Slow Cooking recipes must have a significant amount of "buzz" to equalize the low cooking times and liquid that accumulates from a slow cooking meat dish. The following recipe accomplishes this. Lindsay thinks that the recipe needs more heat in the form of some peppers. Others in my family who do not require an assault to their taste buds prefer a sweeter more barbeque grilled approach to the pulled pork. Sue prefers to have the meat completely broken down so she needs a couple more hours of cooking to accomplish this state. So this is where it begins. It is recommended totally that you modify this recipe to the tastes of your diners.
Pulled Pork- Slow Cooker Style:
4 lbs of pork shoulder (could be in strips)
1 Cup BBQ sauce
1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 Cup Chicken Broth from a low sodium box
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 medium yellow onion chopped in big pieces
1TB mustard
1TBs of Worcester Sauce
1 TB of Chili Powder
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 TBS of dried Thyme
_____________
Cook in Slow Cooker for 6 hours on High
Pull meat out and separate with two forks
Pull liquid out of the cooker and reduce to a syrup if desired.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Shopping with the Sears Catalog
Christmas was somewhat problematic in a teacher household. There were no Christmas bonuses, we lived in a a very modest home in the suburbs of San Francisco. We had our Christmas delights. Most of them were pretty modest by today's standards.
As kids we had very few objects of desire. Our needs were met at Christmas with the Sears Roebuck catalog. We truly used it as a dream book.
We waited for it to come out with poised anticipation. Each child was able to circle ten things from its pages in hope that Santa would see it and take head. Around each circled item we would put our initals. We never got all that we had circled but a good portion of them. It taught us budgeting in a rather unique way.
I think that it also provided a way for Santa to get what we really wanted without the countless trips to the stores.
It was a different era then. There were no big box discount stores. There were no stores devoted to just "toys". Certainly no black Thursdays or Amazon.
Some gifts come to mind as stellar growing up.
Parking Garage
One was a gas station that now in retrospect must have required some agony in assembly. It was a sheet metal garage that had a roll up elevator that took the cars from one level to the other. There was a ramp that had a curve in it that allowed the cars to roll down to the grown level.
Electric Train
One Christmas we went to Colorado in the snow on the train. The Christmas present that year was an electric train set that had a locomotive that spewed out a little smoke... from a pellet. Grandma and Grandpa had a parlor area that no one used,. The parlor made a perfect train station for me and I configured that electric train in as many configurations as I could think for a kid of that age. I also learned that attention to detail was the only thing that would allow the train to go. If the train wasn't perfectly aligned on the track there was no way the train would travel.
Slot Car
One Christmas I got a slot car set up. It was before they called them slot cars. It needed a piece of plywood to set it up. It also required a space for a 4x8 piece of playwood, I bugged my dad get the piece of plywood that was required for it. The slot car track was in the form of a figure 8. It was great fun as the cars would have to slow down to miss each other where the 8 shape intersected or expect a giant crash. Crashes was more the common mode than caution. Later, when I grew a little older we would go to the sportsman club races on the filled in land in Brisbane and watch a figure 8 races set using real race cars. The drivers were a little more cautious at the intersection than I was with my toy set still there were crashes. It think that the demolition derbies grew out of this legit form of racing.
Glove
One year I lwished for a leather softball glove. It was a big deal as it cost 3 dollars. I circled it in the wish book and it came. It was a thing of true delight.
Boy Scout Tie Tack
One year my sole delight was a Boy Scout tie tack. We went to church almost every Sunday over the hill at rock a way beach. I thought that a Boy Scout tie tack with my skinny black tie would be the end all for the Sunday outfit. I was so happy when it was under the tree.
My Sisters
My sisters had the usual wishes too. One year, my eldest sister got a Chatty Cathy where you could replace the rugged plastic records in her torso and she would speak in different languages when her string was pulled. She had jaunty outfits and was a little stiff in the joints. Doll houses with its scaled down furniture were always in vogue.
