Back to the USA…
Well, Vancouver was far less of a hassle than I expected. The consulate had my passport ready the same day and I was left with a couple of days to do some sightseing. Also, Budget car rentals at the Vancouver airport gave me over 100 bucks worth of coupons for all kinds of things from the Aquarium, the museum, McMillan space center etc. In short, I had a blast. I even had time to visit Whistler. I’ll be posting my videos and pictures shortly.
One more trip to Vancouver
Here we go again… I am leaving in 2 days for Vancouver again. This is a repeat of last year’s visa stamping thing at the US consulate there. It should go much smoother this time since they already have most of my information on their computers. I guess we’ll see if I am staying 6 days or a month and a half like last time 
On a brighter note, I have been mucking around with Ubuntu on an IBM Thinkpad T42. I have to say that so far, it pretty darn good after running automatix and bringing over the Tahoma font from the NTFS partition. Performance is acceptable and the features are just amazing. I will be taking this laptop with me to Vancouver and working remotely through VPN, which incidentally was a breeze to configure on Ubuntu. Read the full article »
Morocco Underground
These days, I am learning more and more about my own people. This video sums up to stuff you don’t see on TV. Nobody here is wearing white dresses or long beards, just twenty somethings having fun. Exciting stuff, including a dropped lawsuit against Hard Metal band due to intesive riotting/protests. I guess Morocco will be shedding its 3rd world label any decade now…
Back from Morocco :’(
I spent 2 wonderful weeks in Morocco between Tangier and Casablanca. I took a few pictures and they’ll be coming up soon along with some videos. I was having so much fun, I forgot to take pictures 
I spent most of my time there visiting family, helping my parents prepare their retirement residences, and eating as much Moroccan food as I could. The remaining time was spent watching satellite tv, which by the way blows the doors off anything we have here in the US. My parents have a motorized dish that gets most the European satellites and Hotbird alone has some 500 (good) channels on it!! I am green with envy
As far as being setup with marriage candidates 
this was done somewhat discretely with some minor brain washing on my mom’s part (love you mom! ) but nothing really interesting. Plus 2 weeks is barely enough to get over jet lag, let alone get to know someone well enough to decide on marriage…
Look forward to pictures from modern day Morocco in the coming days…
Home sweet home, here I come!
Christmas gifts for friends and coworkers: Check!
Vacation request from work for trip: Check!
Passport + Visa: Check, Check! (see Vancouver posts)
Packing: …
I may not be blogging much until I come back January 7th, but I’ll have some nice pictures from Morocco for you, so be sure to check back around then.
Snow season starting soon!
So, I’ve been living la vida loca for a while since I got back from Vancouver. Things are quieting down a little. Looking forward to the snow season, when I’ll be driving to Kirkwood at Tahoe almost (maybe even every) weekend!
Oh, yeah, going back to Casablanca, Morroco, for a couple of weeks. I’ll try and plan a nice new year’s party for my folks.
Vancouver Trip
So I renewed my passport and had to go to the US consulate in Vancouver to get my visa stamped on the new passport. I got stuck there for a month and a half waiting for security clearance! This forced vacation gave me some time to do some sightseeing and made me gain a few pounds from the awesome sushi and the great Chinese food.
Coming home July 16th!!!
I am finally going home!!
Visa clearance granted, going home Saturday morning and then it’s paaaaaarty!
Day 37, still in Vancouver
Still in Vancouver. Day 37, still no news.
I sent the consulate another email hoping they can shed some light on what is taking so long. How hard can it be to figure out I am not a threat. I have lived in the US legally for the last 7 years for christ’s sake!!
Frustration mounting. Not sure I can wait much longer. It would be sooo easy to find a job here and move my stuff over! 
Still in Vancouver
I have been in Vacouver for 34 days waiting for my visa from the US consulate. I can’t believe I have been stuck here for so long. If this goes on much longer, I am moving to Canada!
Preparing for Vancouver
Through a convoluted twist of bureaucracy, here is what is happening withing the next few weeks:
Trip to Los Angeles to get a Canadian visitor visa.
Trip to Vacouver to get an H1B visa stamped on my new passport.