Month: August 2014

A few months ago, around the end of May, I decided to put in my application to become a US citizen. There’s a big long form you have to fill out, but it exists as a fillable PDF, which makes things a lot easier.

My path to becoming a US citizen was through having had permanent resident status for at least 5 years.

Based on my permanent resident application experience, I expected to have to wait at least a few months after sending in my application before hearing anything. The whole process of me becoming a permanent resident took almost 2.5 years, so I wasn’t expecting the citizenship process to be a short one.

Much to my surprise, a couple weeks later I received a letter notifying me that my biometrics appointment (fingerprinting and photographing) would be in early July, a little over a month after sending in my application. Fortunately, I was able to get the biometrics stuff done here in Charleston instead of having to travel to Charlotte like last time.

I was even more surprised when just a couple of weeks after the biometrics appointment, I received a notice telling me I would have my interview today. Compared to my permanent resident application, this citizenship thing was moving at lightning speed.

Part of the process includes having to answer a number of civics questions. You have to answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly to pass. The questions aren’t that difficult, but some of them are the kind that if you know too much, you might get them wrong.

I arrived at the USCIS office in plenty of time for my interview appointment. After going through security, I had a seat in a very crowded waiting room. It was much more crowded today than when I was there for my biometrics appointment. Turned out most of the people were there for their naturalization oath ceremony. There were about a dozen or so people plus their families there to take their oath to become a US citizen. It was a bit of a sneak preview for me.

After waiting for a little while, I was called back for my interview pretty much on time. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the interview process, so I was a little bit nervous. After putting me under oath, the interview started with verifying my identity and then the civics test. The first question caught me a little off guard and took me a little bit to dig the answer out of my head, but after that I was good. After getting the first 6 questions correct, the test was over (no point in continuing if you only have to get 6/10 to pass).

After that, the rest of the interview consisted of going through the application form and being asked questions from the form, while I was under oath. A few questions about the various parts of the Oath of Allegiance and if I understood what it meant, and that was the interview. I signed a bunch of forms, got a sheet of paper telling me I passed (Form N-652 Naturalization Interview Results) and went back out to the waiting area.

The people who had gone back for the naturalization oath ceremony were just starting to come out, and I saw them carrying their naturalization certificates and a little American flag. After a few minutes, I was given a sheet of paper telling me when to come back for my own naturalization oath ceremony.

So, in 6 weeks, on September 30, I will become a US citizen. We’ll be going out that evening to celebrate somewhere, and you’re welcome to join in. I’ll be posting those plans later.

I’ve been using My Backup Pro for a while now, on my Galaxy S2 and now the Nexus 5. Lets me schedule regularly occuring backups, and it’s done a good job at saving me from intentional and unintended hardware resets.

With the S2, I can have My Backup save the backup files to the SD card which is pretty handy. I configured the camera app to store photos to the SD card as well, and got into the habit of copying other files to the SD card on a quasi-regular basis for backup. Every now and then I’d pop the card out and copy the contents of the SD card onto my desktop for “off-site” backup.

Since the SD card stays untouched during a hardware reset, restoring the phone is relatively simple. Just reinstall apps from the Play store and restore data from the SD card.

The Nexus 5 doesn’t have external SD card storage, so I’m going to have to change my habits a bit. WIthout the safety net of the SD card, if the Nexus 5 needs to be wiped, the backups go along with it (which I ran into yesterday). My Backup Pro can also backup to “the cloud”, but I’m not terribly interested in putting my backups there.

Fortunately, the Nexus 5 connects to the desktop more reliably than my S2 when I plug in the USB cable, so I’ll just have to get into the habit of copying data off the Nexus 5 onto my desktop whenever I plug it in.

I was in the middle of playing some Ingress out on Folly Beach today when my Nexus 5 suddenly started acting crazy with random phantom touches on the screen. Things were moving, menus were activating and all kinds of weird things going on without me touching the screen at all. Very strange, making me wonder what the heck was going on. I wiped off the screen to make sure it wasn’t drops of water or sweat messing things up, but no luck. The phone was pretty much useless and I didn’t want to stand around outside in the hot trying to troubleshoot, so I headed back home.

After getting back home and going through some routine troubleshooting steps (power down, cold boot, a couple of hard resets, all of which aren’t that easy to accomplish when your phone is going nuts and not responding to screen touches), I decided that perhaps some kind of hardware corruption had occurred.

I put in a call to the Google Support line and after waiting on hold for a few minutes, was connected to a very pleasant sounding lady. I described the problem and my own troubleshooting steps, and one of the things she asked was if I had a screen protector on the phone. I told her there was one, but it had been working just fine with the screen protector on earlier and didn’t think that would be the cause of the problem. Since her troubleshooting steps were pretty much the same as what I had already done, she put me on hold to process a replacement order and exchange.

While on hold, I started messing with the screen protector to get some small annoying dust bits out, and figured I might as well take off the screen protector just to see what would happen. I wasn’t expecting that taking it off would make any difference at all. Much to my surprise, the phone started working again and responding to my screen touches.

Upon closer inspection of the screen protector, it looked like a tiny bit of moisture (probably from my sweaty fingers on the phone while playing Ingress) had wicked into one of the small dust bubbles near the edge of the screen. That was apparently enough to cause the phone to read all kinds of random screen touch activity. Once that little bit of trapped moisture was gone, everything was just fine.

So with that, I think I learned a bit of a troubleshooting lesson, which I should have already known: never discount even the seemingly trivial possibilities.

Now for the laborious process of restoring the phone.

Connie and I have been parishioners at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church over in West Ashley for maybe a little over a year now. I’m hardly the religious type, but Connie is Catholic, so I go along for the ride. It’s pretty good people watching too.

Since the beginning of the year, we have been doing the coffee/donut social after the 9AM Mass. It’s a nice social gathering after Mass in the church hall, a chance to sit down and chat/hang out with fellow parishioners over coffee and donuts. It’s been a fairly popular thing, and from what I’ve gathered, a long standing tradition at the church.

Every Sunday morning except for the third Sunday of each month (the Knights of Columbus do pancake breakfast that Sunday), and the Sunday immediately preceeding or following a major holiday, we head over to our local Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up anywhere from 13-18 dozen donuts (makes the car smell really good…)

With the donuts, apple and orange juices, and any other supplies needed for the day, we get to the chuch hall around 0745 and start setting up. Tables and chairs are moved around, donuts are set out and the coffee brewing is started. By the time everything is set up, it’s about 0830, and time to head over to the church.

After the final blessing (but not after communion, because you’re not supposed to leave until at least after the blessing), we’re out the door back to the hall to set out the coffee urns and start pouring the juices. Not long after that (sometimes there are people waiting already), there’s a line of people coming to get their coffee and donuts.

It’s nice to see people hanging out and socializing. People are talking, having a good time, sometimes there are kids running around and playing. After 8 months now, there are a lot of familiar faces, and sometimes a few new ones. It’s a nice little community, and part of what I expect churches to be.

If you’re in the area, come join us for coffee and donuts!