I have my new Sprint iPhone 5 and I had to travel to Mexico. I obviously wanted to use my prepaid “Amigo Telcel” SIM card.
These are the steps:
Call Sprint, ask them to provide an international unlock.
Some carriers will sell you an unlocked iPhone, meaning that it will work with any GSM-compatible SIM card in the world. Most won’t, they will sell you a phone that is programmed to work only on the specific carrier’s network. Some carriers will, however, unlock you iPhone. In the US case, Verizon iPhone 5 comes unlocked, AT&T will unlock it once your contract is up, and Sprint will sometimes unlock it for international use only assuming your account is in good standing and some secret set of circumstances are all fulfilled. The way they do this is unclear to me, but basically you call them, they ask you for your phone’s IMEI code, and then they do something (tell Apple to unlock it?) on their end so that your iPhone is unlocked.
If you are on a different carrier, then you need to research whether that carrier will unlock your phone. The easiest way is to contact them directly. Multiple times if needed.
Back up your iPhone.
After some indeterminate amount of time, the request Sprint places on Apple goes through. Connect your phone to your computer, open iTunes, and back it up.
Restore your phone.
This takes a while, and in my case, there was no “Congratulations! Your iPhone is now unlocked.” message. I don’t know why this is. Perhaps because what I got is not a full unlock, rather an international unlock, which means I can use it with any cellphone company outside the US that has SIM cards, but not with AT&T nor T-Mobile. The lack of message made me nervous that the phone did not get unlocked.
Get a nano SIM.
The SIM card in the iPhone 5 is smaller than the regular ones or even the iPhone 4/4S microSIM cards. This is where you may need to get crafty and cut down your SIM card. Be careful! Left: nanoSIM for iPhone 5 Right: microSIM for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4SAfter my handy work, the former microSIM is now a nanoSIM. I was nervous about the metallic edges shorting on the aluminum iPhone 5 SIM tray, but everything worked fine.
I had access to a nicely equipped soldering station for my SIM operation, microscope included. You may not be as lucky, nor as handy. Be careful!
Use.
Once I arrived to Mexico, I popped in the “new” nanoSIM and it worked like a charm!
Yep, that’s a real iPhone 5 screenshot taken in Monterrey, Mexico connected to Telcel.
Verizon iPhone 5 came fully unlocked for some reason, and AT&T will unlock them at some point. I’d love to hear other people’s experiences.
Ever wonder how I keep my skin so clear and smooth? Wonder no more, as I finally reveal my secret:
Mud baths.
This was at the Golden Haven Spa in Calistoga. Years ago the mud baths started out as simple hot tubs. But with the water shortages, the spa stopped replacing the water with clean water. Fast forward to 2012 and the water is now a really think mud.
Ha ha. That was a joke. Actually they bring moss from Canada and use the local thermal waters (they have geysers, remember?) to make a really hot mud. Really hot.
I’ve always wanted to see Old Faithful the geyser. Well, turns out there is a geyser in Calistoga, CA sneakily called Old Faithful of California. Of course the signs say “Old Faithful” in huge letters and “of California” in tiny subscript under it.
The science behind the magic.
The geyser erupts every 10 minutes or so. While it’s not super impressive and certainly smaller compared to my mental picture of the real Old Faithful, it is pretty cool. Makes me wish I had my own little personal geyser to use as a bidet.
Old Faithful standing in front of the geyser.
I risked my life to get close enough just so I could get you this video:
I joined my dad and my brother Moi for a crazy weekend in Vegas. For them it was a work thing. For me, not so much.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas… which means that most of the material from the trip is not suitable for publication on The MKX®. But only because you asked nicely, I am posting three photos to give you but a taste of how the Kirsch boys party.
No, I'm not about to call this woman "mom". I simply call her "mamacita".Wow, look at those enormous boobs.... And the girls' aren't bad, either.Fine, so we all have our fetishes. Comments disabled.
I recently came back from a two week trip to Israel. People are asking me what I did over there. In one word: eat.
I even made a list of the things I wanted to eat, and got to all of them except for one. Highlights of what I ate in pictorial form follow. It’s long so read more to see all. No explanation of what each thing is, so feel free to use Google.
For those who don’t care about what I eat and instead want to see what I do, you can also check the trip album in The MKX® Photo Central at no additional cost.
Shakshuka at... who else: Dr. Shakshuka (Jaffa)Only once in the two weeks I was there I was able to eat schwarma, and only a few hours before flying.
One of the perks of being an engineer is that you get to constantly travel to remote and exotic locations.
Ok,that’s a lie. But last week I did get to spend a few days working in Queretaro, Mexico. I even got to check out the city a little bit. Here are a few photos and a couple of videos from the trip. I am quite pleased with their quality, given that they were taken with a cell phone.
Some kind of Folkloric dance:
Energetic street dancing (using performance enhancement drugs?)
The “Cerro de la Silla” (Saddle Hill) is the symbol of my hometown Monterrey, Mexico. The view in the photo above is basically the view I saw everyday driving from my house to school and college. I remember hearing two interesting stories about the iconic mountain while growing up:
First, the rumor that on top of it there are living pterodactyls (pterosaurs?). While I haven’t confirmed this one, the fact that at least you can find mentionsaboutit online means that at least I did hear it somewhere.
The second was about this building you can see halfway up, on the north side. Map. What I was told as a kid is that a local entrepreneur wanted to build an air tram as a tourist attraction. It was finished but on its inauguration day on the first trip, him and some other people were killed in an accident, making it the last trip as well. More info in this page. Original footage below:
