is.

Let me explain. Last month, it was time for our entire family to upgrade our wireless phones to newer models (which not surprisingly always seems to “upgrade” our monthly bill, too).

And therein lies the problem. Because, every time I get a new phone, the learning curve to make a simple call seems to get steeper and steeper. Heaven forbid I should want to check emails, send a text, check a voicemail, or any of the 63,452 more advanced things the phone will do. We all know about the dangers of texting and driving. But sheez, I’m not even sure I should breathe and use my phone at the same time – I might suck in a low flying finch while I’m so distracted.  

In my defense, it’s not like I’m some technological mouth-breather or anything. As a once serious musician/songwriter, I could record songs using state-of-the-art, multi-track reel-to-reel tape machines. I wouldn’t bat an eye doing sound-on-sound recordings, ping-ponging tracks and running a wall full of outboard gear including parametric equalizers, or compression and noise reduction hardware. In other words, I’m not afraid of – nor am I in any way a stranger to – the use of bleeding edge technology.

Nevertheless, there I was at the airport, simply trying to figure out how get the #!*%&^! time/clock function visible on my cell phone screen. While currents of arriving travelers ebbed and flowed around me, I sat there on a hard plastic chair in the baggage carousel waiting area, staring at that stupid, mocking screen of my cell phone -- pushing buttons and opening and closing menus and trying to bring up the clock. I was so intently focused for so long I almost didn’t see my wife walking right past me on her way to the baggage carrousel. And she didn’t see me because I was looking down and engrossed in trying to decipher what should have been a straightforward function on my phone.  

The thing is, when making our recent upgrade, I had tried to choose the simplest phone available. Not wanting or needing the latest and greatest 4G touch-screen i-wonder (or its expense!), I looked for a phone that would merely survive the next two years in my presence. My last phone barely functioned after spending 30 minutes in the pocket of my board shorts while soaking in a very hot tub on the good ship Celebrity Millennium bound for Ketchikan, Alaska two years ago.

The replacement phone I chose was even listed in Verizon’s “simple phone” category. Little did I know that its manufacturer also assumed I would regularly be lost in the wilderness and need additional features like a digital compass, emergency lighting, GPS orienteering apps and many other bells, whistles and survival tools – all of which, it turns out – are much easier to find than the stupid clock. Sigh.

However, the same weekend I nearly chucked my phone onto a runway at LAX, my technologically advanced son – he who was born with a sterling silver flash drive in his mouth – was delightfully dumbfounded when we dragged out an old portable record player to hear what some of our old vinyl LPs sounded like after all of these years. With great hesitation, my young wizard of the web and all things digital, put a big round, black vinyl platter on the spindle of the turntable and turned on the power. As the disc turned at 33-1/3 rpm, he lifted the tone arm off the post and … was stumped. He looked at the slowly spinning LP, looked at me, looked back to the record, back at me and said, “You start this needle thingy at the center, right?”

The poor lad. Such blissful naiveté. Dear old dinosaur Dad was, of course, happy to instruct the boy in the old ways, although I must admit the most difficult part was not chuckling under my breath the entire time. Nearly an hour later, my son was still sitting in front of that turntable, listening with newfound appreciation to the scratchy sounds of my youth.

Sometime I’m going to ask him how to find the dang clock on my phone. But not yet. I’m enjoying this too much.

I’ll see you ‘round town. 

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This post is revised from a column first published in the March 11, 2010 edition of the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper -- www.cvweekly.com.)

This version © 2011 WordChaser, Inc.