Big Events at Christmas Time
One of our big events was to drive down on the road in front of the Marina in San Francisco and look at all of the fancy homes along the bay that had their Christmas Trees "designed" by decorators. Appropriately lit, they represented a style that we would never attain. It some ways we thought it was an enormous waste of money.
We found a Santa lap to get photos each year. One of them was in Hillsdale shopping center. Dad loved to take photos of us playing around the Bennie Baufano sculptures in the central meeting area. As I got older this Santa ritual was more of a pain than a seminal event.
As a family and sometimes an extended family we took our turn to walk through the trail that everyone took through the Podesta Baldocchi floral arrangement store at maiden lane at Grant Street and Union Square. Mom would get to pick her favorite ornament from the trees that adorned the store. And the smell of that many fresh trees and flowers in the winter time made the trip a wonderful experience.
We would always get a trip to the big stores in the City. We would love the dioramas in the windows and the gigantic tree that reached up through multiple stores in the union square department store. It had huge ornaments on it... one year it had a genuine french horn and a tricycle hanging from its branches. Macy's and the Emporium always were there to compete for our attention. A treat from Blums or Epplers bakery was a special delight. I still have difficulty turning down a Neapolitan.
It was a different life at Christmas than it is now with our connections enhanced and denigrated by social media, 80 satellite channels and DVDs of all the latest movies.
Challenge for today: Pull back an old Christmas memory!
Love, Pat
As kids we had very few objects of desire. Our needs were met at Christmas with the Sears Roebuck catalog. We truly used it as a dream book.
We waited for it to come out with poised anticipation. Each child was able to circle ten things from its pages in hope that Santa would see it and take head. Around each circled item we would put our initals. We never got all that we had circled but a good portion of them. It taught us budgeting in a rather unique way.
I think that it also provided a way for Santa to get what we really wanted without the countless trips to the stores.
It was a different era then. There were no big box discount stores. There were no stores devoted to just "toys". Certainly no black Thursdays or Amazon.
Some gifts come to mind as stellar growing up.
Parking Garage
One was a gas station that now in retrospect must have required some agony in assembly. It was a sheet metal garage that had a roll up elevator that took the cars from one level to the other. There was a ramp that had a curve in it that allowed the cars to roll down to the grown level.
Electric Train
One Christmas we went to Colorado in the snow on the train. The Christmas present that year was an electric train set that had a locomotive that spewed out a little smoke... from a pellet. Grandma and Grandpa had a parlor area that no one used,. The parlor made a perfect train station for me and I configured that electric train in as many configurations as I could think for a kid of that age. I also learned that attention to detail was the only thing that would allow the train to go. If the train wasn't perfectly aligned on the track there was no way the train would travel.
Slot Car
One Christmas I got a slot car set up. It was before they called them slot cars. It needed a piece of plywood to set it up. It also required a space for a 4x8 piece of playwood, I bugged my dad get the piece of plywood that was required for it. The slot car track was in the form of a figure 8. It was great fun as the cars would have to slow down to miss each other where the 8 shape intersected or expect a giant crash. Crashes was more the common mode than caution. Later, when I grew a little older we would go to the sportsman club races on the filled in land in Brisbane and watch a figure 8 races set using real race cars. The drivers were a little more cautious at the intersection than I was with my toy set still there were crashes. It think that the demolition derbies grew out of this legit form of racing.
Glove
One year I lwished for a leather softball glove. It was a big deal as it cost 3 dollars. I circled it in the wish book and it came. It was a thing of true delight.
Boy Scout Tie Tack
One year my sole delight was a Boy Scout tie tack. We went to church almost every Sunday over the hill at rock a way beach. I thought that a Boy Scout tie tack with my skinny black tie would be the end all for the Sunday outfit. I was so happy when it was under the tree.
My Sisters
My sisters had the usual wishes too. One year, my eldest sister got a Chatty Cathy where you could replace the rugged plastic records in her torso and she would speak in different languages when her string was pulled. She had jaunty outfits and was a little stiff in the joints. Doll houses with its scaled down furniture were always in vogue.
