Click toENLARGE. Excel spreadsheet I put together for YOU.
Last week, while I was in Maine (again), my Naturalization Certificate arrived — on September 5, 2023.
That was the last step in the process — start-to-finish, soup-to-nuts. I had got my U.S. Passport, U.S. Passport Card & my documentation. That was it. It was finally, ALL DONE.
It had taken 125 days from START-to-FINISH.
117 days since ‘they’ received my paperwork at the Texas facility, 8-days after I submitted it all at a large U.S. Post Office.
So, that is 4 MONTHS — BUT, I received my Passport & Passport Card within 3 months.
So, I was right SMACK in the 12-week WAIT they currently advertise.
Amusing that they wait EXACTLY a month after issuance of the Passport to start mailing back the documentation. Not sure why they wait a month. I guess they want to make sure the passport got delivered.
I am HAPPY. Got the Passport within the timeframe I had been told to expect. Wasn’t thrilled waiting 5 weeks to get back my documentation — BUT relieved that I am now all set.
Just thought that this timeline might help a few of you. Now you can work out where you are in the process. Hopefully things will get faster now that the Summer travel rush/bulge is history.
Click toENLARGE. Sorry, I don’t want to expose myself. (SMILE).
This is cool. Right on the heels of my passport. I am chuffed.
So, just like clockwork per the currently much-stated 11 to 13 week wait for a U.S. Passport.
Both were mailed from Houston, Texas. The passport was sent ‘Priority Mail’, the passport card, First Class. I suspect they were both mailed on the same day. I don’t care. Just glad to have BOTH of them.
Now just waiting on my my all important Naturalization Certificate. Hoping it will come soon. But, in a way, it no longer matters. I have these credentials to prove that I am somewhat bona fide. SMILE.
Had never heard of a Passport Card. They can ONLY be used for land or sea crossings. DEFINITELY not valid when crossing the border by air.
The land/sea works GREAT for I — when it comes to Canada (from my ‘Bold Coast‘). Maybe I will now, after a 20+ year boycott, again start visiting Canada. There were times in my life when I visited Canada twice a month!
I will confess that I was, until today, NEVER aware of the ‘Six Flags Over Texas‘. I learnt that, to my amazement & awe, from a somewhat lackluster (2022) movie I had watched on ‘Prime‘, viz. ‘Vengeance‘. Learning THIS was the only redeeming attribute of that movie.
Unlike the protagonist in that movie, I am not a stranger to ‘Texas‘. In the 1990s I spent a fair amount of time in Texas — albeit all of it in Dallas, Austin & Houston. A number of my top consulting clients were based in Texas & I had to visit them often. Towards the latter part of the 1990s I was going to Texas at least once a month. So, I am sure I saw the six flags numerous times. I guess they must have them at the airports. I guess I never took any notice & none of my Texan friends ever enlightened me about the flags. Shame on them.
An interesting aspect of one’s history to celebrate. Six is a fair number of flags.
Right off the top of my head I know that the country of my birth ‘Ceylon’ (now Sri Lanka) could claim to have been under at least 4 flags: Portuguese, Dutch, British & its own.
‘Hawaii’ must have had at least 5.
I did a quick look but I couldn’t find a list or answer. There must be countries (or states) in Europe & Asia that were colonized multiple times. Something worth looking into.
But, this ‘Six Flags Over Texas’ intrigued & interested me. Glad I watched that dumb movie just for that. SMILE.
Kicking out that radical website was a brilliant, decisive, resounding & moral act. Bravo, GoDaddy. As a customer of over 22-years I am very proud of you. GoDaddy did the right thing.
GoDaddy & I go back to at least 1999, if not earlier. Those were the heady days of when GoDaddy was still making baby steps. I switched over from ‘Network Solutions‘ & for 15-years (or more) I could NOT have been happier. GoDaddy was good to I. Those were the days when (saintly) ‘Bob Parsons‘ ran the shop, with his finger always on the pulse. On paper Bob no longer has any executive clout over GoDaddy. But, this move against Texas is very much what I expect from that great man. I am sure he made a few phone calls.
GoDaddy, under Bob, was quite the magical company. I kid you NOT when I say that c. 1999 GoDaddy & I mastered Microsoft ‘FrontPage’ hosting together. Yes, there were technical issues — but, in those days, under Bob, SUPPORT was the #1 priority & they had the so called ‘Tiger Team’. That Tiger Team & I were closely, so many times, thrashing out FrontPage hosting issues. I never dealt personally with Bob, but I had access to one of his direct assistants. He would always step in & make sure I was treated well. In 2013, when Benedict XVI resigned, my (then) ‘Next Pope‘ website, hosted with GoDaddy, EXPLODED. We were getting something like 4,000 hits per second. My hosting plan never envisaged that level of traffic. GoDaddy, even before I called them, stepped in! They had seen the ‘issue’. I was later told that Bob himself was monitoring the traffic to my site. They, i.e., GoDaddy, even without asking (or charging) me kept on increasing the hosting capacity assigned to my website. GoDaddy rocked.
I am GLAD to see that they are back to being the EXCELLENT company they once were.
If you go to my ‘old blog‘ & do a search (on the built-in search bar) for ‘GoDaddy‘ you will find tons of posts — some praising them, some lambasting them.
I am still a GoDaddy customer. Most of the domains I own (& I still own a few) & my e-mail is still with them. They no longer host any sites for I. But, that is OK. I still think of myself as a GoDaddy ‘booster’. This decision, by GoDaddy, to take a stand against the INSANE Texas abortion ban made me proud of GoDaddy. The spirit of Bob Parson prevails.
