My Saturday with AT&T and Apple - part II

With Apple

Jack dropped me off at the mall in which the closest Apple store was located. We planned to have me camp out there all day if needed to resolve my iPhone blank screen issue.

The Apple store was not particularly crowded as it was still relatively early as far as malls were concerned. I walked up to the first unoccupied blue-shirt store agent (?) and explained the issue with my iPhone. When he heard that I didn't make an appointment, he directed me to talk to Ms. C. standing in the middle of the store, who was surrounded by a crowd. I didn't have to wait for too long to talk to Ms. C. Of course I had to explain the issue to her again. She searched the calendar and asked if I could stay in the store until 12:50, because that was the first available time slot. I said sure, it was only 45 minutes away, and I had the whole day. She put my name down and asked me to wait at a particular bench in the next row marked "Genius Bar."

I happily read my book with my iPad.

Not too long later an Apple genius greeted me. He seemed technical and respectable, and I didn't get his name. After checking, he carefully evaluated the phone, tried a few things, then said he needed to take it back to have a technician run some troubleshooting on it. But first I had to turn off the "find my iPhone" app. He left me alone to set and reset my iCloud password, I was in panic mode, cause I never remember my iCloud and iTunes passwords. Finally after 30 minutes of struggling, I did it. The genius came back and successfully turn off "find my iPhone" from his computer. He told me to come back after 30 minutes. I asked: "What do I do when I come back? How do I let you know I'm here?" He asked me to talk to Ms. C. know when I came back to the store.

I left and shopped around at the mall a little, then I came back to the Apple store. I announced myself to Ms. C. She then asked me to go to the back of the store and wait at the bench there. I went to the back and find another "Genius Bar." So I continued my reading there.

15 minutes later another genius came back with my phone and a box. He explained that they tried replaced the screen twice but it didn't work, so they decided it's broken, and they would replace my phone. It was easy as that, I was relieved. The genius also reassured to me three times that the data on my old phone was not backed up anywhere by them; the old phone was wiped, and to be recycled.

This friendly genius started helping setup the new iPhone 5S, but then I got stuck yet again on the iCloud backup. After failing a few times, I bet he wished that I would just disappeared. I got the clue and said I would do backup later when I got home. I thanked him for his assistance, and left.

It was close to 2 o'clock, and I was starved. I went to have a nice lunch as Nordstrom cafe and continue to read my book there until Jack came back to pick me up.

So, not too bad after all, but I still haven't figured out my passwords.

My Saturday with AT&T and Apple - part I

With AT&T

A couple of weeks ago, my iPhone 5S had a blank screen. I could still receive and answer phone calls, and even used Siri, but the screen was just blanked. We researched and tried many different ways, but none worked, so I had to spend a beautiful Saturday trying to fix the issue.

Leaving home earlier than usual, we first went to AT&T store. At the door, we were greeted by a very friendly and knowledgeable store manager. She patiently listened to my problem, and asked if we tried the suggested troubleshoot steps. When we said yes, she put our names down on a shiny iPad, and told us we were number 7 on the list.

We walked around the store looking at different kinds of phones and tablets. When we got bored, we took a seat around a nice counter high table, chatted and people watching. After 30 minutes, a sharp looking young man, Mr. I, came to us. We shook hands, and I explained to him my problem. He checked the phone to decide there was nothing he could do to revive it.

I explained that I was in the Next program, which entitled me a new phone every 12 months. Here came the bad news, which delivered in the kindest way possible by Mr. I. He said with the Next program I was indeed entitled a new phone upgrade, which would be 1 month away from now, but at the time I would have to return a fully functional current phone, but since my phone was not fully functional, in order to get an upgraded phone, I would have to pay off what I owe for the current phone.

Then I mentioned that I had bought AT&T insurance, would that entitle me a new phone? He said, yes, with AT&T insurance, they could give us a replacement iPhone 5S with a $199 deductible. I stared at him to see if he was joking, but he was sincere and courteous.

"I am confused," I puzzled, "didn't the $9.99 per month insurance with AT&T qualify me with a new phone when it broke?" Since I expected to walk out the door with a shiny new phone, $199 was really a bad news.

"It did qualify you with a new phone with a $199 deductible." Said Mr. I. matter-of-factly.

"I wasn't aware of any deductibles when I signed up." I frown and maintain eye contact.

"There has always been a $199 deductible for replacement with the insurance." Said the polite and well-practiced Mr. I.

