Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

Wow, it's the last day of 2007 already - and what a year it's been!! There's a lot of stuff to blog about, but let's keep things in order, shall we? First things first, let's talk about our Christmas...

With a little help, we were able to get to Idaho Falls to celebrate Christmas with Karen, Keener, Chuck, Kim and Kevin. It was Christine's first family Christmas for quite some time, as she'd either been in Australia or working in Portland for the previous few years, so she was very excited. Props here to Ben at the Mac Store who swapped a work day with her so we could fly out (very) early on the morning of Christmas Eve.

The flight was uneventful, with just a short stop in Boise (State capital of Idaho, for those who want to know) along the way. The ground throughout Idaho was covered in thick, white snow and looked stunningly beautiful from the skies. Our landing at Idaho Falls was delayed slightly as they had to plough (plow) the runway! We were met by Karen and we all piled into the truck for the short ride down the highway to the house. Conditions were treacherous on the road - we almost skidded into the back end of a truck and another driver behind us slid into the median of the divided highway (he was okay, though!) - and we were all very glad that we hadn't tried to drive all the way from Portland, as was our original plan!

We were made very welcome and had a lot of fun: running through the snow in the paddock behind the house and relaxing in the hot tub with a drink as snow flakes fell lightly from above. Dinner was a delicious feast before we retired to bed to await Santa's arrival! Here's a pic of us in the snow... sorry, it's still a huge novelty for this Aussie boy more used to blue skies and scorching summer temperatures on Christmas Day!

We awoke early on Christmas morning and spent the day as you should - in the company of family and friends. Present opening occupied most of the morning, and we went for a walk along the frozen banks of the Snake River in the early afternoon. More relaxation followed: the hot tub was utilised again, and some of us took the opportunity of a short nap. I was able to call home to Australia to talk to my parents, which was wonderful, although we were all very concerned about the health of my grandmother, who had recently been admitted to hospital. I was also able to call her later in the day to give her my best wishes.

Christmas dinner took the form of a Murder Mystery Party, which everyone got right into the spirit of. The "murder" had taken place in a California winery and we all had specific characters to play. I was Otto Von Schnapps, an unscrupulous wine merchant from Germany, while Christine was Marilyn Merlot (love the names!), a B-Grade Hollywood actress who was once crowned Miss Napa Valley Wine Festival. Great fun was had by all, and I eventually won the game by correctly guessing the killer's identity, although we all missed the Really Obvious Clue™ that was presented during the course of the game! It was Papa Vito, by the way: in the basement with the ring knife.

May I present Miss Marilyn Merlot... or should I call you by your real name: Daisy Drinkwater!!! **dramatic chords and lightning flashes**

Our flight back to Portland left fairly early the next day, but it took us until 8:00pm to get back through our front door as Salt Lake City airport (our connecting hub) was snowed in: every flight in and out was substantially delayed, leading to a distinct lack of Christmas cheer from many passengers. We also had a taxi driver who seemed to know nothing of the layout of Portland: I had to guide him every step of the way... and I don't even drive!

Posted in: chaosboy, idaho falls, party time, united states on December 31, 2007 at at 3:22:00 PM 0 comments    

Yes, it's true! USCIS finally granted me my I-485 Residency (Green Card) today. To say that Christine and I are relieved and happy is a huge understatement... all the uncertainty has disappeared and we can now get on with our new life together.

The actual interview was possibly one of the simplest parts of the entire process: I guess if you manage to jump through all the hoops to get this far, you've got a pretty good idea of how things should work and can plan accordingly. This is the way our interview happened:

We arrived at the Federal Building in Portland about 15 minutes before our scheduled appointment time on 9:30 and passed through the standard security before being directed to the waiting room. We had to put our appointment notice into a basket mounted on the wall along with everyone else's - this led us to wonder how they selected names, as all the forms were placed in a random fashion: some people put theirs at the front, others at the back. It seemed like a bit of pot luck to us as to whether you got called up straight away or waited around in the grim little lounge for ever. As it turned out, the case reviewers have their workload for the day already sorted out in their office, and call people according to their interview time. So it wasn't long before we were called up at all, probably 10 minutes at most.

We accompanied our case reviewer to her office, where she quickly made us swear that we would tell the truth during our interview (no bible required) before sitting us down. She went through our paperwork quickly and efficiently, but gave no hints as to how our application was going. She'd definitely make a great poker player, because you couldn't read anything into her body language at all. She first confirmed Christine's income to ensure that she could stand as my guarantor (she passed) and then told us that we no longer needed Christine's mother's co-sponsorship. We were then asked a few general questions about how we met, when we first started dating and so on: these questions were all easily answered.

Then just a few yes or no questions like, "Have you ever been convicted for a criminal offence?" or, "Have you ever committed a criminal offence that you haven't been convicted for?" I wonder if anyone ever answers "Yes" to that one... "Yes, guv, you've got me bang to rights on that one. It was me!"

After that, we showed her a few photos of us together in different places, culminating in showing her the wedding album. We warned her the wedding was a "little" unconventional before she started, but we needn't have worried - she absolutely loved the whole thing and asked us lots of questions about the wedding, the idea behind it, who made the dress, etc etc. She was definitely amused that part of the inspiration was the American Government's insistence on referring to me as an "alien". She told us that we had made her week and that she had to go and make some photocopies of the album, both as evidence supporting our application and – we suspect – to show off to other workers later that day: "Look at this crazy wedding these two people had!"

While she was gone, we speculated as to whether there were any hidden cameras in the room that were observing our body language while no one was in the room, which kept us amused until her return when she told us that my FBI check was clean and that she was going to approve my application today. The card itself will be mailed to me within the next 2 weeks; no temporary card or stamp in my passport was given. The interview itself probably only took 15-20 minutes, plus the 10 minutes of waiting – almost an anticlimax considering the struggles we've had to get to this point!

Here's us all smiles after the interview:
It definitely seems to me that if you go to these interviews fully prepared – have copies of all your required documents ready and and hand, lots of photos and other evidence of relationship – and are honest in your answers, it's a very simple procedure. However, if you try and hide anything from them, they'll be onto you in a second and could make things very difficult for you indeed.

So ends this part of the saga – next, it's on to finding a job! Stay tuned!

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on December 18, 2007 at at 4:21:00 PM 5 comments    

So, let's look at some numbers relating to my immigration, shall we?

• Total days resident in the USA: 215
• Number of days married: 148
• Days for I-485 to be processed: 142 (and still counting)
• Days from I-485 submission to biometrics scan: 82
• Days from I-485 submission to interview (18th Dec): 144
• Days for original I-765 (based on K-1 Visa) to be denied: 125
• Days for second I-765 (based on I-485) to be approved: 57!!

It's worth noting that – based on advice given to me by the local Portland USCIS office – I asked (well, begged might be a better word!) USCIS for expedited service on my second I-765. I was told that there were no guarantees that anything would be done quicker, but based on the numbers above, maybe something was. Either that, or the July peak period was over and the Nebraska office was just able to approve things more efficiently.

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on December 16, 2007 at at 12:56:00 PM 0 comments    

I have web stats enabled for this blog, and I know we get a lot (and I meant A LOT) of hits from people searching Google for advice on I-765 and I-485 applications. To all those people, based on my experience, it is definitely best to send in these two applications together.

If you've entered America on a K-1 Fiance(e) Visa, definitely do not attempt to gain an EAD based on that Visa. The wording on the I-765 application form is very vague:

A. K-1 Nonimmigrant Fiance(e) of U.S. Citizen or K-2 Dependent--(a)(6). File your EAD application if you are filing within 90 days from the date of entry. This EAD cannot be renewed. Any EAD application other than for a replacement must be based on your pending application for adjustment under (c)(9).

