3 concerts and 2 expeditions

[calimac]

I was sent to Symphony Silicon Valley to review Scriabin's Piano Concerto. Have you ever heard Scriabin's Piano Concerto? I hadn't even known that there was a Scriabin's Piano Concerto until I was handed this. At first I was dismayed. I've battered my head against Scriabin's music before, often without success particularly for the orchestral music. Then I listened to this concerto. It's really good! Like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff concertos, only without the surplus fat. I enjoyed this performance.

I went to Stanford last Tuesday to hear the Quartetto di Roma in Mendelssohn's Op. 13. I learned to love this quartet, essentially a very early homage to Beethoven's Op. 132, under the tutelage of the Pacifica Quartet, which played a Mendelssohn cycle at Menlo some years ago. That stuck with me so strongly that whenever I closed my eyes during this performance, I saw the Pacifica Quartet before me in my mind's eye, and whenever I opened them, I saw these guys instead, a disconcerting experience.

Then up to the City on Sunday for a special SF Performances concert in honor of their newly-retired founding impresaria Ruth Felt. The Alexander Quartet, which can be gritty when they really want to be, applied that to Beethoven's Op. 95, followed by Marc-Andre Hamelin in a tentatively soft version of Brahms' piano intermezzi, Op. 117. This was the Brahms who composed the Lullaby. Hamelin crossed over to the rougher side of the force for a fairly harsh run through of Schumann's Piano Quintet. In between, Midori (that's Midori Goto, the violinist) played some solo Bach, and they managed an encore with all of the above, a movement from Chausson's concerto for solo violin and piano quintet, another work I know from Menlo.

A new shopping center has opened deep down in the Silicon Valley industrial district, which I knew about because they sent me some coupons, for a Whole Foods and a branch of Books Inc., the local independent bookstore chain. They turned out to be hard to find in a poorly-marked sprawled-out mostly-office complex. At Books Inc. the clerk, who did in fact look vaguely familiar, claimed he recognized me from another branch. I have in fact appeared there occasionally, but he also said he remembered me without a beard, which I've had far longer than that branch has been in existence, so I may have another doppelganger, an occasional problem in the past.

After much travail involving websites that send unhelpful error messages and shipping agencies that automatically generate arrival announcement e-mails for the wrong day, I've acquired a Visitor Oyster Card for London transport for my upcoming visit there. Now I have to tutor myself in how to use it, having never gotten myself the local equivalent due to the complexity of the rules - touch this, not that; touch now, not then - and the rarity of my need for it. But I expect to have a busy week in London shuttling back and forth on the Tube, so into the future we go.

However, the amount that AT&T employees don't know about whether my phone plan will work in the UK, or even whether I can charge the phone on UK voltage, would fill the British Library. This despite my responding to every statement of "I don't know" with "Then who would know?" and repeated declarations that, since I cannot be the first customer in AT&T history to wish to travel to the UK with a cell phone, somebody in their organization must know something, and that is the person I wish to speak to. I think I'll have to buy something when I arrive, though whether it'll just be a SIM card or a whole new disposable phone - and I know nothing about disposable phones; I've never had to inquire about one before - I have no idea.

Comments

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

When Glenn and I were in the UK in 2014, we bought a pair of the cheapest phones we could find. They cost 15 pounds each and included a 10 pound credit for phone minutes. We mostly just texted each other in that Marco-Polo way that cell phones are good for. There was still time left on them we came home, so we handed them over to Jerry and Suzle for the remainder of their trip. They found them useful in the same way we did, and gave them back to us when they got back to Seattle.

I have no idea if cheap cell phones are still as widely available now as they were then, but it seemed simpler than the equivalent in the US.

[voidampersand.livejournal.com]

If your phone is unlocked, you can swap in a UK PAYGO SIM and it will work. This is by far the least expensive option.

Here is an AT&T page on how to request an unlock code: https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1008728

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Wow, was that ever a complicated procedure to go through, especially as the mysterious IMEI number that I needed to enter was hidden in a different part of the phone's menu settings than the instructions said it was in. Not to mention the numerous tries it took before it would accept my attempt to transcribe the CAPTCHA. Now I have to "allow two business days to process your request." Good thing there's still a lot more than that before I leave.

