Saved by the zombies

Of course I sleep with my iPhone next to me. Who doesn't?

This morning I planned to sleep late and go into work late.  As I awoke a little before 8, I reached for my iPhone ... and there was a message from the dean from 7:42 AM.  Urgent: He was going before the Regents at 9:30, and did I have some data for him.

I did not have the data.  Not in my bed, not on my iPhone ... and not in my office.  It didn't really exist.

This was my first dean-related fire drill since I took this job in September.  My credibility was on the line.

I did what I normally do when faced with something that looks limiting: I reframed it.  On my iPhone, in my bed, I wrote the dean a note that explained that what the Regents were asking him about was limiting, too small, and that he should answer it giving the following (qualitative) information, which was much more sophisticated than what the original question asked for.

I then threw my clothes on and ran out of the house to try to get to work in time to dig up the nonexistent data, calling a member of my team so she could get started on it.  Some colleagues also chimed in with some data.  I had pretty much nothing, but at 9:30, I took a break, knowing I'd done all I could do.

Then I started following the Regents meeting on Twitter ... and found that at about 9:30 students dressed as zombies did the Thriller dance in order to protest fee hikes.  All the usual clean-up ensued, delaying the session.

In fact, the dean didn't go on until about 3:30.  I was confused to see that the discussion was about diversity, which, while important, was not on the agenda and not what he had asked me about.  Actually, the Regents started by asking him one question about diversity, and then they argued among themselves.  Twitter then showed that the item the dean was there for was voted on and over, and they moved on.

When I ran into the dean later at work, he showed me the briefing that the Regents had had, the briefing that he saw this morning when he emailed me.  His piece was breakthrough, both for the university and for all schools like ours -- and the agenda had highlighted it as a potential problem, essentially putting a bullseye on his back.  He was ready to be mauled.  He needed my data as a shield.

Instead, the zombies delayed things so much that, after taking the time to air their criticism of the university's diversity, the Regents approved the dean's request without discussion.  And there was much rejoicing on our parts.

And the dean thought my reframing was brilliant and wants to incorporate it into school strategy.  It might not have been the shield he would have needed, but I passed my first dean's fire drill.

I am quite grateful that we were all saved by the zombies.

Put me in an ad.

A colleague told me that I was a perfect advertisement for the iPhone 4S. While sitting next to him at the Twins vs. Cubs at Target Field in Minneapolis, I:

Checked in at Target Field on Facebook. Checked the weather so I could report that it was 88 degrees.  Took a photo of the field and uploaded it, too. 
Texted the photo of the field to my brother. 
Used google to find out that the white 1965 flag represented when the Twins won the AL but lost to the Dodgers in the World Series. 
Looked up th capacity of Target Field (39,504) and the new Yankee Stadium (50,291)
Received a call from my dad, who called to tell me he'd run into the younger brother of my high school boyfriend. 
Emailed several times. 
Looked up the most common male names in the U.S. (James)
Updated one of my contacts. 
Found out that the Twins are last in the AL central, 8.5 games back (before they won the game today)
Texted with a friend about the morning's bar mitzvah. 
Took pictures of my group (using the reverse camera) and posted them on Facebook. 
Received a call from my cousin regarding dinner plans. 
Used Shazam to identify the song being played. 
Said "ice cream" to Siri so she could tell me where I could find nearby places to get some. 
Used the mapping feature to get directions back to the hotel. 

Yeah, it was a dull game.

The account saga continues ...

Only in a recommendation: if someone buys iTunes gift certificates on your credit card, just redeem them back to yourself!

Apple support suggested I open a new iTunes store account, said that I could keep it from being associated with a credit card by buying myself a gift certificate.

And then I thought: what a shame: to buy another gift certificate after punkyusa bought five on my credit card. In fact, I had already built a spreadsheet with the recipients' names and email addresses. Which I got off iTunes when I examined the electronic copies of the gift certificates. Duh!

I changed the recipient email address on the five gift certificates to my own and resent them to myself. (Although the automatically-generated email says that they were from Albert McNutt.) Thanks, Apple for the "resend" feature! Three of punkyusa's friends had not redeemed theirs yet (and now they never will, bwah-hahahahaha). Punkyusa and deathemperor had. I have called my bank (which already refunded my money) to tell them I got $200 back on my own.

I figure I can spend the $200 on gift certificates for people I know, since I don't think I'll ever spend it all on myself.

Phished or cracked?

The scary part is that I just received a personal email from the person who took over my accounts last night and from whom I finally retrieved them just now.

Very Good, Lisa! You have try to get your protection, but that's useless. Anyway, this account is your property then I don't wanna have it. I just make a astonished and will make up a loss to you.

Ominous. Hannibal Lecter, anyone?

Last night I received a note from iTunes thanking me for my purchase. But I hadn't made one. So I went to the iTunes store and discovered that there had been $546 worth of purchases from my iTunes account in the past week. The first $500 was in the form of some very hefty gift certificates. I checked my bank account, and indeed there had been purchases, so I called my bank and reported it. And I reported it to Apple and changed my password.

I made a spreadsheet of the people who received the gift certificates, since I had their names and email addresses from my iTunes account record. One went by Deathemperor. Punkyusa was the one who received the biggest gift certificate, $200.

Somehow, I thought I should check my Yahoo account. Things became a blur here because they happened so quickly and confusingly. It was an unreal experience. I figured out that punkyusa was actually online and in my accounts, since I was receiving email notifications of my own account settings changing even as I logged into them myself. I found that punkyusa had made him/herself an alternate email address for my Yahoo account -- and that, for some reason, I couldn't delete that. It meant that punkyusa would receive notifications of my own password and account changes. I suspected that I hadn't received a note from iTunes for the first $500 in purchases because punkyusa was going into my account and deleting those emails.

And suddenly my Google account was no longer available to me. That was the freakiest part (well, until tonight's note). One minute I was reading an email from an ex-boyfriend, and the next I was trying to log in and couldn't get in. Punkyusa had changed my password. I imagine it was in retaliation for my, just prior to that, changing the Yahoo password and locking him/her out. It would have been a very dramatic movie with a soundtrack and quick cutting between me and punky.

My brother was on the phone, also using my logins to see how far we could get -- dividing and conquering. You'd think this whole experience would have taken like five minutes, but when you don't know what is happening it takes longer. ("Is my caps lock on? Do I know my password?") I spent a lot of time interrupting myself trying to figure out what was happening (like putting together a spreadsheet) rather than how to stop it. My natural inclination: gather more information. I googled Deathemperor and found some 2005 discussion groups where he's looking for discarded website domains on the cheap. I was up for hours.

Punkyusa has laid down his/her arms. Well, except for offering me a link to a free laptop "just for me." So not really laying down arms. But I'm not done. I know these email addresses are probably quickly used and discarded, and no one is really going to want to hunt these people down, but I am still going to report them to their domain hosts and to my bank. Punkyusa is "domain keys verified" on gmail and has sent me an actual email. Shouldn't that be enough of a trail?