Sue and I got our first passports in 2001. We were headed to Italy to see our daughter Linzi who was studying in Florence for her Junior Year in College.
The events of September 11th 2001 were too troubling for her to stay overseas. We still had passports and 500 dollar round trip tickets to Italy so we continued with our plans and had a great time.
Flash forward to this year. Its 2012 our passports had expired. We want to cruise to Hawaii again in January. This will not work without valid passports. Even though Hawaii is indeed one of our states, the rules state that the ship must stop at a non US port before returning to the US. This means that a stop in Ensenada, Mexico is required for a 14 day cruise round trip from Las Angeles.
Our passports had expired last year. So this year in September I started figuring out how to renew our passports. The government has a a great website for those that meet the easy renewal qualifications. You had to have your booklet, new photos, your check, the form filled out from the computer and 140 dollars to get the renewal book with new numbers and the newest innovation, the passport card. The passport card cannot be used for air travel outside of the US but I figured that it might come in handy as a "leave at the desk" sort of ID that is required in hotels from other countries. It would also facilitate getting another if the booklet were lost or stolen or mutilated.
I dutifully sent off in two separate envelopes the required documentation for both Sue and myself. I loaded each up with a big string of stamps and pitched them into the local post office out slot.
Three weeks later, Sue's passport arrived. In a separate envelop her passport card arrived. Everything was cool. She even got her expired passport returned to her dutifully punched with a hole in it.
The next week I received a form letter with the return of my photos and my application stating that I was not submitting the most current passport I owned and would I please look for and send in the latest passport with a new form. No expired passport book arrived, and no return of the check. I really didnt know where to turn to next. I asked my school teacher buddies over breakfast and they said that even though were were in the midst of an election year, and even though our congressman had resigned, his office still had a local connection and that I should engage them to see what could be done.
The next week my check was returned to me through one of those letters that the post office sends saying, we are sorry that mail was eaten but here are the contents of the letter that we rescued. I think my bulky passport letter did not hold up in the mail and had sprung apart in the mail its ramparts lining the desk of some person's dead letter file. The sole thread of info that got this returned to me was not the envelope but rather the name and address noted at the top of the check.
So what was I going to do? Was the passport stolen? It already had expired. It certainly was not in my possession to use the easy form again to submit the application through the on line form. In the mean time there was the tick tick tick of the upcoming cruise. They would not let me cruise if i didn't have the passport.
Another week passed as I tried not to think about it. Still something needed to be done to get this to happen.
I went on line and came across A. Briggs. A. Briggs is a passport facilitation company. You send your stuff to them and they walk it through and answer questions to the people that do the passport work. For large sums of money they can get a passport in 2-4 days. For less money more time. I got started to panic and what they had to say on their website made sense. The situation that I had was a lost or a stolen passport that had expired. Their charge for this is $200. What needed to happen was that you had to present yourself with your paperwork to a local passport collection office, like a post office and they would swear that it was really you applying. Then they would take over and after you Fed exed the documents, they would look them over, contact you if needed and get you they passports within two weeks, Fed Exed back to you.
So I set about getting the meeting with my local post office administrator. I arrived at the post office with my documentation and there was a note on the door saying that if you wanted a passport conference, you needed to call this number and get an appointment.
I thought... well let see if I can walk into the county courthouse and do it there. It was where we got the passports the first time. I was told that they no longer did them and that I would have to go get the post office to do it.
I went home and called the number. No luck. No luck for three days in a row.
So were were again another week closer and still I had no passport.
I check the info from the government website and I noticed that I had to fill out a form and admit that my old expired passport had to be reported as lost or stolen. They actually wanted to know how it was stolen and what I was doing to secure its recovery. I filled out the the form and noted that the Post office probably had it somewhere between Merced, CA and Philadelphia, PA the center for the Department of State that processes such paperwork along with Homeland Security.
