yeeland’s blog

I started thinking about what I've done in the last few days and what I'll be doing the next few days.  And man...

Friday - Basketball
Saturday - Rowing
Sunday - Rowing
Tuesday - Softball
Wednesday - Tennis
Thursday - Rowing
Friday - Basketball

Yeah.. I can't complain. :-P

In my quest to find a good house to buy, I've generally been wildly guessing how walkable places are to shops, restaurants, coffeshops, public transportation, etc.  Then I found walkscore.com where you enter an address and it will look for all the proximity of all these things around you to see how car-dependent or walkable you are.  When I visited my sister in Seattle this past Thanksgiving, both my sister and her husband worked for some of the days I was there so I was on my own for a little while.  But there were several local eateries that were quite delicious and within walking distance.  A grocery store was a lengthy but walkable distance when I ran out of contact lens solution, too.  And in the bigger picture, who can really argue against using less gas whenever possible?

I thought I'd figure out the scores for the major places I've lived at the last few years:

• Sugar Land: 40/100
  Car-dependent.  Having grown up in this house, it makes sense why walking to places was so foreign to me until later in life.
  
  
• Tower Manor: 91/100
  Closest restaurant: Player's.  Haha, that was a regular place to get food.
  
  
• Jester: 75/100
  Yeah.. a car really was for the most part unnecessary.
  
  
• Buena Vista: 89/100
  In hindsight, I really only had to drive to work and HEB.
  
  
• Mesa Verde: 45/100
  After living in highly walkable areas for four years, it makes sense why it was kinda disconcerting when I first moved here.  And why I want out. :-P

And a few other significant places in Austin right now...

• Office: 22/100
  We always have to drive out for lunch...
  
  
• Old Office: 28/100
  I'd argue that it's worse than the current one because there wasn't a lot of variety in the walkable restaurant department.
  
  
• Space12: 55/100
  Somewhat walkable?  I think I agree with that.  Whenever I've been there, it's never occured to me that I should walk to get certain things for the different events.
  
  
• Mosaic: 72/100
  We have walked to BurgerTex from Mosaic before....

Overall, I have to say.. not bad.  A lot of it makes sense but some things are just done wrong.  For example, Starbucks is NOT a restaurant and 711 is NOT a grocery store.

Ah heck.. while I'm at it.  Different neighborhoods in Austin.  I just sampled an address or two from each neighborhood that seemed to pretty typical of what's available:

• Crestview: 82/100
• Allandale: 78/100
  
• Mueller: 58/100
• Scofield Ridge: 45/100
• The 297 Collective Area: 40/100
• Edge of Downtown: 78/100
• Heart of Downtown: 100/100
  

From TurboTax...

Activities that qualify for the domestic production activities deduction include:

 - The lease, rental, license, sale, or exchange of personal property, computer software, or recordings that are manufactured, produced, grown or extracted in significant part in the United States.

 - Film production where 50 percent of the total compensation related to the film is for production services performed in the United States.

[...]

Good thing we only didn't do any weddings in Canada or Mexico...?

Things have been so bland and almost predictable lately that I'm noticing that I'm pigeonholing people off of first impressions a lot more so than usual:

First, I should point out that I've been with Cingular/AT&T since I graduated high school and I haven't really had any complaints about their service up until this point.  Maybe I just have low standards or don't know any better since a lot of my friends and co-workers don't have that high of an opinion of AT&T and if they were in my shoes, they would have more than likely switched to T-Mobile or Sprint at some point in the last 6 years.

But the crap I had to put up with this morning was just unacceptable.  It makes absolutely no sense to me.

As we all know, the highly anticipated iPhone 3g was released three days ago.  A buddy of mine upgraded from his original iPhone on the first day it came out.  Because I've been such a loyal AT&T customer all these years, I won't qualify for a fully-subsidized upgrade until October.  I could pay an extra $200 to upgrade now, but I cannot justify $200 for not waiting 3 months for a new phone.  This is because sometime last February, I got a Cingular 3125 because at that time, my old Motorola's battery was so terrible at holding a charge that the battery would drain if I used it while it was plugged in.  Long story short, I can't upgrade for awhile unless I want to pay a $200 premium.

My buddy who upgraded decided to hand down his old iPhone to me, so I can at least use iPhone 2.0 until I can fully upgrade in October.

Now here's where it gets interesting...

When I tried to activate this used and unsubsidized phone through iTunes, it asked me to renew a two-year contract.  A two-year contract for a previous generation, used, unsubsidized phone.

Must be a mistake, right?  There's no reason for AT&T to require a new contract because whatever money they might have lost through revenue sharing with Apple must have been recouped already, right?

