22 December 2007: Visa

We had been warned it could take nine months. It turned out to be seven and a half.

Yes, that's right, we (more specifically, I) have finally been given a visa to move to the USA. It wasn't easy, it wasn't fun and it wasn't something I'd ever recommend. But it's done, and as we reflect on the process, it's worth running through a few things we learned along the way in case anyone reading this blog wants to get a marriage visa to move to the US.

The process began in May when we started considering the possibility of moving. We investigated the process from the US Embassy website and realised it was a multi-stage process, the first of which was mainly to do with proving that Gloria was a US citizen. That's why we have passports, you may think. You'd be wrong. For the US Visa and Immigration service, we had to fill in a whole bunch of forms and wait two months for them to even look at it all. Eventually they said ok, we agree Gloria is a US citizen and is allowed to sponsor a spouse.

Then they turned their attention to me. We had to fill in another bunch of forms but also we had to get a whole series of other pieces of information, most of which we had in our possession (long-form birth certificate, for instance) but one of which we didn't (police check from sometime in the last twelve months). Had we known in advance we needed one, I'd have gone to the Police Station and asked them for one some time before, since it takes 40 days for one to arrive. In addition, they asked for Gloria's "most recent tax return", which (since the IRS were insisting on making me apply for a US tax number simply because I was married to a US citizen) was the 2005 return rather than the 2006 return, which was still in process. We phoned the £1.20 per minute helpline, who responded "you need to email instead." We emailed, asking whether they meant us to bring the 2005 tax return or the as-yet-not-processed 2006 return. response: Thank you for your email enquiry. Unfortunately we can only accept the most recent tax return. Well, that clears that up then. Anyway, eventually we got all of this documentation together and so filled in more forms and said "we have everything you've asked, please can we have an interview now?"

In the meantime I made an appointment for, and attended, a medical where I had to pay a lot of money for a Harley Street doctor to do a five-minute examination and do a chest X-ray showing I didn't have TB. My local GP could have done all of that, but the US Embassy don't recognise the NHS as a valid medical practice. And let's not even talk about the blood tests I had to get in order to prove that I didn't need vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella because I'd had all three diseases. Anyway, after a good bit of hassle, they decided I was clean and so another hoop was successfully jumped through.

The Embassy wrote back. Interview date 9 October. Please arrange for a medical interview. Well, done that already. So we carefully got all the documents in order, headed to London, waited in line for our "8.30 appointment" (ha ha) in the pouring rain and eventually made it inside, took a ticket, waited two hours and eventually got called for our interview. Well, not really an interview as they never asked us anything other than "please give us the next document." It was much more like going to a bank teller window than an interview. But anyway, they told us that as all our income is UK earned, and the US Immigration service don't recognise income earned outside of the US (which is funny, because the US tax people certainly do recognise foreign earned income since Gloria has to pay tax on it) and as such we were under the poverty line and as such invalid for a marriage visa. The lady said we needed at least seventeen and a half thousand dollars in a US bank in order to meet this requirement, and thus we'd need a joint sponsor who could show they had seventeen and a half thousand dollars in a US account. Message is clear: only rich people are allowed to marry foreigners. Please go and sit down, the lady said, and we'll call you back later to let you know the decision.

Waited another hour or so, then called back to the desk where we were told our application for the visa had been suspended because (1) we had no money (actually, we had not earned US dollars, we had earned plenty of pounds sterling over the last twelve months) and thus we needed a joint sponsor who could show fifty thousand dollars of US savings. Fifty thousand. Not seventeen, we asked? No, fifty thousand, five-zero. And (2) we had provided no evidence of a completed 2006 tax return. It's in process as they're making me apply for a tax number. It's October, the lady said, taxes are filed by April so it has to have been processed by now. Essentially the message was "you're lying". In order to get the visa, she continued, you need to provide a completed 2006 tax return in addition to the joint sponsor. Now please take your chest X-ray photo and go away. (Why did they have my chest x-ray and why were they giving it to me now? I'd paid for it, I guess. Maybe I'll hang it on the wall.)

