Attack of the Nitwit Bureaucrats...

Today I had my appointment with the Austrian Consulate General. So I got up at 8 am and that gave me about 1 hour time to get ready. I left our house around 9 am. On the 14 and I-5 there was very little traffic. This was equally true on the I-405...at least in the beginning. As soon as I hit Roscoe it was stop and go. Maybe I should rephrase that...it as more stop than go. Under normal circumstances I can make it from Roscoe to Sepulveda Pass in under 8 minutes. This time it took me about 35 minutes or so. After the Sepulveda Pass it started to pick up. I got off at Whilshire Blvd. and found the building of the Consulate General without any problems. I chose to park in the parking structure and just pay the fee, since I was already running about 30 min. behind. I went into the Consulate and to my surprise I was the only customer. Not having to wait in line is quite a positive experience. But that's as far as the positive experience went.

I hand over the paperwork and my documents to one of the Consulate employees. She goes to the paperwork and tells me that she can't issue me a new passport, since the my visa is out of state. So I ask here what her solution to the situation is. She tells me that the only thing she can do is to issue an emergency passport. So I tell her to go ahead and do so. She asks me for my plane ticket. I tell her that I haven't bought the plane ticket yet, since I have planned to relocate in Mid-August. The Consulate employee tells met that she can only issue the emergency passport about 2 weeks before the planned departure, and that I have to send her the ticket or e-ticket about 2 weeks before departure. She then will issues the emergency passport and return passport and ticket to me via Certified Prepaid Mail. I thank her for the information and walk out of the Consulate. I really had to control myself otherwise I would have given her a piece of my mind. That wouldn't have been the smartest idea, since the last thing you want to do is to piss off a Consulate employee.

At that point I truly felt like a figure in a Kafka play!! I have talked to both Consulate employees a couple of month ago and explained the situation in all details. I asked both of them independently if I need to apply for a completely new passport, a limited passport or and emergency passport. Both of them gave me the same information: I need to apply for a completely new passport. Now getting the information, that I have to apply for a emergency passport I just can't shake off the feeling as if I have been talking to a couple of nitwits! So much for the accuracy of information from those Consulate employees.

Once I got home I was frustrated and really pissed off. The only reaction I got from Kenny when I told him about my day was, that I'm cutting it pretty close. That wasn't much help either. If it were up to me I would have issue the Consulate the paperwork at least 1 month in advance...but that's just not an option.

Once Kenny had left to spend time on the set of the 'Guild' I went outside to deal with some of the left over weeds from last year, that are still piled up in a Bagster bag behind the garage. I compressed those completely dry and brittle weeds into the wheel barrel and moved them into the dumpster. Doing that kind of work is quite a good way of getting rid of your frustration. I managed to put 4 wheel barrels of weeds into the dumpster and still leaving enough room for regular household trash. All in all I was happy with the progress and I managed to cut the weed pile into half.

I had just been back inside for about 15 minutes or so when I got a phone call from my pet-relocation company with some good news. I will be talking more about that in the next Blog Post: Pet Relocation Update.

After that phone call I thought about the upcoming move and figured that I probably can pack up about 80% of my stuff now and that way it is ready to go. That will give me a better idea of how many boxes I have to ship via an international moving company and will make it way easier to get an fairly accurate estimate. I probably can have that done within the next 2 weeks and that would let me enjoy the rest of the time, that I've left in the States, even more.