The event went really well. Good Blog Kevin!!
-Yasmine

I believe 100-200 telescopes were present, including WAS's 24" and my 17.5" dobs.

Ken Anderson

I really enjoyed Astronomy at the beach. This is a message, an apology really to Yasmine and Samantha. (Hopefully not a case of no good deed goes unpunished.)

Anyway to put it briefly, Yasmine found my iphone which I left by mistake at the Celestron table. Fortunately she called my house and got a hold of my father. She also left a short voice mail on my mother's Iphone, which I didn't know about until tonight. I have two iphones on my family plan and one for my mother who is elderly and unfamiliar with all it's functions and sometimes makes mistakes.

The good part of the story is during last week's event in Michigan, which was a two day event Yasmine called my father, he relayed my message and I was able to pick up the missing iPhone. That's the good part. I even had my photo taken in your set of photos and was able to see it, with her returning the phone. Which was the end of the story and a happy one.

Now the strange part of the lost iphone story. It's late at night here and my parents have a medical situation actually my mother has a medical problem, which causes them to have strange schedules and a number of other caretaker issues.

Sometimes my mother will actually call me from inside the house for some need or request and sometimes it's late at night (Michigan time). For some reason she felt the need to call me at 1;30AM and started talking with "some girl" who "found your phone".

My mom claimed to be on the phone and talking with "someone who had my phone". My father actually got ahold of me at the same time. And then my mother called my iphone, "trying to get ahold of the girl who has my phone" which caused my phone to ring, which I have currently. (Actually it's a newer iphone I purchased when I lost the original one, but that's more details than really needed.)

So my mother called me a "second time" on my actual cell phone which I actually have shortly afterward. Of course I'm standing in the same house with them and for a short time my father is saying you can talk to the girl who "has your phone right now". And I'm sleepy because it's 1:30 in the morning and I have both the lost and found Iphone and my new iphone on me and I'm wondering what the heck is going on, and how is my mother talking to some girl who has my phone when I have my phone on me at this moment. So then I realize my mother might be talking to a voicemail message or calling Yasmine by mistake based on some old message.

This was all very confusing to me at 1:30AM Michigan time to say the least. I wondered what the heck was going on how someone called my mother or was talking to her. So I took my mother's phone and investigated this. I found that she had voicemail messages with a brief message from Yasmine from last weekend when the Astronomy at the Beach was happening, but it was a short message. The other voicemails were short voice mails from my phone next to Yasmine's voice mail message which was short. My mother doesn't use the voicemail on her phone and listen to messages normally so she may have been confused and using that menu instead of her "Favorites" menu. She may have been on the wrong menu. Apple has 5 menus on the iphone, voicemail, contacts, recent calls, favorites and keypad. It can be confusing for older people.

I also realized that there was a "recent phone call entry" from Yasmine, but it was from last week. Both the voice mail and recent phone call message was from last week.

I didn't know if it would be wise to call Yasmine's phone myself to try to explain my mom may have made a confusing phone call. It was 1:30AM here, but if Yasmine was in California, it would be earlier there, so I figured I'd make a quick call from my phone to explain that my mom was confused and everything was fine here and I would try to keep my mom from calling that phone by mistake in the future. This of course was confusing to me at the time, it being late here, and I still don't even know if my mother even talked to anyone, or if she even heard a voice mail message and thought she was talking to someone. I've had some strange messages from my mother when she would leave me a voicemail message and think she was on the phone. Sometimes the elderly are confused and that creates and even greater confusion for others.

So I basically called Yasmine's phone from my own cell phone just to apologize and try to explain what had probably happened from my mother's end.

My mother had also said, the girl was at "The star restaurant" with my phone which was strange as well. I figured what likely happened was my mother was on the voicemail or recent phone menu, went to press my phone number and pressed on this other Yasmine phone number by mistake. Perhaps actually talked to Yasmine who was trying to explain that she had found my phone previously, but my elderly mother was confused and thought she had my phone at this moment.

It was pretty confusing, but this is the best explanation I have.

I called the phone number figuring it's still earlier in California if they are awake and eating out or something. Samantha answered the phone. I briefly tried to explain and apologize, and she asked if I wanted to talk to Yasmine. I tried to explain what happened, and just told her to tell Yasmine I was sorry, my mother was confused and may have talked to her or someone thinking it was about this earlier incident.

During that conversation, some male friend, perhaps Samatha's boyfriend or someone said, "just hang up" perhaps thinking I was some kind of prank call or something. To make things possibly worse and perhaps cause grief on your end tonight.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I'm sorry about any confusion and hope that I didn't cause any problems for Yasmine or her friend with tonight's phone call. I was merely trying to find out what had happened and apologize if my mother caused any confusion on that end.

As for my mother's iphone I was able to get rid of the voicemail message from Yasmine and her phone number from her "voicemail" log, however I was not able to remove her phone number from the "recents" folder on my mother's phone. I may be able to remove it from the "recents" folder by calling my mother's phone repeatedly and having the phone number scroll out of memory.

The iphone is a wonderful device and I purchased one for my mother to create a control system and simplified way of controlling a kiosk movie system for her at home. This with a remote program for the iphone that allows it to control the macintosh I purchased for my elderly mother. I have a movie kiosk, with old movies setup for her to help her pass the time of day and distract her from the pain she constantly experiences, with a rare foot condition. This kiosk system is okay, but actually not as simple as other options and I've migrated to a device called the WD Media player for my mother. The problem with the iphone and an apple Macintosh is they have to many options and can do to much. For elderly or people on medication the extra options can be confusing and cause them to navigate into areas where they are confused. So I don't recommend setting up custom Kiosks for the elderly unless you have a way to block them from most menu options. But that's another story.

Iphone for elderly - probably not a good idea.
Unfortunately as a phone with it's many menus it's to complicated for the elderly and at times they get confused with it's many menus and options. My mother being ill and suffering from a constant illness that requires medication and a lot of care, at times makes mistakes with the phone that could be due to her confusion from prescription drugs or some need late at night. She uses the phone a lot, but sometimes makes mistakes with it and is sometimes confused. I've had her call me in the morning while she's sleeping at times, because she had the phone on and pressed a menu button in her sleep. Those are strange messages, just sleeping sounds. Another part of life I suppose.

Anyway I just wanted to apologize to Yasmine and get this message to her to say I'm sorry for any confusion. I'm still a little confused on this end when recalling the menus on mom's iphone, because the call if it existed from my mother to Yasmine, didn't show up on the recent menu of my mother's phone for tonight, but did show up on the missed call from last week.

This kind of thickens the plot from my end, because I don't even know how my mother could be making up some of the stuff she said to me, if she was confused and actually talked to someone in California, or if my mother was hearing some voice mail message and thinking she was hearing other information and talking to someone when she was only listening to a voice mail message. I don't even know if my mother called tonight and talked to anyone in California or where ever you were. . .

So if you just received my call, or received a call with a confused lady and then my call, in either case, I'm sorry for any confusion this may have caused. I was not calling to interrupt or bother anyone. I'll try to remove any record of Yasmine's phone number from my mother's phone so an accidental call from the old lady cannot interrupt Yasmine's again.

Greg In Michigan.

All's well that ends well. : )