This may make you think that you can submit your EAD application at any stage during the 90 day period that your K-1 Visa is valid, but this is not true. In fact, any EAD issued under the K-1 Visa only lasts for the 90 day period, which is next to useless. If you need employment urgently, then the only thing to do is to get married almost immediately upon entering the US (Christine and I waited almost two months), and send off your I-485 and I-765 forms together as soon as humanly possible after the wedding. Then just sit back and wait for the slow wheels of bureacracy to grind on and spit your application out the other side. If possible, avoid submitting your applications in July, as this seems to be the peak period of demand for USCIS services.

Thanks for visiting, and I'll be sure to give you all a full account of our I-485 interview when it happens.

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on December 15, 2007 at at 3:39:00 PM 0 comments    

I've actually known this was coming for a couple of days now, as I checked my case status online with the USCIS on Thursday, but I wanted to wait until the EAD was actually in my hands before I announced it to the world. Too much has gone wrong with this stuff up to now to prematurely jinx things!

So basically, the USCIS has approved my I-765, which is simply a temporary authorisation to seek employment while my I-485 (Green Card) is being processed. Because of my misfortunes - originally applying for an I-765 under the auspices of my K-1 Fiance Visa and being denied because that Visa expired after 90 days - the whole process has taken much longer than it should have, but I have it safe in my hands now! Words can't even begin to describe how happy I am. And we also have our initial I-485 interview next Tuesday - together, these two events may make the best Christmas present I could have asked for.

So now on Monday, I can head out and finally get myself a Social Security number, that all-important set of digits that rule most Americans' lives... and then I can FINALLY start looking for a job!

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on at at 3:25:00 PM 0 comments    

I think it's fair to say that I've done a fair bit of travelling - all over Europe, New Zealand a couple of times, different parts of Australia and my new explorations of The Land Of The Free™. And it goes without saying that I like to take photos of my adventures. Now the perfect thing would be able to place my pictures on a map of the world, to show exactly where I've clicked my shutter and exposed film or sensor to light.

Flickr has a very basic "Map This Photo" function built in, but this has always been unsatisfactory for me. For starters, Flickr's map (built using Yahoo! Maps) has always been woeful, with a strange way of organising pictures that seems to have no rhyme or reason. Then there's also the fact that only the version on my photo that is resident on Flickr has the geotags (latitude and longitude data) saved, not the version that I have on my computer.

So I started looking around at alternatives that could help me. Ovolab's Geophoto seemed promising, with iPhoto integration and a nice clean interface, but the resolution of the maps was next to useless, especially for adding geotags. I'm not one of those people who just say my photos were taken in such and such a city, I like to position my photos on the exact spot I was standing when I took the shot.

App4Life's RapidoMap was similarly disappointing, with a terribly complicated way of adding location data to your photos. It also lost points for changing its name from the far more charming Magrathea, a beautiful Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in-joke.

I was about to give up, when I remembered that I had a fantastically detailed mapping system already available on my computer, the truly gorgeous Google Earth. Surely there had to be some way to leverage all of Google's mapping know-how to do what I needed? And as it turned out, there was! The rather boringly named – but free – Geotagger simply allows you to find a location in Google Earth, then drag-n-drop JPGs onto the application to add all the geodata into the JPGs EXIF metadata. Neat!

The next step was to find a way to get these newly geo-savvy JPGs to show up in Google Earth itself. And once again Google itself came to the rescue, with its newly acquired Panoramio website. You simply upload all your location-aware images to Panoramio, and it submits them to Google Earth. Eventually, images that meet their guidelines can actually be viewed by anyone using Google Earth using the Panoramio layer, but you can always find your own images in your personal copy of Google Earth by using a personalised .kml file. Perfect! If I felt like it, I could even add locations in Google Earth so that it could "fly" me along the route of, say, my European backpacking trip. Images can also be viewed on a map directly on the Panoramio website. Be warned though, geotagging and uploading all your photos can take some time – it's a good thing I'm a patient person with a lot of spare time on my hands!

For those that would like to look at my handiwork, this is my Panoramio user page, where you can also download my Google Earth/Panoramio .kml file (works with Google Earth 4 and higher). Look at Sydney, Portland and Europe for the most photos. Enjoy!

Posted in: chaosboy, computers, geotagging, photography on December 12, 2007 at at 8:15:00 PM 0 comments    

The Decemberists: I'm really not sure how to describe these guys, they sound completely unlike just about anything else out there. Their most well known song is a nine minute sea shanty called "The Mariner's Revenge Song", which could almost come straight from the pages of Moby Dick. It even involves a giant whale who eats the protaganist and his mortal enemy (the object of revenge) alive! Unfortunately, there's no video for that song on YouTube, so we'll have to make do with something else.

This is called "16 Military Wives" and the film clip seems to be making some sort of political point. See if you can work out what is... :-)



Once again, we missed out on tickets to see these guys last time they were in Portland. They like to drop Portland references into their songs (The Multnomah County Library, the bus mall, the columns down at the Skidmore Fountain and so on) and the video for "O Valencia" features the Fremont Bridge's plentitude of off ramps and one of the seedy hotels on Interstate. Nothing like a local band that acknowledges its localness!

If you're going to listen to one album by these guys, I would recommend Picaresque. And if you only want to listen to one song, I would say "The Mariner's Revenge Song" or "We Both Go Down Together"

Posted in: chaosboy, music, portland on December 9, 2007 at at 1:34:00 PM 0 comments    

It's a fact. Portland has well and truly settled into its typical long, dark winter. Average high temperatures for this week are forecast to be between 38 and 44°F (3 to 7°C) and it'll probably stay like that until some time in February. It actually snowed a bit this morning, a light drifting of flakes slowly falling from the sky - but the flakes never actually reached the ground, so I'm not sure if that really counts.

Actually, the coldness itself doesn't really bother me anymore. After travelling through Europe in winter – where the temperatures were in the range of -15 to -10°C (5 to 14°F) in Prague, Berlin and Copenhagen – nothing has ever really felt truly cold since. What does bug me about the cold is the rigamarole of getting dressed to go anywhere. If Christine calls me from work and wants me to meet her at a pub, I have to throw on about five layers of clothing, a scarf, a hat, gloves and maybe (actually, most of the time!) rain pants and a rain jacket just to set foot outside. This process can take a long time and has to be reversed when I reach the heated pub at the other end, lest I melt. Then when it's time to leave, back on all the clothes have to go! It's all a bit of a drag.

All that said, I do miss my Australian summer, even though it seems to have been atypically wet in Sydney this year...

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, united states on at at 12:50:00 PM 1 comments    

Whew!

So we have come through Thanksgiving weekend and Black Friday and the following weekend unscathed!

Of course Cam was quite impressed with the intensity of seriousness we give these holidays. We noticed quite a few establishments offering themselves up for those who had nowhere to go or people to see on Turkey night. It's a night, almost as much as Christmas, where it is imperative that you be SOMEWHERE and with other people. It doesn't really matter where, just as long as you can report later that you were indeed doing something.

Cam and I were graciously invited to Kevin's sister's house along with about 18 other people to their beautiful house in Mt. Tabor. While the Marcotte brothers worked on getting the turkeys perfectly basted, the crowd mingled in order to distract ourselves from our hunger. We went on a short hike up the hill to an old volcano mound that a nice park had been built upon. The neighborhood was very cute and kitsch and on our way back we snagged a house-for-sale flyer with modest asking price of 1.3 mil.

When we returned, dinner was almost ready and we admired the pretty table that Julie and the kids had helped lay out.

Now Cam knows how to make a turkey out of tracing your hand on paper.

Our Thanksgiving meal, I could say was very traditional and at the same time not. We all ate our delicious food and then afterwards stayed at the table and played a charades game. From there, some people drifted away to tend to children or cleaning up. Most of us stayed and drank wine and gossiped about this and that. Most of the Thanksgiving meals I have attended have usually involved football or at least a TV blasting the Macy Day parade, but there was never a hint of either during the evening. Sitting at the table, one can only take for so long so I went and helped 6 year old Grace color a picture of the Little Mermaid, while Cam drew Optimus Prime for 7 year old Ben (who now worships Cam as well as OP).

