Paperwork Sucks
Well, last week's paper work crisis was a lot nicer than the current one. See, for the last two months we'd been trying to get our original homestudy social worker to send us a letter that we'll have to take to China. This letter would say one thing, that Alison changed jobs and what she's making now. We got our referral on Monday. Friday, a totally different person at the organization did all our paperwork for us. In fact, we got our homestudy update in the mail also.

Yesterday's paperwork crisis was that we need to be refingerprinted. Our fingerprints with the FBI/CIS expire on the 9th of June. They were taken on the 7th of March last year, and by govt calculations, fingerprints are no longer accurate after 15 months. So, another $70 each for fingerprints. But that's not the problem. The CIS says we need our fingerprints redone, but we can't get an appointment to get them done until we get a letter from the CIS. The people at the CIS I talked to didn't know who sent the letters and didn't have the authority to send a letter out to me. They all did agree I needed to be refingerprinted, but I can't make an appointment because I don't have a letter. But the letter does seem to be late, but no one knows who does it.

Alison and I will take our I-171h and $140 down to Birmingham this Saturday and go to the fingerprinting place. I've read that in some states they can do it all at once. That would be nice. If that doesn't work, we fedex the check and a copy of the form and hope they get back to us soon enough. From what I've seen on a discussion board on the internet, we might be headed over around June 12.

The other paperwork crisis, yes, there are two, is that we seem to need a document from the Alabama Department of Social Services, or Interstate Commerce or something, department, saying that we have met all the requirements for pre-adoption. I was unaware that there even was a pre-adoption. Alison caught this on page 21 of the general travel guidelines. We read this back in November or so 2003 and this requirement does not appear in any of the other documentation that we have.

I'm not feeling too hot about these current crisis.

Car Wash
I need to wash my car when I get home. I went up onto Monte Sano to confirm whether the old ruins up there, between the ampatheater and the walking trail area, was still there. Seems they build a lodge. And Mountain Man said that the ruins were behind the new lodge. What Steve and I suspencted was true though, the ruins are the lodge. They just sandblasted them and remortared them and put in a floor. There goes another part of my childhood.

Oh, but on the way back, I drove through some really nasty road cutting and the slurry all over the road got my passenger side of my car covered in very fine dirt.

Pressure Wash
Alison's mom met with the realtor and they made a list of things for her to do. One of which is to pressure wash the concrete, especially the wall that is covered with beautiful moss. Modern people don't want any nature on their stuff, so I'll go by tomorrow after work and blast the place. I've only pressure washed once before, and only for about 20 seconds just to play with it. I think I'll be playing with this for a good four hours possibly. Alison will come over after she gets off work and then we'll carry crap from storage to the street. I guess. Last time there were plans they didn't happen like I was told.

And, so you guys can stare at the same words that make me go "What the heck does that even mean?", here, look at this.
- posted by Nick Postagulous @ 1:49 PM