London Mug Mark III Lives For Now

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After the untimely demise of London Mug Mark II M looked and found the name of who makes the mug. An easy search on the internet found a place selling the exact mug. About £20 later I ordered the replacement. I didn’t even have to go to Heathrow for this one like I did for the Mark II. The mug arrived right before our holiday (in February). This post is late getting published.

Hopefully Mark III has a longer shelf life than Mark II at 4 years or Mark I at under 2. If we are aging these thinks with a half life that means Mark III could last 8 years!

My IT Skills In The Real World

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I was able to use rule number one I learned when starting out in IT when trying to troubleshoot a stove with M. Turning it off and on again fixes everything. Seriously never question a hard reboot’s effects on anything.

Anarchy at The Mall

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Here I thought everyone was worried about anarchy because of Brexit. The anarchy is now. People standing on the left while on an escalator. What next indiscriminate cutting of queues?

London Mug Mark II is Dead

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On my first trip to London for work in 2012 I was on a mission to get M the one thing she wanted. A mug. The specifications were such that I actually couldn’t find one that meet the criteria until I was at Heathrow on my way home.

About a year or so later T broke that mug after M left it where a toddler could easily grab it. And T totally grabbed it and broke it.

On my next trip to London I went in search for the same mug. I couldn’t find it until I was again at the same cheesy gift shop at Heathrow on the way home. That is how the mug mark II came into our house.

Flash forward to today. M texted me this photo of the broken mug. She wasn’t sure what she did but the mug fell off the table and is now destroyed.

I am torn. I would like to replace the mug (again). I also don’t know if getting a mug like that of NYC instead of London is appropriate now that we live in London and not NY. Either way I am going to have to ask anyone we know visiting to check out the gift shops in Heathrow for this mug.

Tech Thursday: VOIP To Replace Our US Mobile Numbers

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I wrote this months ago and haven’t gotten around to posting it.  I have a few more tech move discussions I would like to get to.  Hope to make time to write them.

As part of our planning to move to London we had to figure out how we were going to keep in touch with people in the States. That meant what level of the presence we were keeping in the United States while we were gone.

We didn’t have a home phone number that we shared with anyone so keeping that wasn’t an issue. It was really just for our intercom in our apartment. Once we moved we were able to grid it.

M and I used our mobile numbers for texting and calls so we wanted to keep them. We were going to push as many people to use Apple Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and similar apps however for those that do not have access to (or know how to use) those systems we wanted our old US mobiles.

M’s use case was really to keep her number only in case people wanted to call. For me I also wanted to be able to keep the accounts open that require a mobile phone for verification.

I spent a lot of time researching what the cheapest most reliable option for us to use to simply keep in touch with everyone in cases they do not have

For the simply keeping in touch with people after we leave I did a lot of research and ended up with a voice over IP service I’ve been using for years. I simply took both of our mobile numbers and ported them over to VOIP.MS. our quasi-home phone was a DID on the service for years. I also had other numbers for various things on the service. Sending and receiving calls have been pretty seamless over the years. Their price is also super cheap since you can get a pay-as-you-go plan. Each number is about one dollar per month plus usage.

The porting process to VOIP.MS took a few weeks. That is the porting system’s issue not theirs.  Other than how long it took the process was seamless for both numbers. I ported mine over in December right before we left. I kept using my work mobile during the few days there was a gap when my service ended and the number moved to VOIP.MS. for M since she did not have a work phone we ported her number in January. The hardest part about this whole process was porting her number since T-Mobile made us jump through hoops to unlock the number for porting. Even though we had paid off her iPhone a year ago they still kept phone locks and we didn’t figure that out until after we ported the number away from T-Mobile and tried to use a local Sim card in the UK.

The only challenging part of staying in touch using these US numbers is texting.  People that have iPhones can keep texting us if they know our email addresses.  Anyone who only had our number or use Android would have that message turned into an email now.  We don’t really see them so basically texting to those old numbers are useless. So basically we can receive phone calls. It’s been a minor annoyance every once in a while when someone tries to contact me hasn’t updated my contact details that I sent out listing my local number. For me that hasn’t been a major issue. For M I don’t think it has been a problem at all or she’s just not realizing people are trying to get her.

