David Luyer's Journal
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
David Luyer's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | | 6:53 pm |
Honeymoon update
Now I have my I-94, we have considered our options, and we will be going on our originally planned honeymoon, with a one-day detour to Mérida to visit the US Consulate there (which will require hiring a car and driving along a single freeway for around 190 miles each way). We have re-booked the same room at the same resort, for around $1000 less than the original price. | | Monday, July 6th, 2009 | | 2:23 pm |
I-94 replaced
Received in the mail today (delayed due to Independence Day long weekend, as I receive mail at the office): one form I-797A containing a replacement I-94 bottom half. Receipt date: June 8, 2009 Notice date: June 29, 2009 That's pretty good for a form where the service center in question's website stated had a 2.5 month processing time. It looks like USCIS are doing well with the expectation management here -- they tell me to expect 2.5 months, and it takes less than a month, so I'm more likely to be happy than to be thinking "but this piece of paper took [more than] three times as long to replace as my entire passport" (and cost more to replace than the entire passport). | | Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | | 10:42 pm |
Dinner
I was 153lb this morning. We went to La Fondue tonight. I'm 160lb right now. So worth it. :-) | | Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 10:30 pm |
Fence
Thanks to our neighbors, we have a new fence! :) It is tall, solid, level and straight. Such a big change from the old one on that side of the property. (For those who know my house: this is the fence on the south side of the house, against the empty 2-story Victorian, and by 'neighbors' I mean the people who own all property from my place to St John St, as well as the tower at 152 N 3rd St. They also plan to re-ashpalt all the ashpalt areas of their lots within the next week, which should make them look somewhat nicer.) | | Saturday, June 6th, 2009 | | 12:14 pm |
Passport, Honeymoon
When I returned from Sydney, or shortly after, I somehow lost my passport. Being a foreign worker in the US, this means I actually lost three things - my passport, my I-94 and my US Visa. I fortunately have a I-797A which establishes my employment status, but is not useful for re-entry into the US. I went to the Australian Consulate in San Francisco to apply for a new passport. I applied on the 28th of May, they deposited my check the next day, and I received my new passport on the 4th of June. Waiting time -- less than a week. Replacement cost -- US$209 (including lost passport penalty fee). The US documents -- the I-94 and visa -- will be much more difficult to replace. The I-94 is the little piece of card from the bottom of the form you fill in when you enter the US, which gets torn off and stapled into your passport. It is nothing more than a piece of paper with a number stamped on it. Nowhere near as complex as an e-Passport. To replace it, you file a form I-102, provide as much documentation as you can, and pray. I've sent in the form and a check for the US$320 filing fee -- the check is yet to be cashed, and I haven't had any response. Apparently I shouldn't be surprised; the USCIS have released some information on their form processing time which suggests it should take around 3 months to process the form, and external parties claim a time closer to 6 months. Of course, the situation for me is nowhere near as bad as it is for many. If this was my first entry into the US for employment purposes, I would be unable to get a social security number, be paid or get a drivers license, for several months (which is also possible through just filing for the social security number too soon after first arrival). However, I cannot leave the US until my I-94 is replaced, and that in turn will hold up replacing my visa. Which brings me to the honeymoon. We had planned to spend our honeymoon at a resort in Cancun, Mexico. Without an I-94 or visa, that is not an option, and I am trying to determine if we can safely visit Puerto Rico (the CBP site repeatedly says that US Citizens do not need a passport to travel to or return directly from Puerto Rico by air, but is completely unclear as to what non-citizens need). If not, we might end up delaying our honeymoon. | | Sunday, April 26th, 2009 | | 8:59 pm |
Mixed luck continues at LAX
