The story starts nine months ago, on my first arrival to the United States. From the start I knew I have to get myself a cellphone and thus I have bought an iPAQ and a T-mobile prepaid SIM card. However, the SIM card was sold without the PIN code required to make changes to the account. This was not a problem for me, as I could still use the phone and add minutes.
Three months ago, I decided that I will spend more than a total of $100 in a year and thus I could load up to a $100 immediately and get extra benefits: 15% more minutes, and the minutes expire only after a year. Assured of my new “gold” status, I did not buy any more refill cards.
And then, suddenly, yesterday I discovered that my balance of more than $50 became 0. I called customer service and they explained that the 1-year expiration applies after the NEXT refill after I qualify for gold, but she agreed to credit my $50 back. All she needed was to confirm my identity with the PIN I did not have. She said I will have to identify myself at a T-Mobile location and get a new PIN before I could get my minutes back.
As I neeed to make a call right away, I added $10, immediately losing 35 cents for not buying the card as Safeway, and decided I’d go to a T-mobile location the next day. At the T-mobile location, I asked to confirm my account, but they said that my ID must match the name on the account. After several minutes of asking for help, I asked them to check whether or not my name is on the account. It turns out it was, and new PIN was assigned. Now all I had to do was call customer service and have them credit my minutes.
Well, in case any more problems will arise, I decided to call customer service from the T-mobile store. After a short wait, the rep told me that they cannot credit my account since more than 48 hours have passed since the balance expired. I asked to speak with a manager, they complied, leaving me on hold for at least 30 minutes. While on hold, I called them back from my cell phone and got the same reply from two additional reps, asked to talk to the manager, and got disconnected, and then tried again.
After more than 30 minutes of waiting, the final rep managed to get their supervisor to credit my account. An amazing waste of time and money for just $50 that were rightfully mine. Once I deplete my balance I will seriously consider switching to another provider.
T-mobile and the color Magenta are registered trademarks of Deutsche Telekom.
June 20th, 2008 at 05:31
Posted by
epsalon |
Daily Life, Bureaucracy, Tech stuff |
no comments
As many of you may know, I am in the US on a temporary exchange visitor visa (J-1), and my stay has been extended for an extra year. My visa, however, expires on Sep. 30th. This is usually not a big problem since I am formally allowed to stay in the US even after my visa is expired, as long as my fellowship is valid. However, without a valid visa I’m not allowed to return to the US.
Applying or extending a US visa has to be done outside the US, and requires leaving your passport at a US embassy for at least a few days while your visa is processed, so it is recommended to do so in your home country (in my case, Israel) to avoid being stuck at a foreign country with no passport at all.
No problem I thought, I will go to Israel for the High Holidays right at the end of September and extend my visa then. The problem began when I realized I have a conference in Beijing, China right at the same time (end of September till the beginning of October), which means I will not be able to return to the US after visiting China without a valid visa.
I checked the option of flying round-the-world SFO-NRT-PEK-AMS-TLV-AMS-SFO, however that was too expensive. The only option I had was to fly round-trip to China and then to Israel the long way through San Francisco. Due to my visa problems, I will make my stay in San Francisco only a few hours long and so I could use a transit visa instead of my expired J-1 visa, which will hopefully not terminate my J-1 status. My final itinerary will therefore be SFO-NRT-PEK-NRT-SFO-AMS-TLV-AMS-SFO, that’s 30,000 miles of flying, crossing two oceans twice, with the PEK-TLV part being almost 10,000 miles longer than the direct route, and 7,000 miles longer than the reasonable Amsterdam connection.
As far as booking is concerned, I have already changed my return flight to Israel and I will be arriving on Yom Kippur, October 10, 2008 at 1:10 AM. Hopefully, the flight won’t be full of religious folk…
June 11th, 2008 at 03:07
Posted by
epsalon |
Bureaucracy, USA, Travel |
2 comments
After finally submitting a paper to the Computational Social Choice workshop in Liverpool, and some advances with our computational pool player, I decided to head North to the Hiller Aviation Museum at San Carlos Airport. I arrived just on time for a guided tour of the museum and went on to use the flight simulators to try and land a Cessna 172.
Now, you probably ask why this post is titled SQL. Well, it turns out that SQL is the IATA code of San Carlos Airport (and no, it’s not because Oracle’s head office is nearby). Anyway, I managed to fly a simulated airplane from SQL to SFO and then under the golden gate bridge and finally land at PAO (Palo Alto Airport).
Speaking of museums, this Monday I have visited the Computer History Museum, which was closed, and finally donated our old DRAGON-32 computer for display there.
