Connecting myself

Smartphones. iPhones. Can't live with 'em; can't kill 'em. Actually there are plenty of stories about people "killing" smartphones. I heard a stat the other day that something like 20% of people had dropped their phone in the toilet! That begs many other questions that I am just going to leave well enough alone. I've been sporting a jailbroken iPhone with 500MB data/mo for about 5 months now and have really gotten sucked into counting on it the last month or so. I had avoided smartphones in the USA like the plague because I hated both the idea of committing to higher charges per month for years and the thought of crashing my mountain bike and simultaneously bruising my ego and breaking $400 worth of phone. My cousin secretly enjoyed his "upgrade crash" that ruined his nano but convinced him to buy an iPhone the next day to replace it. The last phone I bought was actually one that a fall in a toilet or MTB crash couldn't kill anyhow, check out the YouTube reviews of the Samsung B2100. Definitely my goto phone for camping/outdoors and extended battery life needs. I may not be able to swap a fresh battery into my iPhone but at least I can swap my SIM card into a fresh phone.
Like I said, only recently have I begun to count on features of my iPhone. The GPS has got to be one of the best features. I used to leave my handheld GPS on while taking photos so that I would have location data-enter integrated geotagging with iPhone! I went through my app settings after reading a tip on saving battery life by blocking location access for most apps. But in practicality, I only blocked one of my apps as I realized how important location was for the best functionality of the apps. I don't like to tag my facebook updates, but I do like to check in sometimes which also requires location. Yelp, transit apps, tripadvisor, etc. all benefit by customizing content to your location.
So in the last two weeks I have made several small online purchases, checked balances, transferred money, skyped, booked a hotel, booked olympic soccer tickets, and almost booked airline tickets. I was a little disappointed with the failed ticket transaction, and that's in fact when I realized the extent to which I had begun to depend on this (this because I'm writing my blog on it) device. In the phone's defense, it turns out that the website was screwy even on my desktop computer so it never really had a chance. So in conclusion, I've finally found a replacement for my palm T|X (my feelings about webOS and Palm's demise and HP could generate several blog entries alone), the iPhone 3GS. Not about to spend $200 plus and commit to a contract by upgrading anytime soon; my £15.50 per month pay as you go is just fine by me (the same guy that. Now if only I could jury-rig my folding IR keyboard for my palm to work with the iPhone...

Time to blog regularly / No such thing as Freephone

I'm back! So perhaps it has something to do with getting an iPhone (always have something to distract myself with) or perhaps it has to do with getting a job and suddenly valuing my "free" time differently but either way I have been anything but consistent at blogging. So I have just set a weekly reminder (in my iphone) in the hopes that I can compose something worth your time to read at least that often.

Life in the UK, or London more specifically is something that is easy to write about from the perspective of what is interesting or unique from an American's view? Today's topic is "Freephone". In the USA if you dial 1-800 or 1-866 or probably any 1-8XX it would not cost you anything; they call them "toll-free" in the US. In the UK the long list of "non-geographic" numbers (084, 085, 08X) is quite tricky to wade thru the cost structure. They started out mostly as "Freephone" but if you call from a cell phone they charge you and sometimes it's only free if calling from a landline operated by a specific company (BT) and the table to look up which prefixes will cost you what on which mobile phone plan is guaranteed to give you a headache. Oh, and if you really want someone to express your anger at call a 084 number. Seriously, they are paid to take it. One could actually come up with a business plan to build a lousy product/service and then offer a 084 support line as a revenue generator. It is NOT Freephone for anybody and the cost of the call is split between the phone company and the owner of the number (Yes, this means they earn money from your call, and putting you on hold, and so on so long as you remain on the line). In principle, I do everything I can to avoid companies that list 084 numbers because they should not punish me for needing to talk to them. Get my money from sales not product inquiries.

After thinking about this more I don't mind so much that I have to pay to call "Freephone" numbers from my cell as I realize they would have been deducted from my minutes in the USA if calling from a mobile. But in the US even receiving a call costs me minutes so I don't think so much about it and tended to have a higher alotment of minutes in my line so that it wasn't such a big deal. In the UK the call initiator pays and all received calls are free assuming you aren't roaming. Roaming is another tricky thing because I had a nationwide plan in the US and my phone probably wouldn't work outside of the US. In the UK you can be in a different country two hours from central London and suddenly the cost of using your mobile phone quadruples. Each country in Europe means either buying a new sim card or paying roaming if you want to use your phone. Since received calls are free it can often be cheaper for a traveller to just get the new country's sim card and pass the number on to friends/relatives so you can receive their calls for free and have just enough credit to make emergency calls. I now have sim cards from Ireland, UK, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain. Now that I get to travel with my wife more frequently it actually is simpler to just pay roaming and mostly text message each other while outside the UK than to source a local sim (resulting in roughly the same cost as well). Particularly simpler since they tend to cancel your old funds/card if you don't use it for a couple months. (Buying a new sim card is much easier than figuring out if your old sim card still works/can be reactivated when communicating across a language barrier).