Afterwards, I gave up trying to be formal and passed out in a chair. I was upset on our way home that I had done so, but I really had no other choice. Sometimes, you just want to be tranquil mood instead of making conversation after gorging yourself.

The next day was Black Friday. It's a bit of a ridiculous American tradition created on its own accord, where the masses immediately give up on one holiday and dive head first into the next. It's recorded every year as being the biggest shopping day and people start around 4am in order to get the best sales (Yes, the mall opens around then.) The Mac Store was madness but people there wanted the best deals mostly for themselves, perhaps wanting to save a buck on that iPod before they have to start spending money on everyone else. It's a day that is just as gluttonous as Turkey Day.

And so here comes Christmas! Cam and I have to put up our lights now!

Posted in: chaosgurl, party time, united states on November 27, 2007 at at 1:43:00 PM 0 comments    

Finally, common sense prevails in my country!

The era of John Winston Howard, the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, is finally, mercifully over. His 11 and a half years in power may have been marked by strong economic times, but there is more to quality of life, of pride in your country than money.

Put simply, we became less of a nation under his leadership. Mandatory detention for asylum-seekers (often off-shore in foreign countries!), the absolute refusal to acknowledge the very real threat of global warming, draconian workplace relations policies (the Patricks stevedores dispute, WorkChoices, etc.), the inability to say "sorry" to the stolen generation of indigenous Australians: these are the real marks of the Howard era that defined our country during his time in power, marks that made me ashamed of the face my country presented to the world.

We really should have known right from the start when he declared a whole raft of promises made before the 1996 election as "non-core" promises. Apparently it's okay to go back on your word to the people of your country if it's a "non-core" promise. But no, somehow he kept winning elections, mainly through fear-mongering and divisiveness: fear of the outside world and border security in 2001 when he turned the Tampa - a Norwegian freighter that had rescued hundreds of asylum-seekers from their sinking ship - into the most unlikely political weapon, one that turned the electoral tide his way; and fear of change in 2004, when he claimed that he, and only he, could stop interest rates from rising. It worked for him then, but became a noose around his neck leading into this election as interest rates rose rapidly.

After carving out a political career by being uncannily able to read the mood of the people and quickly work on a way to exploit that mood, this ability deserted Howard leading up to this election. He no longer had the full support of his own party, but he decided to stay on as leader for one more election anyway. Pride? Ego? Perhaps. John Howard has always been very concerned with his "legacy", the way history will view him from a distance. Maybe he really felt that he was the only person who could get things done right. Whatever, it became painfully obvious as the campaign wore on that he had stayed on too long.

History may now remember him as only the second Australian Prime Minister ever to lose his own seat at a Federal election after Stanley Bruce in 1929. The Labor candidate for his electorate of Bennelong in Sydney's north, Maxine McKew (an ex-TV political journalist who used to interview John Howard on TV every week), is just ahead in a very tight-run race. As she says, "Bennelong is on a knife edge." Even if she doesn't win, she has played her part in the Labor victory, as she forced John Howard to campaign locally every weekend leading up to the election, when he would rather have been out on the national hustings.

So onto a new government - that of Kevin Rudd and his Labor party. It's been a long time in opposition, and the time ahead will be difficult. The Senate (upper house) will still be ruled by the Liberal Party until July, so passing any new laws will be nigh-on impossible until then. After July, it seems as if minor parties will control the balance of power in the Senate, meaning careful negotiation with often conflicting interests will be required to get legislature passed.

I'll leave you with a short excerpt from a London Times article about Howard's end (surely a headline in some tabloid newspaper?), an interesting view of how he was observed by the rest of the world:

It is a remarkable comedown for the big-spending populist. He is the diminutive 69-year-old who, memorably, turned the country’s SAS forces on a bunch of impoverished, ragged asylum-seekers before winning the 2001 election. He is the former solicitor who used his renowned capacity for fear-mongering to win the last election in 2004, when he mounted a scare campaign against the Labor Party’s ability to hold down interest rates. He is the hard-of-hearing grandad who prides himself on being in touch with the aspirations of ordinary Australians.

There is no single answer for John Howard’s rapidly declining popularity. Undoubtedly he has suffered poor luck. He has, however, also been the victim of his own unfortunate timing and misread the true level of support he enjoys among his colleagues. And he has stayed too long.

Posted in: australia, chaosboy, politics on November 24, 2007 at at 9:45:00 AM 1 comments    

It's no secret that Christine and I are poor. So much so that even if we wanted to, there's no way we could even think of owning a car, even a rusty old bomb. And that's okay most of the time: our trusty bikes and good ol' MAX get us most of the places we need to go.

However, sometimes you just need a car. What else can you do when you're moving large objects from one place to the other, or have too much shopping to carry home on our bikes or public transport (and believe me, we've tried on the bikes and have almost broken our backs!)? That's when the truly brilliant Flexcar comes to the rescue. Cars are left in dedicated parking spots all over Portland (and many other cities, including Atlanta, Baltimore, LA, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Fran and Seattle) and members simply reserve them for the hours they need them.

From there, it's just a matter of walking up to the car (our nearest one is two blocks away), swiping a security card over a reader mounted inside the windshield to unlock the car, getting the key and driving away! Gas is included in the hourly rate, which can be as low as $6/hour, although $10 is more usual. All you have to do is fill the car up if it's 3/4 empty (using the supplied fleet card) and maybe wash the car if it's dirty, then return the car to its original parking space before your time expires. It's a brilliantly simple idea, and one which is growing in popularity, especially in progressive cities like Portland.

It's nor meant to replace traditional rental cars: you can't keep the car out of its spot overnight, and driving it more than 150 miles incurs additional fees, but it is fantastic for people who only need a car rarely... people like us!

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, united states on November 15, 2007 at at 4:49:00 PM 1 comments    

Portland is home to many, many awesome bands... all of which I hope to see live at some point. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, we can share the work of some of these bands with you. First up is The Shins, whose concert in early December is unfortunately sold out (so sad!)... this track is obliquely entitled "Australia" (yay!), apparently because they wrote it while on tour down under. Enjoy! (It's a terribly cute clip, by the way)

Posted in: chaosboy, music, portland on November 13, 2007 at at 5:36:00 PM 0 comments    

I've been looking forward to the upcoming Australian election for a long, long time: at last we seem to have a half-decent chance of ridding ourselves of Little Johnny and his cronies. So I've been meticulously organised and have got all my forms in to the Australian Electoral Commission to make sure I can have my say. My ballots arrived today, including the by-now traditional table cloth-sized Senate form (anyone feel like numbering from 1 to 79 below the line?). They're all filled out now, ready to head back home and help vote the Libs out. My only regret is that I didn't change my registered voting address back to my parents' house before I left: that way I could have personally voted against the garden gnome myself in Bennelong... go Maxine!

Posted in: australia, chaosboy, politics on at at 4:43:00 PM 1 comments    

Hey!

It's me and Cam isn't pulling a one man show over here. We are still happily living in our little blissful bubble. However, you don't realize how long you've been in one place until you go somewhere else. Just driving out of town a few hours and you suddenly feel like you are in a new country. Even going to Seattle for the second time, there were always things to point out that are so different than what we have grown accustomed.

We had a blast though and were very near the Space Needle and the EMP so walking anywhere was made possible. The weather held up great and we tried a bunch of new places to eat at.