Big Events at Christmas Time
One of our big events was to drive down on the road in front of the Marina in San Francisco and look at all of the fancy homes along the bay that had their Christmas Trees "designed" by decorators. Appropriately lit, they represented a style that we would never attain. It some ways we thought it was an enormous waste of money.
We found a Santa lap to get photos each year. One of them was in Hillsdale shopping center. Dad loved to take photos of us playing around the Bennie Baufano sculptures in the central meeting area. As I got older this Santa ritual was more of a pain than a seminal event.
As a family and sometimes an extended family we took our turn to walk through the trail that everyone took through the Podesta Baldocchi floral arrangement store at maiden lane at Grant Street and Union Square. Mom would get to pick her favorite ornament from the trees that adorned the store. And the smell of that many fresh trees and flowers in the winter time made the trip a wonderful experience.
We would always get a trip to the big stores in the City. We would love the dioramas in the windows and the gigantic tree that reached up through multiple stores in the union square department store. It had huge ornaments on it... one year it had a genuine french horn and a tricycle hanging from its branches. Macy's and the Emporium always were there to compete for our attention. A treat from Blums or Epplers bakery was a special delight. I still have difficulty turning down a Neapolitan.
It was a different life at Christmas than it is now with our connections enhanced and denigrated by social media, 80 satellite channels and DVDs of all the latest movies.
Challenge for today: Pull back an old Christmas memory!
Love, Pat
Monday, December 3, 2012
Christmas Trees from the 60's
My sister has been texting me recently. We were reminding each other in a nostalgic sort of way how during this time of the year Christmas preparations began.
The Tree
Growing up we never had a tree early. There were many reasons for this. Dad's most effective reason was that the tree (natural of course) represented a major fire hazard in the house. They needed to be watered and monitored with regularity. Every year there were reports of houses burning down because of the tree catching fire.
Trees cost less when it got closer to Christmas. Our family was not a family that got Christmas bonuses and saved significantly for the holiday. We had time off but not much money. Teachers even in South San Francisco were not major shoppers during Christmas. Trees in the 60's cost upwards to 20 dollars then. If we waiting until the last week dad could negotiate a half price tree for us. 12 dollars was our upward limit. Waiting late in the season when the trees were already cut significantly increased their fire hazard which played into the fears of represented in the first paragraph.
Artificial trees were out of the question. They were very pricy and were not convincing in the 60s. Notable was the arrival of the aluminum tree that was always set up to rotate in the window with a multiple gel colors rotating on it sending the tree to exotic blues to electric reds within a period of just two minutes. And then there were the flocked trees. Don't get me started!
Grandpa, mom's dad would arrive in December with Grandma on the train. The men (sometimes including me) would head down to the industrial part of South San Francisco or cruise the vacant lots that suddenly sprung up as mini forests. Grandpa would look them over after dad had found a few candidates. Negotiations for price would ensue. Some lots would not lower their prices. We got back in the cars and headed to another. A scrawny left over tree was usually our fate. We usually got a fir, as the magnificent blue spruce trees were clearly out of our price range.
One year dad thought that the prices were entirely too high. He climbed up on the steep 5hill above our house that had the landslide. He thinned out a couple of trees that he thought that he had planted too close together. The were pines. He planted them there so that their roots would hold the soil and protect us from another landslide. They were about 5 feet tall sticky from head to toe. After looking them over, he got out his electric drill and sunk some holes in them and screwed lag bolts in the holes to bolster their strength. There was a gigantic hole in the branches where the two trees were joined together. A casual observer could see the splice. He spent the rest of the season congratulating himself on his cleverness and how the trees were perfect. I bet he would remember today if you asked him about the trees that he put together with his drill.