Slightly more complicated a problem is having a number that receives SMS short codes. This is required for services like Google or your bank to send you verification codes. What I learned is most voice over IP providers do not support them very well. After a lot of research I found one company Line2 who supported them. They published a list of all the codes they know to be working okay into their system. They also said they would work with you if you had a problem with another provider that’s not listed. A brief search of their list showed me that they covered most if not all of the companies that I would receive SMS’s from. Unlike VOIP.MS they are not cheap. One line costs $10 a month. With that plan however I did get unlimited calls and texts. Not that I use it. It feels expensive however in the end it was cheaper than buying the cheapest mobile phone plan and simply not use it except for verifications.

I kept two numbers for me. One for personal communication and one for the SMS short code verifications. That was deliberate. VOIP.MS is very flexible in how I can route calls so I keep my personal number with them. The client I use will allow me to do call recording, change my caller id, route to different places with a lot of granular control.  Line 2 the provider I use for SMS short codes only lets you use their client or a basic call forwarding.

Overall i am very pleased with both serviced. Line2 is relitivly expensive however it was cheaper than some other service providers i looked at. Their recievibg SMS Short codde options also seems better than most other solutions out there. i would (and have) reconend either provisers to anyone looking.

W Sister Short Aye Aye Captain

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One night near bedtime I  asked A something.  I cannot even recall what it was.  Her response was “OK Captain”.

I asked “why am I a captain?”

Her response was “You have a beard.”

I asked “What?”

She said “Captain’s have beards’s”.

Now she is walking around saying Aye Aye Captain.

For the record I do not have a beard.  I haven’t shaved in a few days since I have been working from home and simply didn’t want to shave.  It is much more growth than I typically have.   Just no way a beard.  This may be her subtle way of saying I should shave.  All the ladies in the house apparently do not like me with stable.

Priority Boarding According To RyanAir

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What feels like a lifetime ago (1999-2000) I used to travel full-time for work. Traveling that much got me slightly jaded on travel in general. Not the actual seeing new places. The process of getting from point A to point B. I grew particular in certain things that I like and try to make sure that there is a bare minimum of comfort when traveling.

One of those things is getting an assigned seat. The first time I flew Southwest I was completely confused even though I had boarding group 1.

In January we took a trip to Italy. We had never had the privilege of flying Ryanair before. We didn’t want to pay for checked bags. We didn’t have enough stuff to warrant the need for it anyway. With Ryanair however you cannot simply bring carry-on bags either. That’s an extra charge. Since we wanted to bring In bags anyway we paid for priority boarding. The bags in the cabin came with that purchase. Since we went for a week two carry one was fine. The girls luggage is an even that big. If we needed more stuff we could’ve simply brought a bigger bag instead of their little luggage.

What we didn’t realise was that half of the plane gets “priority boarding”. While standing in line for 20 minutes waiting for priority boarding to start I counted at least 50 people ahead of us. And we were not at the back of the line. I get the buying of carry-on bags. I don’t agree with it however I understand that decision. What I don’t understand is if you sell priority boarding and  a huge percentage of people by how is that a priority? Basically were paying so were not last. Yet it’s nowhere near what I would consider “priority”‘s.

This was the first phone lesson we learned flying RyanAir. The next one was there was no jet bridge and we had to walk out onto the tarmac and then back onto the plane. Then we arrived in Italy the shuttle bus that we had to squeeze onto to get to the terminal was just icing on the cake. I don’t need to fly business class however this was kind of less than what I would expect for basic service. I wouldn’t even say our tickets were that cheap.

We decided to try to avoid them in the future. Unfortunately as of  when I am writing this post we have another holiday planned with flights from them. In that instance the tickets were cheaper than others yet not cheap. Since the flights only about an hour we decided to just deal with it.

Welcome to Rome

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Knowing you are blatantly being ripped off by the airport cab guy but don’t care since you have two cranky kids in a foreign country. Priceless, or really just the €10 extra I was being charged.