I couldn’t believe it. Over 500 photos on my phone. Some going back, honestly, nearly half a decade.
I shall explain.
I’ve owned my BlackBerry KEYone cell phone for the past four-plus years. It was a replacement for my BlackBerry PRIV, which was a fantastic phone until I accidentally dropped it and it banged off the corner of a metal desk, causing the screen glass to fracture. And since my cell phone carrier’s insurance company – Asurion – wouldn’t replace the phone (which they would do if I owned an iPhone or a Samsung, but which they conveniently never told me while still charging me for insurance coverage), I had to purchase a new KEYone straight out. And because I’m one of the few remaining subscribers to have that grandfathered “unlimited data plan” on Verizon, I had to buy the phone at retail price – the moment I enter into a contract to get my phone replaced by them, I would lose my unlimited data and all that it included. Nertz.
So last night, I decided my phone needed a good cleaning. My phone’s photos were already automatically uploaded to my Google Photos cloud server, but you know as well as I do that clouds can disappear if the weather conditions change. With that, I felt it was time to give my phone a good cleaning.
I plugged it into my computer tower, and checked out the phone’s contents.
Wow. Between the SIM card and the internal memory storage, I’ve got over 500 photos and several dozen videos on this bad boy.
I remember that photo. That was from way back in January 2017, when I traipsed through the snow – on a broken left foot that was wrapped in a walking boot – and shot some winter urban exploration shots at the old Frontier Town amusement park. I understand that these buildings now have spraypainted graffiti on them, if they’re even still standing at all.
Oh yeah, this photo I remember as well. I snapped this at a Five Guys one time, the Coca-Cola machine had part of the logotype snapped off. I blogged about the incongruity of ordering an Oca-Cola. This was back when I was still blogging at the Times Union. This was also one of the reasons why I left; the Times Union decided – without my permission or consent – to change my headline because they thought I had made a typo. Yeah, I still hold receipts for those who wronged me.
Oh, this photo brings back memories. The crow that accidentally got into the coin-op laundromat, and frightened all the patrons as it flapped around and cawed at everyone. According to the timestamp, this would have been shot in 2018.
But what I’m saying is … I’ve taken a ton of photos on this phone. And some of them have ended up in blogs, I’ve even tried entering a few images in competition. But then they’re left on the phone and forgotten – and just take up space. Internal photographic clutter.
So here’s what I did. I tethered my cell phone to my computer tower, then I transferred all 500+ photos and dozens or so videos to a folder on the desktop. Then I took a DVD and burned the photos onto the DVD (the Great External Hard Drive Crash of 2020 still weighs on my soul). Once I confirmed that the images were safely on the DVD, I wiped the camera’s photo internal memory.
I checked a few other storage areas on the camera, just a bit of tidying up whenever possible.
See, here’s the thing. I do NOT know when the new BlackBerry phone will make its debut. And I’m nursing a 4-year-old cell phone as far as I possibly can. Shit, I think it’s on its 5th protective back cover, and I suspect I must purchase a couple more covers at some point. Maybe I’ll order them today.
So there’s nothing wrong with a little internal “spring cleaning” to keep your phone running in tip top shape. Because, so long as you take care of your phone … It will take care of you.
Chuck The Writer 