Gloria was in tears by this point. It's stressful enough to have to go through this long, largely pointless process but to be accused of lying by a rude US government employee who clearly would much rather we didn't exist was very bad indeed, especially when the reason the taxes weren't yet sorted was because it was another branch of US government employees, the IRS tax service, who were causing the delay.

I won't detail the tax side of it, except to say that they lost things, mis-processed things and changes the rules half way through such that I ended up being both denied and accepted for a US tax number. The good old IRS also have a telephone helpline, on which they told us more than once that they had no record of Gloria's tax return for 2006 because it was in transit from one office to another, but don't worry, it'll probably just show up somewhere in a few weeks. Hm, we thought, had they said that to the lady at the US Embassy they would certainly have been accused of lying. But what can you do? All we could do was wait.

Meantime a phone call to the visa helpline to clear up the discrepancy between the joint sponsor amounts we had been told... was it seventeen thousand or fifty thousand? Which was correct? Neither are correct, the man on the expensive phone line said, the joint sponsor just has to make up the shortfall in US funds to get the total up to seventeen thousand. Sheesh. Three different stories from three different people. Best bet, we thought, is to make sure all three situations were covered, including topping up our US bank account to the seventeen thousand amount and printing off a statement proving it.

Still nothing from the US tax people though, so off we went on holiday to Italy, and back we came to find still nothing. All this for an almost-zero tax return: actually, due to some bizarre tax rule related to long-distance telephone accounts, the IRS actually owed Gloria thirty dollars. And guess what? One chilly Saturday afternoon in November, thirty dollars was deposited from the IRS into our US bank account. Nothing in the mail of course, but now we had proof: they had found the tax return and processed it. Now we were allowed to re-enter the visa process!

Of course, it's one thing knowing that the IRS has processed your taxes, it's quite another to prove it. From what we could tell, we now had to print out yet another form, fax it to an office in Austin, Texas, have them mail the tax return printout to someone in Gloria's family, and have them courier it over as quickly as possible. Except - well, we had discovered in our dealings with the US Embassy in London that they had a small IRS office there. We knew they didn't give tax advice or help with filling out the hugely-complex US tax forms, but perhaps they were linked up to the main computer and thus could provide the printout we needed? Gloria walked in to the Embassy (as a US citizen!) and asked. Yes, said a helpful lady, I'll do it for you right now.

Right now? For free? Were things finally starting to accelerate for us?

So with tax printouts and joint sponsor forms completed, we sent it all off to the US Embassy by SMS courier (despite the fact I was working in London and could easily have dropped it all in by hand - not allowed to do that!) and waited. Three to five days, we'd been told. That's if it's successful. (If I had been denied, incidentally, it would have been very difficult for me to ever enter the US as I'd never be allowed to do the I-94 visa waiver form that you normally do when you visit the US on holiday - instead I'd have to apply for a temporary visa each time, and given I'd been denied a visa before, the chances are I'd never be allowed to enter the US. They hadn't told us that when the process began. But I digress).

The following Wednesday we got a text message (sent the previous day, but hey SMS are a courier with a fine reputation. Cough.) saying "please stay in all day tomorrow (ie today by the time I received the message), the courier will deliver your documents between 6am and 6pm." I was in London of course, but luckily Gloria was in. The courier arrived and initially refused to hand over the package ("I need proof of ID for Duncan." "You mean his passport?" "Yes." "It's in that package you have in your hand, idiot.") but eventually was convinced to do so. Opened the package and there it was, my passport with a visa in it, a long small-print letter and an A4 sized beige envelope full of stuff. Woo-hoo!

Opening the pretty-much unmarked envelope to see what was inside, it turned out to just be all our application forms, information etc. Then read the letter:

"Do not open the envelope. If you do, it will invalidate the visa and you will have to go to the Embassy to get a new one."

Oops.

But the other funny thing (apart from there being nothing on the seal-side of the envelope saying "DO NOT OPEN" or anything helpful like that) was that there was a "personal data" sheet attached to the front of the envelope, saying stuff like my date of birth, mother's name etc. And it proudly proclaimed the following:

- Place of birth: Southampton (err, try Plymouth, like it says on my passport)
- Last place of residence: London (no, how about Southampton, the address you just mailed this package to?)
- Occupation: Student / children under 16 (where did they get that from?)