On the negative, my flight was delayed to 1am (from ~11pm). On the positive, I was bumped to business class, and that gives me business class lounge access. (Normally I get regular AA Admirals Club lounge access due to the card I book on; the LAX Qantas Business Class lounge is definitely a step up from those lounges.) I've never actually booked business class on an international flight, but I've flown it a number of times. This time I finally booked Premium Economy, so in terms of tiers it's not as much of an upgrade as the Economy to Business upgrades I used to get relatively often when boarding planes in Asia (which I attribute at least in part to height), but on such a long flight it is definitely appreciated - Skybed seat will mean there's a chance of me being awake in the office, even if having AC power for the laptop keeps me using it longer :-) It's the best I've had on a trans-pacific flight - my only previous upgrade on this route was on United, from Economy to Premium Economy. | | 8:16 pm |
LAX airport - bus to bus
I had a nice flight down from SJC to LAX, on an ERJ140, partly due to the good luck I seem to have with airline seating. This time around, I was booked in an aisle seat near the back, which wouldn't have been great, but I was next to someone whose friend was in the exit row window. So, I ended up in the exit row window, with lots of legroom. It was a very nice flight - I've had a lot of good experience with small jets (as opposed to turboprops, which have never been so great). On the way back, I'll be going from one extreme to another of jet sizes - connecting from an A380 to an ERJ140. According to the staff at SJC, my flight was arriving at Terminal 4 and I would be departing Terminal 4. In reality, my flight arrived at the American Eagle satellite terminal, where I took a shuttle bus to terminal 4, to wait for a shuttle bus (every half an hour) to TBIT, which is what I'm currently doing. | | 11:26 am |
Fire!
Somewhere around 5am on April 4th, 2009, our housemate woke us up and told us that there was a fire out the back of the house. Nicole called 911, found Midnite and we all got out of the house and got the car out of the driveway, and Nicole went and banged on the neighbor's door until they woke up. ( Read more... (pictures, too)... ) | | 9:54 am |
Visiting Sydney
I'm heading off to Sydney today (arriving Tuesday), and returning to the US on May 8th. Nothing currently planned except for work, so if you want to catch up, let me know (my email address is the same as always!). | | Monday, April 20th, 2009 | | 8:58 am |
Electric Chainsaws - The Green Way to Clearcut
I finally gave in and bought a chainsaw, as it was far too difficult to cut some major branches around 12 feet up by hand (previously, I'd always cut down trees by hand). However, I did choose an electric chainsaw. I have to wonder why they exist - much less convenient than a petrol chainsaw, they still need oil for the chain, and the total initial cost (including, say, a 100ft 12/3 extension cord, as they draw quite a bit of power) comes out somewhat higher than the traditional approach. Is it just for those who want to feel that there is something not quite so eco-terrorist about their tree removal or pruning? | | Monday, April 6th, 2009 | | 1:05 am |
Previous posting
Sorry about the last post here - the wedding is going ahead as planned, we both just let wedding planning stress get the better of us. | | Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 | | 6:36 am |
Vacation - conclusion
The vacation is over. We didn't catch up with as many people as we'd hoped to, or as much as we'd hoped to, but otherwise, it was great. The last half a week involved getting some things done online, introducing Nicole to more local restaurant options (including local variants of junk food), and building a computer for my parents, so we didn't go out so much. Mar 17th: Dinner at Hog's Breath Cafe. Good steak. Dessert at the Northbridge Geláre. Good waffles. Mar 18th: I'll update the post if I remember what we did Wednesday... I'm sure we did something :-) Mar 19th: Went to MSY and bought the computer parts. Lunch at Hungry Jacks. Went down to Cottesloe Beach to take some pictures of Sculpture by the Sea, ran into Shay and Fe (third time running into Shay on the trip). Mar 20th: Built the computer. Family dinner (Phil and Kate came over for a BBQ, but it rained, so we ate inside - I think this was the only rain on the trip). Mar 21st: The last real day in Perth. Notified by Qantas that our SYD-SFO flight would be delayed by a couple of hours, but the later PER-SYD option would still be too late, so we still needed to be on a 5:45am flight out of Perth. Visited the old asylum in Fremantle and did some last minute shopping at the E-shed Markets. Mar 22nd: The flight back. In Sydney, due to the flight delay, we grabbed a cab to Circular Quay and I gave Nicole a very brief tour: 'look, a bridge' (Sydney Harbor Bridge). 