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05/21/2007
Blog - April 4 2007 Delayed Post!
I originally wrote this post on April 4, 2007 on my wonderful little Alphasmart, and it's only now that I'm catching up on things enough to actually post it here. (Yay long weekend! Yay one orchestra over with for the summer!) I will endeavour to write more often from now on.
Passport Applications and Other Evil Things
I'm just having 'one of those days'. This morning, when I left home, it was pouring rain and it stayed that way most of the day. (I think it's supposed to snow tomorrow, God forbid...) We started the day with a big all-employees meeting with some head honchos from GE Healthcare, who have recently bought our company. The idea was to tell us what we're supposed to expect and how things are going to change, though I think most of the presentation was about GE itself and didn't tell us much we didn't already know. Oh well. Anyway, the real headache didn't start til the day was almost over. I was on a training course, which ended around 3:15-ish. I found a computer where I could catch up on my work e-mail, so I did that, and left the building around 3:50-ish. The plan was to grab a quick bus to Kanata Centrum (a really really huge big-box mall, as I discovered), submit my passport application to the post office there, grab a couple long-haul buses home, have dinner, maybe have a bit of downtime, and then head to an orchestra board meeting for 7:30.
Well, you know what they say about the best-laid plans. So I waited in the rain until 4:15 before a bus came, and it wound its way to Kanata (these two places look quite close on the map so it's surprising how long this whole process took!). I went to the post office to get my passport application processed, so the guy behind the counter looked at it all with a fine-toothed comb, making sure my address and ID numbers and all that matched up, and all was fine and dandy until he got to the part my guarantor filled out. As it turns out, she signed her signature slightly too big and it went over the lines of the signature box a couple of times, which meant my whole application was apparently void. (For crying out loud, it's not like I didn't get it signed!!). SO, not only was that a big waste of time, but now I have to go make another appointment to see my guarantor (and I think she's the busiest person in the city!), AND find time to go back to this place to try to submit my passport *again*, AND I don't have time to go home, have dinner, or pick up the car for the meeting, so I'm going to be bussing it home good and late after the meeting. (The alarm will be going off at 6 am as usual tomorrow). I think when they told me they couldn't accept this application because the signature was a couple millimetres too big, I could have just screamed, or cried, or sworn like a sailor! (And I'm telling you, it was tempting. All three at a time, even.) How ridiculous can this get???
So THEN, on the bus out of Kanata after the botched passport application attempt, I was in the middle of typing up a text message on my cellphone, and thanks to a couple of slips of the finger towards the end, it prompted me if I wanted to send the message (which I didn't, because I hadn't finished typing yet). So I said, no, and it asked, save a draft? And I said yes... and then when I got back to editing the message, it had only saved half of it and I had to retype the rest. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you need to press itty-bitty buttons 2-3 times per letter, it's annoying! And especially when my patience factor was already in the negatives after the passport detour in the rain that was all for nothing.
At least my ugly photo appeared to be acceptable. Grrrr.
Now I'm at Algonquin killing time until the board meeting, because I don't have time to go home. This V8 Splash (Tropical Blend) I'm trying for the first time seems OK though. I guess the day could be worse. (Let me knock on wood just in case!)
I've decided on a topic for my 3-Day Novel on the Labour Day weekend. It's basically going to be Dilbert in an Irish community in Quebec in the early 19th century. This passport drama I think will make its way into the book in 19th century disguise! Hopefully plotting that will help me blow off some steam. :-)
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