Don't Back Down

Not actual voice mail, mind you, but a persistent voice mail indicator. To those who are familiar with it, it's a stutter-tone when you pick up the line. Many phones (including our Uniden) have a voice mail indicator on it that apparently interacts with that signal somehow.

There are two pieces here. One is if you have a stutter tone and one is if you don't. If the former, then Vonage thinks you have voice mail, and apparently it does so pretty regularly - even if you don't. The most common occurence of this that I have seen is if I listen and delete messages through the web.

Often, simply visiting the Trash folder after the first deletion, and deleting them again, will have the desire effect and you will have no more stutter tone.

Unfortunately, sometimes it continues. In this case, the only reliable solution I have found is to leave myself a new voice mail, then use the phone to listen to the message and delete it. At this point, the stutter tone will invariably go away (it has for me, at any rate).

If the problem is that you don't have a stutter tone, but have an indicator on the actual phone, you'll need to visit your friendly user manual. In the case of our Uniden phone, holding in the flash/find hs button for a few seconds actually resets this indicator. Unfortunately, doing this only resets your phone - and if the stutter tone is still there, it will come right back on shortly.

Now that I've been sitting in my Aeron Chair for nearly two months, and especially since I've been asked at least once, it seems like the right time to post a little review.

First: The chair is expensive. Even without all the add-ons and whatnot, it's easily the price of two or three other nice chairs (and ten times the cost of not-so-nice ones). That doesn't mean it's bad though. If those other chairs fall apart after a year or two, then you could easily spend the amount of money I spent on the Aeron.

It's just across multiple chairs. With a 12-year warranty (make sure you get it from an authorized dealer), it's very likely I'll be on the same chair while you are out buying yet another. So price alone isn't a factor. You've got to include the time scale.

My last chair was a reasonably expensive one - roughly 1/8th of the Aeron - and it lasted perhaps a year and a half. With the aforementioned 12-year warranty, and comparable results from inferior chairs, sticking with such a plan would result in an expenditure of almost exactly that same amount over the 12-year span. Call it a push.

Second: The chair is comfortable. That chair I had previously, as well as any other chair I had previously, had a noticeable drag to it after a very short time. The cushion was depressed, or the fabric was dirty or the arms weren't sitting just right. Even after two months of solid usage (that is, 8-10 hours per day for 4-5 days per week), the Aeron looks about the same as it did the day that it arrived.

I sprung for the Comfort Fit model, which is basically a fancy lumbar support. Is it worth the extra money? Tough to compare, since I've never tried the run-of-the-mill lumbar. I think the chair by itself would be okay, but the lumbar support makes it really nice (and supportive). I like the Comfort Fit too. I won't worry about over-spending, at any rate. I don't know if it was necessary, but I don't have a problem with the money that I spent for it. No buyer's remorse.

Third: The chair is awesomely adjustable. Of course, you don't (generally) adjust it over and over again throughout the day. But I do adjust it quite a bit to find the right fit. The arms not only move up and down, but side to side. The "rocking" action of the chair is smooth, instead of some chairs that make you feel as if you are going head-over-heels as soon as you lean back. Pretty much all of the positions can be customized - even the depth of the Comfort Fit lumber. Very sweet.

All in all? I'm happy. If you have sitting issues, spend the money up-front instead of dealing with something and being unhappy. If you're happy as you are, don't spend the money. For me, the ongoing comfort is well worthwhile. That may not be the case for everyone. If, like Ted, you find your sofa comfortable, by all means stick with it. But keep the Aeron in mind for when it becomes uncomfortable.