Strange Uses of the Internet, Part 2339

So there I am, pawing through some stuff when I discover the envelope in which I placed all of my frequent flier cards and account numbers... the mother lode! I think the last time I saw this envelope, I was living and working in Houston.

(I don't suppose it comes as a surprise to learn I haven't really been rigorous in my pursuit of frequent flier perks, eh?)

Anyway, I try to update my United account (probably not the best start, given their current financial condition) and got vectored to Customer Service. In talking with Customer Service, I ended up backing up my employment history to the time, 11 years ago, when I ran a small corporation here in Pagosa. We go through the whole rigamarole of address, last-four-digits-of-my-social, etc., when the woman suddenly asks: what was your phone number?

Say what?

It turns out without that data, I'd have to supply the last date I'd traded flier miles for something.

Ye gods. (Lady, you've got the last-four-digits... what else do you need?)

Anyway, on impulse, I tell the woman to hang on a minute, fire up Mozilla and do a Google search on my old corporation name.

BINGO!

I love this Internet!

* * *I've got an assignment for Monday that should not take much time. I'd have done it today, except I was called to come into the store and help process packages. I did all the FedEx Ground and then started in on the UPS when it became clear we had a small mountain of stuff to process in about 5 minutes.

I did well. We triaged the remaining pile as the the driver's patience was approaching the point of exhaustion, and left 4 or 5 packages for Monday's load, all destined for local haunts (Idaho is local, relatively speaking). In the end, we ended up processing 99 packages for UPS.

Next week starts the parade of the procrastinators, although I've already had one woman come in and ask whether arrangements could me made for a package sent on the 24th to be delivered on the 25th. Seriously.

I mentally wanted to reply that it was possible, if Santa was a personal friend, but decided that crossed the line of good business sense. It's amazing how humorless some people get from time to time.

* * *I tried to fire up my little D-Link wireless router earlier today in standalone mode (i.e., not connected to a WAN), and it doesn't seem to work. I don't know whether it needs to be connected to a real WAN before it starts operating, or what. I plan to get to the bottom of the problem this weekend, in between everything else.

* * *It's also time to start my gotta-get-it-done-before-I-leave to-do list. One definite addition is my travel expense report for the trip I just came back from. Another is to have dinner with Feht. A third is my medical appointment in Durango next Wednesday. Also, to pick up Natalie in Albuquerque on Thursday.

(I better stop and start noting this down somewhere where it'll be in my face, instead of in my LJ!)

Cheers...

Voice mail?

I don't believe I mentioned that I acquired both a a cell phone and a phone number in Moscow during my infamous weekend at the beginning of last month.

While the phone (a Siemens C60) was in the near-$100 range, the cost of a prepaid phone number was laughably inexpensive. I paid 150 rubles for something called "Super Jeans" (Супер Джинс), which started me off with an effective balance of $5 (or 5 "standard units," which is how things are priced when the seller want to peg the price to the dollar). In effect, the cost of setting up the account and getting a SIM card is zero, because the exchange rate is slightly less than 30 rubles to the dollar. If you do the math, the starting balance and the cost of the account pretty much wash.

The per-minute rate is pretty good. I seem to recall it's something like 0.14 "units" per minute. I used the phone some during my weekend and left the country with about 1.80 "units" left in my balance. Refilling the credits is fairly simple: there are a number of automatic machines throughout the town that'll eat rubles and jack up your balance for you.

The only fly in the ointment is the inability to roam outside Russia, unless I go by the offices of MTS (the service provider) and show my passport and a legit "propiska" (residence). This is actually a requirement for all account holders, as a method of making sure they can collect on calls made while roaming (the use of credit cards is not widespread in Russia). OTOH, I can use the phone while in Moscow and can make use of voice mail at other times, as long as I perform some kind of action that decreases the credit in my account at least once within a six-month interval.

I just did so by checking my voice mail. (Of course, nobody had left me any messages, so I had to call first and leave myself a message, just to make sure the system works. Which it does.)

At any rate, now I, too, can look like the typical Muscovite when I'm in town (that is, I can walk around with a phone glued to my ear).

Technically, I could use the same phone with a different SIM card and use the unit in the U.S., but AT&T is the only outfit I know of that offers GSM technology, and (a) they don't service Pagosa, and (b) they really don't offer a no-no-nonsense prepaid GSM service, preferring instead to nail customers with a monthly fee. It's just as well, as I have about 20 months left on my current contract with Verizon Wireless.

I guess the key question at this point is: how can I turn having a Moscow phone number into a marketing tool?

Cheers...