'look, a silly white building' (Opera House). 'look, some old stuff' (The Rocks). Lunch at McDonalds, our only visit to McDonalds in the entire trip. We tried to grab a train back to the airport, and I was confused when the machine insisted on a very low fare (the city loop fare), but then when I got on the platform and saw there were no trains to the airport, it made sense: the fare was to get us to Central, then it was a free bus to the airport. | | Monday, March 16th, 2009 | | 11:28 pm |
H1B
Very fast turn-around from the US Consulate - I dropped my passport off on the 12th, and it was returned by registered post which arrived on the 13th (however as I wasn't home, I had to take the registered post slip down to the post office and pick it up today). So I now have my H1B visa stamp. Ongoing holiday summary: Mar 13th: Cottesloe to Albany. A few stops on the way, such as Kojonup, the Mongolian Yurt in Mt Barker (Nicole found a couple of kangaroos to say hello to here) and visiting my great aunt near Mt Barker. Albany Fish and Chips for dinner, which we ate on Middleton Beach. Stayed at the Pelicans Holiday Village in Albany, which I recommend to anyone. Mar 14th: Albany to Walpole. Visited The Gap and Natural Bridge and the Blowholes in Torndirrup NP, the Albany Wind Farm, the Denmark Water Barometer, the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk, and the Giant Tingle Tree. We had to change a tyre near Walpole. Mar 15th: Return from Walpole to Cottesloe. Rode the Pemberton Tramway, climbed a short distance up the Gloucester Tree (up to roughly the first major branch near the ladder, I'd estimate a quarter of the way up), checked out a couple of beaches near the Margaret River coastline, briefly visited the Busselton Jetty and the Bunbury Lighthouse. Introduced Nicole to Chicken Treat for dinner. Mar 16th: Apart from walking down to the post office, having lunch at a cafe in Napoleon St and browsing some shops at the Grove Plaza (now renamed "Cottesloe Central"), mostly a day spent relaxing and working on things online. The trip to the south-west was great, however we're not going to follow it up by heading up to Monkey Mia - it's just too much of a trip for the time we had left, and we haven't had the chance to do some of the things we were intending to do with our downtime while we were here (although I made a start on some of them today). | | Thursday, March 12th, 2009 | | 12:54 pm |
Vacation update, part 3
Mar 8th: Visited Peter, Shay and their families who were doing something Sungroper-related, and took a look at their solar car at the same time. Drove along the river a bit, stopping a few times; dropped in at UWA and saw the peacocks and the sunken gardens. Dinner at Woodpeckers in Subiaco, walked around Subiaco a bit. Nicole looked at the menu at Santa Fe, but we didn't try the food there - we have much better Mexican all around in San Jose, so I'm trying to convince Nicole to not bother trying it here. Mar 9th: Cohuna Koala Park - Nicole finally got up close and personal with a koala. And some kangaroos, deer and wallabies, too. There were also kookaburras, emus, ostriches, cockatoos, black swans, pelicans, dingoes, bobtails, owls, peacocks and more. Then we visited Serpentine Falls and Bickley Brook - it's very disappointing that Bickley Brook is now mostly closed to the public. Nicole had her third vanilla slice, I think she's over them now. Mar 10th: Prepared visa documentation (DS156, DS157), got photos done and paid the second of three visa fees at the post office. Had a quick swim in the pool. Dinner at Nandos. I like Nandos. Nicole likes Nandos now, too. Mar 11th: Rottnest, and dinner in Fremantle (at an Italian restaurant, which was quite nice). We did the gun and tunnel tour, underwater explorer wreck and reef tour, and went and found some quokkas. Mar 12th: Visa interview at US consulate, very quick and painless. They didn't even want to see any of the massive stack of papers Google had prepared, just the DS156, DS157 and I797A. Tomorrow, we're off towards Albany, we'll be spending a few days in the south-west (probably Mt Barker, Albany, Pemberton, possibly Bunbury - I'll update what we actually end up doing once we've actually been). | | Saturday, March 7th, 2009 | | 11:12 pm |
