Author Topic: Messed Up in Miami (Read 13397 times)

MilesAhead · « **on:** June 10, 2013, 01:39 PM »

Some of you were wondering why I fell off the face of the Earth. Simple foreclosure victim. I'm living on the streets of Miami. Unfortunately a couple weeks ago a pick pocket took my wallet while I was sleeping(they cut your pocket out with a razor so you won't wake up.) I just got a Miami library card. So I'll be able to get online a couple of hours a day. But now I have the problem of replacing debit and ebt cards without a safe mail address in Miami. The shelters aren't the place to have mailed anything containing something that feels like a credit card.

Just thought I'd post to let you all know I'm still alive. So far I still have a USB with my AHK_L source code. Hepefully at some point I can get back to a normal life. The irony is the theif got $2 in cash. He didn't get anything out of my checking or EBT accounts. It's just the grief of no access while replacing the cards.

Bruins and Heat are both in the finals but I have to settle for listening on radio. Sucks when I used to have HDTV.

ttyl

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #1 on:** June 10, 2013, 03:55 PM »

Yikes!

Good luck Miles!

I've been OD'ing on Dr. Who and other SciFi lately, and I'm giggling about a mental image of using your prior software to fix your life!

"Hit control F10 and a special version of BBSS recreates your wallet!"

Ath · « **Reply #2 on:** June 10, 2013, 04:07 PM »

Or find a DC friend in Miami, and have the stuff sent over there.

mouser · « **Reply #3 on:** June 10, 2013, 04:13 PM »

It's really nice to hear from you Miles.. And I'm really sorry about your situation.. I've send a small donation your way -- I hope others will as well.

Edvard · « **Reply #4 on:** June 10, 2013, 11:05 PM »

Or find a DC friend in Miami, and have the stuff sent over there.
-Ath (June 10, 2013, 04:07 PM)

Dude, if I lived in Miami, you'd totally have a roof over your head to recover at. That said, I don't, but I'm praying PLEASE some DC'er in Florida lend a hand, hm?

eleman · « **Reply #5 on:** June 10, 2013, 11:49 PM »

Sorry about the troubles. I hope you'll get back on your feet soon.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #6 on:** June 11, 2013, 09:16 AM »

Thanks for the replies and donations. It's not all bad. Some of the most beautiful women ever walking down the street wearing clothing that should generate an arrest.

It was going pretty well until the wallet hijack. I think what I may have to do is see if the cards can be sent to general delivery. I'm not sure if they'll do that. Thank God for some of the clerks in 7/11. I've been buying stuff with the card there for 4 monts and they have been letting me buy food using the numbers(even though technically you're supposed to have the card even when manually entering.) Good thing I printed the card number out.

I hope to get the cards replaced in the next couple of days.

Thanks again for all the good wishes. (Even though I have an hour on I feel like I'm typing in panic mode. It will take me a while to acclimate.)

MilesAhead · « **Reply #7 on:** June 11, 2013, 09:18 AM »

Or find a DC friend in Miami, and have the stuff sent over there.
-Ath (June 10, 2013, 04:07 PM)

Dude, if I lived in Miami, you'd totally have a roof over your head to recover at. That said, I don't, but I'm praying PLEASE some DC'er in Florida lend a hand, hm?
-Edvard (June 10, 2013, 11:05 PM)

May I interest you in some fairly dry swamp land? heh heh
What's amazing to me is the number of people who could "go home" if they wanted to. But many are getting disability and with no rent to pay they can party quite well. Me, I'd rather get back to programming.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #8 on:** June 11, 2013, 09:19 AM »

Yikes!

Good luck Miles!

I've been OD'ing on Dr. Who and other SciFi lately, and I'm giggling about a mental image of using your prior software to fix your life!

"Hit control F10 and a special version of BBSS recreates your wallet!"

-TaoPhoenix (June 10, 2013, 03:55 PM)

Where's them 3D Printers when you need 'em.

pilgrim · « **Reply #9 on:** June 11, 2013, 10:08 AM »

Take care and best wishes.

cranioscopical · « **Reply #10 on:** June 11, 2013, 05:41 PM »

have the problem of replacing debit and ebt cards without a safe mail address in Miami
-MilesAhead (June 10, 2013, 01:39 PM)

Can you find an officer in a local bank who'll act as recipient, especially if it's the same bank as the issuer of your card?