Also included at the website was a little live data base work that allowed you to input your zipcode and would yield a list of places within 50 miles where you could do this passport ID work. I picked up the the first name on the list, presumably the closest, it was the Merced post office. It noted a slightly different number that the one listed on the door. So I gave it a call to make an appointment. It hooked me up with the post office person in Santa Nella. Santa Nella is a very small town out my Interstate 5, 45 miles away. She gave the real number for the Merced post office. It was the one that I had been calling all along to no avail. This response gave me an idea. Maybe I was trying to be "too convenient for myself. I might have better luck with more rural post office that would have more time to "deal" with my problem.
I gave the post office at Ballico a call. Ballico is a very small town 14 miles north of here along the route the Santa Fe railroad runs on its way to Modesto and Stockton. It is known locally for its general store a little family run affair that had posted on its outside wall the lettering, Pop's in the cooler, but we aren't sure where mom is. Beside this general store that mostly sells irrigation pipe, is a very small post office with about 150 boxes.
I called the post master. She answered and asked "When do you want to do it?
I said "I would love to do it today if possible."
She said that she had an opening at 12:30.
I arrived with copies of everything possible. I had the original Colorado birth certificate, my CA drivers license, and a scan of my old passport. She said that she was happy that I was paying her fees and the government fees with a check as she had used her last money order the week before.
By the way, I recommend that you get your passport scanned so that you can have a paper copy of it for future recoveries. You can save the digital copy on your computer's hard drive.
She looked it all over and had me swear that I wasn't a felon or trying to defraud the fed government. I raised my hand and swore.
I asked for all the copies back and she looked at me rather strangely. She was told that she should keep it all and submit it through her post office and once she had sign it off I was not to get it back. So there goes my Briggs Fed Ex service. The support documents were helpful however.
Two and a half weeks later the passport book arrived at my mailbox, and the next day, the passport card arrived and the birth certificate in a separate envelope.
I scanned the two passports and added the passport numbers to the required info for the ship. Everything worked out. We are still 88 days for leaving on the ship. Time to spare!
A written expression of a 65year old plus retired Speech and Language Specialist in the Central Valley of California.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Out of the Loop Except for Facebook
Yes I have read the pamphlet on the sides of the state Propositions. There are many this time as the causes and the so called causes of special interest groups made their way to the November ballot. I was particularly interested in finding out what the teachers and other progressive groups felt regarding the propositions vetted. (I love that new word in our vocabulary). It is a very new word that is meant to mean prepared for, checked out and qualified for our support.
The progressive groups with the most defined positions are the Democratic Party and the CA Labor Federation. All of the groups seem to share the same positions. Some of the groups did not indicate positions on many of the propositions but consistently they were for prop 30 and against prop 32.
Here is the rundown on each:
The progressive groups with the most defined positions are the Democratic Party and the CA Labor Federation. All of the groups seem to share the same positions. Some of the groups did not indicate positions on many of the propositions but consistently they were for prop 30 and against prop 32.
Here is the rundown on each:
- 30 Yes
- 31 No
- 32 No
- 33 No
- 34 Yes
- 35 Yes
- 36 Yes
- 37 Yes
- 38 No
- 39 Yes
- 40 Yes
Sunday, October 14, 2012
The first Rain of the Season
We were over in the Bay Area for the first rain of the season in the Central Valley of California.
I knew it rained because when I picked up the paper in my driveway when we got home, it was drenched even through it was wrapped in a plastic sleeve.
I asked my friends at the coffee house what the rain was like. They said it was a very steady gentle rain. It lasted several hours.
These rains are great for everyone but those farmers with cotton still in the field, tomato farmers because it generates mold, and raisin farmers that have grape clusters on the ground. It looked to me like most of this activity was pretty well over. The trees have given up their almonds and the grapes have had a long Hot summer allowing them to turn to raisins. The almond harvest has left a cloud in the valley of its dust that just won't settle. This rain has settled the dust.
Almonds are a major crop. In the 30's through the 70's this area was known for its peach and apricot crops. Huge processing plants were set up in every valley city to can the produce and trucks and trains would haul the cans to warehouses for distribution throughout the country and throughout the year. As prices of labor and water and sewage have gone up, the peaches have been canned in other countries and the canneries have been disassembled for their metal. Almond trees have taken the place of peaches. Almonds do not require cans or distribution. They are an export rather than a product for domestic consumption. The decrease of canned fruit in the american diet can also be noted here. Fresh fruit could be airlifted in from Chile in the winter and Mexico on the shoulders of our fresh harvest. Canned fruit disappeared from our tables.