Vacation update, part 2
Mar 4th: My birthday. Went to Freo - visited the Roundhouse precinct and did a couple of tours of the old Fremantle Prison. Nicole had her first vanilla slice. Went to the Coolgardie Safe for dinner, had damper, crocodile, emu, kangaroo and marron, and a mini pavlova. Mar 5th: Back to the beach, more swimming. Calmer waves today. We both ended up a little red this time, perhaps time to stop visiting the beach so much. Mar 6th: Visited UWA (UCS, UCC, and some others). Nicole wasn't feeling too well from all the beach visits and sun exposure, so she didn't make it to UWA. Mar 7th: Back to Freo. Visited the maritime museum, HMAS Ovens, shipwreck galleries and the markets. At this stage it looks like we will probably drop Adventure World from our plans, and we're considering dropping Monkey Mia (it is a little far away, and our schedule isn't too flexible due to my visa appointment, so we'll have to see how Albany goes as the Albany and Monkey Mia trips would both have to go almost perfectly to fit in the schedule now). | | Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 | | 10:49 am |
| | Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 | | 6:12 pm |
Cottesloe
As per my previous post, I'm in Perth, or more specifically Cottesloe, having departed San Francisco on Feb 25th, arrived here Feb 27th, and recovered from jetlag a few days after that. This is ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nicolerego's first trip to Australia; in fact, her first trip requiring a passport (until very recently, visits by citizens of the USA to Canada and Mexico did not require anything more than a state-issued ID such as a drivers' license; even today, these are possible with a " passport card" rather than a full passport). So far: Feb 25th-27th: 24 hours of travel (crossing the dateline, hence the date span). Ran into my manager's manager at the airport. Otherwise uneventful and a little painful due to my recovering ankle. Feb 27th: Arrived. Quick visit to Kings Park, seeing the Boab Tree and the War Memorial. Local pizza. Booked in to visit the consulate while I'm here to get a H-1B visa stamp. Sleep very early. Feb 28th: Walked to Cottesloe Beach, had a swim. Walked back via the Cottesloe Civic Centre. Swam in the pool at my parents' place. This is what summer in Cottesloe is all about. Fish (Gummy Shark) and chips. Sleep early, still jetlagged. Mar 1st: Visit to Harbor Town. Went on the ferry to South Perth. Sleep a little later, but still not a normal time. Mar 2nd: Visit to Perth Zoo. Kan Tong for dinner (yes, this does not exist in the USA, and there is no approximation). Mar 3rd: Walked to Cottesloe Beach. Sculptures are being set up on the beach. A couple of topless girls at the beach - have the rules changed for this beach, or are they ignored now? Swam out along the groyne then across to the giant bubble, twice. Had lunch at the Cottesloe Beach Hotel. The beaches of NorCal and Florida don't even come close to comparing to Cottesloe Beach. Florida's might, if it wasn't for the "sea lice". Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not sure exactly what's going on yet, but I'm sure we'll find something to do. We are still intending to visit at this stage: UCC (this Friday night), Albany, Monkey Mia, Cohunu Koala Park, Adventure World, Rottnest. | | Saturday, February 21st, 2009 | | 8:38 pm |
My computer is an alcoholic
Well, actually it just likes to bathe in alcohol. After a bottle of 95% alcohol ( Polish Spirytus), it is back in action. Hopefully Midnite doesn't throw up in it again before we work out a deterrent to stop her spending so much time sitting on top of it. | | Friday, February 20th, 2009 | | 9:41 pm |
Return to Australia
