Christmas Day Walk

That nasty looking storm did appear, but it brought most of its force to Vancouver Island, where they experienced high winds and heavy rain. Then it hit the coastal mountain range and seemed to dissipate. By 11 AM this morning, the rain stopped, so we took a walk on the False Creek seawall, just like last year.

Everything was gray and quiet, but there were a few other people out doing the same (perhaps taking a breather before a big Christmas dinner — we are keeping things simple with a roast chicken and delicata squash). I was surprised to see a crib-style baby stroller occupied not by someone’s child, but their border collie. I didn’t ask them why.

We’re taking it easy today because I have an important trip coming up tomorrow. I’ve decided that the best way to expedite our getting Landed Immigrant Status is for me to take all of the materials (passports, fees, photographs, other assorted papers) directly to the office that is processing our case. That office happens to be in Buffalo, New York. Most people immigrating here would go to the office in nearby Seattle, but because we moved from Boston, we (in retrospect, without much forethought) chose the East coast’s Canadian Consulate, rather than the west coast’s. Another tip for people considering immigrating to Canada: Choose the office closest to your destination area, not the US point you are leaving.

We could get away with sending our passports and the funds via courier and waiting for their return to us, but since I will be needing my passport soon in early January to attend MacWorld Expo — and frankly, because I’m just not comfortable with sending off these extremely valuable travel documents without accompanying them to their destination — I’ve decided to fly to beautiful downtown Buffalo in the week between Christmas and New Years. Yes, the office I’m visiting is indeed open for business on Wednesday. Tuesday, when I am traveling, it is closed for the Boxing Day Holiday.

So, I leave tomorrow morning, change planes in Chicago, and arrive in Buffalo at about 10 PM EST. Bright and early at 8 AM the next morning, I appear at the Canadian Consulate and present all of our documents. According to their web site, they make every effort to get cases processed the same day, and return all items between 1 and 3 PM. If all goes according to plan, I then fly back at 6 AM EST the next day. My route this time is via Washington, DC, which is an odd way to go, but strangely symbolic, I think. I should arrive in Vancouver at just before noon, and at that time, become a Permanent Resident of Canada. If all goes according to plan.

My Newest Writing Assignment

I mentioned in my last posting that I was working on a ‘writing project’. I no longer have to be vague and/or mysterious about it. Through a series of referrals (Thanks very much, Maktaaq and Travis), I was put in touch with an editor at the LA Times, who happens to be an old friend of Travis.

It seems that the LA Times Editorial Dept. was kicking around the idea early last week that an American who had left the country for Canada due in some part to the reelection of Bush in 2004 might have some potentially humorous commentary on the fact that that they now live in a country with a Conservative Prime Minister while the US has since elected a Democratic majority in Congress. So with three degrees of separation traversed, I offered to try to write the Op Ed, knowing full well that if they didn’t like it, my efforts would be up on this blog and that would be that.

I gave it my best shot, spending a three-day holiday weekend holed up in my office at the keyboard writing drafts and running them by friends and family (Thanks also to Pam, Sooz and Matt), trying to get the jokes right, and trying to get it down to between 500 and 800 words. (it’s always easy to write more, harder to write tighter).

The result is…tomorrow I’ll be published in the LA Times! As soon as the URL goes live, I’ll blast out an email announcement to everyone I know, and will copy the text to this blog, since the link will go dark after about 30 days, and I can’t very well plagiarize myself.

Do I like the piece? Well, it’s probably a bit more intentionally humorous than I typically write, and there was one joke in particular that was pulled by the editors because it was a ‘cheap shot’. No matter. Like most writing projects (and I can now say this with conviction), the best part is now, when it’s over and done with. Just as I was happy a decade ago to get to say “I’ve written a couple of books”, I’m also pleased that after tomorrow, I’ll be able to say “I’ve written for the LA Times”.

Another Police Certificate on the Way

Pam called Police Headquarters in Connecticut this morning and they confirmed that they had processed and approved a police certificate for her. They said that it was in the mail, but it had been a holiday on Friday on the US (Veteran’s Day) and of course, a holiday here in Canada on Monday (Remembrance Day), so it will probably arrive in our mailbox either today or next week (no mail delivery on Saturdays in Canada).