So in conclusion there is no such thing as a free lunch or Freephone.

Screw me once, shame on you; screw me twice, shame on me!

I've never felt so good about the idea of walking two miles as I now would in Athens.  Don't get me wrong, Greece has many wonderful things to offer a tourist, but the taxi experience in Athens is one best avoided.  I did a 3-day cruise of the Aegean Sea with my wife and saw some wonderful sights, then returned to Athens to tour the Acropolis and other famous ruins.  It seems to me like if a country wanted to encourage tourism it would make sure that the first impression of visitors was as positive as possible.  In many countries that first impression is shaped by arriving at an airport and paying the premium to take a taxi in order to postpone for just a bit longer the brainpower required to figure out the transit system and manpower required to negotiate the various tunnels and staircases with one's luggage.  In Greece I suppose they make the first taxi ride bearable, but go no further.  Perusing www.tripadvisor.com and having to book a very late flight into Athens resulted in the conclusion that a private driver was the way to go for getting from our 2:30am arrival at the airport to our hotel near the cruise ship port.  Reports of crazy driving and language barriers, not to mention the taxi meter doubling its rate after midnight meant it was a safer bet to just reserve a driver to pick us up at the airport and enjoy the pleasure of seeing our name on a sign after exiting immigration.  Unfortunately we didn't get to see our name after immigration.  We turned away 3 other drivers that barely spoke any English but were trying to make sure we were not who they were supposed to pick up, and finally called to find out our driver had mechanical difficulties on the freeway enroute and due to the crazy time of night it would be close to an hour before anybody else could pick us up; meaning we should just head to the taxi-queue.  The original quote was 65 Euros, so now the question was how competitive was that?  In the queue we found that the night rate to Central Athens was 50 Euros and the first driver quoted us a 70 Euro fare to the port which was further away.  We countered and were able to secure 65 Euros so at least the taxi was no more expensive than we'd expected but buckled in for a fast and furious drive that one begins to expect when hiring an unfamiliar taxi company in Europe for a ride to/from the airport.  At least when we arrived there were no surprises and the aggressive driving through Athens streets at 3am was the only complaint we had.  We proceeded to experience unethical taxi drivers for three out of three of our next rides in Athens, leading us to enjoy walking nearly any distance through Athens rather than deal with a Taxi driver we could only expect would cheat us.  No wonder the original private driver company had so many good reviews, even with the occasional mechanical difficulty people were happy to pay a premium for good English and no last minute surprises in the fare. 

Summary of Taxi rides in Greece:

Case 1:  Pre-reserved private driver is a no-show at 3am due to "breakdown" of what their website claimed were "new Mercedes".  Took first taxi in the queue and prayed continuously through harrowing ride to arrive at hotel safely.

Case 2:  After having negotiated poor sidewalks and unsafe street crossings from hotel to cruise ship with luggage it was determined to take a taxi from cruise ship back to next hotel or at least to metro station.  The first taxi in queue at the port quoted 15-16 Euro for central Athens.  Then 30 seconds into the ride the actual hotel had been looked up and with this new information the fare suddenly jumped from 16 to 20 Euro.  We were now a captive audience, and perhaps this hotel or neighborhood indicated we could afford more; who knows?  But to be 1km past the center of Athens when coming from Piraeus and increase the fare by 20% is crazy.  Alas, the prior ride was crazy fast and we preferred not to piss off our driver enroute so we figured whatever and at least it was a smooth ride, pleasant except for having been taken advantage of.

Case 3:  Needed ride to museum to maximize amount of time before closing hours.  Driver used "meter" but meter was atypical and figures made no sense at all.  Requested 9 Euros for ride that was anticipated at 6 Euros by hotel staff and then claimed not to have more than 5 Euros change for a 20 Euro bill.  Paid 7 Euros rather than getting jipped for lack of change from driver.

