Bureaucracy, Act II
I received a call today from the automobile moving company.
They are planning on picking up the car on Friday, and asked if I'd be in Dallas with the car title to meet them. "Uh, no?"
Fortunately I'd done some homework and knew that I'd need the title to import the car, and I've made arrangements for that, but, on the less fortunate side of matters, 1) as of the time of the call, the title had probably been mailed but was still in transit, and 2) the title was on its way here, to Vancouver, and not to Dallas.
I asked the auto shipper if they could move the date back a few days while I sorted out things over here. When I spoke to my auto finance company, however, I received a bit of a surprise. "Yes, sir, we received the check, and the title was mailed this morning to 5833 . . . Dallas, TX."
"To Dallas?"
This goes a long way toward solving the problem of getting the title into the glovebox of the car, but doesn't help so much with faxing a copy to US customs or any of that. Provided all my fingers and toes are crossed, maybe Kelley will come through for me again, and take care of the Dallas side paperwork.
I don't know how other people do it — not everyone has friends as good as I do. What if I didn't still know people back home? Wow, would this all be more complicated.
In other news, Canadian news agencies today are all abuzz about worries regarding a sudden onslaught of disgruntled Democrats into Canada. On the negative side, they said if you try to claim refugee status, they might let you in for a little while, but chances are you'll be dumped out again soon (not even the Canadians hate Bush that much). On the brighter side, though, they said they have no intention of modifying immigration policy toward Americans to try to divert any sudden demand. That means lines may be long, but if anyone wants to come up here and be my Canada friend, you're still not dissuaded from doing so. I still think it's the greatest place in the world (well, Vancouver is anyway — I can't speak for the places where it gets -50C in the winter).
Anyway, getting a job here first was still highly recommended.
* * *
I also found out today that in my lease, the Postal Code for my apartment was incorrect. I'm not really sure how that happens — a typo on a letter or two would make sense, but getting the wrong code altogether takes some work. I'm thinking perhaps the building used to be in the other postal code, and things have changed since then.
It's not that big a deal, but now I have to go through all the places I've given my address to already and correct them.
That and the real postal code has three sixes in it. I'm in the jurisdiction of the Postmaster of the Beast, apparently. it's interesting to me, though, that the code seems to be unique to my building. I didn't realize how specific these codes were, but perhaps they correspond more closely to the 9 digit ZIP rather than the 5 digit ZIP in the US. Learn something every day.
* * *
After work tonight, I was feeling a little spunky and in the mood for more exploring, so I threw on some comfy jeans and a sweater and went for a walk. Tonight's agenda was the West End, so I walked down Georgia St nearly to Stanley park, and then south on Denman. I'd heard it was a street renown for bicycle and skate rentals (due to its proximity to the park) and great little ethnic restaurants (due to its proximity to . . . uh . . . ethnicity?). I'd heard correctly.
I started making mental notes of all the little hole-in-the wall restaurants on about a half mile stretch of this street: Chinese (including Sichuan, Cantonese, and a homemade noodle house), Japanese (several of both yakitori and sushi places), Mongolian barbecue, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Korean, not one but two Ukrainian restaurants, French, Greek, Italian, Kenyan, British, Mexican, American (including sandwich shops, a hamburger joint, a very enticing specialty hotdog shop, and a New York pizza shop), Canadian, and if I'm permitted to cheat a little and include the little end of Davies that's essentially part of the same neighborhood, Indian, and what seems to be one of the world's only gourmet First Peoples (Native Canadian / Native American) restaurants.
Despite all this variety, I couldn't resist the $7.95 veggie buffet at the Indian place, and I wasn't disappointed. Their tomato soup was some of the best I've ever had. I've still got a whole lot of time to try all the other places.
They are planning on picking up the car on Friday, and asked if I'd be in Dallas with the car title to meet them. "Uh, no?"
Fortunately I'd done some homework and knew that I'd need the title to import the car, and I've made arrangements for that, but, on the less fortunate side of matters, 1) as of the time of the call, the title had probably been mailed but was still in transit, and 2) the title was on its way here, to Vancouver, and not to Dallas.
I asked the auto shipper if they could move the date back a few days while I sorted out things over here. When I spoke to my auto finance company, however, I received a bit of a surprise. "Yes, sir, we received the check, and the title was mailed this morning to 5833 . . . Dallas, TX."
"To Dallas?"
This goes a long way toward solving the problem of getting the title into the glovebox of the car, but doesn't help so much with faxing a copy to US customs or any of that. Provided all my fingers and toes are crossed, maybe Kelley will come through for me again, and take care of the Dallas side paperwork.
I don't know how other people do it — not everyone has friends as good as I do. What if I didn't still know people back home? Wow, would this all be more complicated.
In other news, Canadian news agencies today are all abuzz about worries regarding a sudden onslaught of disgruntled Democrats into Canada. On the negative side, they said if you try to claim refugee status, they might let you in for a little while, but chances are you'll be dumped out again soon (not even the Canadians hate Bush that much). On the brighter side, though, they said they have no intention of modifying immigration policy toward Americans to try to divert any sudden demand. That means lines may be long, but if anyone wants to come up here and be my Canada friend, you're still not dissuaded from doing so. I still think it's the greatest place in the world (well, Vancouver is anyway — I can't speak for the places where it gets -50C in the winter).
Anyway, getting a job here first was still highly recommended.
* * *
I also found out today that in my lease, the Postal Code for my apartment was incorrect. I'm not really sure how that happens — a typo on a letter or two would make sense, but getting the wrong code altogether takes some work. I'm thinking perhaps the building used to be in the other postal code, and things have changed since then.
It's not that big a deal, but now I have to go through all the places I've given my address to already and correct them.
That and the real postal code has three sixes in it. I'm in the jurisdiction of the Postmaster of the Beast, apparently. it's interesting to me, though, that the code seems to be unique to my building. I didn't realize how specific these codes were, but perhaps they correspond more closely to the 9 digit ZIP rather than the 5 digit ZIP in the US. Learn something every day.
* * *
After work tonight, I was feeling a little spunky and in the mood for more exploring, so I threw on some comfy jeans and a sweater and went for a walk. Tonight's agenda was the West End, so I walked down Georgia St nearly to Stanley park, and then south on Denman. I'd heard it was a street renown for bicycle and skate rentals (due to its proximity to the park) and great little ethnic restaurants (due to its proximity to . . . uh . . . ethnicity?). I'd heard correctly.
I started making mental notes of all the little hole-in-the wall restaurants on about a half mile stretch of this street: Chinese (including Sichuan, Cantonese, and a homemade noodle house), Japanese (several of both yakitori and sushi places), Mongolian barbecue, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Korean, not one but two Ukrainian restaurants, French, Greek, Italian, Kenyan, British, Mexican, American (including sandwich shops, a hamburger joint, a very enticing specialty hotdog shop, and a New York pizza shop), Canadian, and if I'm permitted to cheat a little and include the little end of Davies that's essentially part of the same neighborhood, Indian, and what seems to be one of the world's only gourmet First Peoples (Native Canadian / Native American) restaurants.
Despite all this variety, I couldn't resist the $7.95 veggie buffet at the Indian place, and I wasn't disappointed. Their tomato soup was some of the best I've ever had. I've still got a whole lot of time to try all the other places.