"Did you know about the deductible?" I helplessly check with Jack. He shook his head and was very sympathetic.

When I was thoroughly disappointed with this conversation, Mr. I. suggested that I took the phone to Apple store and see if they could fix it. If they fixed it, then I could still do an upgrade next month and turned in a functional phone. If they couldn't fix it, then they would replace it with a new phone because my phone was still under the 1 year warranty with Apple.

"You have to go to Apple store by the 20th though, because that's when your warranty went out with Apple."

With my mind still clinging on the disappointment with AT&T, I didn't totally understand Mr. I.'s  life-saving suggestion, and was still dazed about all the additional fees I have paid over the last 11 months.

Luckily, Jack understood it perfectly, and asked some more questions to ensure the plan could work, while I slowly caught up with the conversation.

"I'm sorry I'm slow about these plans, insurances and warranties with Apple and AT&T. So you are saying Apple store maybe able to fix this or give me a new phone if they couldn't?"

"No problem, I totally understand." Said Mr. I. "Yes, but you have to go to Apple store before the 20th."

We thanked him and left the store.

The corporations never lose doesn't matter how good their programs may seem, Jack and I concluded.

To be continued.

New word I invented

Yesterday I was furiously coding while chatting with my co-worker on Sametime (like instant messaging) when I invented a new word:

Y: give me 1 minur
D: is that an hour or minute? lol

Have faith

If people told you when you mix blue with yellow, you get green, do you believe it? All you need is try it out to find out.

Similarly if you were taught, two plus two is equal to four, do you believe it? It could be explained in many ways. Such as, if you have 2 apples, that is two fingers, and Tony gave you two more apples, that is adding two fingers, then how many apples do you have totally? The answer is four. Do you have to be convinced further? Initially when we learn, we have to have faith believing things work the way we were taught, and we then could learn to reason with other more complex problems out as we go.

In Yoga. If your teacher said twist poses such as twisted chair helped strengthen the muscles around the spine, and helped with digestion, and you experienced the effect of the poses over practice, would you believe it? If you do believe it, then would you know to do the poses when you have the need for it? So on and so forth.

And this is the similarity of math/science and Yoga.

When there was water

Oh wait, I posted this picture last year already. But I just found it in my iPhoto, and figured out how to put it on here with difficulty, so it stays.

Go Giants!

Is it amazing or what? Giants are going to compete in the World Series again! We won in 2010 and 2012, and now there is another chance to be a champion!

This team is unstoppable.

This is what I call legendary.

Responsibile citizenship

Today we witnessed a tree falling onto the highway, almost hitting a passed by car. The 3 cars in front of us swirled to avoid hitting the tree, and Jack managed to move into the next lane to avoid it. An innocent, smallish looking cypress tree fell. I don't know why.

I called 911 to report the incident. I was being connected to the highway patrol, so I repeated my report giving her the location of the incident. The nice lady patiently listened to me, and said: "Oh, someone already reported this. Thank you very much. Have a nice day."

I was quite amazed that someone already called, when we just witnessed it and passed the location ourselves.

What was that saying? If you are being responsible for the well-being of the society, you are a citizen; if you act as a bystander, then you are a civilian. Something like that ...

Just in time for voting season.

The 50 steps laughing at the 100 steps

This is a Chinese saying: "50 steps laughing at 100 steps." 以五十步笑百步

It's kind of interesting, so here's the gist of the story.

Two armies were fighting in a battle. One army defeated the other, and the soldiers of the defeated retreated. The retreated soldiers who ran away for 50 steps were laughing at the soldiers who retreated 100 steps, telling them they were cowards, because they ran away so fast.

In fact the 50 steps people were no different from the 100 steps people, because essentially they were doing the same thing.

Dear Anonymous

Last Thursday morning I was waken by a low and beautiful alarm ring on the iPhone at 7:30 AM. I switched off the alarm, and closed my eyes, while in my mind contemplating a thousand reasons why I didn't want to get up. All of them pointed to the complex business logic yet to be coded, which had been haunting me in my sleep.

Lazily stretched in my comfortable bed, I reached for my cellphone, and started checking my emails. My eyes were brightened when I saw a new comment in email from Anonymous for my last blog post! I was very pleased to find that it was a legitimate email, v.s. phishing email, and I read one of the best compliments about my blog. It said:

You ought to be a part of a contest for one of the greatest blogs online.
I most certainly will highly recommend this blog!

