March 13, 2003
Stop the Insanity!
Posted by Matt in
Day to Day
Well, I haven't been posting for a while but I have good reason... I have been trying to get a passport expedited cause I am going on a long trip for work (more on that in a bit). So anyway, here are the turn of events that have happened:
Friday of last week (march 7th) my boss walks in and asks me how my passport is. I inform him that I don't have one.
Monday: Look into ways to get a passport in 1 week
Tuesday: Go home sick from work but still research the how-to on passports. Call my boss at 11 AM and tell him I need an itinerary if I am to get a passport in a week. In a 1/2 hr, I have my flight itinerary in my inbox. Make some calls to the passport expediting service and find out that because my licence was just renewed I will need another way to prove my identity (my licence was renewed in January and had to be a minimum of 6 months old). I gathered the following information:
A XEROX OF:
1. my licence
2. My High School Diploma
3. Marriage licence
4. Car registration
5. Insurance car
6. Credit Cards
7. High School Yearbook Photo
And I also included a pay stub from august of 2002 for good measure.
On a side note, I also asked about my birth certificate ( I have 2 versions ) and the passport company says that the xerox with the town seal on it is not good but the little index card I have is fine.
Wednesday: Go to the post office to get my passport expedited and get a sworn affidavit from Jess stating I am who I say I am. The post office tells me that the index card is invalid and I need a better form of my birth certificate. Currently, I think that the xerox with the town seal is bad as well so I drive Jess into work (we currently have only one car cause her's is in the shop). I get to her office and ask her to look up the phone number for the Newton MA Town Hall and the Passport Agency in Boston while I step out for a smoke to calm my nerves. I call the town hall and they are open til 5 so I can get a new birth certificate. I then call the passport agency in Boston and check the morning appointments. Nothing until March 17th (4 days before I fly out) so that wont work! I then decided to check the afternoon appointments and viola, there is one at 1:30 pm on March 12th. Here is the day in a nut shell.
10:30 AM leave Jess's office.
Drive at illegal speeds to Newton MA.
Get lost in Newton 3 times and ask directions (felt weird being a guy and all)
Get to the Town Hall at 12:15 and get a copy of my birth certificate. WTF!!! This is the same thing that the passport service told me was INVALID?!?! I make a stink but the town clerk assures me it is fine.
Try to park my car at Newton Highlands (Green Line stop for subway) but there is no parking. I learned the hard way not to park in places that are not legal when in or around Boston so I drive back to 128 and head towards Riverside, another Green Line stop with ample parking but it is the last stop on the Green Line when heading "Outbound" from Boston. Get there at 12:45, run my ass up to try and catch the train but it takes off before I get there. The next train shows up at 1:00 PM.
Get on the train and frantically look at peoples watches ( I don't own one, nor do I want to ). I get to North Station (Fleet Center) at 1:28 PM. Run down the stairs, run up the stairs of the Tip O'Neil Federal Building, go thru the security check and make it to the passport office on time (maybe 2 minutes late but hey... I'm there right)
Stand in line for a 1/2 hr and finally get to the receptionist. She checks me off on the list and gives me a number. I wait for about 10 minutes and my number is called.
I show the guy my license and immediately he says, "Um... Mr. Stratton, your licence is not more then 6 months old, do you have any other way to prove your identity?"
It was like I was just waiting for him to say it. I produced my many forms of identity verification (this was the only good thing that the passport service told me about) The yearbook xerox did it for me. So, to make a short story long, I will have my passport some time next week before Friday when I fly out to Japan. I just hope I get rid of this darn cold!
P.S. For those of you who dont know what I do, I am a software engineer. I have been working closely with Toshiba for about a year now and it is time for them to release our product in Japan. At work, I had to design a proof of concept application to show we could indeed program in Japanese. We had an outside company take the intial steps for Japanization and I got to merge all our current changes into the new version of our software. That was a headache in itself but it is done :-)
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