June 8th, 2008 at 01:18
Posted by
epsalon |
Leisure, Academia, USA |
3 comments
You may think I’m being inconsiderate, but it seems that the title of this post was actually uttered on radio here in the US. Memorial day, a federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May commemorates the dead of the US civil war and further deaths of US servicepeople. However, due to the long weekend timing at the beginning of summer, it has become an important time for outing, picnics, and other fun activities.
In contrast, memorial day in Israel is not a holiday, and it is a day before independence day. To ensure the correct atmosphere, all entertainment venues are closed by law, and the TV and radio screen sad films and documentaries, in addition to live broadcasts the official ceremonies.
Back to the US, I spent this year’s memorial day weekend at KublaCon, the annual bay area gaming convention. The Convention features all types of non-computer gaming, from miniatures to LARPs, boardgames to RPGs. The convention lasted four days Friday-Monday, but I decided not to go on Monday. It was held in a hotel near San Francisco airport. I registered onsite for $50, and got a badge and a wristband. I spent most of the weekend playing dozens for boardgames with many different players of all ages from 8 to 80.
On the second day of the conference I registered for a Settlers of Catan tournament. After winning two of three games, I broke to the semi-finals that were held the next day. In the semis, in a very close game, I came in tied for second with 9 points (out of 10). Later that day, I have then spent many more hours playing all kinds of boardgames with people I could find, including a very smart 11 year old girl, who managed to play very well and come in second in several games in a row, until finally winning a game of Tsuro. It turns out that her father, who joined us for some of the games, owns a game store nearby and can get me good deals on games.
All in all, KublaCon was lots of fun and well worth the money. Now I have memorial day to rest before going back to work tomorrow.
May 27th, 2008 at 05:09
Posted by
epsalon |
American Culture, Gaming |
2 comments
As promised, here are the chronicles of my German visit.
The visit started with a flight from Lisbon to Saarbrucken via Palma de Mallorca. It’s been quite a while since I’ve flown without frequent flyer benefits: No lounge, no special check-in. It was quite a shock to sit on the uncomfortable terminal chairs with no Internet access, but I managed. The flights themselves were surprisingly comfortable. Due to the fact I was flying on a low-cost carrier, I could book seat 1A, which is a regular economy seat, just in the front of the plane and with much more legroom. As luck would have it 1B was vacant on both flights, and on the second one 1C was vacant too, leaving me with a whole row to myself. Onboard service included a sandwich and free soft and hot drinks. All in all, a very positive experience, comparable even to “Europe Select” (business class) on KLM.
Between the flights, I ate at KFC at PMI, was surprised to see they offered Coke and not Pepsi, and French Fries instead of Mashed Potatoes, but the chicken was more or less the same. They also talked Spanish, but that I’m used to from KFC in the US too.
Saarbruecken airport is very small, serving mostly general aviation. It has exactly two gates and two baggage belts, and the passengers walk from the airstairs to the terminal. No border control was needed, and in less than half an hour from landing I was outside and picked up.
Later that night came the shock: The vacation apartment we were staying at did not have basic necessities: No Internet access, and even no phone! This left me without any form of communication with the outside world. In the following days, my outside communications were strictly monitored and limited, and thus no blog updates, among other things.
What we did do in the following days was play lots of boardgames I brought, and go touring in several towns in Germany and beyond.
The first day was all spent playing boardgames and resting. The next day we went to the northern Mosel valley and visited the tourist town of Cochem and Eltz Castle. This was not the original plan, but the road to the southern Mosel valley was closed for bicycles only for a “bicycle day”. I could not help noticing the contrast between that and what happened recently in San Francisco, where the city was sued by car owners for a plan to dedicate more bicycle lanes.
On the third day we went to Luxembourg, capital of Luxembourg. On the way we passed the city of Schengen, which is known for the Schengen treaty for open borders in Europe. This leads to the anomaly that Luxembourg is in Schengen, while Schengen is in Luxembourg. The city itself houses an impressive castle and “casemates” — ancient city fortifications. Another useful feature is the free municipal WiFi all over the city and the impressive views.
The fourth day was spent in the city of Heidelberg, known as the home of the first university in Germany, and well, another castle. The castle houses the largest wine barrel in the world, and a museum of German pharmacies.
The last day was spent packing and playing boardgames, and the day after was spent flying back. The route was STR-AMS-MSP-SFO. We left home at 6am towards Stuttgart airport, where I was upgraded to business class on the two short segments. The flights were comfortable, but the illness I began developing in Lisbon has intensified, and I spent the flights coughing and aching, especially the last one. The first class flight attendant was very nice and repeatedly offered me more tea, until we finally arrived at the airport. Finally I took the shuttle home and went to sleep.
At home, I checked my newly repaired laptop and some boardgames I’ve ordered and made a doctor’s appointment, where I’m headed right now.
May 23rd, 2008 at 23:21
Posted by
epsalon |
Health, Germany |
2 comments
