Welcome to the 21st Century, Matt.

I’ve been avoiding getting a cell phone for as long as I possibly could. But now that I’m about to move into a new place here in Portland I figured I join the rest of the masses.

That and the new place won’t have a land line.

For many years I have avoided getting a cell phone for a variety of reasons. My biggest reason/excuse was I never really used the phone all that much. Those who needed to get a hold of me could call my home or office and if I wasn’t there, they’d leave me a message.

Another reason was the thought of people calling me at any time kind of bugged me a little. I know I could just shut the phone off or put it on silence but sometimes I just like not being reachable. Selfish, I know, and in the case of emergency I’d be totally screwed but I wasn’t thinking about that.

I shouldn’t say that I’ve never had a cell phone because that’s not true. I did have one for the year I lived in Hawaii because owning a land line there was expensive. My girlfriend at the time carried it around with her so it wasn’t like I really had a cell phone. I just used it to call family every now and again.

I also bought one of those pre-paid phones last year for when I moved down from Fairbanks, Alaska to Portland, Oregon. That one was just to keep my family updated on my progress and in case of emergency which I never needed. I did lock my self out of the car in Canada while it was snowing but a trooper stopped not five minutes later.

Another reason I didn’t want a cell phone was because I didn’t want/need all the extra gadgets and gizmos that come with cell phones. If it made and received calls I’d be happy. Picture would be a bonus but that’s it. But now-a-days even the most basic of cell phones connect to the internet, play music, record movies and other magical things of that nature.

I’ve been avoiding the inevitable for as long as could; I now own a cell phone with all the bells and whistles. Last night I probably spent a few hours playing with all the functions and downloading other features and ring tones.

That’s my sell out story – What’s yours?