Hi everyone,

I'm still trying to figure out what happened here.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

It's been almost two weeks since I switched to an iPhone, and I can't tell a lie, I still sort of miss my BlackBerry.  The iPhone has all of the bells and whistles that I thought it would, and it takes nice pictures and all that, but I still can't get over how short the battery life is, I don't like that the instruction "manual" doesn't explain how to do anything besides turn it on and access iTunes, and as far as I can tell, I'm not going to be able to use the alarm clock function, which brings us to today's story.

I used my BlackBerry as my alarm clock for years because the tone was much less harsh than my actual clock.  It was set for 6:30 in the morning, I would turn the phone off when I went to bed, and it would turn back on at the right time in the morning.  It was a nice set-up that worked well for me.

As far as I can tell, you can't do the same thing with an iPhone.  I set the alarm, but the only reason I haven't been late to work is because I generally wake up before then, because the phone doesn't turn itself on at 6:30.  That's annoying because it means I either have to leave it on all the time, or go back to using my old alarm clock.

I don't want to have to charge this thing three times a day, so I set the alarm clock last night.  Fortunately, I woke up at 6:20, because the alarm never went off.  Apparently I forgot to actually turn it "on."  Oops.  However, what I did hear was a muffled, yet familiar sound coming from underneath my bed right at 6:30.  I got up, reached underneath the bed and there back in its original box in a duffel bag was my old BlackBerry going off to wake me up, just like it had for so many years.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how this happened.  I'm 99% sure I turned off the alarm function the last time I used the phone before the big switch two weeks ago, and I'm positive this is the first time this alarm has gone off since then.  I know, it sounds cheesy as all hell, but it's as iff the BlackBerry knew that I'd be in trouble without its help.   Sadly, it seems that the aging track ball has finally given out, which meant that I couldn't turn the alarm function off.  That forced me to remove the eight-year old battery from the back, and all I cauld think was, "Thank you old friend for helping me out one last time."

Cool or not, the iPhone has a long way to go before I'll have anywhere near the same level of appreciation for it that I'll always have for my trusted sidekick.