Almonds are harvested by very low riding tractors with enclosed drivers capsules. The tractors shake the trunk of the trees and all of the nuts fall to the ground. Other vehicles with weird shapes have nylon fingers on them and similar to a weed wacker. They prowl the rows and line of the nuts and the leaves that have fallen with the nuts in a gigantic row. They scrape along the dirt line as they go and prepare the rows for another machine that scoops of the rows and sends them into 16wheel like trucks with bins on them that take the rows to the nut processors. This year the nut processors could not keep up with the huge piles that were brought to them. All around the nut yards are multiple piles of nut harvest material neatly labels and ready for processing. Many have tarps over them. This is the first year that I remember seeing so many piles of nuts waiting to be harvested. This was often done with the cotton crop as it lies in cased in plastic waiting for "gin" time. They look like big blue caterpillars, in the southern part of the county. Almonds in plies join these caterpillars.
So October is what it is in the Central Valley of California. Cool mornings and warm to hot afternoons. Snow.. once in 8 to 16years and usually in January.
: ) Pat
I knew it rained because when I picked up the paper in my driveway when we got home, it was drenched even through it was wrapped in a plastic sleeve.
I asked my friends at the coffee house what the rain was like. They said it was a very steady gentle rain. It lasted several hours.
These rains are great for everyone but those farmers with cotton still in the field, tomato farmers because it generates mold, and raisin farmers that have grape clusters on the ground. It looked to me like most of this activity was pretty well over. The trees have given up their almonds and the grapes have had a long Hot summer allowing them to turn to raisins. The almond harvest has left a cloud in the valley of its dust that just won't settle. This rain has settled the dust.
Almonds are a major crop. In the 30's through the 70's this area was known for its peach and apricot crops. Huge processing plants were set up in every valley city to can the produce and trucks and trains would haul the cans to warehouses for distribution throughout the country and throughout the year. As prices of labor and water and sewage have gone up, the peaches have been canned in other countries and the canneries have been disassembled for their metal. Almond trees have taken the place of peaches. Almonds do not require cans or distribution. They are an export rather than a product for domestic consumption. The decrease of canned fruit in the american diet can also be noted here. Fresh fruit could be airlifted in from Chile in the winter and Mexico on the shoulders of our fresh harvest. Canned fruit disappeared from our tables.
Almonds are harvested by very low riding tractors with enclosed drivers capsules. The tractors shake the trunk of the trees and all of the nuts fall to the ground. Other vehicles with weird shapes have nylon fingers on them and similar to a weed wacker. They prowl the rows and line of the nuts and the leaves that have fallen with the nuts in a gigantic row. They scrape along the dirt line as they go and prepare the rows for another machine that scoops of the rows and sends them into 16wheel like trucks with bins on them that take the rows to the nut processors. This year the nut processors could not keep up with the huge piles that were brought to them. All around the nut yards are multiple piles of nut harvest material neatly labels and ready for processing. Many have tarps over them. This is the first year that I remember seeing so many piles of nuts waiting to be harvested. This was often done with the cotton crop as it lies in cased in plastic waiting for "gin" time. They look like big blue caterpillars, in the southern part of the county. Almonds in plies join these caterpillars.
So October is what it is in the Central Valley of California. Cool mornings and warm to hot afternoons. Snow.. once in 8 to 16years and usually in January.
: ) Pat
Thursday Ramble to the Bay
Last Thursday we headed to SF via Berkeley to capture and examine the public murals at Coit Tower and the Chalet Beach house on the great highway beside the beach.
We took off a little later than we planned but arrived in Berkley around 2 pm. A storm was headed into the area and it looked like the valley was going to get more rain than the Bay Area. It had not rained in the valley for four months. This is typical of the Mediterranean climate type that we have in the valley.
