Fiance finally over here

[fathertime]

Congrats Jim!  Australia sounds like an adventure, so I say why not go for it?  Hopefully something good is happening in the Austriaian economy. 


BTW: You were grumbling about not having a summer in Washington, so I'm assuming it has been rather chilly there.  Here in S. CA, this is the mildest summer I can ever remember, last year was mild too.  Last summer, I remember reading that the global weather pattern has changed and our typical W. Coast summers are going to be a little more chilly. Also the waters off our coastline have also chilled up a bit.


Fathertime!

[robert angel]

True and humorous as it may seem, this next quote is now said to not have come from Mark Twain, according to many sources. Most of the other quotes are indeed attributed to him.
 
 "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."   
 
 
Mark Twain Quotes
 "Familiarity breeds contempt - and children."  The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.

How come we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

"Familiarity breeds contempt - and children.

"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

"When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.   More Mark Twain Quotes 
Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Principles have no real force except when one is well fed.

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

Virtue has never been as respectable as money.

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.

It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel.

It could probably be show by facts and figures that there is no distinctively native American criminal class except Congress.

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.

If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be - a Christian.

George Washington as a boy was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth - he could not even lie.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be led by the nose.

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

The holy passion of Friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards

Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain of.

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to bring the news to you.

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

There are times when one would like to end the whole human race, and finish the farce.

If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man.

I did not attend his funeral, but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved it.

Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run.

If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill always came together, who would escape hanging?

This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.

Carlyle said, "A lie cannot live"; it shows he did not know how to tell them.

In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than on all other days of the year put together. This proves, by the numbers left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.

There ought to be a room in every house to swear in.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. (Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.)

I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get the same money for cop.

Of the delights of this world, man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.

We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race: he brought death into the world.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it--and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit on a hot stove lid again--and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

If we had less statemanship we could get along with fewer battleships.

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.   Even More Mark Twain Quotations  "When in doubt, tell the truth."  Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

When you cannot get a compliment any other way pay yourself one.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.

The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible.

Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principle one was that they escaped teething.

Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it.

Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.

Somewhere between the Angels and the French lies the rest of humanity.

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

I did it partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.

I have spent most of my time worrying about thigs that have never happened.

A patriot is mocked, scorned and hated; yet when his cause succeeds, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

I can live two months on a good compliment.

I was born modest. Not all over, but in spots.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

(He was) a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds upon the heel that crushes it.

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.

Never tell the truth to those unworthy of it....

At the beginning of a great national change, the patriot is a scarce man: scorned, ridiculed and forgotten. When his cause succeeds, however, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.

Sacred cows make the best hamburgers.

I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.

Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"--a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others.

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

Fleas can be taught nearly anything a congressman can.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.

So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked.

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

It is noble to teach oneself, it is still nobler to teach others.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.

October is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. Others are July, January, April, September, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.

I am prepared to meet anyone, but whether anyone is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to angelship.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

We all have thoughts that would shame the devil.

Golf is a good walk, ruined.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence -- and then success is sure.

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

Get your facts first and then you can distort them as much as you wish.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.   The Mark Twain Quotations Keep Rolling On ...  " Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't."  We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they was made or just happened.

I never let schooling interfere with my education.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of congress but I repeat myself.

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

To cease smoking is the easiset thing I ever did. I ought to know, I've done it a thousand times.

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and over these ideals they dispute, but they all worship money.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Describing her first day back in grade school after a long absence, a teacher said, It was like trying to hold 35 corks under water at the same time.

Behold, the fool saith, Put not all thine eggs in the one basket, -- which is but a manner of saying, Scatter your money and your attention, but the wise man saith, Put all your eggs in the one basket and -- watch that basket.

On his deathbed Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuse are for all -- the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.

Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.

The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven.

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.

Man will do many things to get himself loved he will do all things to get himself envied.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its one sure defense.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

A verb has a hard enough time of it in this world when it is all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it a way over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German.

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

I've come loaded with statistics, for I've noticed that a man can't prove anything without statistics.

It were not best that we should all think alike it is the difference of opinion that makes horse races. - from Pudd'nhead Wilson

It is the difference of opinion that makes horse races.

I have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language and add no translation. When I am the reader, and the other considers me able to do the translating myself, he pays me the quite a nice compliment-- but if he would do the translating for me I would try to get along without the compliment. (A Tramp Abroad,1880)

When one has tasted watermelon he knows what the angels eat.

Why shoudn't truth be stranger than fiction Fiction, after all, has to stick to the possibilities.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere.

Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it hundreds of times.

A house without a cat, and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat, may be a perfect house, perhaps, but how can it prove its title --from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

I cannot keep from talking, even at the risk of being instructive.

A man with a new idea is a crank -- until the idea succeeds.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.

After all these years I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.

Youth, large, lusty, loving- Youth, full of grace, force, fascination. Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination

The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

A classic is a book which people praise and don't read.

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.

Do something every day that you don't want to do this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

He would come in and say he changed his mind -- which was a gilded figure of speech, because he didn't have any.

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

When I was a child people simply looked about them and were moderately happy today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.

There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.

I am an old man and have a great many troubles, But most of them never happened.

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be--a christian.

A man is accepted into church for what he believes--and turned out for what he knows.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can read.

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race and finish the farce.

The rule is perfect in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.    Some final Mark Twain Quotations ...  "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."  Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you're busy interrupting.

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles.. by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence then success is sure.

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell you see, I have friends in both places.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

Cold If the thermometer had been an inch longer we'd all have frozen to death

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.

Wagner's music is better than it sounds.

Civilization is a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right.