And the best bit was, since we'd now opened the envelope we weren't supposed to, we could now see all the application forms we'd filled out. And there it was: place of birth - Plymouth; place of residence - Southampton; occupation - Research Fellow in Computer Science.

So we phoned that wonderful £1.20 per minute visa helpline again. "We can't help, it's not our department." Really? Aren't you the visa department? And isn't this a visa issue? "No, it's an immigration issue." What's their phone number then? "You can't phone them." They don't have telephones? "They don't have external lines. You must email them."

Sheesh again. We emailed. No response the next day. No response the day after that. No response the day after that. What to do?

Well, the letter with the visa had said "you will need to go to the Embassy and get another one [visa]." So we took it literally and headed off to the Embassy, where you can't enter unless you have an appointment. We had no appointment, nor any means of getting one, nor any means of asking anyone how we get one. Went at 10.10am. Almost nobody queueing. We realised they tell everyone they have an 8.30 appointment just to get them all there early. Come at 10.10 and there's nobody there. Up we went to the lady at the entrance to the security area.

"When's your appointment for?"
We don't have one. Here's the situation: opened the package by mistake and a lot of the data is wrong. We phoned and emailed but have no response, and we need to get this stuff rectified. it said to go to the Embassy, so here we are.
"Lots of people open the envelope, it happens often."
(Well, why not mark it "do not open" across the seal?)
Hold on a minute," she continued, pulling out her mobile phone and calling someone inside the building.
"They opened the envelope, but also some of the personal data is wrong. They want to drop it off now to be corrected and we should allow it, because it's the Embassy's fault that the data is wrong."

It's the Embassy's fault? Did she really say that? Yes, she did.

"OK," she said to us, "Go through security, don't take a number, don't wait to be called, just go straight to desk thirteen."
Seriously?

In we went. Straight to desk thirteen. Nobody there. A man in the office behind saw us and came over. We explained the situation, gave the correct data for the sheet and even showed him the correct data we'd filled out on our forms.

"Not sure how long it will take," he said, being very non-committal as to whether he was talking minutes, hours, days or weeks. We'd learned that you simply can't tell even those kinds of scales with this process. "Do you want to wait a bit, just in case they can release it quickly?"

So we waited. Fifteen minutes later, perhaps less, we were summoned back to the desk.

"There's the new visa," he said, showing us a shiny new visa on the inside of my passport. "The old one has been cancelled. He flicked over a page and showed us the previous visa, now stamped all over with the words "CANCELLED WITHOUT PREJUDICE".

He gave us the new, sealed envelope and correct data sheet, the passport, and another copy of the letter saying "don't open the envelope" (among other things). He also went through the letter with us, explaining it point by point in a manner that was very helpful given that the language used is often very ambiguous. He smiled, was polite and actually seemed like he wanted to help.

Were we honestly in the same building as in October when we'd been told conflicting stories about what we had to provide and had left in tears because of the rudeness of the staff and the implied accusations of not filing taxes? Were we dreaming?

No we weren't, because as I write this I have the visa and unopened envelope sitting beside me on the floor. The other thing we saw in the letter just a couple of days ago was a sentence buried in the middle of some small print telling us to bring the chest X-ray photograph with us on the plane to show to the immigration officer when we land. Lucky we didn't throw that away. Funny how nobody had told us at any stage that we need to keep that.

But the best bit of the letter is the start of it. It reads, and I jest not:

We are pleased you intend to immigrate to the United States.

They're pleased? They hide it very, very well.

Postscript: Some twelve days after emailing the immigration department, we still have not received a response. Luckily it doesn't matter any more.

29 November 2007: Arrested

Yesterday's blog implied at one point that the deal that saw Harry Redknapp leave Southampton to become manager of Portsmouth, a move arranged by then-Portsmouth Chairman Milan Mandaric, might have been a little on the dodgy side.

Perhaps the police read this blog? Redknapp, Mandaric and three others were arrested yesterday on football corruption charges. Sheesh, that's some quick action.

