And She Was...

We had zedrikcayne's green card (permanent residency) interview on Monday. It was, at best, anti-climactic, and at worst, a complete and utter joke. I believe he uttered the phrase, "Well, we could have gotten through that if we were strangers."

Seriously. We'd spent the evening before, preparing everything, so that we had all our document organized and easily accessible. We had all sorts of organized paperwork, and everything prepped. We went and ran a couple of errands, had some lunch, stopped next to the Homeland Security office to make copies of a few things we'd forgotten to copy, and arrived, as our attorney had instructed, about 45 minutes before the interview. Went through metal detectors, and sat. For about two hours and a half hours, actually. Waited, waited, waited. Finally, we were called in for our interview. The woman looked at the file she had in front of her, confirmed information like our names, birth dates, whether this was our first marriage, social security numbers, names of our parents and so on. Pretty basic statistical information. She asked about any documentation we had of joint stuff-insurance, bank accounts, credit cards, and so on, and we added a few more photocopies of things that we had. We provided her with a copy of our 2006 taxes that we'd filed after the immigraiton petition, and corrected the statement about Cayne's arrest, and that was it. Then she stamped his passport with a temporary green card, confiscated his EAD, told him he could apply for citizenship in three years and sent us on our way.

And the green card process is over for now.

I'm amazed at the cost of text books. I'm taking two business classes this summer, and I paid over $300 for two text books. Text books have always been expensive, but this just seems to be outrageous. Had I not decided so late to take summer classes, I could have probably purchased them for less, but that was not to be this term. Perhaps if I'm taking more classes in the fall it will be possible.

Then again, it also amazes me that a professor needs to include the following in his syllabus:

• Never end your sentence with a preposition like ‘to, from, by, with, between, before, after or during’. (e.g. The company could not have anticipated where the threat came from.)
• Always use italics for the name of a source (magazine, book or newspaper title) e.g. Wall St. Journal
• Know the difference between ‘there’ (indicating destination like “I’m not going there.”) and ‘their’ (indicating possession like “That is their problem.”)
• Always capitalize the first letter of proper names.

If that weren't enough irritation for one day, we may not get the H1B extention approved or the Advance Parole approved in time to reasonably plan to travel this summer. If we don't get it approved, we can still travel within the US, and perhaps we'll do so, but the summer travel plans were rather specific in timing to allow us to attend a wedding in Hamilton, as well as see my family. I realize that the immigration process itself is time consuming, but I'm frustrated that Advanced Parole takes three months or more to approve.

Homework and supper ahead. Cranky behind. I hope.

Far less complicated than I thought, actually.

First, to the County Clerk in Clinton County who doesn't handle this information. Second to the Court Services Office for Superior Court of Clinton County who didn't have a record of the arrest. Third to the Village of Champlain Courts, and discovered that the phone number was disconnected, and fourth to the Town of Champlain Courts and found that they did in fact have a record of his arrest and the disposition of that arrest.

They want $5 and a letter with his full name and date of birth, and they'll send me two copies (one for me, and one that I'll send to the attorney.)

Interestingly, I've also discovered that you can find my spouse on IMDB and on Wikipedia. He's made me promise, however, not to make him a full fledged Wikipedia Page.