Well, I was going to be traveling to Canada tomorrow, for a conference in Ontario. I was quite excited about it.
However, international travel becomes difficult when your passport is expired.
I noticed the problem today. One day before I was to fly out. The thing expired in October last year, for cryin' out loud.
Last year I was so damn busy getting my permanent residence straight... During that process, international travel was right out of the question, so I guess the status of my passport didn't cross my mind. It bloody well should have though, since it was used in the permanent residence process. I should've noticed at some point that it was about to expire.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Free!
Happy New Year. The latest news -- well, it's not so 'latest' now, since it happened in early December, when I was too lazy/busy to post about it -- is that I got my permanent residence card. Otherwise known as a 'green card', though it's not green anymore except for a bit on the back. So that's cool. Up next: get my drivers license again. I had decided not to even bother trying to get a Washington license until my permanent residence came through, because it was such a hassle in Pennsylvania just to find out that I couldn't get a license. But now that I've got the permanent residence, it's time to study up on those Washington laws of the road. Yippee!
We went to Memphis for Christmas, to visit jaime_sama's mother and brother. I went for one week, she went for two. A couple of our friends here, A & L, kindly offered to look after Ping and Lily. I seem not to have even posted about Lily, but we got her not too long after we got Ping. As jaime_sama's photos show, she is a Syrian (aka 'Golden') hamster, much larger than Ping.
Anyway, Lily had been making a bit of a habit of escaping from her habitat. On one occasion it was my fault, having left the lid of one of her three enclosures open overnight. She climbed out, jumped/fell off the table onto the floor (2-3 feet), and spent the night running around the apartment. I resolved to be more careful. But Lily had had her taste of freedom. A couple of weeks before our Memphis trip, we came home late one evening to find her running around the apartment again. She had chewed her way out. One of her enclosures, a terrarium (originally designed for amphibians) that we got second-hand, had a slide-out mesh lid. To accommodate the lid, the enclosure had slots in each end. In order to connect it with tubing to her other enclosures, we had the lid only part-way in. We covered the resulting gap on top of the enclosure with a makeshift plastic cover, but one of the slots for the lid was left open and unoccupied. We weren't bothered by this, since the slot was only about a 1/4" high -- much too narrow for Lily to escape through.
Well, it was too narrow -- until Lily took it into her furry little head to widen it some. She had chewed one end of the slot into a hole more or less 1" in diameter, and gotten out through that.
This was a concern. But I thought I had the problem licked when I affixed an unused length of tubing inside the enclosure so that it completely blocked access to the slot. And she wouldn't be able to chew through the tube itself: she can only chew really hard stuff when she has an exposed edge to start on, as she did with the slot. But the tube was made of even harder plastic than the enclosure itself, and presented no such starting point. So we left A & L to check up on Ping and Lily once a day. We did mention that Lily had escaped a couple of times, but that we couldn't imagine how that could happen again, so they shouldn't worry about it.
Lily is more imaginative than us. I came home to the following (admirably understated) note from A & L:
I here present photographic documentation (taken by myself after I got home).
First, a wide view (with the culprit herself on the left, out under supervision on this occasion). The repaired area is visible pretty much in the middle of the picture.
A closer look. The location of the original hole is the notch in the grey part of the enclosure.
This shot is taken from inside the enclosure. You can see the size of the hole she made. And also that she had already gotten started on chewing through the patch that A & L had installed.
Needless to say, this enclosure has now been retired from service.
We went to Memphis for Christmas, to visit jaime_sama's mother and brother. I went for one week, she went for two. A couple of our friends here, A & L, kindly offered to look after Ping and Lily. I seem not to have even posted about Lily, but we got her not too long after we got Ping. As jaime_sama's photos show, she is a Syrian (aka 'Golden') hamster, much larger than Ping.
Anyway, Lily had been making a bit of a habit of escaping from her habitat. On one occasion it was my fault, having left the lid of one of her three enclosures open overnight. She climbed out, jumped/fell off the table onto the floor (2-3 feet), and spent the night running around the apartment. I resolved to be more careful. But Lily had had her taste of freedom. A couple of weeks before our Memphis trip, we came home late one evening to find her running around the apartment again. She had chewed her way out. One of her enclosures, a terrarium (originally designed for amphibians) that we got second-hand, had a slide-out mesh lid. To accommodate the lid, the enclosure had slots in each end. In order to connect it with tubing to her other enclosures, we had the lid only part-way in. We covered the resulting gap on top of the enclosure with a makeshift plastic cover, but one of the slots for the lid was left open and unoccupied. We weren't bothered by this, since the slot was only about a 1/4" high -- much too narrow for Lily to escape through.
