Our second full year in Arizona was a bit less intense than the first one, but I still feel we had a lot to learn. Chris started off contracting and was upgraded to being a full time employee, so that…
Green Card
The persistence has finally paid off. Progress from last time: Politeness and perseverance were the key. For completeness, here is the lovely screenshot: Next step is to pursue my stagnated Social Security Number application.
Social Security, Nearly
We have some progress! A few days ago, I wrote back to the immigration people asking what had happened to my case. My previous theory that observer effect could be acting on the process may be true after all. A…
Minor Differences: City Tax
Sales taxes are much more prominent in the United States. Here’s a little video on the matter: In the UK, the sales tax, called VAT, is 20% on nearly all categories of goods (cue shocked expressions). Because prices on the shelf are…
Social Security, Maybe Part 2
Today, I mustered up the courage to look at my status on the USCIS (immigration) site. I was pleasantly surprised at the case status moving from ACCEPTED to OPTIMIZED. Another part of the status had been set to Pending for…
Day 1: Minnesota
We have finally started traveling! This has been a mixed bag so far. It is good to finally be on the road, but we had to start off attempting to deal with Chris’s on going social security issue. We had…
Social Security, Maybe.
Obtaining your SSN is a one-time event: you can’t get good at it. It has been awkward to not have one because you are asked for it whenever you do something financially significant. In the last video, we failed completely. Several…
I Promise to Drive Carefully, Ma’am
Chris still has no SSN, so one of our main concerns with getting on the road was not being able to get car insurance. We were very pleasantly surprised to find out we were wrong. Everything we’d googled about it…
Social Security, No.
A Social Security Number is required for work. It’s also required for many other reasons: getting a U.S drivers licence, bank account and, I suspect, lots of other things. It’s like the U.K National Insurance number but it’s used as…