Grandparents Arrive
December the rain comes to Northern California. Sometimes it rains without letting up for days on end. This rain was also the reminder that Grandma and Grandpa were heading to see us. We often would see them in the summer and help with the peach harvest in their 30 acre orchard in Colorado. December would be their turn to get out of the cold and snow and get on the train, the California Zephyr in Grand Junction and head over the mountains in Utah and Nevada and see all of us in [sunny] California. Its sleek stainless steel cars with the observation domes were the ultimate in cross country travel. We had great times together.
We would often go into the city and go to basketball games together. I was a major fan of the pro team, the San Francisco Saints. They would perform down at civic center in the city. Later they would become the Warriors and would move across the bay and play in Oakland.
We would get fresh crabs down by the wharf and have them cracked and cleaned for us. Mom would make her famous minnestrone soup and we would feast on the famous french bread that made San Francisco famous.
The grandparents would be picked up at the ferry building in the city. We would slip back a couple of days later and pick up their luggage at the same spot. There would be fewer people in the car so that we had room for their enormous steamer trunks they traveled with. Grandma would pack mulitiple pounds of apples in the trunks along with special Christmas presents for the grandchildren. My sister reminded me that their gifts were often wrapped with multiple layers of white tissue paper with a spritz of glitter thrown in.
Christmas with the Grandparents was always special. Mom missed her parents all the year when we were in California and when they arrived it was always something special for her.
Best Wishes for your Personal Memories this Holiday Season
: ) Pat
The Tree
Growing up we never had a tree early. There were many reasons for this. Dad's most effective reason was that the tree (natural of course) represented a major fire hazard in the house. They needed to be watered and monitored with regularity. Every year there were reports of houses burning down because of the tree catching fire.
Trees cost less when it got closer to Christmas. Our family was not a family that got Christmas bonuses and saved significantly for the holiday. We had time off but not much money. Teachers even in South San Francisco were not major shoppers during Christmas. Trees in the 60's cost upwards to 20 dollars then. If we waiting until the last week dad could negotiate a half price tree for us. 12 dollars was our upward limit. Waiting late in the season when the trees were already cut significantly increased their fire hazard which played into the fears of represented in the first paragraph.
Artificial trees were out of the question. They were very pricy and were not convincing in the 60s. Notable was the arrival of the aluminum tree that was always set up to rotate in the window with a multiple gel colors rotating on it sending the tree to exotic blues to electric reds within a period of just two minutes. And then there were the flocked trees. Don't get me started!
Grandpa, mom's dad would arrive in December with Grandma on the train. The men (sometimes including me) would head down to the industrial part of South San Francisco or cruise the vacant lots that suddenly sprung up as mini forests. Grandpa would look them over after dad had found a few candidates. Negotiations for price would ensue. Some lots would not lower their prices. We got back in the cars and headed to another. A scrawny left over tree was usually our fate. We usually got a fir, as the magnificent blue spruce trees were clearly out of our price range.
One year dad thought that the prices were entirely too high. He climbed up on the steep 5hill above our house that had the landslide. He thinned out a couple of trees that he thought that he had planted too close together. The were pines. He planted them there so that their roots would hold the soil and protect us from another landslide. They were about 5 feet tall sticky from head to toe. After looking them over, he got out his electric drill and sunk some holes in them and screwed lag bolts in the holes to bolster their strength. There was a gigantic hole in the branches where the two trees were joined together. A casual observer could see the splice. He spent the rest of the season congratulating himself on his cleverness and how the trees were perfect. I bet he would remember today if you asked him about the trees that he put together with his drill.
Grandparents Arrive
December the rain comes to Northern California. Sometimes it rains without letting up for days on end. This rain was also the reminder that Grandma and Grandpa were heading to see us. We often would see them in the summer and help with the peach harvest in their 30 acre orchard in Colorado. December would be their turn to get out of the cold and snow and get on the train, the California Zephyr in Grand Junction and head over the mountains in Utah and Nevada and see all of us in [sunny] California. Its sleek stainless steel cars with the observation domes were the ultimate in cross country travel. We had great times together.