One in particular was Kevin's suggestion for breakfast, the Five Point Cafe. Just walking up to it, you get an uneasy feeling that this kinda place would not serve a good latte and pancakes. We walk in and the atmosphere is so dark that finding a table is difficult. We sit down and the waitress gives us some menus and we are short of conversation as the speakers blast explicit music right above our heads. We are sitting next to the bar where the patrons appear to have been there for days and the kids in the booth next to us are sipping whiskey and beer. Its 10 on a Saturday morning. The walls are plastered with posters, bumper stickers, ol beer ads and Cam wouldn't even tell me what the boy's loo had set up in there.

We waited nearly an hour for our food to finally show up and I was getting a bit ansy but it made it all worth it. It was absolutely delicious. We finally busted out into the sunshine, laughing how the Five Point is a great way to start your day.

For the rest of the day we toured the EMP (Experience Music Project) and the Sci-Fi Museum which I surprisingly really enjoyed. The music part of the museum was packed full of information on artists whom I was not too familiar but everyone could relate to the Sci-Fi museum somehow without knowing or caring about Star Trek. They had life size replicas and models of robots and monsters from movies, guns, philosophies, masks, space ships. It was all laid out through a series of tunnels and rooms which made it somewhat more interactive. Most of the artifacts in both museums, was noticed, belonged to one guy, Paul Allen, who owns much of Microsoft. Just being rich can't make you that intense of a collector. That's a state of madness.

Cam and I also visited the Seattle Art Museum for a taste of culture. It had dab of this and that ranging from Contemporary to Italian porcelain to a fun exhibit on how the Japanese envisioned America back from the 16th century and onward. At one point a security woman advised me that I was not allowed to carry an umbrella in the exhibit and generally was suppose to check it in downstairs. We nodded our heads and went upstairs if not to just have a quick look. We managed to get through the whole museum with me carrying my umbrella. We were just ready to leave when I was approached again and told that umbrellas were against policy. The guy was terribly polite and seemed to only be letting me know this. We let him know that we had had no idea and then we left the museum. We found it amusing that although umbrellas were not allowed in the museum it certainly was not enforced. And we certainly never found exactly why umbrellas, closed and hanging on my bag, were not allowed.

Seattle held itself together until the last minute until we had to leave and let the rain loose. Getting home took half the time getting there with the little traffic and being in Portland again already makes the weekend seem like a distant memory. But it was super fun hanging out with family and experiencing new bars. I'm a bit sad that I won't be able to go have a good Thanksgiving with the fam this year as getting time off work will be impossible, but Kevin will be lending us his which should make for some good times and give Cam a chance to see what the holiday is all about (gluttony!).

Posted in: chaosgurl, travel on November 12, 2007 at at 5:19:00 PM 0 comments    

As part of the paperwork required for our I-485 residency interview, I had to get an I-693A (don't you love the way all forms are known by their filing number?) Vaccination Supplement completed and signed by a USCIS-approved physician. Fortunately, I didn't have to have another entire medical done as I had one done within the last year for my K-1 Fiance Visa... although only just!

I found a doctor over near NW 23rd Avenue who would do the job for a mere $10, so Christine and I headed off there yesterday morning on our bikes. His tiny office specialises in travel and immigration cases (I'm guessing he goes through a lot of syringes!) and seemed to be doing a roaring trade; there were some Mexicans and Uzbekistanis amongst the people in the waiting room. I overheard someone say that the doctor speaks fluent Spanish and Russian, which would come in handy in his line of work.

The efficient receptionist filled out the form quickly and the doctor signed and sealed it into an official envelope that I have to give to the immigration official at our interview. I asked the doctor for a copy and he smiled and told me it was just an exact transcription of my vaccination record from my original medical exam! The only difference is that it was now on an Official American Piece Of Paper with "I-693A" in the top left corner. Ah, bureaucracy! The doctor then wished me the best of luck, told me to be patient and opined that immigration officials "aren't very nice people". I left with a smile on my face.

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on November 7, 2007 at at 5:19:00 PM 0 comments    

... you hear an ad for a family law firm on the radio and their phone number is 1-800-DIVORCE.

Posted in: chaosboy, united states, weirdness on at at 8:49:00 AM 0 comments    

Riding home from having lunch with Christine today, the odometer on my bike ticked over to 1,000 miles ridden, or just over 1,600km. I feel tired just thinking about it!

Posted in: chaosboy, sport on November 5, 2007 at at 2:54:00 PM 0 comments    

So Halloween has now been and gone... and we had a blast! As you can see from the picture above, our night of pumpkin carving was a great success. Christine and I bought a cheap book of templates and carving tools from Fred Meyer to aid us in our endeavours - a great investment! This is my Scary Tree, which would certainly terrify me if I was five years old. Christine did a Black Cat, but in her inimitable way, added some sweet wings to personalise it more. However, once we brought our jack-o-lanterns home, they rapidly disintegrated into disgusting piles of goo and mould as Portland's humidity and our warm house took their effect. Kim reckons that the big chain stores freeze their pumpkins and, because of that, they have a very high water content. Whatever the reason, they didn't live to see Halloween.

Our next seasonal activity was heading out to Suavie Island to the northwest of Portland to experience the Corn Maize (geddit?). Every year, a new maze is cut into a large corn field and people come from miles around to get lost in it. However, in mid-October, the ground has been rained on and trodden on so many times that it has turned into thick, gooey, icky mud that gets almost ankle-deep in parts. We slurped and sucked our way through the maze dutifully before signing up for the real attraction: a ride in the Cow Train! Wheeee!!!!!

Finally, it was onto the main events: costume parties! Christine spent ages on her costume: Tank Girl, one of her favourite cult comic book characters. For the first party, I decided to repurpose my astronaut outfit, paint my face a horrid shade of green and call myself a Space Zombie. Why not?

The Saturday night party was great fun, although the Witches' Brew was 90% vodka and incredibly potent. There were lots of amazing costumes, so I decided to lift my game for the Wednesday Night Actual Halloween party. A quick trip to a thrift store and Fred Meyer's gave me everything I needed to create my Australian masterpiece costume: Dead Steve Irwin, complete with stingray tail piercing my heart. Here's Steve and Tank Girl together:

The blonde wig was cut down from Christine's Tammy Faye Bakker costume from last year and felt every bit as hideous as it looks. The party was down at the White Eagle pub and they had an impromptu costume show. At Christine's insistence, I got up on stage. The compere asked me who I was and I explained: "Crikey! I'm the Croc Hunter and this is me mate, Stingy!" As I said this, at least half a dozen people in the audience were visibly shocked, which I just find hilarious. Is more than a year after his death still too soon? Anna Nicole Smith was already fair game for some people, but the Croc Hunter seems to be revered in these parts! Still, great fun was had by all!

And for the record, we tried Burgerville's Pumpkin Milkshakes. Blame Gene... he insisted that we did. They're actually very good, although they're sweetened with spices and whipped cream, so it's actually pretty hard to detect any real "pumpkin-ness" in them.

Posted in: chaosboy, party time, portland, united states on at at 11:16:00 AM 0 comments    

Will be on December 18th. Christine and I both have to go to this as this is where we "prove" that we're really married and this is not some green card scam. There's a lot of paperwork to prepare for it, but we have a little while so it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Progress on residency, hurrah!

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on October 25, 2007 at at 10:45:00 PM 1 comments    

Yesterday was the first sunny day Portland has seen for many a week, so I took advantage of it by heading out to ride the Springwater Trail. This is an old train line through south-east Portland that has been converted into a multi-use path. My eventual goal was Powell Butte, another of the extinct volcanic plugs that are dotted around the area. The view from the top is spectacular, possibly even more so that Rocky Butte, where we had our wedding.

The climb up to the top is along rough dirt paths through beautiful forest, but the relatively flat summit is meadow and old orchards, both remnants of pioneer times in the area.

Here's another QuickTime VR panorama for you... the view starts off looking towards Mount Hood in the ESE and rotates anti-clockwise past the Columbia River Gorge and Mount Adams (which can just be seen peeking over the top of the closer hills) to Mount St Helens to the north.