Case 4:  Transferred from "Vacation" hotel to "Work" hotel with luggage, quoted as about a 6 Euro ride from hotel staff.  Since the previous rides were so unpleasant, I had since read an iPhone app with descriptions of various taxi scams run in Greece and was happy to see that the daytime fare was running and watched the GPS to confirm that he was not taking a circuitous route.  We arrived at the hotel and I was looking forward to tipping the driver for being honest since I saw that the meter read only 4.40 Euro.  After unloading our bags (which I had helped load) he quoted 10 Euro for the fare!!!  So much for finding our first honest cabbie.  He indicated that the bags were heavy to explain the difference between the meter and the 10 Euros.  Thankfully a Hilton bellhop came by (probably used to squabbles between arriving guests and taxi drivers) and asked what the problem was.  We described the situation and he proceeded to call out the cabbie in Greek, using the papers on the dashboard of his own cab to explain how the government directed that carrying bags of 10+ kg was to be charged at 0.50 Euro per bag and that the fare should be 6 Euros.  We paid and received the appropriate change, directing the difference to our friendly bellhop.  Oh, and when prompted for a receipt the driver responded that he was out of paper.  I figure he's been out of paper for 2 years and taking the 50% premium from tourists right into the Greek black market that got them into this fiscal crisis to begin with.

Case 5:  Avoiding it like the plague.

I could never have believed how sickened I could be at the prospect of losing out on approximately 12 Euros before this.  Is 4 extra Euros on a cab ride really worth compromising the reputation of the entire country to tourists?  So 4 Euros by itself is not that big of a deal, but I just hate being cheated or taken advantage of.  Now I understand the recommendations we have heard of to visit Athens first, then the islands; because you have to visit the Acropolis and Parthenon and such while in Greece but if you go home right after Athens it leaves a bad taste in your mouth from graffiti and rotten taxi drivers while visiting the islands can't help but leave you wishing to return as soon as possible.

I am unemployed

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem...

I'm unemployed.  I can no longer deny that I am unemployed; the recognized description is essentially anybody that is not currently employed but looking for employment.  I quit my job in October of 2009 to take the opportunity of a lifetime and travel to Ireland with my girlfriend.  The writing was on the wall at my company, funding was limited and even without knowing that it didn't make sense to employ 50 people in R&D when the company wasn't selling any products and knew it would have to wait through at least two years before market approval once the impending clinical trial began.  So I alternated  between spending some time in Ireland and some time back in AZ with my family and friends that I hadn't spent so much time with over the previous five years.  I had quit my job but was not seeking another so I somehow felt better inside, telling myself I was not unemployed since I was not seeking employment.  Then I started looking for a job but only because a job in Ireland would result in permission to stay in the country rather than a 90-day visa granted upon entry subject to the discretion of the immigration officer ("Subject to the discretion of immigration officer" leads to the creation of my blog ironically, and a later letter confirms I had every right to be in Ireland despite their "discretion").  So I convinced myself that I still didn't qualify as unemployed because I was only looking for a job to get a visa, not because I needed the money.  Then back to the US and only looking for something temporary because I knew I'd be headed back to Europe soon, no use finding full-time employment.  Well, now I am happily married but that means I have every right to work in the country I also happen to be living in; a rare situation as of late.  AND I'm looking for a job.  We're here, we're gonna be here for awhile, I've got permission to live here, I've got permission to work here, and I'm looking for a job.  Therefore, I'm u-n-e-m-p-l-o-y-e-d.  Period.  And turns out if one were counting I've actually even passed the 99 weeks threshold (assuming I qualified as unemployed from the get-go).  Don't get me wrong, I've had an absolute blast and most importantly it enabled me to confirm that my instinct was right about following my now wife to Ireland.  Had I waited an extra month to quite I might even have been laid off allowing me to gain unemployment benefits along the way.  I bring that up as a good "almost" story but in reality here I am still getting by.  I would've just been gaming the system to collect unemployment through all that, and probably many people needed it worse than I.  I had some savings initially and most importantly a great support network that kept me going and now a wonderful wife that is quite the breadwinner herself.  I started writing this blog about a month ago but couldn't bring myself to finish it, and somehow lost the progress along the way.  I think I have some upcoming news that makes it a little easier to revisit this now, but I just don't want to jinx it.  So this is where I'll leave it...   I'm currently unemployed.

The picture is of myself during a post-interview café latte immediately before I began to write the first and unpublished version of "I'm unemployed" blog.  I was interviewing for a social media internship around the corner from my flat rather than a full-time engineering position, hence the lack of tie.