It actually relates to a very specific deal, that of Amdy Faye moving to Pompey a few years ago, but let's be honest, Harry's never been far from suspicion and I'll never forget the blog I wrote while Harry's bookmaker odds became ridiculously short at the same time that the media were touting Neil Warnock to take over at Pompey. Yes, the arrest relates to just one event, but remember Saddam Hussein's trial? It was over one event. Harold Shipman? A tiny sub-section of his murders. The police go on their strongest case: the rest can follow later.

Harry says he's innocent, of course. "They have to arrest you to talk to you, for you to be in the police station," he says. Uh-huh.

Still, it probably rules him out of the England job.

28 November 2007: Homecomings

*Beep*

Eugh. The 5.20am Beep Of Death.

That in part explains the now customary lack of blogging at this time of year. Since last report I have, for the moment at least, put this AKTing lark behind me and been focusing more on the Stellent (sorry, Oracle UCM 10gR3) side of things. After spending a little time twiddling with Kofax Ascent and then a sunny and at times hilariously bizarre two weeks in Italy, I'm now into my third week of the current contract, known locally as "The London Commute".

It's not as bad as it could be, to be honest. Up at 5.20, dress and walk down to Southampton Central train station (as it's a little too early for UniLink buses), catch the 6.30 train to Waterloo (which, incidentally, I'm on as I write this, currently 6.43 and we're still in Southampton Central due the the driver having to fill out a bunch of paperwork to report a signal fault he saw further back down the line - we'll be late again, no doubt). This train officially gets in at 7.44 but actually can't get in until at least 7.49 due to line speed restrictions at Basingstoke. Run off down the tunnel to the underground, six stops up the dirty northern line to Warren Street and out, walking to the building of a well-known research charity where I spend the day doing web-related things. Leave just after 4.00, back to Waterloo for the 4.35 departure, arrive in Southampton at about 5.50, get the 6.00 U1A and home by 6.20, at which point I sometimes just fall asleep.

Could be worse. The trains could be slower (well, except for this morning: 6.46 and still not moving), the place I'm working could be further from Waterloo, the people I'm working for could have said, "no, you're working 9.00-5.30 like everyone else" instead of "yes, 8.00-4.00 is fine". And it's only for another week-and-a-half.

(6.48 and the train pulls out of the station).

So, little blogging has taken place. Not to mention the power supply plug on the shiny Dell laptop dying last week, meaning either emergency microelectronics soldering or a new laptop (mmm, gotta love those Christmas prices, such great deals). So instead my life has been full of four-hours-plus travelling every day, mainly aided by the wonders of Podcasts of such broadcasting luminaries as Mark Kermode and Harry Shearer. However, events of such magnitude have taken place in the last few days that I feel I would be neglecting my duty if I didn't report and comment on them.

No, I'm not talking about Gordon Brown losing his Child Benefit details (and everyone else's, come to that), nor England getting knocked out of Euro 2008 (like they deserved to go through?). Forget the elections in Australia, and the potential elections in Pakistan (Musharrif says the State of Emergency will "help the elections". OK.) No, I'm talking about long-awaited homecomings of long-lost heroes. (No, seriously, it's not about the Pakistan elections.)
Firstly, somewhat obscured by the England's McLaren hilarity last week, the good ol' Atlanta Braves announced the return of 42-year-old left-handed starting pitcher Tom Glavine. So what? So, he joined the Braves first time round in 1984, made his debut in 1987 and from 1991 to 2002 was a member - a leader - of the now-legendary team that won their division every year during that period. When the Braves did their worst-to-first turnaround in 1991, Glavine won the Cy Young "pitcher of the year" award for the National League. He did so again in 1998. In 1995, the only year the Braves won the World Series, they did so on the back of Glavine's extremely frugal pitching, for which he won the World Series "Most Valuable Player" award. When budget cuts and contract issues meant he left to join the New York Mets for the 2003 season, he and his family remained living in the Atlanta area, and every winter the question has arisen: "will he be back this year?" Now, five years later and having completed the requisite 300 game wins to essentially secure his place in baseball's Hall of Fame, he's back. And ok, he's not the player he was ten or fifteen years ago, but he's still better than me (and, more importantly, better than Jo-Jo Reyes and Chuck James and the rest of the somewhat disappointing Braves pitching staff last year), so who knows - maybe this can be the catalyst the Braves need to turn it around and start winning the National League East again?