Well, it was too narrow -- until Lily took it into her furry little head to widen it some. She had chewed one end of the slot into a hole more or less 1" in diameter, and gotten out through that.
This was a concern. But I thought I had the problem licked when I affixed an unused length of tubing inside the enclosure so that it completely blocked access to the slot. And she wouldn't be able to chew through the tube itself: she can only chew really hard stuff when she has an exposed edge to start on, as she did with the slot. But the tube was made of even harder plastic than the enclosure itself, and presented no such starting point. So we left A & L to check up on Ping and Lily once a day. We did mention that Lily had escaped a couple of times, but that we couldn't imagine how that could happen again, so they shouldn't worry about it.
Lily is more imaginative than us. I came home to the following (admirably understated) note from A & L:
Everything went pretty much according to plan -- with only one minor [sic] incident: Lily escaped by chewing her way through the container! We noticed there was a small hole before we left for Seattle, and didn't realize how much more she could gnaw & chew in a just a couple days... Well, it's covered up now and I think she's safe & sound.There had been two other holes in the terrarium enclosure. I don't know what they were for: they had been put in by the previous owner. They were less than a 1/2" in diameter each. Lily had, in the two days A & L were away in Seattle, widened one of them and gotten out again. On returning from Seattle, A & L located Lily (not an easy task), caught her (happily quite easy, as she is very friendly), put her back, and sealed up the hole with a lot of tape and a spare piece from one of our plastic hamster toy sets. They did a sterling job (and we rewarded them handsomely later).
I here present photographic documentation (taken by myself after I got home).First, a wide view (with the culprit herself on the left, out under supervision on this occasion). The repaired area is visible pretty much in the middle of the picture.
A closer look. The location of the original hole is the notch in the grey part of the enclosure.
This shot is taken from inside the enclosure. You can see the size of the hole she made. And also that she had already gotten started on chewing through the patch that A & L had installed.Needless to say, this enclosure has now been retired from service.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
What I do
I've taken a couple of trips this month. First to LA to go see Genesis play at the Hollywood Bowl (I was joined by an old school-friend from NZ who is a big fan), and then to Orlando for a conference where I was giving a paper.
I flew on both occasions, of course. When I fly at the moment, I use my Employment Authorization Card as my ID. I don't have a driver's license (for reasons that will be familiar to regular readers), and I don't like to take my passport anywhere with me unless I actually need it.
Apparently SeaTac has recently had a changing of the guard in its security areas, with a new company taking over the job or something. The first time I went through, on my way to LA, I recall noticing that the security dude who looked at my ticket and ID seemed to have an odd reaction. He looked at it for quite a while, then at me, then back at the ID, then let me through. I don't recall now what it was in particular, but he did or said something that made me think: "He can't possibly think that I'm a DHS agent... can he? No, I'm imagining it."
My EAD is issued by the Dept. of Homeland Security -- specifically by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. So it says 'US Department of Homeland Security' across the top. (I'd put a photo of it up here if I weren't afraid of being arrested for duplication of a government document or some such offense.)
On my second trip, to Orlando, the effect was more noticeable. Same as before, I'm getting my ticket and ID looked at. As before, the guy is looking at it like he's never seen anything like it before. I actually commented to him that I was surprised that he'd never seen one of them before: of course they'd mostly see driver's licenses, but surely they would see these cards every now and then? That's when he told me that he was new at this job, because his company had just been hired to do the security at SeaTac. Then he waved me through. As he did so, he said:
"Thanks for doing what you do out there."
It's worth pointing out that my EAD says nothing at all about what it is I actually do. It just says I'm authorized to work in the US. And even if it did say what my job was, you'd hardly expect anyone to say something like that to a college professor (though of course they should -- but that's another issue).
Maybe I should have brought out my card again and brandished it in the faces of the folks running the bag check when they took away my hair gel...
I flew on both occasions, of course. When I fly at the moment, I use my Employment Authorization Card as my ID. I don't have a driver's license (for reasons that will be familiar to regular readers), and I don't like to take my passport anywhere with me unless I actually need it.
