Not only did my urgent need for a passport produce a photo reminding me that I am steadily looking more and more like a bullfrog, it also sucked up my entire day and will to live. Even though I had an appointment, when I arrived promptly I was sternly told to wait behind the orange tape outside the building with no further explanation by a humorless robot in foreign service regs. Luckily, this bossy a-hole was soon replaced by someone whose ego wasn't so big he couldn't explain what the wait might be. It's exactly as you might imagine. They are hopelessly understaffed upstairs and have no chance of even getting to the hundreds of peeps they have already issued a tracking number from the day before. After 2.5 hrs (and $10 worth of parking quarters) I was finally allowed to see the fire safety infraction awaiting me above. Here you get a number and no estimate of wait time and the joy of sampling all of humanities various body odors.
Not much else to tell except THANK YOU to all those who worked there and managed to be kind, helpful, informative, and even find humor in a political funding screwup of National magnitude during the height of vacation season.
One shining ray of hope is that many of those with the dough to travel voted for Bush. Maybe they'll think twice when voting next year. Cynical? Perhaps but convenience has become king in our economy. If we can extrude it from a port in our laptop, we certainly aren't driving all the way to the corner store.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to letting go of my cynical politicisms for the rest of the summer and getting prepped and focused for a real work experience. I will be the intern Marine Tech Assistant for one month in the Bahamas. Basically a computer network admin on a rocking ship. Also deploying various scientific recording devices overboard and retrieving them intact then downloading the data to the network for compilation. Data like sea temperature, salinity, depth (pressure), bottom depth (echo location), light attenuation (how deep does sunlight penetrate?).
Even though I'm an intern I will be receiving a modest stipend for my time. But this will require intense documentation and journaling and hard work. I'm hoping to use this blog as an informal outlet to that formal requirement. And to keep all my friends and family up to date if so inclined.
I leave for Florida August 1st.
As they say in the Bahamas:
I busy workin dred, and when i knock off, i gon straight there. We ga link up then.
