Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Still Slacking in the Update Department!

So how about I give you a run down of exactly what has been going on!

It appears as though we have all of the paperwork for immigration. It's time to really start reading into all of it an learning exactly what the process is going to be. Some of the items they need like photos and proof that Christine and I are actually a couple will take a little bit of time to produce. I mean who keeps their phone records for three years? Then there is the background check, the medical exam , and other items that you need that the government has to have before they will even process anything. Of course in order to do this, you need to go to a specific doctor and have specific forms filled out for specific reasons depending on your specific location. The background check is the same thing, more specific forms that need to go to a specific place and signed by a specific person, then sent to another place to be verified and checked before they can be sent to two more places and they can decide if you are a god enough person to come into this country. This is Department of Redundancy Department procedure at it's finest.

Today I am getting the information to withdraw my 401k from my old job in order to pay for all of this. You need to pay money for all of this stuff each step of the way, and I figure the real reason for paperwork to be sent all over the place is to generate more dollars not only out of my pocket, but also out of the taxpayers pockets. After all the government needs to receive it's cut of the money and has to justify it's spending somehow.

But now on to more exciting stuff. Today we are bringing the new kitty home. It's good that we can bring him home so early because we are going to Syracuse again in two weeks and this will give him more time to get adjusted.

Speaking of Syracuse, we had a fairly productive camp and parade this past weekend. The turnout was much better for the parade then it has been since 2004. People in the corps finally realize their commitment and have stepped it up a notch in that department. We learned the rest of the show, but have not pieced it all together yet. At least the learning process is over and now we can really dig into the cleaning. I'm all for that!

I had some friends in town yesterday and spent most of the day showing them around Montreal. I was already exhausted before I took them out and was twice as exhausted afterward! They only spent about 7 hours here, so they didn't really get to see too much of the city, but I think I gave them a general idea of what to find downtown!

I have a lot of work to put in tomorrow for LOUD Tour TV. I have a few things already filmed, but I need more material. With the new kitty I should be able to get some good stuff! Speaking of LOUD Tour TV, I mentioned in my last post about upgrading the camera. With the leftover 401k money I plan to do just that. I also plan to buy my own domain name outright. There are other plans on the horizon, but as you can see with all that I have going on now, my plate is quite full!

So there you have it, a real update for once! I'm off for now! See you folks tomorrow for Episode 5 of LOUD Tour TV!

2 comments:

No Mas said...

Governmental entities at their finest! Bet the procedures were not as cumbersome before 9/11! Boy, you are going to get raped, tax wise, if you withdraw that retirement money - it's usually a double tax: Take out taxes at time of withdrawal then again at tax time. You would be better off paying with a credit card - the interest rate cannot be over 28%. Of course taxes on retirement withdrawn early could be higher than that.

Disregarding the depressing junk, glad your trip went well. Can hardly wait for video/photos, if you have them.

Shawn C. said...

I talked to someone who moved to Canada and did the same thing. They had about double what I had in mine and said I could expect to lose about 25% of it.

I have stayed away from pictures and video for the time being. I have to request permission to use them and while they would easily give me permission, I just don't want to put myself or the organization at risk to people who would otherwise wish to say or do bad things towards us. We are going through it right now with an individual in a public forum who is being a real jerk in regards to asking for information about an issue which is really none of his business. Sadly in our activity there are people that wish to bring you down by any means possible.