Apparently SeaTac has recently had a changing of the guard in its security areas, with a new company taking over the job or something. The first time I went through, on my way to LA, I recall noticing that the security dude who looked at my ticket and ID seemed to have an odd reaction. He looked at it for quite a while, then at me, then back at the ID, then let me through. I don't recall now what it was in particular, but he did or said something that made me think: "He can't possibly think that I'm a DHS agent... can he? No, I'm imagining it."
My EAD is issued by the Dept. of Homeland Security -- specifically by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. So it says 'US Department of Homeland Security' across the top. (I'd put a photo of it up here if I weren't afraid of being arrested for duplication of a government document or some such offense.)
On my second trip, to Orlando, the effect was more noticeable. Same as before, I'm getting my ticket and ID looked at. As before, the guy is looking at it like he's never seen anything like it before. I actually commented to him that I was surprised that he'd never seen one of them before: of course they'd mostly see driver's licenses, but surely they would see these cards every now and then? That's when he told me that he was new at this job, because his company had just been hired to do the security at SeaTac. Then he waved me through. As he did so, he said:
"Thanks for doing what you do out there."
It's worth pointing out that my EAD says nothing at all about what it is I actually do. It just says I'm authorized to work in the US. And even if it did say what my job was, you'd hardly expect anyone to say something like that to a college professor (though of course they should -- but that's another issue).
Maybe I should have brought out my card again and brandished it in the faces of the folks running the bag check when they took away my hair gel...
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Ouch
There's mourning all over NZ now, with the All Blacks having been beaten by France in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup.
It's hard to describe to Americans the level of despair that this event will produce in New Zealand. I don't think there's an equivalent sport that is as important to Americans as rugby is to Kiwis. Americans have baseball and American football, but neither of them have much of an international profile. Basketball is an international game, but its profile within the US doesn't match that of baseball or football. Rugby, by contrast, is both an international sport and NZ's national game.
There are Kiwis, such as myself, who never really played the game, and who don't follow it all that closely except when a big international game is happening. But even those Kiwis will typically admit to at least a twinge of remorse about yesterday's loss.
This is the 6th World Cup. NZ won the inaugural one, in 1987. Since then, despite being consistently in the top 2-3 teams in the world, and arguably simply the best team overall, we've not won it again.
In 1999 disaster struck in the semi-finals when we lost to France in a game that pretty much no one, not even the French, thought the French had a prayer in. So the defeat this year is a particularly nasty case of déjà vu. It might have helped a bit if the game had actually been played in France, which is hosting this year; but it was played in Cardiff! So, 'home-crowd advantage' isn't going to fly as an excuse.
Even worse, this is the first time that NZ has failed to make it into the semi-finals. (Until this year we were the only team to have made it into the final four every time.) The only consolation to be drawn is that neither did the Aussies: in a match that was almost as surprising in its outcome, they were booted out (almost literally) by England (more precisely, by their kicking machine Jonny Wilkinson).
It's hard to describe to Americans the level of despair that this event will produce in New Zealand. I don't think there's an equivalent sport that is as important to Americans as rugby is to Kiwis. Americans have baseball and American football, but neither of them have much of an international profile. Basketball is an international game, but its profile within the US doesn't match that of baseball or football. Rugby, by contrast, is both an international sport and NZ's national game.
There are Kiwis, such as myself, who never really played the game, and who don't follow it all that closely except when a big international game is happening. But even those Kiwis will typically admit to at least a twinge of remorse about yesterday's loss.
This is the 6th World Cup. NZ won the inaugural one, in 1987. Since then, despite being consistently in the top 2-3 teams in the world, and arguably simply the best team overall, we've not won it again.
In 1999 disaster struck in the semi-finals when we lost to France in a game that pretty much no one, not even the French, thought the French had a prayer in. So the defeat this year is a particularly nasty case of déjà vu. It might have helped a bit if the game had actually been played in France, which is hosting this year; but it was played in Cardiff! So, 'home-crowd advantage' isn't going to fly as an excuse.
Even worse, this is the first time that NZ has failed to make it into the semi-finals. (Until this year we were the only team to have made it into the final four every time.) The only consolation to be drawn is that neither did the Aussies: in a match that was almost as surprising in its outcome, they were booted out (almost literally) by England (more precisely, by their kicking machine Jonny Wilkinson).
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