nicolerego and I are heading to Perth on Wednesday (February 25th) and will be there until March 22nd. It will be the first time I've left the USA since arriving here on January 13th, 2007 (unless you count hopping through Texas airport on the way back from Florida - Texas is virtually another country). That's over two years in the one country - the longest continuous time I've been in one country since 1997. Anyone who feels like catching up while we're in Perth, let me know (comment here, or send me an email). It'll be Nicole's first time traveling anywhere she needs a passport to visit (US citizens could visit Mexico and Canada with their drivers' license until recently). I'm sure we'll come to UCC and have some pizza, it looks like I'll catch up with the AARNet guys (and some of the others from PARNet from when I was in Perth) while we're there, since I've been talking to them a fair bit recently about IPv6 and Google, and we'll probably head out of the city a bit (up to Monkey Mia?) and of course spend some time down at Cottesloe beach. And visiting Cohunu Koala Park so Nicole can hug a koala bear. My old Nokia 9300 Communicator came off worse for wear after it was sitting on top of a friend's tesla coil (a picture of this will come later - my main workstation is temporarily out of service after Midnite was sick while sitting on top of it, where she sits to get the warmth from the fans, and it shut itself down and has refused to start up since) so I don't have everyone's numbers - I have a few, but again, emails would be appreciated :) And just to make things interesting, on Tuesday, I slipped (embarrassingly, I missed a step no higher than a kerb) and ended up with a rather severe sprain of my left ankle. Right after doing it, I thought I was going to be OK, and walked back to my building with no problems (pain, but not unbearable pain), but by the end of the day I could tell I had a problem, and I took around 10 minutes to walk from my desk to the shuttle stop (usually a 1-2 minute walk). After a quick trip to a nearby urgent care facility and a few x-rays (determining no broken bones), I ended up with an air-gel ankle brace and a pair of crutches, both of which I'm still using, and the advice that I probably wouldn't be able to carry a suitcase by the time I'm flying out. I don't know what Qantas' policy on crutches on flights is, but there's a good chance I'll find out soon. | | Sunday, February 8th, 2009 | | 1:09 pm |
iPhone - no call blacklist, no call blocker in app store?
nicolerego bought me an iPhone 3G (black, 16G) as an early birthday present, since we'll be in Australia for my birthday, and she wanted to buy the present before we went. Which, of course, means I now have a developer G1 (aka Google phone), a Windows Mobile device (AT&T 8525), a Nokia 9300 (Communicator) and an iPhone - all I'm missing is a Palm, really :-) So far, I'm very happy with the iPhone, and am likely to use it as my primary phone; I've transferred almost everything across from my AT&T 8525 and all the music from my iPod, however I still need to scan my CD covers to update some of the album art which iTunes couldn't find. It was even simple to set up multiple email accounts! Simple reasons why I'm not using each of the other devices: - G1: Does not support AT&T 3G frequencies, and the other networks which it does support 3G on do not have good coverage of country California. Besides, I'm comfortable with AT&T, and don't have any significant desire to switch.
- AT&T 8525: This has been my main phone since I've been here. I find the interface somewhat painful, although it does at least support cut and paste, which is one of the well-known iPhone deficiencies. The web browser was nowhere near as nice as on the iPhone.
- Nokia 9300: This was my main phone for my last couple of years in Australia. The interface was far nicer than the AT&T 8525, and the keyboard was better. However, web browsing was even worse than on the AT&T 8525. Besides, I've shattered the small LCD on this, so I have to do most things on the large LCD, with the phone open.
Initial issues? I wasn't able to complete some forms in Safari on it, but that's not a big issue. I can't seem to find how to tell it that it should check for new e-mail messages in a specific set of folders, again, not a killer issue. However, there is one big omission. There's no call blocker/blacklist, and not even a 'silent' ringtone. I can upload a silent ringtone to it easily, but I also don't want the callers in question to cause my phone to vibrate if it's in silent mode; that's harder. I searched for a while, and all I could find was MCleaner and iBlacklist; both of these require you to jailbreak your iPhone. Do Apple have something against blocking unwanted calls? Or is it just that nobody has written a call blocker to Apple's satisfaction? Does anyone out there know? |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