Watching Greece pull the Euro down one page at a time

Bear with me, this anecdote went longer than expected but basically is an interesting encounter with an Athens copyshop/shipping center owner or employee during my trip to Greece.  Enjoy...

So once the joint Greece vacation with my wife was over and she had a conference to attend I found out I had some urgent business to attend to.  A nearly 20-page document needed to be printed, signed, and scanned for a quick return.  Well, I did a quick google search and it turns out the printing shops did not do a good job of using English search terms for internet listings so I decided to try the Hilton business center figuring it would be more expensive but at least convenient.  So I find the business center and just need to figure out how to login to the computers, hoping it will be easy to pay cash rather than charging to the room since it is a personal task rather than related to my wife's work.  As expected, the hotel charges an expensive 0.74 Euro/page to print black/white.  That's a little steep I figure but for the convenience I guess I'll deal with it.  But can I use the scanner?  They will, for my convenience, scan the document for me for only 5 Euro/page.  Or, I can scan it myself for 5 Euro/page!  The scanner would have paid for itself in a single transaction if I did that.  No longer was this in any way reasonable to me.  Now that it was obvious they were in NO way competitive I decided to ask at the front desk for another shop in the area.  They of course were recommending their center and ready to walk me to it but I explained how I'd already been there and he was at least nice enough to search for me and find a close alternative.  On the way to the alternative I happened upon a printing/shipping/Western Union shop and walked in.  Luckily the man spoke English well said it was 0.15 Euro/page to print and he would scan the document for 5 Euro.  Great, I figured, saves me 100 Euro.  This guy is getting phone calls right and left as I sift through the papers signing and initialing as needed, but he's paying just enough attention to me to realize he'll need to scan more than just a few sheets.  He had originally suggested only printing pages as necessary and I hadn't reviewed it all yet so I figured for .15 Euro/sheet just print it all.  I guess he had anticipated it would only be a final signature page or something so now he's ready to renegotiate (a common trend in Athens as I'll try to blog later albeit he had a much nobler position than most) the 5 Euro quoted for scanning.  I asked about a feeder and he pointed to a machine indicating that it didn't work anymore so he'd only have the standard flatbed scanner to use.  OK, I knew the alternative was 100 Euro, and also that although frustrating it still wasn't much more difficult to scan 20 pages than it was to scan 3.  So I offered 10 Euros and he said OK, and something to the affect that everybody is under tough times right now.  I finish up my signatures and wait for him to finish his current and obviously personal phone call before bringing him the document to scan.  He gets another call whilst preparing the scanner, scanned one page or two, and once the call was over he asked if I would do the scanning.  No charge he says, and gestures me over to his laptop and scanner.  No big deal, I'm waiting just as long whether I do it myself or not.  So he starts to show me how to do it and the screen is all in Greek except for "(*.jpeg)" and I can only imagine emailing 20 picture files in response to a PDF but the drop-down only has other picture formats.  He doesn't quite understand my concern as he is trying to show me how to use the scanner but gets another call and walks outside the store to talk.  After about 10 minutes of going back and forth through the various windows and buttons of the scanner program (including two minutes trying to figure out an easy way to change the display language—it's way easier in internet café's where they are used to international customers) I finally see *.PDF as a file option and can begin a process that will culminate in a useful result.  I was hoping I'd get a popup after the scan like my Canon multifunction which defaults to "Scan" with another option to "exit" once finished scanning.  Luckily despite not having that I had used a similar HP scanner before and figured out which button to use for scanning an additional page and persevered through the tedious process with the occasional task of rotating a page that auto-detected incorrectly.  Oh, and throughout this by about page 13 I had listened to his cell phone which was left on the desk in front of his laptop ring unanswered three separate times at which point I finally carried it outside to him assuming it must be some emergency and he was still outside chatting away on the cordless landline phone unable to hear his cell.  He thanked me and resumed his conversation as I went back in to finish up my scanning.  At last the final page was scanned, and provided some tense moments as I tried a few different buttons to save or complete the file hoping I wouldn't accidentally lose all of the work.  About the third button I tried (remember they are all labeled in Greek) appeared to work and showed me a file location on the computer that the document was saved to.  Now I was ready to get his help finding the location in the computer to copy it over to my USB stick and complete my mission.  When he came over he was able to help me navigate, he translated part of the location to "My Documents" but that didn't really help me much since it's all Greek to me—OK, I had to throw that in, but really what's the obvious difference between My Documents, My Pictures, and My Music or whatever when the icons are not showing and it's printed in Greek?  Anyways he walked me through it and afterwards I tried to show him the button in HP software that allows one to scan in PDF (probably labeled the Greek equivalent of "Scan Document" as opposed to "Scan Picture" but he didn't seem to care or else didn't understand the significance.  I collected my printout, ejected my USB key, deleted the file from his computer, and he took out his calculator to multiply 19 pages by 0.15 Euro/page and asked me for 2.85 Euro.  What an experience!

