Russell Beattie

Check this out, *someone* is doing something right. The US Embassy in Spain just re-did their home page with much better organization and an amazingly clear run down on the steps that we have to go through to get Ana's immigrant visa (green card) in both Spanish and English. You can check it out here.

I hate the name "Homeland Security", but I do like how they're re-organizing this process. Before this recent change, the embassy's website was a complete disaster and I was completely bewildered at first where to begin. It's nice that the next steps are better laid out for us. However, since we have yet to receive the packet for step two after 3+ weeks, I'm wondering how the system is working. Maybe there's a backlog because of all the students going to the U.S. this time of year, or maybe my ranking in Google spouting evil things about the current ruling party has redflagged our petition. We'll see what happens. I tried to call someone today, but the lines were jammed. If I don't get the packet by next week, I'll have to hoof it down to the embassy (again) and see what's up in person.

Anyways, the changes on the website is nice to see - and nice that its in both languages as well, so Ana doesn't have to rely on her English and my translation skills to fully understand what's going on.

Now we just need to do something about that department name. How freakin' jingoistic can you be?

-Russ