We had a lunch/snack at the Cheeseboard in Berkeley. Its a unique sort of pizza place. We had with us, David, Pronounced...... Da ......Veed. Linzi and Sean's friend from Madrid, Spain. He was sure that he didn't want pizza again. In fact what he really wanted was pasta. No pasta is available at this spot. They only make pizza and one pizza type her day. So the call is... do you want a whole one, a half one or by the piece. They have great salads too. We bought one of them as well.
The pizza for the day was gorgonzola, pear, and walnut pizza. We ordered a half a pizza for 10 bucks and say down and enjoyed the live music that comes with the ambiance. The quartet was singing jazz/ pop combinations with a little blues.. The drummer, keyboard and bass player snapped out some nice back up to a diminutive a female black singer who was choosing the songs. The sky was dizzly but no rain.
We gathered up the clan and headed over to the city to do coit tower. Sean was still at work and would join us later for dinner.
We found a handicapped spot at Coit tower and the wheelchair entrance. There were just a few tourists there dropped off by their bus. We looked at the frescos and I snapped a bunch of good photos. My intent was to get some idea as to how the people are represented in these murals. I am doing some crowd depiction in my watercolor pursuit. I was particularly interested in how the transitions occur from hair to background on the people depicted.
The Coit tower murals and the Chalet Beach House murals represent life of the working people of the depression/post depression era in the San Francisco area. They were commissioned as part of the WPA. This government stimulus helped keep artists alive by doing pubic works.
While we were their we picked up Heather at her new office area, and she joined our group. With a tourist with us,David, from Madrid, we had to do Lombard street, the so called crookedest street in the city. A drive through Golden Gate Park was on the agenda too. Linzi wanted David to see the buffalo herd. I wanted to get some background shots of the Japanese Tea Garden. I had done a sketch book redenering of a group of girls dressed in purple dresses. I missed the details on the gate and the prospective of the steps leading up the the gate. The tea garden was closed on this day as we were kind of late getting there. There were a ton of chair set up in front of the Tea Garden looking like a wedding No people were in the chairs.
We headed back down through the park to eat at Tom Kiang. Tom Kiang is our favorite Dim Sum place. The food is impeccably the right temperature when it is served. The room has table cloths and it is considerably upscale to most restaurants in this genre.
Sean was to pack and meet us there as the younger crowd was headed to San Jose for a big magic tournament. Sean got misdirected on the way from Berkeley to San Francisco. That is pretty easy to do as San Francisco is not an easy city to navigate in a car. He made it and we all had a great meal.
Our overnight was in Milbrae. Its a city on the peninsula, not far from where I grew up. This allowed for us to go take some reference photos of the places that I grew up and went to school.
We then headed south and had a nice chat with my mom and dad that live in Morgan Hill.
It was almost dark when we arrived home. What a nice trip.
Along the way I listened to the San Francisco Giants win their way into the National League Championship Series.
:) Pat
We took off a little later than we planned but arrived in Berkley around 2 pm. A storm was headed into the area and it looked like the valley was going to get more rain than the Bay Area. It had not rained in the valley for four months. This is typical of the Mediterranean climate type that we have in the valley.
We had a lunch/snack at the Cheeseboard in Berkeley. Its a unique sort of pizza place. We had with us, David, Pronounced...... Da ......Veed. Linzi and Sean's friend from Madrid, Spain. He was sure that he didn't want pizza again. In fact what he really wanted was pasta. No pasta is available at this spot. They only make pizza and one pizza type her day. So the call is... do you want a whole one, a half one or by the piece. They have great salads too. We bought one of them as well.
The pizza for the day was gorgonzola, pear, and walnut pizza. We ordered a half a pizza for 10 bucks and say down and enjoyed the live music that comes with the ambiance. The quartet was singing jazz/ pop combinations with a little blues.. The drummer, keyboard and bass player snapped out some nice back up to a diminutive a female black singer who was choosing the songs. The sky was dizzly but no rain.
We gathered up the clan and headed over to the city to do coit tower. Sean was still at work and would join us later for dinner.
We found a handicapped spot at Coit tower and the wheelchair entrance. There were just a few tourists there dropped off by their bus. We looked at the frescos and I snapped a bunch of good photos. My intent was to get some idea as to how the people are represented in these murals. I am doing some crowd depiction in my watercolor pursuit. I was particularly interested in how the transitions occur from hair to background on the people depicted.
