Taking the rest of the day off

[mdlbear]

What was supposed to have been a simple matter of meeting the flower_cat at the passport office to apply for a passport for o the Y.D. ended up, between Colleen's health and the fact that the !@#$% feds no longer accept the version of a birth certificate that we had on hand and that they were accepting a mere couple of months ago, taking all morning and until well after 2pm.

At that point I could see that, if I wanted lunch and a walk, I was looking at an hour's worth of commuting for at most 2 hours' worth of work. I'll pass, thanks.

Comments

BTDT

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Had to do it for work (never mind that they KNOW they had to see that stuff when I was hired.) and had to dig up the certificate for my CO drivers license (because a name with a middle initial in it just won't do).

YD wants to visit OD, or are there other plans that require a passport?

Re: BTDT

[mdlbear]

She may be traveling to Australia next summer:

http://studentambassadors.org/

[jilara.livejournal.com]

There are new birth certificate requirements? WTF?

[mdlbear]

Apparently the little 1/3-page printout isn't enough now; they want something that looks like a scan of the original document, printed in the middle of a letter-sized page with a barcode at the bottom. The old one was called a "Certified Abstract of Birth"; the new one has "Certificate of Live Birth" printed on the original document.

Apparently the "abstract" isn't concrete enough for them.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the requirements get more ridiculous all the time. Bureaucrats, feh!

[mdlbear]

Gotta make sure you're a citizen in order to get your identity papers...

[jilara.livejournal.com]

Bad Vichy French accent: "Papers, please!"

Not really funny...

[mdlbear]

s/not really/really not/

[nimuejohn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if you don't have the right kind you have to go back and get re-born now. It's kinda inconvenient.

[mdlbear]

I wonder whether that gives born-again Christians an advantage.

[idea-fairy.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't born-again Christians need BOTH birth certificates?

[roaringmouse.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, the federal government has stopped accepting the short versions for immigration applications. The problem with the short versions that they are very easy to counterfeit. The abstract is also being used by many banks and department of motor vehicles. Sorry..

[mdlbear]

The long version looks almost as easy to fake, though if they cross-check it using the barcode it would work. Of course, that would require the county to have a database, which is almost as scary.