PM me if you need something.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #11 on:** June 12, 2013, 10:11 AM »

have the problem of replacing debit and ebt cards without a safe mail address in Miami
-MilesAhead (June 10, 2013, 01:39 PM)
Can you find an officer in a local bank who'll act as recipient, especially if it's the same bank as the issuer of your card?

PM me if you need something.
-cranioscopical (June 11, 2013, 05:41 PM)

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I have it now. Another homeless guy brought me right to the post office downtown so I'd know how to find it. According to the woman there, mail just has to be sent to my name with GENERAL DELIVERY, Maini Florida and zip as the address. You queue up to pick up the mail. As long as the people are will to mail to general delivery I should be ok. I'm going to call them in a few hours.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #12 on:** June 12, 2013, 10:19 AM »

I just thought I'd relate one incident that happened to me recently. With all the people hassling you when you try to do something like shave in the rest room, fill up your water bottle from the bubbler, etc.. it's easy to feel like the majority of humans are a**holes. But instances like this resotore your faith a bit.

It's raining buckets in downtown. I'm sitting in my spot. This hot looking black woman age about 27 parks her car. She sees me sitting there and asks if I want a sandwich. Apparently she had one on the front seat of the car. But I was really dying for a coffee (You can't buy a cup of coffee with EBT for reasons I can't fathom.) So she says, "Ok, I won't be long." She pulls an umbrella out of the car and walks about 120 yards in driving rain to 7/11 and comes back with a coffee on a tray and hands it to me.

It's nice to see there are some really nice people around. It sure cheered me up.

cranioscopical · « **Reply #13 on:** June 12, 2013, 01:51 PM »

It's nice to see there are some really nice people around. It sure cheered me up.
-MilesAhead (June 12, 2013, 10:19 AM)

Great story! There are some really nice people at large on this planet. Sometimes, with the legions of oafs loose in the world, the SNR tends to hide the facts.

mouser · « **Reply #14 on:** June 12, 2013, 03:40 PM »

It's nice to see there are some really nice people around.

The other lesson of course, for all of us, is to BE that nice person. Sometimes the smallest gesture to help a stranger can be very meaningful to them.

Tinman57 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 12, 2013, 08:10 PM »

It's nice to see there are some really nice people around. It sure cheered me up.
-MilesAhead (June 12, 2013, 10:19 AM)

I picked up an old man and his wife hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere on my way home a couple of years ago. The old man had lost his job, house, car....Everything, and was on his way to the other side of the state for another job one of his relatives had waiting for him. I got them about 120 miles closer to their destination. Before I dropped them off on the side of the highway I pulled into a convenience store and handed them a $20 bill and told them to get whatever they wanted and to keep the change. Then I gave them an unopened bottle of water that I carry in my vehicles for the rest of their trip. I have had people help me out back when I was young (though not with $$$) and jobless, I just carried it forward.....

pilgrim · « **Reply #16 on:** June 13, 2013, 04:38 AM »

About twenty years ago I lived for two years without any income. I never finished up homeless but I had a car sitting outside my house that I could not afford to put petrol in, which had little if any value in monetary terms because of its age and condition so it was not worth selling, I could not pay the rent, and I did finish up without any money. In the last six weeks of that period I lost two and a half stone, that was on top of the three stone I had already lost.

If I wanted to go anywhere I walked and tried to hitch a lift, I won't bore you with all my experiences but I met some remarkable people during that time many of whom had their own stories to tell, like the young guy in the big new Mercedes who had a large house, a young family, and his own business, he drove many miles out of his way to take me to where I was going and when he stopped to drop me off he opened up a compartment between the seats and took out two large denomination notes and gave them to me, when I tried to refuse he told me that ten years before he had been homeless and if people hadn't helped him he would probably still be.

There are a number of things that I never lose sight of, I never forget where I have been, I never forget that other people have their own problems, I never forget that were it not for others I would either still be there.............or nowhere.

skwire · « **Reply #17 on:** June 14, 2013, 08:08 PM »

So far I still have a USB with my AHK_L source code.
-MilesAhead (June 10, 2013, 01:39 PM)

If you'd like (and are allowed to from the library), you can upload your source to me and I'll back it up here and through CrashPlan. Or, you can mail it to me to copy and I'll mail it back.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #18 on:** June 17, 2013, 10:22 AM »

So far I still have a USB with my AHK_L source code.
-MilesAhead (June 10, 2013, 01:39 PM)

If you'd like (and are allowed to from the library), you can upload your source to me and I'll back it up here and through CrashPlan. Or, you can mail it to me to copy and I'll mail it back.
-skwire (June 14, 2013, 08:08 PM)

Thank you. I'll look into the nuts & bolts as I am paranoid about the USB being taken or getting broken.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #19 on:** June 19, 2013, 12:30 PM »

Yay!! Got my EBT replacement card today. It works!! Now I can avoid chocolate ice cream withdrawal.

