What a week of suspense with the U.S. election… and as of now, the final result is still up in the air. But from the gains made today, it seems imminent that Joe Biden will soon be president-elect.
This afternoon I felt inspired and managed to put together this video to express my feelings about the election (I’m fairly impressed with myself for figuring out how to do the editing):
(Here’s the YouTube link if the video embedding doesn’t work: https://youtu.be/p0D7ptQSMKY)
Today has been a low key day. My weekly SuperValu grocery delivery arrived at around 11:00am. Spranger’s Yard has been very quiet lately; I haven’t seen any sign of my neighbors. I wonder if some of them have gone home to family during the lockdown?
My other big project has been activating my new iPhone 12. I had tried following the steps on Apple’s website to transfer my virtual eSIM from my old iPhone to my new one, but to no avail — at first it looked like it was working because it said “activating,” but then it reverted back to where I started. So, the next step was to call AT&T. The first time I called, the connection was bad and the representative couldn’t hear me, so I hung up and called back. This annoyance turned into a serendipitous blessing, as the second representative was fantastic. Her name was Joann, and if I had to guess her accent, I’d say she was from Indonesia? At any rate, it was one of the best customer service experiences I’ve had. She was polite, professional, friendly, and very clear in her communications. It took about an hour, with Joann needing to pull in her supervisor for help and overrides, but they were able to activate my phone with the physical SIM card shipped with it, then transfer my service from the physical SIM to a new virtual eSIM that they activated (a tricky thing to do when overseas and not directly connected to AT&T’s network). But it worked! Joann also processed my request to unlock the phone so that I could use the physical SIM slot for my Vodafone Irish service; this meant paying off the phone up front, but it is what it is. The unlock request was processed almost immediately, but I wanted to make sure my Irish service was still working for the SuperValu delivery so I decided to wait. But he transfer of my Vodafone service worked like a charm — I just had to move my Vodafone SIM card from my old phone to the new one, and confirm activation, and it worked! All my data, apps and settings transferred to my new phone from my backup. The only thing that I haven’t migrated yet is my WhatsApp chat history; the backup functionality seems a little buggy, it’s not seeing my most recent backup to iCloud. Perhaps there’s a delay? A minor hiccup, all things considered.
The weather has been dry and clear today, and so I was determined to gone on at least a short walk. Earlier in the day, the toilet brush had snapped in half when I was doing a quick cleaning, so that was excuse enough to get me out the door. This also gave me an opportunity to try out my new iPhone’s camera. The dusk sky could not have been a better subject.
I also managed to get my phone out quick enough to capture a Guinness tanker truck along the quay (a common sight):
The pedestrian shopping district of Marys Street was fairly busy, despite most stores being closed:
Until next time…
