TIL - ATT Mobile's international data roaming rate is $16,000 for 10GB. (and I fell victim)

Before I went on my 16 day trip to Portugal, I bought 10GB eSIM from Airalo for $18.

In the past, ATT would send SMS text as soon as I land in foreign country if I'd be interested in opting into their International plan. 

This time, no such SMS.  From the moment I landed, I was charged at an exorbitant rate of roughly $1.60 / MB without my consent.

Within an hour of light browsing, I get my first SMS from ATT warning me $100+ data roaming charge.

Even though my Airalo eSIM was configured correctly, my phone was using ATT's international network.  The reason why I had still left the ATT cellular on was because it offers free SMS abroad so you can still receive your 2FA related texts.

When I contacted ATT for refund later, I asked why I never received roaming notification.  They acknowledged there was technical issue that they are still trying to fix.

If they knew there was an issue, why didn't they just retroactively fix my bill, instead of waiting for me to correct the usurious rate of $16,000 for 10GB?  How many others got screwed over this?

As I travel more frequently abroad, I'm looking at carriers that offer international data as part of their default plan.  Messing with eSIM and having dual SIM is still hassle.

TIL - Tower Records is thriving in Japan - and is coming back to the U.S.!

I'm sure everyone has a fond memory favorite record stores from his or her youth.  As a teenager growing up in the early 90s, mine was a local Tower Records store in Paramus NJ.  Aisles after aisles of CDs organized by last names and genre, along with listening stations with oily headsets on one side of the store.

Well, TIL that the chain is still very much a thing in Japan, especially with renewed popularity in vinyl records.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGA26EZEZoo

While searching for additional information,  the Market Place podcast recently did a feature story on the store and mentioned it is making sort of a comeback in the U.S. by opening up a 'lab' in Brooklyn New York.

TIL - It's relatively inexpensive to order custom made venetian blind

TL;DR - It's only $40-$50 to order custom sized venetian mini blind for your window from online.

Our home has a lot of old venetian blinds with fraying pull cords.  When you pull it down to open the blind, only one side goes up.  Given their 20+ year old age, they were due for replacement.  I had been putting off replacing them because we have weird sized custom made windows, leading me to assume replacing them would cost at least a couple hundred bucks per window.

So I looked at the repair route. In turns out, you can buy replacement cord from Amazon and I ordered it trusting I'm handy enough to fix it.  After all, even a child can do it.

Nope.

I may be handy with mechanical things, but working with strings and tying knots, not.

It was time to bite the bullet and replace the whole thing, even though it seems wasteful to do so.

After some searching, I found so many online vendors offering custom made blinds for relatively low cost! There were blinds.com, selectblind.com, blindstogo.com, or even homedepot.com.   I also learned that the correct term for the blinds I have is not "venetian blind", but "aluminum mini blind"

Many of these sellers seem to reel you in with eminently expiring sales offers, but they seem to run all year round.  When all said and done, all sellers have comparable prices.  Some even offer to ship out free color chips to ensure color match to your existing blind.  Mine came out to about $40 - $50 for a window, depending on size.

I should've done this years ago.