Two down, one to go!

Enough Whining

I think I’ve gotten most of the ‘Oh woe is me, my Work Permit is due to expire’ out of my system, and despite the dreary weather, there is plenty to be positive about.

Specifically:

1. It’s Election day today, and hopefully the Democrats will take back some of Congress. It probably won’t be the Senate, but at least the House of Representatives is due to return back to Democratic rule for the first time in… is it 12 years? Whatever it’s been, it’s been a long time. This doesn’t mean that Pam and I will be heading back South again. We’re here, we’re nearly legal, and we’re staying put, visitor status or not.
2. Yesterday Pam got her Police Certificate from Massachusetts! That’s one down, two to go. Collect all three and you win the jackpot: Permanent Residency (eventually). Hope springs eternal, but let’s hope this doesn’t take place in Spring.
3. I’ve got plenty of things to get done in the coming months. There’s a bedroom to repaint (never did that room when we moved into our condo). I’m also going to make a concerted effort to clean up my office. (It’s amazing how cluttered it got in 14 months). There is a bunch of stuff I want to sell on Ebay (mostly electronics that are either out-of-date, not needed (like a Satellite Receiver and a Network Hub), or broken, and now I’ll have the time to take care of it. I also need to move ‘The Kendall Group’ web site to British Columbia (and make it a proper web site, with blog and other more current features).
4. A while back we planned a trip down to see my niece dance in the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s The Nutcracker.
   That’ll be fun, as the family ballerina, along with a bunch of other little girls in tutus, takes to the stage in Seattle in about a month, which calls for a family reunion. Her Aunt and Uncle will be happy to see her operate the canon in the battle between the Nutcracker’s army and the mice.
5. Macworld Expo is coming up in San Francisco in January, and again, that’s been planned and reservations have been made far in advance. Since I missed what some have dubbed ‘Woodstock for Smart People’ last year, I’m looking forward to renewing my almost annual pilgrimage in 2007. I’ve got a lot of old friends to reconnect up with.

That’s a few so far. There’ll be more. Noone ever said that I was a Pollyanna, but I’m sure there are a few silver linings in all of these clouds (real or situational).

Update: I’ve since learned that my niece will not be pulling or shooting a canon of any kind, but she will be holding a gun (a rifle, I believe). She made it clear that it’s a prop, but given the US’s love firearms, I hope she keeps whatever looks like a safety on. You’d think with a ballet like The Nutcracker that the artillery would be kept to a minimum.

Wet Ground, Losing Ground

As the November rains have started, so also has a shower of gloom come upon us. Without going into a lot of detail, it seems that our failure to get Landed Immigrant Status has had a domino effect on our situation; These days, new workers in Canada usually have Permanent Residency (Landed Immigrant status) by the time their first year’s Work Permit is up for renewal. That obviously wasn’t the case for us.

Because our problems with Pam’s fingerprints, I’m now having to do the unusual step of trying to get a renewal of a work permit. We thought this would be a simple rubber stamp on a form at the border or some other office, but at this point, it does not look either simple, or even likely, in that it involves lots of more paperwork, and some other details involving my employer that I’ll leave out for the moment.

At this point, there’s a strong probability that a month from today we’ll both be out of the workforce, back where we began again. Pam is even in the midst of a contract, and will be forced out of it, and this pains her a great deal. While a brand new Work Permit (for Pam, this time) will solve most of our problems for the time being, that will also require processing (about 55 days, our Lawyer reports, and we haven’t even submitted that yet), so there will be an inevitable gap before we can work again. In addition to waiting for this new work permit, we are also waiting for the fingerprints (still barely readable) that we sent to California and Connecticut to be accepted and for them to send us Police Certificates, along with Massachusetts, who for some reason didn’t need fingerprints.

It’s a hell of a way to enter into the Holiday Season, but it’s as if those unreadable prints have thrown us right back to the starting line. That’s not entirely accurate, but it sure feels that way.

I don’t think that words can express our level of frustration and disappointment.