Anyway, that was last week. Also last week Plymouth Argyle manager Ian Holloway walked out on the club to join Leicester City. Holloway, who incidentally had led the team to fifth place in the Championship (and therefore in the playoff positions for a place in the Premiership), decided that it was better to jump ship and manage under the chairmanship of Milan Mandaric (he who tapped up, sorry convinced Harry Redknapp to go from Saints back to Pompey), apparently because they "have better training facilities". Well whoopie-do. Without him, Argyle again won on Saturday and went fourth.

Thing is, that meant a vacancy in the managerial position at Home Park. And that meant one thing: the usual speculation that Paul Sturrock, statistically the greatest manager in the history of Plymouth Argyle (which, admittedly, isn't saying much) would want to return. The difference this time was that it was actually not implausible. Sturrock, no longer managing in the Premiership or even the Championship, was having an ok time at Swindle Town, but was certainly open to suggestion. And yes, less than a week later, he's back, along with Kevin Summerfield and John 'Sloop' Blackley, sweeping in to Home Park at a Press Conference yesterday where he announced that there was nothing wrong with the way Holloway was running the team so he'd find out about the normal weekly routine and keep it that way. And there were big, beaming smiles all round, the days of Judas comments firmly in the past.

Of course, there's a good chance it won't work. It often doesn't when you go back. Glavine might get hit all over the place (and without Andruw Jones in center field, there's a good chance that will happen). Sturrock might find the players don't like him and don't want to play his way (and let's remember, Trigger Evans was a key - an absolute lynchpin - in Sturrock's system, and he's now retired from the game in order to spend more time with his bricks). And then a sad thing happens: the legend dies, or at the very least begins to look a bit sickly. It's no exaggeration to use the word 'legend' with both Glavine and Sturrock (and it's not often you can say that), both have been arguably the finest in their roles in the entire history of their respective teams, and if it doesn't work out, that record becomes tarnished.

But still, it's an exciting time for both clubs. Meantime the train is now speeding towards Basingstoke some 21 minutes late (how is it, by the way, that delayed trains often become more delayed as the journey progresses?) and I'm thinking it's time to flick on the mp3 player and listen to a little Harry Shearer before heading into another day of Stellent Site Studio.

Or maybe I'm still asleep and the alarm is about to wake me up...

22 November 2007: Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

2 October 2007: Taxman

Didn't plan on blogging today but as my sis just started blogging (blogging is just sooo 2004, Ali) I figured I'd better add her to my 'links' list.

Then I realised I didn't have a 'links' list. Silly me. And it's not like other people who read this blog don't have blogs of their own too: so Blaine, Andy and Nick also make the exciting new list. If you've got a blog and I can link to it but don't know the link (I'm looking in your direction, Becky), let me know and I'll add you. Not that it will help your Google PageRank rating much, but it'll make me feel a little less guilty about not having done it until now.

What news? Well, having left the university (notwithstanding the not unsubstantial expenses claim they have yet to pay from a month ago), I'm now full-time contracting on Stellent and Stellent-related systems, writing Java and - gulp, can you believe it - VB.NET in order to move various files around various workflows for an unnamed company. No diatribe on VB.NET today (I need to save that up for a blog in its own right I think) but overall the work is enjoyable and surprisingly creative.

Meantime in preparation for The Move, we've taken the step of leaving our house (on which the contract was up) and, with the helpful help of certain kind people, some of whom read this blog, we've moved to a nice apartment for a few weeks until the visa is granted and the US tax year ends, probably in that order...

The Visa Interview will take place on 9 October. Next week. Soon, and sooner than we'd been led to believe. Happily we have all the documentation they asked for, and more besides, so there shouldn't be a major problem with approving me a for a Spouse Visa, meaning we can move to the US and I can legally work there. If I'm approved, the visa will be granted in three to five working days, and that's that, we can up and move whenever we want (within six months).

Except for the good ol' US Internal Revenue Service - the taxman to you and I. Unsurprisingly, when we move we have to begin paying US Income Tax - in fact, Gloria almost has to do this already, being a US Citizen living abroad, although her earnings fall comfortably under the threshold where she actually would have to start paying. More of a surprise, perhaps, is that we become liable to pay income tax on all our earnings during the tax year, which in the US runs from January to December. Therefore were we to move in November or December, we'd get a whopping great tax bill come the spring on earnings on which we'd already paid a nice chunk of UK income tax. Nasty, but they're the government, who (apart from one day every four years) are an unregulated body.