Click and hold inside the movie to scroll from one end of the view to the other. You can also zoom in (Shift key) and out (Control key or the PC equivalent!).

Of course, I got a flat tyre on my bike at the very furtherest point of my trip and had to stop every couple of miles on the 20 mile return journey to pump it up enough to continue! I was certainly sore and tired when I got home!

Posted in: chaosboy, photography, portland, sport on October 23, 2007 at at 11:04:00 AM 0 comments    

Just because I'm not allowed to seek employment yet doesn't mean I'm not keeping myself busy. It's important to keep my hand in, so to speak, so I set myself little design challenges and projects to keep the brain ticking over. One that I've just completed, and am pretty pleased with, is a redesign of Portland's MAX Light Rail system map. The MAX is a fantastic example of a renewed interest in mass transit in America (fighting back against the omnipresent car!). Twenty years ago, it didn't even exist, now it is an integral part of the city with plans for further expansion.

As great as the system is, its system map is severely lacking. I present here the official Tri-Met PDF of the system for your reference. The whole thing is suffering from visual overload... too much information all presented at similar levels of importance. The use of blue type everywhere is overwhelming to the eye and the clumsy use of "TC" and "P" in circles to denote Transit Centers and Park and Ride leads to ugly incidents at Gateway/NE 99th and Parkrose/Sumner, where the designer is at a loss as to where to place the parking symbol. Overall, the map lacks the style and grace of the best transit maps - London, Paris, Sydney and Stuttgart being prime examples of the way to do it right. For a fantastic reference on metro and transit maps around the world, click here.

Of course, I like a challenge... so I decided that I would add in the soon-to-be commenced Green Line as well. This line completely changes the face of downtown as it will run north-south through the nearly completed Transit Mall, rather than east-west as the current lines do. The yellow line will also be rerouted along the mall. Based on information on Tri-Met's site, I have produced this map, which I feel is a vast improvement on the incumbent.

It's a lot more visual than the old map - Transit Centers (white) are now easily distinguished from normal stations (coloured ticks), standard icons are used for Park and Ride and (my addition) bicycle lockers. Black type for station names stops blue from dominating the entire map, and town names are now a shade of grey to stop them from being so visually heavy. Changes of direction in a line are now gracefully curved, rather than abrupt changes of angle. Unforgivably, all type at a 90° angle on the old map read from the left, something I was always taught NEVER to do, so I have amended all the angled type to be read from the right and improved the differentiation between station names and bus route numbers.

The thing that I think reduces clutter the most is the new way I have approached depicting Fare Zones. Rather than use the large and distracting Zone Arrows that had to be placed awkwardly between station names AND the huge travel time lines, I have opted for a far more visual approach and used progressively lighter tints of the line colour. This wouldn't work on a map of the complexity of London or Paris, but on this relatively simple map it works surprisingly well, especially with the legend explaining it so clearly.

I've also included some Portland attractions on the map (the Zoo, Children's Museum and baseball park), although I have cheated and left out the venues at the Rose Quarter. The station name does the work for me there, so it's not too bad. I also like my little pedestrian interchange line between the two Rose Quarter stations, as there's a two block hike between them on foot.

Things I'm not sure about: the curve in the red line to the airport, while geographically more accurate, could be a bit fussy and unnecessary. Also, the travel time lines, while a vast improvement over the old heavy blue ones, don't really work for the downtown part of the yellow/green line, or the Clackamas branch of the green line.

Finally, this whole layout will fall apart somewhat when the extension of the yellow line happens in 2014. From PSU, the line will cross the river and head south to Milwaukie. On my map, this will put Milwaulkie a lot further south than Clackamas, when in reality they are pretty much level. I can't see any better way to represent downtown than what I've done, so it may just have to be that way.

I'd love to hear what you think of my efforts!

Posted in: chaosboy, design, portland on October 22, 2007 at at 10:15:00 AM 4 comments    

As you might expect, Halloween is big business here in the States. It kicks off what is known as "the Holiday Season", simply because there's a big holiday festival going on for every month until the end of the year - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas... an endless orgy of consumerism to be had! As Halloween is pretty much non-existent back home in Australia, I thought I'd give you a bit of a look at what goes on around here during Autumn... I mean Fall, he he he!

Here's the display of enormous carving pumpkins at our local supermarket. There are pallet after pallet of these jack-o-lantern's-in-waiting, all for the bargain basement price of 17 cents a pound! Christine and I bought two, one of which cost $4, so it weighs 23 pounds or over 10 kilos! We're heading over to Kim's place tonight for a night of pumpkin carving, which should be both messy and highly amusing!

This is just one of four aisles in the supermarket dedicated to Halloween-themed goodies. From all your trick-or-treat candy supplies, to costumes for kids and adults alike, to cheesy and unnecessary toys, to ridiculously overblown outdoor display pieces - it's all here for you to purchase. Just as Christmas light displays are now de rigueur both here and in Sydney, so too are Halloween displays here, complete with giant inflatable ghosts, pumpkins, spiders and spooky castles. One-upmanship over your neighbours' displays is, of course, mandatory.

On an aside, perusing these aisles led me to discover that what we call Mars Bars are known as Milky Way bars in America, and what we know as Milky Ways are called something else again... weird!!

Here's some pumpkin beer! Honest! It's on special already, before Halloween, so it may not be such a big hit. And in case you're thinking that this is the strangest Halloween beverage, you'd be wrong:

Burgerville is offering Pumpkin milkshakes! By all reports, it's actually quite delicious, sweetened with cinnamon and nutmeg, but the concept by itself is a little mind-boggling!

So, pumpkin carving tonight... I'll let you know how my masterpiece goes!

Posted in: chaosboy, united states, weirdness on October 18, 2007 at at 12:34:00 PM 1 comments    

So my appointment today at the Portland Office of the USCIS turned out to be fairly pointless. While the nice lady behind the counter could sympathise with my situation (I seem to get a lot of that!), there was nothing she could do. The power to issue interim employment documents has recently been stripped from the local offices, meaning that now only the four big processing centres have that ability. The local centres can fax a request further up the line, but only if an I-765 application is currently in progress... which mine isn't.

So there's nothing for it but to refile a new I-765 at the new ridiculous price of $340 (compared to the old $180) and then sit back and wait. The only new bit of advice that I got was to include a covering letter with my application that asks for "expedited processing" based on the financial hardship that not being able to work causes. It doesn't guarantee anything, but if the supervisor on duty that day is in a really, really nice mood, it could bring the processing time down from three months to perhaps one and a half. Maybe.

Anyway, I completed my new application this evening and it's ready to be mailed off to the man and the monkey in Nebraska tomorrow... I wonder which one is the supervisor?

If it's even a half-decent day tomorrow, I just want to go on a big long bike ride somewhere and get all this frustration out of my system.

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, portland, united states on October 15, 2007 at at 6:16:00 PM 0 comments    

My decision letter from USCIS arrived in the mail yesterday. I had been expecting the worst since reading on an on-line forum that the phrase, "we mailed you a decision" is a euphemism for "application denied". If an application is approved, they generally just tell you that your application has been accepted - there's no need to let you down gently.

True to these expectations, my application was denied. But the reason for the denial turned out to be something that completely beggars belief. Let me present you with an excerpt from the denial letter:

8 CFR 274a.12(a)(6) provides for the issuance of employment authorization to: An alien admitted to the United States as a nonimmigrant fiance or fiancée of a United States citizen... for the period of admission to the United States.

Employment authorization under category (a)(6) may only be granted for the period of admission to the United States. The evidence submitted indicates you entered the United States on May 15, 2007. You were admitted for a period of 90 days.

Because your period of admission to the United States has therefore expired, you no longer qualify to receive employment authorization pursuant to 8 CFR 274a.12(a)(6). Therefore, upon consideration, it is ordered that this application be denied. There is no appeal to this decision.