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler--and less trouble.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate when he can't afford it, and when he can. - from Following the Equator

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

Tomorrow night I appear for the first time before a Boston audience of 4000 critics.

Some people get an eduction without going to college the rest get it after they get out.

Go and surprise the whole country by doing something right.

The trouble isn't that there are too many fools, but that the lightning isn't distributed right.

Religion consists of a set of things which the average man thinks he believes and wishes he was certain.

We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty.

There is no such thing as the Queen's English. The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, what counts is the size of the fight in the dog.

Few sinners are saved after the fiirst twenty minutes of a sermon.

Be good and you will be lonesome.

Everything has its limit--iron ore cannot be educated into gold. - 1906

Eloquence is the essential thing in a speech, not information.

Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned. - Notebook, 1898

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before.

All schools, all colleges have two great functions to confer, and to conceal valuable knowledge. - Notebook, 1908

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

It is noble to teach oneself, but still nobler to teach others--and less trouble. - speech, 1906

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions.

It is discouraging to try and penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out and dance on it. That would take some of the rigidity out of it.

The billiard table is better than the doctor.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.

Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.

Time cools, time clarifies no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

An enemy can partly ruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete the thing and make it perfect.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education

[Tanuki]

End of one chapter and now on to the next.  Congrats JM!

[jm21-2]

Yes, if we decided to move to Australia and live there a few years she'd probably lose her permanent residency and we'd have to start the process with a spouse visa, though it should be somewhat easier the second time around. We thought about skipping the AOS process and just moving to Australia (there's a type of working visa I could get quickly that is good for a year) but we wanted to be together for a year or so before potentially having to split up again. We would be going for AUS citizenship. She's a permanent resident and after 4 years there (3.5 for her, 4 for me) we'd be citizens. Their economy is doing really well right now but hoping the US dollar comes back a bit so it's easier to move over. 




One thing I/we majorly screwed up: I had seen it's a good idea to get some sort of number from the social security administration, but when we looked at the paperwork it said she couldn't get an SSN unless she was work authorized, we were dealing with a bunch of other things at the time, and we put it off too long. She doesn't need the number for anything here in WA at least), but the process of getting a driver's license has been made significantly harder because she doesn't have the number. It's much more lengthy/difficult to prove her residence for driving license purposes than we had ever imagined and we probably could have skipped that step with a number from the SSA. By the time we figured it out her I-94 end date had just elapsed. The process here without the number is you apply for an interview, they mail you a form, you send the form in, they call you to set up an interview time. But they only call twice and she missed the calls. So now she has to start all over again and not at all happy (takes about 3-4 weeks). Now we're stuck waiting for the AOS to go through before she can get any sort of SSN it looks like. Really wish the instructions from the SSA were a bit better.

[Ray]

 
OK, so YOU (not we) screwed up the SSN thing.
 
Now file the I-485 AOS package along with the I-765 EAD application to obtain her Work Authorization card. Also file a request for Advance Parole with your package.
 
Then take her to SSA with her passport and EAD card and apply for a SSN. You don't need to wait for her Green Card.
 
Ray
 
 

[jm21-2]

So a bit of an update....


My wife didn't have vaccination records or a ds-3025 so she has been freaking out a bit and stalling because the doctors here were saying she would have to have some vaccinations done (which she has already had) due to the lack of records. She's been worried about the health risks of doing the vaccinations multiple times. But, it looks like her mom may have found the ds-3025. They gave my wife some DVD they had put some generic information on or something, and inside the DVD case they had slipped in the ds-3025....or something like that. Should have a scanned copy today...that's the last bit and then we submit it. It actually ends up being a lot of paperwork after you put everything together.

[jm21-2]

Got a copy of the ds-3025, sent off all the paperwork, and have gotten our notices of action for everything now. They called her again about this driver's license appointment and scheduled an interview for her which is all taken care of now. Had to drive down to Tacoma department of licensing so that they could take 30 seconds to call the electric company for our house and confirm she was listed on the account. Talk about a waste of time....but now she can take the driver's test so what the hell....


Now just waiting....

[robert angel]

jm-21-2:
A see as of a few weeks back, you're still thinking of moving to Australia. Does that mean you're still not considering moving to rural Vietnam?

[jm21-2]

jm-21-2:
A see as of a few weeks back, you're still thinking of moving to Australia. Does that mean you're still not considering moving to rural Vietnam?

Rural Vietnam would be if we could retire early....Australia is booming right now and would be a good place to work towards that.

[robert angel]

Rural Vietnam would be if we could retire early....Australia is booming right now and would be a good place to work towards that.

At first I thought the idea about rural Vietnam was really 'out there', but I guess I was comparing it to life in the North Western USA and not Vietnam on it's own merits. I hear tourism is way up and there are some lovely areas, including nice beaches in Vietnam. I think I'll have a closer look at how 'livable' it is. I think that even if I own a house in the Philippines, that I have to leave the country once a year to keep my visa legal. Vietnam and Hong Kong come to mind when I think if not too far away places I'd like to visit.

[jm21-2]

I thought I saw some sort of retirement visa to the PI. I know Thailand has one and quite a few other countries as well. Can't remember if Vietnam does but I'm sure it will eventually....everyone likes money coming to their country.


We figure we can live pretty comfortably on $1,500 per month or maybe a bit less in most of rural SE Asia...though in reality we might be close to that here in the US if I paid off my mortgage. We're currently averaging about $2,500-3,000/month with me commuting and a mortgage payment....though pho would definitely be cheaper over there....


The USD is depreciating so rapidly right now though a lot of dreams of living in foreign countries are going up in flames...

[Osa]

The USD is depreciating so rapidly right now though a lot of dreams of living in foreign countries are going up in flames...