It's not actually as clear cut as that, to be fair. Some portions of the IRS website, and some of the people you speak to if you call their "help" line, state that as a first-time first-year immigrant to the US, I'd only be liable to pay from the day we enter the country, although Gloria would have to pay in full. Other web pages and people you speak to say the opposite: we have to pay in full. The truth is that nobody really knows, and whether what we do is right or wrong depends entirely on who you speak to and how they interpret the rules. The simplest approach therefore: don't move until January, then there's no issue. So we're moving in January.

Meantime life continues apace - trying to find a decent shipping company (is air freight the better option given we're only shipping kitchen stuff, clothes and books?), giving away electrical equipment with UK voltage ratings and generally working hard. We have a couple of weeks vacation in Italy coming up in a few weeks, our first real break since Christmas in Texas, so I'd better try and learn some of the language.

Anyone know the Italian for 'pasty'?

3 September 2007: Cardiff

In Cardiff for a couple of days attending my last conference as a Research Fellow.

The last three months has seen me work, sometimes pretty frenetically, on a UIMA-based tool to take web pages, strip out the tags, investigate the text and populate an ontology (kind of like a database in this case) with information about terrorist incidents in Afghanistan, so that Dong-who-sits-opposite can use it to put dots on his map. Somewhat amazingly, it actually does seem to work, and so today we're showing a live end-to-end demo where, at one end, you stick a couple of words in a search engine (usually "Helmand" and "Incident") and it churns away for a minute or so, sending messages back and forth between servers located in various parts of England and Wales, and then boom, there it is, dots on a map showing the incidents reported by the documents you searched for. Neat, and not totally inaccurate either. And it's pretty much all programmed in Java, no Perl in sight, just a smear of PHP near the surface.

The fun thing is that, as our demo requires internet access, our colleagues based here at the University of Cardiff cunningly (and secretly) negotiated for our specific project to have a little web access so we can show our demo. The rumour is starting to spread that there's internet over here in this corner of the room... the looks we're getting from the other projects...

Course, it means I can blog a little while we wait for the presentations to finish...

28 August 2007: Leaving

Took a big step today: resigned from my job at the university.

The reasons are fairly clear-cut. We're looking to move to the USA, and have submitted a visa application to get me over there as the spouse of a US citizen. We had initially planned on doing this much earlier, as soon as my PhD finished back in September, but that dragged on a bit. Then we thought we might be staying a little longer. But now we've made the decision to go, and despite the lengthy visa application process (it takes months, literally, although once you get an interview date from them it all moves very quickly), we are getting ready to go, initially to Texas, thence to wherever the right job takes us.

In fact, the visa application process has been underway for a while now. So why the decision to resign today (technically, yesterday)? Well, readers with computers who can click here will know that back in October last year I spent a month doing some consultancy work for an unnamed company. A similar offer emerged at the end of last week, with the remuneration for the five-week contract exceeding the salary I would get were I to remain at the university to the end of December. Since we're looking to go to the US anyway as soon as we can (and don't get me started on tax laws, which we're currently investigating after a tip-off from McDougal), it made sense for me to write my 'with regret' letter.

And it is with regret. When I leave after my notice period it will be four years, almost to the day, since I began work as a full-time PhD student with a computerless desk, a vague notion of the semantic web and no idea at all what an RDQL query was. Now I've got a computer on the desk, I've completed a PhD applying semantic web science to the digital library metadata and RDQL has become SPARQL. I've learned a lot, written papers, presented talks, taught students, even performed a little research along the way. And now, with the clean break of the USA move becoming imminent (and a little more about the visa process to follow in another blog, I feel...), it's time to move on.

Arouna from the other end of the level 4 lab is thinking of organising a farewell five-a-side testimonial for me (and possibly him, depending on what he decides to do when his contract is up next month). I wonder if they have much five-a-side in Texas?

Postscript: My leaving Southampton makes my blog title even more decoupled from reality. Any suggestions for an alternative title?