Here’s a follow up to the last post. Now that I’ve had the iPhone 4 for a few days, a few more thoughts:

• I can now duplicate the “grip of death,” getting the bars to drop. To get the effect, I have to hold the device just so with my left hand and without a case. I don’t really see this as an issue, since the idea of buying a $200 device and not wrapping a protective case around it is a bit alien to me. My 1st-gen case fits well enough to hold me over until Apple sends a free one.

• The threaded email is long overdue. Having email on the phone match what Gmail has trained me to expect avoids a minor mental hassle. Having integrated inboxes is an added bonus.
• I can’t emphasize much processing speed and battery life have changed in three years since the 1st gen version dropped. I never used Bluetooth or notifications with my 1st gen. Now, it’s the norm.

I did drop one call today. I had the case on the device at the time, so it wasn’t the dreaded antenna issue. Probably just a network hiccup. Of course, that could just be the fanboy talking. Dropped call or not, this is a stellar device. Its value lies in the hundreds of things it does, all well. That it also makes calls just ices the cake.

I admit I did a little happy dance when the email from Apple to let me know my new iPhone was ready for pickup arrived this morning. Mrs. Blocletters bought it just two days ago for my birthday. At the time, they told her the wait could stretch for three weeks. Imagine my surprise.

First impressions:

• The speed and display put the 1st generation iPhone I retired to shame.

• I tried to duplicate the antenna issue and couldn’t. Maybe I just need to work on my “grip of death.” I don’t know.
• The video and camera, both forward and backward facing, work as expected. I didn’t yet put the flash though its paces.

Maybe more thoughts later as I put it through a few days of use.

Today I drew the crevé! card. My doctor called this afternoon with test results: I have a stress fracture in my left foot.

I used to play Mille Bornes often. For the unacquainted, it’s a French-import card game. Each player, or driver, takes turns drawing cards representing distances in the hopes of reaching a thousand miles first in the race. Potholes mark the route. One of the pothole-type cards players can draw is crevé, or flat tire (literally, burst).

Two weeks ago today, I was eight miles into a nine-mile run in Vibram FiveFingers — the KSO model (calling them shoes overstates things; they’re more like gloves for your feet), when I felt an unfamiliar tinge of pain near the base of the second toe of my left foot. I noticed, but deemed it more annoying than intense and finished the run. The pain stuck for a few days. The following Monday, I woke with that foot inflated like a balloon. I saw the doctor Tuesday and, based on the range of movement I had, he diagnosed it as likely a tendon issue and asked me to return in a week.

The swelling never quite went down and I continued to limp about. On the return visit, he ordered a bone scan.

First thing in the morning Thursday, my birthday, I found myself getting injected with gamma radiation. The nuclear medicine technician brought out the syringe in a lead flask. The radiation circulated around, stuck to my bones and eventually revealed itself on the whirring scanner. Between that and X-rays of the offending foot, I spent more than half a day at the hospital. Happy birthday to me.

All the while I expected this expensive test would confirm that I just stepped wrong, and all would heal if I’d just give it a few more days. I didn’t prepare myself for the doctor’s call today, but should have. I didn’t think it’d come to this.

It did. The prescription: an obnoxious boot to wear on my foot, to immobilize it and help the healing. No running for at least three more weeks. Training for the Detroit Free Press Marathon will not begin this coming week as scheduled. In fact, outlook for even getting to the starting line looks dim.

Crevé!

Disappointed doesn’t begin to describe how I feel, and I fought the blues all evening. But I’ve drawn a few 100-mile distance cards lately, and should have expected a flat tire to turn up. I’m not invincible — much as I sometimes think — and that’s a lesson I need to learn.

Mille bornes roughly translates to “a thousand milestones,” and this is just another one. With the support of Mrs. Blocletters and Baby Blocletters, I’ll pass this milestone, too.

Here’s hoping the next card I draw is roue de secours, or even increvable.

Recently a nice surprise arrived in my inbox from my Great Aunt Alice. She sent this photo given to her by my great grandfather, Joseph Russel Johnson.

Sproats and Johnsons c. 1905

The photo, likely taken in fall 1905, shows Joseph Russel at age 8. It features much of his mom’s family on the occasion of her parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. The couple, Joseph and Elizabeth Sproat, sit in the front row. They are my great-great-great grandparents and were born in Pennsylvania in the 1830s. Their daughter, Elizabeth Ella Sproat, married my great-great grandfather, Alvah Wilson Johnson. Alvah and Elizabeth’s third child, Joseph Russel — my great grandfather, stands center front in a white shirt.

Alvah Wilson Johnson (who’s not in the picture, though his wife and kids are) brought my Johnson line to Michigan. Alvah, raised as a farmer in southern Ohio, came to the Saginaw, Mich., area as a coal prospector in 1889, according to his obituary.

Alvah and Elizabeth Johnson also bore Harold, standing on the far left, and Mary, who stands behind Joseph in white with a bow in her hair.

Other people in the picture are various distant cousins. Other interesting bits:

• The woman in the dark dress on the right of the doorway in back is Jennie Johnson, who is Alvah Wilson Johnson’s oldest sister (and my great-great grand aunt). The Johnson siblings married Sproat siblings, Jennie to Charles and Alvah to Elizabeth. Charles Sproat stands next to wife Jennie in back, behind his younger sister Elizabeth (Alvah’s wife).
• The young girl in the dark dress in front is Clara Sproat. She’s the youngest daughter of Charles and Jennie. She’s the mother of John Glenn, the senator and astronaut.

Confused? Don’t worry. I’m sure this is only interesting to me, and even I had to draw a diagram.