The Coit tower murals and the Chalet Beach House murals represent life of the working people of the depression/post depression era in the San Francisco area. They were commissioned as part of the WPA. This government stimulus helped keep artists alive by doing pubic works.
While we were their we picked up Heather at her new office area, and she joined our group. With a tourist with us,David, from Madrid, we had to do Lombard street, the so called crookedest street in the city. A drive through Golden Gate Park was on the agenda too. Linzi wanted David to see the buffalo herd. I wanted to get some background shots of the Japanese Tea Garden. I had done a sketch book redenering of a group of girls dressed in purple dresses. I missed the details on the gate and the prospective of the steps leading up the the gate. The tea garden was closed on this day as we were kind of late getting there. There were a ton of chair set up in front of the Tea Garden looking like a wedding No people were in the chairs.
We headed back down through the park to eat at Tom Kiang. Tom Kiang is our favorite Dim Sum place. The food is impeccably the right temperature when it is served. The room has table cloths and it is considerably upscale to most restaurants in this genre.
Sean was to pack and meet us there as the younger crowd was headed to San Jose for a big magic tournament. Sean got misdirected on the way from Berkeley to San Francisco. That is pretty easy to do as San Francisco is not an easy city to navigate in a car. He made it and we all had a great meal.
Our overnight was in Milbrae. Its a city on the peninsula, not far from where I grew up. This allowed for us to go take some reference photos of the places that I grew up and went to school.
We then headed south and had a nice chat with my mom and dad that live in Morgan Hill.
It was almost dark when we arrived home. What a nice trip.
Along the way I listened to the San Francisco Giants win their way into the National League Championship Series.
:) Pat
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Finally Fall Weather
Fall weather in the great central valley of California is something special.
Its still a "no coats needed" sort of experience.
Its a kind of weather that some days you want to hang out in the shade and others you want to basque in the bucolically warm sun.
Our city of Merced is an 80,000 plus city surrounded by agriculture fields of almonds,pistachios, dairy, peaches and nectarines. We even have some cotton fields within our city borders.
This year great piles of almonds are gather on the ground and swept into rows and dragged to processing plants. The hulls are whacked off and constitute the vast majority of the tree's product and reason for existence for the year. This year is a another great year. The trees were burdened with branches almost touching the ground. It is the first year that I can remember that there are giant piles of almonds in their hulls neatly labeled and waiting for processing. In most of the years the processing plants have kept up with harvest.
I have been told that there is no fear the price will ravage the farmers because of the quantity. The market place for most of these nuts is not domestic. We export most of these gems to Asia. They are high prized in their consumption. Can you imagine if we got fancy with our Chinese tariffs? Our valley depends on exporting these goods.
Get out there and enjoy some fall if you have any left. The folks in the mountains will not have to water or mow their lawns much longer. We wait for the first serious rainfall. Here in the valley it may be after Halloween.
: ) Pat
Its still a "no coats needed" sort of experience.
Its a kind of weather that some days you want to hang out in the shade and others you want to basque in the bucolically warm sun.
Our city of Merced is an 80,000 plus city surrounded by agriculture fields of almonds,pistachios, dairy, peaches and nectarines. We even have some cotton fields within our city borders.
This year great piles of almonds are gather on the ground and swept into rows and dragged to processing plants. The hulls are whacked off and constitute the vast majority of the tree's product and reason for existence for the year. This year is a another great year. The trees were burdened with branches almost touching the ground. It is the first year that I can remember that there are giant piles of almonds in their hulls neatly labeled and waiting for processing. In most of the years the processing plants have kept up with harvest.
I have been told that there is no fear the price will ravage the farmers because of the quantity. The market place for most of these nuts is not domestic. We export most of these gems to Asia. They are high prized in their consumption. Can you imagine if we got fancy with our Chinese tariffs? Our valley depends on exporting these goods.
Get out there and enjoy some fall if you have any left. The folks in the mountains will not have to water or mow their lawns much longer. We wait for the first serious rainfall. Here in the valley it may be after Halloween.
: ) Pat