As an aside I read an article that San Fran is experimenting with allowing some restaurants to accept EBT. Of all places to try first, they chose Subway. Granted I haven't tried them in many years. But any time I pop in the local one to ask a question I'm met with palpable hostility. Makes me wish they'd try something more practical like McDonalds type places and diners. You can often get a full egg breakfast for the price of a 1/4 pounder with cheese, in a diner.

mwb1100 · « **Reply #20 on:** June 19, 2013, 02:23 PM »

If you'd like (and are allowed to from the library), you can upload your source to me and I'll back it up here and through CrashPlan. Or, you can mail it to me to copy and I'll mail it back.
-skwire (June 14, 2013, 08:08 PM)

Another idea for dealing with a body of source code (and possibly other documents) is to create an account on bitbucket.org and drop the source in a git repo there. Bitbucket allows you to keep repos private (there's no requirement that repositories be public to be free of charge like on github). There can be up to 5 users assigned access to a free private repository.

The drawback is that the files can't be uploaded to the repository from something like a library computer, because you need to push them from a local git repo. But that's a similar situation for getting the files into CrashPlan.

Dropbox is another possibility - Dropbox's web interface should let you upload or access files even from kiosk computers (as long as they let you also access your USB drive).

cranioscopical · « **Reply #21 on:** June 20, 2013, 09:03 AM »

Now I can avoid chocolate ice cream withdrawal.
-MilesAhead (June 19, 2013, 12:30 PM)

Live and learn, I didn't know you could withdraw chocolate ice cream with an EBT card. What will you have instead?

Good to know something's working out well for you

MilesAhead · « **Reply #22 on:** June 20, 2013, 09:16 AM »

Now I can avoid chocolate ice cream withdrawal.
-MilesAhead (June 19, 2013, 12:30 PM)
Live and learn, I didn't know you could withdraw chocolate ice cream with an EBT card. What will you have instead?
-cranioscopical (June 20, 2013, 09:03 AM)

Heh heh. Actually I withdraw the chocolate ice cream from my checking, then deposit it in my pre-paid Visa. Then the clerk will let me widthraw a pint from the freezer case.

(Nah, EBT is easier.)

Thanks for the sentiments. It's nice to know I'm still connected to a world where people do more than just dodge the rain.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #23 on:** June 21, 2013, 01:51 AM »

Miles, do you have access to a computer say at the local library where you can do stuff? While I was kinda rambling in that Snack post just now, I'm on the verge of asking you if you are interested in a "Coding Lunch" where it's bigger than a free snack and paid by a medium donation.

Mouser/Miles, if I donate via here, can you/he get it?

Kinda differently, depending on what you have for phone access...
(For example wifi via McDonalds, then some kind of "free via internet" calling?)

I am in need of a sort of virtual assistant and a lot of it is/can easily be phone based. For example, stuff like just calling an agency and asking what their rules for X are, then converting that to a typed list of stuff. I'm only 1 step ahead of you here in NY - no job, though I do have family support on housing. But I have pretty bad ADD/other. And it turns out to my dismay that the "professionals" here charge (insert adjective here) amounts when X % of what I need is so "easy", but it's like Alice in Wonderland here just getting that done.

I can't afford much, but I think I can swing $10 an hour for at least a small-ish bunch of hours.

Genius Developer/Smart Guy -> Homeless = Waste!
We'll have to put a little work into "documentation" so that I can try to apply some payback-services for this, but that's cake. Anything you create for an invoice has to be better than the funny invoices at my old job from contractors!

MilesAhead · « **Reply #24 on:** June 21, 2013, 09:25 AM »

Hmm, what I can do on these machines is close to Guest account. Even right click of the mouse is disabled. No way I could install say AHK_L executables. I'm pretty much stuck until I can achieve critical mass. I'll get there, but each step takes so long it's very frustrating. Like for the bit about not letting us homeless use laptops they invoke some mumbo/jumbo about the shelfter having some tax exempt status, therefore, it doesn't support the library. It's just another artificial barrier. Like forcing you to shave out in the street using a hand mirror.

I have to progress like The Heat did last night. Get 3 points, give up 2.