Thank you, dear Anonymous, for your kind message. To be acknowledged by a reader about my blog posts brought me immense pleasure and gratitude. I was beaming that day, even though it had been a tough one.

The importance of counting

My Yoga Teacher Training was very fruitful. There were a few basic things I learned which were beneficial to my day-to-day life. Among them was learning how to integrate stretches with my work and life, to relief stiffness and relax the mind. Believe it or not, one of the keys of doing yoga on your own, other than accuracy of the poses and building the sequences, is knowing how to count. If you don't hold the pose long enough, you may not be able to feel the effect of the practice, and you may give up on the home practice too soon.

Yes, to me, stretches and Yoga only work if the pose is held for a certain amount of time. As for how long, it varies. In the gym aerobic or body sculpt group class, some teachers count to 8, others count to 12, some others count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then 3, 2, 1, just so you hold a little longer. For Yoga poses, you can hold 5 counts to begin with, then later on hold for 1 to 2 minutes. If you are worried about how to make sure the length of each count is equal, just remember on average, 10 to 12 breaths takes 1 minute. You can see a Yoga home practice will also build your patience, because your mind can be easily distracted while doing Yoga at home.

In addition, to develop a home practice, you must allocate time in the day for the practice; build a sequence which works for you, so you can always rely on it to achieve your goal of the practice. Initially you can "borrow" your teacher's sequences, if you can remember them, then you can modify them for your own needs.

Some people just do headstand before going to bed, others do a few restorative Yoga poses. Yet others do a full practice with warm up, Sun Salutations, main sequence and cool down. If you do a practice for more than 30 minutes, I learned that it is important to finish up with a short 2-5 minutes Savasana, otherwise you can feel dizzy or queazy when you are done. The length of the Yoga practice is not as important, as long as it works for you and that you can do it everyday. Actually, it's not important that you do it everyday, as long as you know what to do when it is needed. Remember, it is a tool that works for you and your lifestyle.

The more I think about it, the more I realized how important counting is in our lives.

We count down to the new year or other important dates.

I count the throws for Jake to make sure he has enough fetching exercise in a session. That is 10 times per session, 3 sessions per day for Jake.

The healthy tooth brushing is 30 seconds per quadrant, two minutes total.

Some people count calories.

One maybe instructed to take certain medicine or do a certain regiment 2 or 3 times a day. Have a facial once every 6 weeks, a hair cut every 6 - 8 weeks, etc.

If we can't fall asleep, we count sheep.

Can you think of other examples?

What would the Queen do?

A few weeks ago, one of my childhood friends in China posted my high school graduation picture on wechat. When I saw it in the morning I was upset. I moped for a couple of hours, then sent her a message asking her never to do this again without my permission. She was very apologetic, but I couldn't stop thinking about it for a few days, because I felt slightly violated.

Around the same time, I heard this news from England: David Cameron was talking to someone (Bloomberg?) in private about the Queen's reaction when he told her the Scotland voting result. "She purred down the line ... I have never seen her so pleased." Said the Prime Minister. Unfortunately, this private talk was caught on tape by a TV crew, and was made known to the world.

This inevitably made a big deal in the British media considering how much people like scandals involving politicians and Royalties. BBC was talking about this incident for weeks, and finally one day, two weeks later, they said the Prime Minister would meet the Queen in person. Then they spent 30 minutes analyzing how the Prime Minister could apologized to the Queen for this mishap.

Jack thought the Prime Minister didn't do anything wrong, but people misinterpreted what he said, and made it a big deal. I thought perhaps the Prime Minister shouldn't have used the word "purr" to describe the Queen, which undercut Her status, but people definitely overreacted.

The Queen, who has been through a lot of ups and downs in her life - the wars and Diana's death for instances, would do just the right thing. Perhaps, she would smile and graciously say: "No apology is needed."

All of a sudden, I felt so much better about my little disappointment with this friend.

When you are annoyed by little things and can't shake it off, just think: "What would the Queen do?" Or in Jack's case: "What would Llywelyn Fawr do?"

Let go

Jake is a playful golden retriever, and he is great at fetching. He can fetch non stop until we got tired and bored. However, sometimes he loves the ball so much that he keeps the ball in his mouth for a long time and wouldn't let it go, and his grip was so tight we couldn't pull it out of his mouth.

If he doesn't let go of the ball, how can we throw it for him so he can play?

This is simple truth which can apply to our lives.