So, have you got this?

Because my application was not processed within this 90 day period, my application was denied. However, there were 120 days between USCIS's receipt of my I-765 and the issuance of my decision. This, of course, means that there was never any chance of my application being successful. I believe that any application should be decided on its merits, not on how long it takes USCIS to get around to opening each case. If there's only a 90 day window for fiance visa EAD applications, then USCIS should take all reasonable steps to ensure that such applications are processed within those 90 days.

I feel that I've been completely shafted by bureacracy here: that I have done everything right - I have entered the country legally, I have filled in all the correct forms and submitted them in a timely fashion - and have gotten nothing in return. And they wonder why there's such a problem with illegal workers in this country...

This morning, I had calmed down enough to call the USCIS Information Center for advice. I outlined my case to the operator, and he seemed to think that the decision was irregular: the fact that I had married within the 90 day period should stand in my favour. However, as they are only an Information Center, there is no one there authorized to act on cases: he could only offer me alternative courses of action.

The first was to open a new I-765 based on my I-485 case, but this would require another $180 fee and - almost certainly - another 4 month wait. The second option, one that he thought would be better, was to make an appointment at the Portland USCIS office to discuss my situation personally with an officer.

The only way to make an appointment is via USCIS' online "InfoPass" system, which I have never had any luck with to up until this point, so I wasn't particularly hopeful when I logged in to it... I expected the usual "there are no appointments available at this time, please try again later" message. Fortunately - and completely unexpectedly - there was an appointment available on Monday, October 15, so I quickly snagged it. Hopefully, some common sense can be applied to my case, because the "service" I have got from USCIS regarding my work authorization has been nothing short of disastrous so far.

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on October 2, 2007 at at 12:55:00 PM 1 comments    

Last night, I was shocked and surprised as the following email appeared in my inbox:

Subject: Case Status Information

The last processing action taken on your case

Application Type: I765 , APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT AUTHORIZATION

Current Status: We mailed you a decision.

On September 26, 2007, we mailed you a decision on your I765, APPLICATION FOR EMPLOYMENT AUTHORIZATION. Please follow the instructions on the notice. If you move before you receive the notice, please contact customer service.

If you have questions or concerns about your application or the case status results listed above, or if you have not received a decision from USCIS within the current processing time listed*, please contact USCIS Customer Service at (800) 375-5283.

*Current processing times can be found on the USCIS website at www.uscis.gov under Case Status and Processing Dates.
*** Please do not respond to this e-mail message.

Sincerely,

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

It's all very - and completely unnecessarily - cryptic and vague... why can't they just tell me what the decision is in the email, instead of making me wait impatiently for the postman each day? Sigh. At least the end of this process is very close now!

And no celebrations yet, please. The decision could still be "go back to your own country and stop stealing our jobs, you convict Aussie". Unlikely, but it could happen.

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on September 27, 2007 at at 9:35:00 AM 0 comments    

Hey there.

I know its been some time since I've done this crazy blog. It's not like we have been super busy, but maybe just getting more and more super comfortable. And with winter coming in, we'd better get used to it.

But I was thinking tonight of all the things that Cam has done since he's arrived to this wacky country. Like tonight in particular. We went to our favorite rock climbing gym, The Portland Gym, and Cam was fabulous. He had just exchanged his new shoes the other day and he was flying up walls. Whereas a month ago, I was practically hauling him up on my end of the rope. He has adapted and is getting better all the time. Since I have a year head start on him, I must be the patient one, but I'll make him catch up with me sooner or later. There is so much trust in rock climbing. And the more confident he gets, the more he trusts me that I won't let him plummet to the floor just for a laugh. It's good. We really need to take pictures, but it's always weird taking pictures in a gym where other people are sweaty... and wary of lenses.

Also, Cam has taken over my projects. I'm not fussed whatsoever, as it keeps him quite the entertained while I slave away the day at work. Colin's new website looks amazing - www.colinlake.com - and also he is not quite satisfied with the Wellington Road Moores site which he is taking into his own hands soon. I keep feeding him missions so he can keep his mind busy. Whether it's laundry or design, it seems rare when he is bored.

Not to mention that we have been suckered into technology more and more. Cam has made our house a network mecca. Everything connects to something else wirelessly. And now with our new iPhones we can connect to the outside world even easier (Cam had the cheapest T-mobile phone and I had the oldest, both of which met their demise) and makes our lives more integrated with the pizza joints nearby in our neighborhood. You know, wherever we are, that will be useful for the winter ;)

Posted in: apple, chaosgurl, general musings, sport on September 24, 2007 at at 10:34:00 PM 0 comments    

Yes, I know it's just a fancy-pants word for "taking your fingerprints", I just wanted a funny title for this entry...

I finally have an appointment to get my biometrics "captured" by the USCIS in relation to my I-485 (residency) application. It's on October 17th, so almost a month away still. At least things are happening with this application, unlike my I-765 (employment authorization document). The way things are going, I'll get my Green Card before my EAD, even though I put that application in two months earlier!

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on September 23, 2007 at at 2:46:00 PM 0 comments    

At last, a glimmer of progress on my I-485. The check (or cheque for those from the Commonwealth) that I sent in with my application on the 27th of July has finally been cashed by the US Department of Homeland Security! That's 53 (yes, count them - fifty-three!) days to basically open my envelope and cash a check. I'm looking forward to my residency being approved – in 2012!

Still, it's nice to know that the application actually got there and is being processed, however slowly. I was starting to think it had got lost in the mail!

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on September 17, 2007 at at 11:43:00 AM 0 comments    

So, football season is upon us here in America, and it's very interesting to observe things at close quarters. As an Australian, it's always been very easy to dismiss American football as slow, tedious and boring compared to our fast flowing, hard hitting football codes (rugby union included when the referee puts his whistle away!), but then again, I've only ever really watched half of about three different Super Bowls, which isn't exactly indicative of the game as a whole.

So last Monday, I sat down with Kevin to watch the season opening-game for his beloved Cincinnati Bengals as they took on the evil Baltimore Ravens. The game was very even and closely fought, with Cincinnati repelling a lot of last ditch attack from the Ravens to prevail 27-20, so I think I probably saw a good game, and at moments it was genuinely thrilling and exciting. But overall, it still leaves me a little cold. The stop/start nature of the game erodes any sense of continuity: once a play is completed, everyone stops, dusts themselves off and trots off to the middle of the field to set up the scrimmage line all over again. There's no advantage to be gained from a play apart from the yardage up the field. The defence always has time to reset itself for the next stanza of play, which always starts from the centre of the field. Compare this to the fluid defence required in the rugby codes or AFL, where you have to rush to be in the right place at the right time throughout the game.

And adding to the stop/start feeling is the ever-present TV advertising. At one point in the game, a Bengals player fielded a kick off in his own in-goal and touched the ball to the ground, signalling a restart from the 20 yard line. The network immediately cut to a three-minute ad break: when they came back, the players were still milling around the goal line, obviously waiting for a signal to resume play. Talk about a game made for TV!

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the skill and power of the players involved, and if anyone thinks they're wusses for wearing all that padding, you should definitely think again. Kevin Everett, a player with the Buffalo Bills team received severe spinal injuries from a tackle gone wrong in a game last weekend, and may never walk again. Like in many rugby tackles, he simply got his head on the wrong side of the tackle, but the forces involved with two 300 pound men hitting each other are much more than the (comparatively) smaller guys in our codes.

On a lighter note, one last thing that amused me was when a contentious refereeing decision is made, a coach can challenge it. When this happens, the head referee disappears into a little viewing booth on the sidelines to review the video. The booth even has little curtains to hide the referee and screen from view! So cute!

So, my verdict: The jury's still out on this one, I think. We'll see how I go as the season unfolds!

