Color Me Green

With envy? No baby, with green. Like a card. A Greencard! Or at least the temporary visa stamp version of it, allowing Sow to work and school and all those things U.S. residents are granted. Oh, and taxes too, don't forget that slick little number. Now all we need are Social Security Numbers and we can file this past year's return. Should get a little something back too! Come in nice and handy with all those little weekend vacations we'll be taking.

I'd talk more about the flight and the nice immigration people at LAX that sped us thru, but I'm still too tired from it all. Gonna just let it finish washing off of me first.

Is today...

Father's Day? I'm not quite certain, but it sure starting to feel a lot like it! Getting on a plane in about 7 hours to fly to the states with Sow & Ray. Can't believe it's finally here.

Sow and Ray are up stairs in the hotel resting from our drive back from Korat yesterday. I keep poking Ray awake and playing with him, thinking maybe he'll sleep more on the plane. I'm sure I'll be doing wonders for his jet-lag. Hmmm... I should probably be sleeping right now myself if I want to smooth things out.

Sow's really excitd about the flight. She keeps asking questions about what they have to do on the plane. So far I've got her prepared for her inflight massage and shower and full on spa experience. I didn't really say they had those things, I think maybe she just misheard me? I hope she's not too disappointed. She keeps going back and forth from excited to boggled by how long the flight will be (and this is he short one at 13 hrs!). At least there's about 30 hours worth of movies to watch.

Once we get there, we go thru immigration and get diverted to another interview. This should be good for the equivilent of her green card and should allow her to work right away if she wanted. We have no idea how long that's going to take, but hope to be home by a reaonable hour. I'm hoping we get to play the baby card again, that worked well at the embassy and kept our wait to 2 hours instead of all day.

Alright, see you all on the flip side!

Goodbye Chiang Mai

Yesterday we packed up the house and spent the night in a hotel. Sow mom came upa few days ago and her dad yesterday morning only to get back in the truck with the movers for the long ride back to Korat. Bed, fridge, washing machine, personal water heater, A/C unit, and any other odds and ends we weren't taking with us. We gave a lot of baby stuff to various neighbors with kids trailing right behind Rayluk.

And in abot 30 minues we head for the airport. Sow's mom is coming with us for her 2nd flight ever, a stop over at the embassy in Bangkok for Sow's passport, and then off to visit with Sow's family for a few days before we head to the states. Oh yeah, gotta pick up that pig head on the way too...

Alright...

...try again. Blogger was coughing up some weird green substance yesterday when I tried to post my most important blog evey. Apperantly it's had some chicken soup and is feeling better now.

Ok, so I guess I gotta...

...go buy a pig head. What the hell is that code for you ask!? Well, here's the thing. We're going out to see Sow's family next week. Haven't ironned out the details entirely, but it's been more than a year since we've been and there are a lot of anxious village folk waiting to see the farang baby. Sow's mom happened to walk down and mention at the local spirit house that if the village spirits saw to it that we got Sow's visa, she'd get them a pig head. Anyhow, guess we're down for one pig head. (Come on, beats the dog story!? sheesh!)

So we're not entirely free and clear yet. Other than the pig head, we still have to go back to Bangkok next wednesday afternoon to pick up the actual visa. Apparently there's an additional background check they gotta run since there's a lot of variation within translations from the Thai alphabet to roman. They said, usually takes 3 days. Here's the funny thing. This weekend is the King's 60 anniversary as King (and the world's longest reigning monarch) and everything is closed from friday-tuesday. I'm not quite sure when they're planning on fitting it in, but they said to drop by at 3:00pm next wednesday.

Anyhow, long and short, ok short, of it is, looks like Sow and Ray are heading back with me Sunday June 18th! Woo-hoo!

Wow, what a long crazy run it's been. Down to the last 18 hours, we fit in: getting all our paperwork in re-order for the unpteenth time; Ray's first flight and trip outside of Chiang Mai; a night in Bangkok; me waking up at 4:00am thinking of a page that was missing from our packet; calling Steve international long distance and getting him to login and email me a pdf from my bank account; running out and finding a 24 hour internet shop to print out the page from; getting to the embassy at 6:45 and finding a line about 50 meters long; weasling our way thru them all for our 7:30(DON'T BE LATE)am appointment - the interview which actually took place at 9:30 at window #6; getting back on a plane and coming back to Chiang Mai for Ray's 2nd flight ever.

So now we got a lot of packing to do, some travel logistics to plan, and of course a pig head to buy.

So tired...

P.S. - can't start my laptop from the main drive. I think a colony of ants has made their way in. See what the good people at Apple have to recommend for that.

P.P.S. - Steve you rock!

Back in the old BKK

That's Bangkok International airport if you ain't up on the lingo. Yes, I've made a return to Thailand and a long over due return to blogging. I'll see if I can keep it up, but not sure what state my laptop's in so it might be infrequent.

Thursday (or for most of you folks, late wednesday night) we should have been thru our visa interview and will know whether Sow & Ray are coming back with me in 2 weeks.

As for today, I'm heading up to Chaing Mai in about 20 min, and currently Colin's in London screening our film this evening at Filmstock Festival somewhere out near the airport. Oh, and IMDb has finally started filling in our credits on their site. Only took 12 weeks!? Oh well, they'll have our last award up there by the time the finish and maybe another?