AT&T employees have been in fervent disagreement with each other as to whether my type of account (I have a GoPhone) would allow me to use it in the UK. But, perhaps needless to say, not a single individual on either side of this dispute said word one about unlocking the phone, or what kind of SIM I'd need to get.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Now I've gotten a reply saying "We can't complete your request at this time because the device hasn't had active paid service for at least six months."

I don't know what this means; I use this phone regularly and paid for more time on it just last month, but the e-mail offers no way to query this and I'm not inclined to undertake the frustrations of trying to get first-level tech support to explain this mystery. My best guess is that it's AT&T's indirect way of saying "Go Phones are not eligible," which, to be fair, some of the people I've asked have told me already.

Incidentally, on my previous trip 11 years ago, at which time I had a regular AT&T account, not a Go Phone, it worked fine without having to unlock anything. However, the way dialing worked was completely different from the way I'd been specifically told.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

You will need a converter to charge the phone, a laptop or anything else electric.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Thank you. By "converter" do you mean 1) just a plug adapter, so that I can plug my charger into their outlets, or 2) a transformer, to alter the voltage (with a plug adapter either built in or attached)? A conversation with one AT&T employee who claimed to have knowledge from personal experience featured him shifting back and forth between #1 and #2 about five times in the course of the conversation, while denying that he was saying anything different. If he was indeed trying to say the same thing the whole way through, the terminology utterly defeated any attempt at communication.

The clerk in the travel store at Stanford Shopping Center was absolutely certain that the answer was #1, and since we actually had both a plug adapter and a voltage transformer sitting on the counter in front of us at the time, there was no doubt which one was meant. But I wasn't sure whether to believe her, which is why I tried asking AT&T. Big mistake.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I use the Travel Smart by Conair All-in-One Adapter for my phone. It adapts plugs and manages the voltage. It's $12. I've used it in Europe and England plugging directing into outlets. (https://www.amazon.com/Travel-Smart-Conair-Adapter-Built/dp/B0020MMCG6 if you want to see it. It's very lightweight.)

For a computer or anything else that requires a plug instead of a USB port I bring my voltage adapter (transformer as you call it) as well.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I have an elderly Nokia that runs on UK networks and has a pay as you go SIM in it. Happy to lend, if I can get it to you.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Thank you, but I think I'd better spring for something up to date. There are deep and unknown perils here.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I would say there is a 95% chance that once charged, it will connect to the network and work perfectly well. I will test it on my next trip to England.

Lisa

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

For charging, there are plenty of inexpensive charging adaptors out there.

Oyster cards are way the best value on London transit systems. Very wise!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've got an adapter. What I'm trying to find out is when I need to use it.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Better safe than sorry I guess although we only have one electrical system throughout the islands- 230-240 ac.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It's different than the one in the US. Did you not know that? Our chargers are designed to work with 110-120, unless they're multiple-range. That's what I need the transformer for.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I did, but a transformer should do the job.

Oddly enough, I know from himself's experiences that shaver points tend to be more international.

S'pose that's 'cos hairy guys are international? :o)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I have a transformer. My question is whether I need to use it on particular devices.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

We changed over to AT&T when we moved in August. To get everything working I needed to enter a date on a Web page, and every way of doing so that I tried was rejected. No explanation, no hints. So I called tech support and asked what the format was. I went through three successive levels of tech support people who didn't know the answer: Two who spoke Indian English and one who spoke American English. It was unusually bad even for a tech support line.

There are differences of opinion about Apple, but one thing I will say about them is that every single time I've called them I got someone who (a) spoke easily understandable English and (b) gave helpful answers. I wish more corporations thought it was worthwhile giving that kind of service. Didn't good customer service use to be one of the AT&T hallmarks, back in the dim past?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. AT&T had a very bad reputation in popular culture back in its monopoly days. There was a bumper sticker that read "We Don't Care: We Don't Have To."

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Apple users like me should than the appropriate gods for Microsoft giving Apple some competition.