Posted in: chaosboy, sport, united states on September 14, 2007 at at 10:10:00 AM 0 comments    

Last Saturday evening was Widmer Brother's big Oktoberfest party and Christine and I - along with around 3,000 other Portlanders - went along for fun, food and music. We turned up a little late to see our good friend Colin Lake (Widmer's own!) strut his stuff, but the other bands were a lot of fun. We had lots of free food and beer coupons thanks to Kim and Kevin (who both work at Widmer's), so it was a very inexpensive night out for us impoverished types. In the photo above, Christine is holding our commemorative glasses (only 500mL, half the size of a German Maßkrug) as Curtis Salgado gets the crowd dancing. And yes, the band is performing on the brewery delivery dock!

Posted in: chaosboy, party time, portland on at at 9:51:00 AM 0 comments    

So I rang the USCIS again today to enquire about my I-485 (application for permanent residency) as it's been over 30 days since I mailed it off and I still haven't received even a receipt for it. The woman at the call center was very courteous, but told me that due to high demand for USCIS services in July, it is taking them up to 90 days to send out receipts. That's just an acknowledgement that they have received my forms, nothing more! It also means that I have an uncleared cheque for $395 looming over my bank account until they finally get around to my application, which I find more than a little annoying. Still, that's just the way it is, and there's not a lot I can do about it. I really am starting to think that one man and his monkey are processing applications at the Nebraska USCIS office, though...

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on August 31, 2007 at at 5:14:00 PM 0 comments    

Christine and I have just taken up rock climbing. It's something she got into while in Sydney and she really wanted me to try it out to see if I liked it. So we signed up for the introductory course down at Portland Rock Gym, although it was really just a refresher course for Christine (Something the instructors quickly worked out when she tied up and scaled a 40' wall in about 10 seconds flat!).

I really learned a lot during the introductory lesson and quickly appreciated the cerebral side to rock climbing: it's not just mindless exercise or a boring workout, every ascent up the wall is a puzzle or a challenge that needs to be solved with a combination of co-ordination, brain power and (occasionally) brute strength!

I initially had problems with trusting that the belay rope was going to catch me if I fell (something that is hard to come to terms with when you're clinging to a wall 30' above the ground), but I've overcome that in the couple of times that we've been back and am really beginning to enjoy it now. And it is one heck of a workout, as you use muscles all over your body, including some I never knew existed!

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, sport on at at 5:02:00 PM 0 comments    

Have a look at this ad that I found in the latest issue of Portland's Willamette Week newspaper and boggle along with me:

Leaving aside the terrible clip art design, here's an ad that tries to do the impossible - make chewing tobacco sexy. Something I thought was the preserve of aging Major League baseballers and old Western movie stars is still alive and well, and what's more, is being marketed as the "cool" and "in" thing for the young and hip. Yes boys, find a girl you like and give her a kiss while your mouth is full of stinky black 'baccy. Sure to impress even the most choosy lass! I wonder if she'll be as impressed when your gums are diseased and your teeth have fallen out, as the big "Warning arrow" disclaimer so helpfully points out.

Big, big thumbs down here, both to the whole concept of chewing tobacco and this bizarre marketing of it. Yuk!

Posted in: chaosboy, united states, weirdness on at at 4:48:00 PM 1 comments    

I just passed 90 days since I sent in my I-765 (Employment Authorization Document form) the other day, and since I hadn't heard anything from the USCIS since early June, I thought I'd give them a call. Especially as it says this on their website:

If you filed a Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, and it has been longer than 90 days since you filed and you haven't gotten an update from us within the last 60 days, and have not seen any public notice that addresses your case type, please don't wait the extra 30 days. Call customer service immediately.

Well, that sounds like 60 days without hearing something is cause for some sort of alarm, doesn't it? Out of the ordinary, maybe? Surely I should have that piece of paper in my hands by now, right? So I give them a call on their National Service Center line. After going through a billion automated options and recorded announcements, I finally get to speak to a human and explain my situation.

To my horror, he proceeded to tell me that I am still within normal processing time and my EAD may still take up to 90 more days to be approved. 90 more days!?!!! Another three whole months! How can anyone be expected to emigrate to a new country and have to remain unemployed for up to six months? The guy could sympathise with my frustration, but there wasn't anything he could do about it... he can only report on what his computer is telling him. He did let me know that I'm meant to have a biometrics scan done as part of this application and has set that in motion, so at least something is being done.

What's really worrying me is that it's almost a month since I sent in my I-485 (Application for Residency) and I haven't even got a receipt notice for that yet... I am dreading that phone call...

Posted in: chaosboy, immigration, united states on August 28, 2007 at at 4:11:00 PM 0 comments    

This last Sunday, Kim (Christine's sister) and I took part in the annual Portland Bridge Pedal. Unfortunately, Christine was working, otherwise she surely would have joined us.

Portland is situated on the Willamette River, which is crossed by 10 road bridges within the metropolitan area. From north to south, these are: St Johns, Fremont, Broadway, Steel, Burnside, Morrison, Hawthorne, Marquam, Ross Island and Sellwood. Of these, the Fremont and Marquam are normally closed to pedestrians and bicycle riders as they carry freeway traffic, so this ride is the only chance each year to ride across these bridges. The Sellwood and Ross Island are also very narrow, so riding over them while competing with traffic can be somewhat perilous.

We started just before eight in the morning and set out on the full 10 bridge ride. You could also do 8 and 6 bridge rides for those with children or less desire to cross all the bridges. It was an awesome morning, although the traffic jams when the three rides came together at a bridge were incredible... it resembled a bridge walk, rather than ride at times, as seen here:

In all, we covered over 30 miles (or around 48km) and were incredibly pooped at the end. In fact, we skipped the last bridge (the Broadway) and ended up at the Widmer Gasthaus for a cleansing ale (muscle relaxant, as the Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy tells you!) and a good feed. We'd already crossed a "tenth" bridge in the morning to get to the start, and we really didn't want to have to cross an eleventh to get back home again!

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, sport on August 15, 2007 at at 6:00:00 PM 1 comments    

There's a lot of them thar States in this crazy US of A, and I got a chance to tick three more off my list on our recent sojourn to the Eastern side. (Rule: a place doesn't count as visited if you don't leave the airport, so even though I've been through Denver twice, I haven't "been" to Colorado yet.) I have a little widget on my Flickr profile where you can enter countries and states you've been to and it makes a little map showing visited countries in red (see above). So whenever we go somewhere new, I tell Christine that we can colour that place red now. My favourite time was when I got to make all of Canada red just by visiting Victoria, BC for four hours.

So, where did we go? Our first port of call was Michigan, where Christine's dad was getting married to the wonderful Linda, who (as you may know) had made the amazing costumes for our wedding. The ceremony was delightful, held on a sunny day in a beautiful gazebo at a historic park in South Lyon, a semi-rural town not far from Ann Arbor. We had a fantastic time and I loved meeting all the people on that side of the family. Here's a photo I took of the ceremony:

Next, we flew to Massachusetts (which I have now learned to spell correctly!) and caught the ferry from Boston to Cape Cod. Here we spent a few idyllic days with Christine's mother's side of the family... lazing on the beach by day and having good food with good company at night. Here's a view of an old life saving station, the last surviving of many that were set up along this dangerous coast in the 19th century.

Our flight home took us through Chicago, Illinois. We had a four and a half hour layover, and decided to head into town to see Christine's old stomping ground. Unfortunately, Chicago's rickety and antiquated train service just wasn't up to scratch (see Christine's earlier post) and we ended up with only 10 or 15 minutes downtown to look around. Sydneysiders, you should never complain about CityRail again... it's the absolute epitome of timeliness and reliability compared to Chicago!

So we headed straight to the landmark Millennium Park and the incredible Cloud Gate sculpture, which I managed to hurriedly shoot off a few decent shots of before our mad scramble back to the airport began.