I called up AT&T customer service to make sense of this.  After putting me on hold for 15 minutes (not terrible, I suppose), the customer service rep told me that I shouldn't have to renew a 2-year contract to activate an used phone that wasn't even subsidized to begin with.  I asked if this would change my upgrade eligibility in October.  He said no.  Then he told me to go to an AT&T retail store to make sure that everything is done correctly.

Great news, right?

Wrong.

This morning, I went to the AT&T retail store and told them I wanted to activate an original iPhone.  This is basically the conversation that took place:

Me: Hi, I'd like to activate an original iPhone.

AT&T: Oh for that, you can activate that through iTunes.

Me: It's asking me to sign a new 2-year contract.

AT&T: That's correct.  You have to sign a new 2-year contract in order to activate your phone.

Me: I called up customer service and they said I didn't.

AT&T: Well, customer service is wrong.

Me: Suppose I wanted to upgrade to the new iPhone 3g under the subsidized price.  When would I be able to upgrade if I signed this new 2-year deal?

AT&T: In two years.

Me: So let me get this straight... I have to sign a new 2-year contract in order to activate a USED phone that was NEVER SUBSIDIZED and I can't upgrade to the current generation phone for until 2010.

AT&T: That's correct.

So there you have it... you have to sign a dreaded two-year contract to use the original iPhone even though it is used and AT&T has no revenue to recoup from subsidies.  If anything, they have even more money to gain since they'd be getting money from both the original iPhone's original owner, who is still under contract, and the original iPhone's new owner, who still needs to get service from AT&T.

AT&T has a video telling you how to hand down your old iPhone.  At the end the narrator says,   "We're confident we'll have two very satisfied customers."

They're full of crap.

Update #1:

I called AT&T customer service again and instead of only talking to a business center rep, I got transferred to the iPhone department.  The rep there said that it was ridiculous for me to sign a new 2-year service agreement.  She told me to go ahead and go through with the service agreement in iTunes even though I'm not actually binding myself to AT&T for another 2 years.  I will also be able to upgrade to the iPhone 3g at the same time as before.

Hopefully, everything will work out according to what she says.  It is AT&T after all.

I was having dinner with Brian and the Tsangs tonight.

[2008-01-18: 16:16.17] Yeeland: are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.19] Yeechi: no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.19] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.20] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.21] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.21] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.23] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.23] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.25] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.26] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.28] Yeeland:  are you done yet?

[2008-01-18: 16:16.28] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.29] Yeechi:  no

[2008-01-18: 16:16.38] Yeechi:  drat

[2008-01-18: 16:16.39] Yeeland:  HA

[2008-01-18: 16:16.39] Yeeland:  i didn't ask

[2008-01-18: 16:16.39] Yeeland:  i win

[2008-01-18: 16:16.40] Yeechi:  you didn't ask!

The point and say yes game at retreat has trained me well.

I had a pretty good past few days leading up to tonight.  Then this night decided to get crappy real fast.

A little background first:  I am fully Chinese.  I am fully Cantonese, too.

I've grown to accept the fact that when I meet new people, a good number of them will be thinking in the back of their minds, "What ethnicity is this guy?" and "What's the least offensive way that I can ask this?"  I'm used to questions like "Are you Filipino?  Vietnamese?  Indian??"  (Thank you, Matt's sister and Ryan's mom for that last one.)  I'm used to people making cracks about it like the time Jim tried to describe how some people in northern provinces of India looked (more Chinese than Indian) and how they, well.. "look like Yeeland."

But tonight was ridiculous.

I was heading home after watching a movie with Nick, Ellen, and Janice at Janice's house.  Coasting down the slope of a hill on 360, my RSX hummed quietly to me in 6th without the slightest hint of any potential problems on that very dark, yet very peaceful drive home with no one else on the road.

That is.. until my headlights swept across the seal of a camped Travis County Sheriff's Department cruiser.  Next thing I know I'm cited for going 72 in a 60.

72 pretty much sounds like 60 in 6th.  I was going downhill, too.  But... maybe I'm just not listening to her well enough.
 

After I got back to my apartment complex, I was ready to pull into the car port that has been assigned to me, care of a few extra dollars every month for rent.  And then I found a Red Ford Focus parked in my spot.

I retreated back to my 3rd floor apartment, too annoyed and too fatigued to put forth the effort of leaving a kind note that would normally inform the driver of said Ford Focus about the parking situation.

Plopping down on my couch, I studied the wonderful documents the officer gave me to show what I needed to do and by when.

And as I looked through all the boxes with all my personal information, I noticed something ridiculous.  In the "Race" box, the officer had indicated that I'm white.  (Or I assume that the "W" can only be white.)

What the heck?