over the holidays we shared our plans with our families.
hello families.
reactions were exactly as expected. how’s that for sinisterly vague?…
since the application process is so long and approval by no means assured our plan was to keep things quiet until we well along and within a year of a move. with putting the application together taking so long we decided the holidays were the best time to spill the beans. i fell much better now with everyone briefed on our plans.
Historical Trivia:
A figurative portrayal of the rift within the Republican party resulting from the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1860. Here New York senator and would-be nominee William H. Seward watches as the radical antislavery senator from Massachusetts Charles Sumner releases a snarling cat, the “Spirit of Discord,” from a “Republican Bag.” The cat bolts toward New York “Tribune” editor Horace Greeley and Lincoln, who wields a rail in his defense. Greeley exclaims, “What are you doing Sumner! you’ll spoil all! she aint to be let out until after Lincoln is elected,–” Lincoln, also alarmed, rejoins, “Oh Sumner! this is too bad!–I thought we had her safely bagged at Chicago [i.e., the Republican national convention at Chicago], now there will be the old scratch to pay, unless I can drive her back again with my rail!”
Sumner replies, “It’s no use talking Gentlemen, I was’nt mentioned at Chicago, and now I’m going to do something desperate, I can’t afford to have my head broken and be kept corked up four years for nothing!” The mention of his broken head refers to the widely publicized 1856 beating inflicted on Sumner by South Carolina congressman Preston S. Brooks. (See “Arguments of the Chivalry,” no. 1856-1.) Seward warns, “Gentlemen be cautious you don’t know how to manage that animal as well as I did, and Im afraid that some of you will get “scratched.” Henry J. Raymond, editor of the “New York Times,” stands in background shouting, “Scat!–scat!–back with her, or our fat will all be in the fire.”
after getting the bad new from tracy i called emc hr earlier in the week and left a message asking about my work history letter request. i was not very optimistic since the vmail greeting basically said “i’m in non stop meetings and will not be reading email or retrieving vmail.” nice surprise when yesterday a very chipper (perhaps a requirement to work in hr) hr woman called and said the letter was in the mail. it arrived today (exactly what i was looking for) along with her card and an offer to assist in any way.
thanks krista.
we asked the international space station crew to make a pass over nz so we could get a better view. they were willing to help us out.
you can see the top of the south island and the bottom of the north island. christchurch is directly to the left of the astronaut right above the banks peninsula and nelson is at the bottom of the natural bay at the top of the south island.
[you can click on the photo for a bigger image.]
part of our application is to provide evidence of my work history including job titles. i joined epoch in 1990, it was acquired by emc in 1994 and i left in 1996. i was definitely not looking forward to cold calling emc hr and asking them to dig through 10 year old files to help me out. so i decided to first try an old epoch/emc colleague who was still at emc to see if he could connect me with the right people. he went way beyond the call of duty by pushing the request through the system. a week ago he dropped me a note saying it was ready to be printed and would be sent out this week.
then silence.
today he let me know that the day after he sent me the note that emc had moved his job out of the country (sound familiar?) and let him go.
once again way beyond expectations he continued to follow through on my request and gave me the contact details for those that were working on it.
thanks tracy.
called the fbi again today and the good news is that can now confirm that they received our request on 02-OCT.
they confirmed that requests are taking 14 weeks so that would put us at 08-JAN. if they hit that date everything should be fine, but anything much later could be a real twist. the nzis application states that medicals can’t be older than 3 months. since mine was done on 31-OCT if we can’t get our application in by 31-JAN then we’ve got a problem.
nuthin’ really to do but wait.
a really long line
the fbi website said that it would take 8 to 10 weeks to process criminal record requests. today is the 9 week mark so i decided to give them a call and see where we were. the website doesn’t have any numbers to call for status so with more than a bit of nervousness i dialed the main fbi number. the operator was very nice and helpful and gave me the number to call. the next agent was also surprisingly cheerful but dropped the bomb that it is currently taking on average 14 weeks to process a request and that they will not even be able to confirm that they have received our request until 10 weeks have elapsed.
so best case this pushed everything back a month. bloody hell. given my new employment status this has things going in the opposite direction i was hoping for.
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