Posted in: cape cod, chaosboy, chicago, michigan, travel on at at 5:16:00 PM 1 comments    

So the Transformers movie is out, and I'm probably one of the biggest Transformers fans that most of the readers of this blog know, so I bet you're all wondering what I thought of it.

In a word, awful.

The Transformers themselves look awesome and some of the sequences involving them are spectacular, but the movie itself is so poorly paced and some of the so-called humour so monumentally inappropriate and unfunny that these sequences just can't redeem the movie. I'm sorry, but the sight of Bumblebee "lubricating" a human from his groinal socket isn't amusing, it's just in poor taste and not appropriate for the franchise. Nor was all the talk about masturbation.

After a promising and intriguing start to the film, the whole thing just drags on and on as Bumblebee spends most of the first half of the film helping the main human protaganist - a dorky teenager - score with the hottest girl in school. It's like one of those 80s screwball high school romance movies with Molly Ringwald or something.

Finally, the Autobots show up and proceed to look like idiots as they stumble all over the place attempting to hide from the kid's parents. Far from being proud intergalactic warriors, they look more like the Keystone Cops with all the slapstick going on.

The rest of the movie suffers from too much exposition and explanation before a very confusingly directed conclusion ends the whole sorry farce. Finally, while Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime to almost every fan, his voice just didn't convey enough emotion for me. He's good at "heroic speeches" but his lament over Jazz's death at the end of the film was entirely unconvincing.

This film could have been so much better if the script had been pruned of unessential parts and if Michael Bay got rid of all his slow-mo scene changes and action shots, but as it stands, it's a monumental disappointment on all but the most superficial level. Which makes me so very, very glad I didn't have to pay to watch it.

Posted in: chaosboy, transformers on at at 1:25:00 PM 2 comments    

Yesterday was a hectic but fun traveling day!

Cam I traveled from Provincetown on the Cape to the opposite side of the country, Portland, Oregon. Not only did we use every kind of transportation known to man but we had to stop and see everything on the way. Taking a ferry from Ptown to Boston was clear and perfect. Cam took many pics of the city skyline but we were unable to linger long. From there we jumped on a water taxi to the airport in order to catch our flight to Chicago. Once there, we had a few hours to kill before our next leg to Portland so we jumped on the Blue line so we could see a bit of downtown. I was so excited to show Cam Chicago after hyping it up for so long. But it didn't make a perfect first impression. The train was under construction at a stop far before the one we wanted to get off at. So instead we had to jump on an express bus which doubled our traveling time to a total of an hour. We eventually made it to Clark and Lake and jumped out knowing we had only a few minutes to make the best of this before we had to jump on the bus again.

We ran a few blocks over to Millennium park while Cam fervently tried to take photos of the massive skyscrapers above us. We crossed over Michigan Ave. where you could see a clear view of the Wrigley building and had a gander at the Frank Gehry creation that served as a massive stage. And then of course we had to get a shot of the giant silver Bean in the middle of the pavilion. And then we were off like a shot running over to Dearborn to catch the express bus back to the airport. Once again, we had to jump on the train once the bus reached it's last stop and we rolled back to the airport at a snail's pace.

The trains have designated slow zones, particularly the Blue Line and I can not really say why. The wooden tracks are very old and the train had to abide to the speed limits over certain areas which would be a smooth 55mph to a crawling 15mph.

Having not expected theses delays we found ourselves in a panic. Once the train pulled into the station we began to run down the long corridors to our terminal. Our flight was leaving in 15 minutes. Luckily our bags were checked and we had our tickets but when we reached security, we found we were in for a new challenge. People were wrapped through the cattle yards and down the hall. It would take more than an hour to get through. Never hesitating to take control of this situation, I drag Cam up the line and cut in front of hundreds of people in order to find someone of authority to let us through. Cam, my sweetie, who has always played by the book rules, seemed apprehensive. We skip under the rope with the acknowledging nod from a woman who looked like she worked there and with us followed a dozen others seeing our brave attempt to break the system. Once we put our goods through the machine the gate wasn't too far and made it just in time. They may have closed the doors on us if a woman hadn't been there complaining that the plane had to wait for her because her husband was still at Quiznos getting a sandwich. Cam and I leisurely walked onto the plane past the woman arguing with the ticketman, secretly hoping she wouldn't make it because it wasn't fair to get a sandwich and hold everyone up.

The 4 hour flight went by fast and we decided we had to take a taxi home after the long day of adventures we had had. It is good being back in Portland after having a good dose of travel and family to last for the rest of the year. More to come soon of weddings and reunions... and of course fun filled pictures.. but in the meantime, it's time to get back to the grind!

Posted in: boston, chaosgurl, chicago, portland, travel on August 12, 2007 at at 7:11:00 AM 0 comments    

As a wacky wedded couple.

You could say things are back to normal, but normal for us has never been settling down in the least. I keep wanting to get to the blogs but there is just too much to do than write a paragraph on the internet sometimes. Between concerts, streetfests, or just going to IKEA, sleep is just about all we do whenever we are home. But sometimes you just got to post a picture and put some words around it.

Like right now, Cam is re-building his Transformers army. It is a task that he will not relinquish until they are all standing at attention awaiting admiration. Of course, all I can do is admire him and his dedication to a passion in his life: transforming toys. With all the new shelving, there will be enough room for everyone. He has the largest collection of anything that I have ever seen a person have. And I will have to learn to work all these guys eventually. It's somewhere in the contract.

Other than that, we are off tomorrow for another venture to the East coast. Cam is excited to visit more states, while I'm stoked to lay on a beach again. Seeing family is always super fun and there will be plenty to go around. Until then, the blogs may be more postponed than usual!

Posted in: chaosgurl, general musings, transformers on August 1, 2007 at at 10:53:00 PM 0 comments    

Wow! Our wedding got blogged! We're famous-like! The wonderfully bizarre Offbeat Bride, a site dedicated to unusual, non white-dress weddings saw our pictures on Flickr and featured us on their blog. Cheers to them for loving our wacky ways!

Posted in: chaosboy, chaoslove, internet, wedding on July 30, 2007 at at 6:13:00 PM 0 comments    

So, finally all our planning has come to fruition.

Early on a grey Portland Saturday, Christine and I were joined by our family and friends in our little space-themed ceremony and became husband and wife. Everything went perfectly and we couldn't have asked for anything more (well, maybe a more spectacular sunrise, but what can you do?).

Our costumes - lovingly made by Linda, Christine's dad's fiancée - were absolutely fantastic and admired by everyone. As you can see in the photo above, Christine looked super cute in her "future manga" suit. The ceremony itself was short and simple and our friend Kevin did a great job as our Alien Overlord ... in one of those "only in America" moment, he signed up as our non-denominational minister on the internet in the weeks leading up to the ceremony. The Universal Life Church simply asks for your name and email address and then ordains you via email! This is becoming increasingly popular here, as more and more people want a friend presiding over their wedding, rather than an impersonal judge or minister. Kevin certainly looked the part in his huge cloak and weird alien glasses.

It was wonderful for me to have my parents come all the way out from Australia for the ceremony, and although it probably wasn't quite the wedding they imagined for one of their sons, they really got into the spirit of things. Dad even donned a white radiation suit to greet us in, looking like a scientist from Area 51!

Before we knew it, the wedding was over and the next stage of our life had begun! After all the planning and hoop-jumping to get to this stage, it almost felt anti-climactic for it to be over so soon, but we definitely enjoyed the moment. Now I have to get my residency application in to the US Government ASAP (before the application fee rises three-fold to over $US1000 at the end of July!!) and the process will be complete... finally!!

There are lots of pix from the wedding in both our Flickr accounts, by the way, so feel free to take a look!

Posted in: chaosboy, chaoslove, portland, wedding on July 27, 2007 at at 12:50:00 AM 0 comments