I can only imagine the future of Greece if this is a representative sample of Greek small business.  We've watched the Euro fall from $1.43 to $1.35 while in Greece and its directly attributable to what's going on in Greece.  It's good we were here for vacation in advance of the conference or my wife would've had a terrible time traveling in since there was a complete transportation strike on the opening day of the conference; taxis, metro, and a 3-hour air traffic control strike.  I don't know what the taxis are striking about, they screw every tourist they pickup, or at least try to; but that's another blog...

dune du pilat

Hello, from le dune du pyla, the tallest sand dune in Europe and also
a pretty sweet beach. it is in the southwest of France on the
Atlantic Ocean. i am staying in Arcachon, a bit of a bike ride around
the coast but it was still worth the ride to know we had visited here.
What a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend to spend in Bordeaux and
Arcachon. The weather was as great as one could ask for Europe,
warmest and sunniest for our beach days! That`s all for now as I am
blogging on my Kindle and want to get back to my book.

Journey to the Eye and back

Put the first 20 miles on the road bike since the move to London today. I definitely need to get out on my bike more. Good times.

Living the good life!

From now on please address me as Mister. I am now happily married to
the woman of my dreams and we are having a wonderful honeymoon in
Hawaii on the big island. Now most of you would not consider having an
allergic reaction to sunscreen and turning half-red without being
sunburned to be a good time. But alas, you do not know my wife. She
is definitely a glass more than half full kind of girl. She covered up
with cortizone cream at 6am to get us to my deep sea fishing trip on
time with a smile on her face. We sat down and ate a delicious lunch
at the Harbor House since we got skunked (but great company from the
Fire Hatt crew and saw 2 pods of pilot whales to make it a successful
trip) and were by that time famished. Only then did she decide it was
time to go find a doctor as benadryl and cortizone cream did not seem
to be working. Turns out the fancy spf 85 spray on sunscreen was the
culprit and the first uneventful beach day was because the skin had to
be sensitized from first contact before it would react. "Contact
dermatitus" was the diagnosis. The recovery process has begun and we
took advantage of room service sushi at sunset that was arguably
better than the sunset cruise we took the night before since we have
such an amazing view from our room. We have taken to reading/blogging
from our room/balcony after enjoying room service brunch and will be
more than ready to enjoy our Luau tonight and still have three more
days in paradise together. I am a very lucky man with a most wonderful
wife and we cannot wait to start our lives together (well, except for
this honeymoon thing!).
~Mr. sonofdirt

SoCal Bike Ride

So I made it out to SoCal last weekend to catch up with a few peeps I hadn't seen in awhile.  For once I went without the helmet cam, so no pics to post until my buddies send me something.  It was a tough ride but I started out drafting heavily and ate right so I finished relatively strong (had no chance against the former Berkeley Cycling Team member though!).  I was just glad to still hang with the old group; you always wonder if you ride/train as hard when riding by yourself as compared to having a riding partner. 

 

The ride was scenic, it was nice to explore some roads I hadn't been on when I lived out there.  We took off from Valencia and rode through Green Valley up San Francisquito (or something like that) until we were ready to pass out and then luckily the road turned downhill looping back toward Castaic Lake.  The convenience store stop just before the top of the hill was great as there was a bake sale going on and that was the best $1 cupcake for charity I've ever had!!!  There were a couple more short steep hills and one long grind uphill but we had green hills and distant lakes as background to enjoy so it was just a good way to spend the day overall.  65 miles was the total, with about 4,200 vertical feet gained throughout the day, I posted about 4,100 calories burned (Good thing, because I had a Klondike bar AND an ice cream sandwich for dinner!).

 

 

Kindle!

I am officially blogging via 3G on my new kindle. Things are getting
exciting with my wedding approaching and then moving to London with my
beautiful wife. I'll try and be more consistent with the updates but
things haven't seemed as noteworthy compared to a three month tour in
Europe.