We would often go into the city and go to basketball games together. I was a major fan of the pro team, the San Francisco Saints. They would perform down at civic center in the city. Later they would become the Warriors and would move across the bay and play in Oakland.
We would get fresh crabs down by the wharf and have them cracked and cleaned for us. Mom would make her famous minnestrone soup and we would feast on the famous french bread that made San Francisco famous.
The grandparents would be picked up at the ferry building in the city. We would slip back a couple of days later and pick up their luggage at the same spot. There would be fewer people in the car so that we had room for their enormous steamer trunks they traveled with. Grandma would pack mulitiple pounds of apples in the trunks along with special Christmas presents for the grandchildren. My sister reminded me that their gifts were often wrapped with multiple layers of white tissue paper with a spritz of glitter thrown in.
Christmas with the Grandparents was always special. Mom missed her parents all the year when we were in California and when they arrived it was always something special for her.
Best Wishes for your Personal Memories this Holiday Season
: ) Pat
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Invictus
After seeing the dramatic movie Invictus, I was intrigued by the parts of the poem that lend the movie its title.
In the movie it is used as an inspiration point to lead people beyond what performance that is logically possible. Mandela was inspired to move the people out of apartheid prejudice and into developing a country the would come together and not seek revenge upon itself. Matt Damon's character used it to challenge his leadership to take a rugby team that had absolutely no chance of winning against a team that was rolling over other throughout the world, and get them to believe that they could win. And they did.
This is a pretty powerful piece of poetry that was used. My web search brought it up so that you may get some inspiration from it if needed. : ) Pat
In the movie it is used as an inspiration point to lead people beyond what performance that is logically possible. Mandela was inspired to move the people out of apartheid prejudice and into developing a country the would come together and not seek revenge upon itself. Matt Damon's character used it to challenge his leadership to take a rugby team that had absolutely no chance of winning against a team that was rolling over other throughout the world, and get them to believe that they could win. And they did.
This is a pretty powerful piece of poetry that was used. My web search brought it up so that you may get some inspiration from it if needed. : ) Pat
| Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern British Poetry. 1920. |
| William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903 |
| 7. Invictus |
| OUT of the night that covers me, | |
| Black as the Pit from pole to pole, | |
| I thank whatever gods may be | |
| For my unconquerable soul. | |
| In the fell clutch of circumstance | 5 |
| I have not winced nor cried aloud. | |
| Under the bludgeonings of chance | |
| My head is bloody, but unbowed. | |
| Beyond this place of wrath and tears | |
| Looms but the Horror of the shade, | 10 |
| And yet the menace of the years | |
| Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. | |
| It matters not how strait the gate, | |
| How charged with punishments the scroll, | |
| I am the master of my fate: | 15 |
| I am the captain of my soul. |
Our Trademark fog
Tule fog. It comes up from the ground. moisture from the soil chills off in the night and fog forms early in the morning. this morning in November the fog is thick. Yet at 10:00 it retreats up into the sky and looks like the coastal fog. Sometimes, later in the year, in late December and January, the fog comes in early in the evening. I fully expect that this afternoon will be sunny and in the high sixties or low 70s. This is what a non rainy day looks like in this part of the world.
Its no picnic to be a driver through the fog. This is especially true of the rural roads where it is not uncommon to roll down your window at intersections before pulling out. School buses are now have radar detectors in the country so that movement in the intersection can be noted. Still many accidents occur because people do not slow down or use their head as to when to drive. Speed is deadly in fog. Careful patient drivers are needed to sort out the traffic. Drive carefully!
Its no picnic to be a driver through the fog. This is especially true of the rural roads where it is not uncommon to roll down your window at intersections before pulling out. School buses are now have radar detectors in the country so that movement in the intersection can be noted. Still many accidents occur because people do not slow down or use their head as to when to drive. Speed is deadly in fog. Careful patient drivers are needed to sort out the traffic. Drive carefully!
Friday, October 26, 2012
Passport Panic
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!
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!
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)