Advogato blog for epsalon

$400 to spend a night in Georgia

Mon, 8 Sep 2008 22:06:59 GMT

That’s what I got offered, I accepted. They took back their offer. I’m talking obviously about Atlanta, GA, and the offer was by Delta due to overbooking in my flight back to San Francisco. The offer was revoked due to the fact they didn’t need volunteers after all. Too bad, I was looking forward to a day in Atlanta.

Oral Surgery

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:06:21 GMT

Today I underwent oral surgery under general anesthesia. The procedure was the removal of my two lower wisdom teeth which were impacted. This procedure is uncommon in the US for people my age (27). Usually people get their teeth removed in their teens even if there aren’t any complications.

The clinic I have chosen was within short walking distance from my home and I arrived there in less than half an hour:

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Before the procedure, I had to pay the bill. Due to my insurance I had to pay only a 20% co-pay, and that amounted to “only” $238, which I paid and proceeded to read the book I brought with me.

Later, I was called in, hooked to an IV and got some oral shots. The procedure itself went smoothly, and in a split-second (from my point of view) I was in recovery.

Due to the anesthesia, I could not walk back home. The clinic strongly recommends having someone drive you home and look after you. I could not find anyone who was willing and able to do that for me, so I had to stay for a few more hours in the clinic for recovery and then took a taxi home.

At home, I took some pain meds and antibiotics, as the doctor ordered and contacted my friends and family onine. Now I can’t talk, and have trouble drinking. Hopefully this will pass in the next few hours so I could have dinner tonight.

The road to Midway

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:05:10 GMT

Today I have boarded a flight to Chicago, Illinois on my way to the AAAI-08 conference. As usual, instead of flying direct, I have connected through Minneapolis in order to fly Northwest and get a First-Class upgrade. This time I left my passport home intentionally, as this is a purely domestic itinerary.

Some of you may recall my car accident. That led to me leaving my car at a garage for repair and renting a replacement car a few days ago. I have returned the rental car at the airport and thus saved the time and hassle of an airport shuttle.

As this is a short trip and the weather is warm, I packed almost nothing and did not check any bags, so I could proceed directly to the gate with my pre-printed boarding pass (as this is a domestic flight, I get no lounge access). My first class flight went smoothly, arriving on time at Minneapolis.

Upon arrivial, I checked the screens for my connection info and noticed that there was an earlier Northwest flight to Chicago Midway* airport. I decided to head directly to that gate and try to standby for the earlier flight. The gate agent told me that he could put me on standby, but the flight is likely to be full and I am not guaranteed a seat, and even if I get one, it would probably be in economy. I told the agent I don’t mind (I prefer spending an hour and a half on the plane in economy than in the terminal), and then I had to wait and see if there would be room for me.

The flight turned out to be fully booked, and all 12 first class seats were full. However, since I had Platinum status I got one of those! The flight did depart late, but I ended up arriving more than an hour before my original schedule. Another plus is that a nice girl sat next to me on the flight and we chatted all the way. She was flying from San Jose (SJO), Costa Rica and was on her final leg back home to Wisconsin. I had fun.

After arriving I checked in at my hotel and took a taxi to dinner with my advisor and some more Stanford folk at a Chicago restaurant. I just now returned to the hotel. Updates to come.

*Midway airport (MDW), is named such not because of its location, but as a reference to the Battle of Midway.

Crash!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:06:42 GMT

Just days after my first police ticket, I had my first two-vehicle car accident, and it wasn’t even my fault! I was driving down a small residential road (Newell), and the other driver was driving out of the public library parking. However she did not see me and continued right past the stop sign right in front of my car, even though I had the right of way. I stepped on the break but it was too late and I ran into the side of her car.

I sustained no injury in the crash and both cars were drivable. I took some photos for insurance purposes (you can see one of them over here (this is the front of my car).

I have also created an illustration of the accident scene (thanks to Google street view):

Spinning Blades, Laptop, Police

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:06:04 GMT

Last Saturday, I went to the Vertical Challenge Helicopter Show at the Hiller Aviation Museum San Carlos airport. The show included admission to the museum and an exhibition of military and civilian helicopters. The main event included helicopter aerobatic demonstrations, RC Helicopter presentations and a search & rescue demonstration by the US Coast Guard.

After the show, I came back home, realized it was really hot, in spite of the fact I’ve ordered a fan off Amazon the day before. It seems fans don’t really work before they are delivered, and this particular Amazon order would take two weeks to arrive. After checking the options of faster shipping, I suddenly recalled a different way to get products: Retail. A Home Depot was less than 5 minutes from my home, at I verified online that they indeed stock fans. A short trip back and forth and a fan was in my possession. A few minutes later, it was assembled the room was significantly cooler.

Later this week, on my way to Stanford, the police have suddenly stopped me. The officer explained that I was driving 40 in a 25 zone (this is MPH, so it’s actually 65 in a 40 zone in kilometers) and gave me a ticket. The officer was not able to say how much the fine was, so I will know that only when I get the ticket in the mail.

Upon reaching Stanford I had a positive surprise. My laptop, that I’ve ordered two months before, has finally arrived and works great. I took it home to complete the installation and it will soon replace my old one. Expect being able to video-chat with me any time day or night (assuming I’m awake and you have skype).

This weekend features Paul’s boardgaming extravaganza and BAP’s games day. Next weekend is the 4th of July, aka Independence Day. Stay tuned.

P.S. Thank you all for purchasing stuff via the DealExtreme links in my last post. I got more than 20 points already. If you did buy anything, please comment and tell me what you got. Thanks!

Deal Extreme!

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:07:47 GMT

I have recently discovered an amazing website based in Hong-Kong selling tech gadgets at amazingly cheap prices: cables, adapters, and any type of USB gadget you could think of all in ridiculously low prices and free worldwide shipping. On the first day I ordered 7 different products in 6 separate orders. On the next days, I ordered 13 more items for a total spending of $89.

The name of the website is DealExtreme. And the things I bought are:

I hope you all enjoy this amazing site, and if you do buy something, please click on my links, as I get referral points.

T-immobile

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:08:58 GMT

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.

Visa Troubles

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:09:10 GMT

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…

SQL Query

Sat, 7 Jun 2008 23:12:46 GMT

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.

Happy Memorial Day!

Tue, 27 May 2008 02:12:51 GMT

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.