Protocol417

Great news. And go to the gym NOW.

*lol* Yes sir/ma'am!

Americans seem very aggressive.

No "seem" about it. We are.

I hate the compulsory tipping in the States.

As with buying a round, one modifies ones choice of drink depending on who is buying.

*lol* Whenever I'm in the UK and I go to leave a tip, my SO asks me what I'm doing, and I respond "being American" Can't help it. I used to work in the service industry so good tipping is just in my blood at this point.

I think I would end up with the short stick in this "rounds" deal. I can't stand beer, and cider isn't quite prevalent enough here to be a surefire replacement. What do you do if there are more or fewer rounds than people? Or people leave before it's their round? Or you can only afford a couple drinks? Seems like a situation ripe for awkwardness. (I should ask my SO about this on Skype later.)

But do you think that these traditions will be missed ?. I mean, In general Arabs always turns it into drama when they go to the US or a foreign country and they keep saying that they misses home and the little things at home. Am not trying to racist by this or anything but why don't i feel that people from Asian or European countries complain as much over their countries? Is it because its kinda close in manners n stuff or what?

Everyone misses stuff from home. Brits complain about the bacon here, being unable to buy things they loved and depended on back home, the aforementioned tipping thing, how loud we are, how aggressive we are ( ), etc. Both Brits and Russians, it seems, complain about our attitude towards guns (but from completely opposite sides of the argument). There way more political stuff I could mention, too, but I'll refrain from that.

New York is a bad example. Even a lot of Americans complain about New Yorkers

Sleep like hot chickens - I like that.

The one thing I can't really wrap my head around is the tradition (in the UK, I mean) of buying rounds of drinks. Some people have less money, others more expensive tastes, some can drink anyone under the table, others are lightweights. If you've got six people in your group, that's six rounds of drinks... yeesh. I hear Brits talk about how weird it is that Americans don't do this but in my group I can't imagine how this would work... most of us don't drink beer and so a night with friends would end in an emptied bank account and alcohol poisoning, at the right bar *lol*

By the way, "crazy" is kind of a good thing. Like a "crazy" night?

To me it would be like saying a drug dealer is an "illegal pharmacist"

Actually, I kind of like that. Has a nice ring to it.

We could call murders "illegal executioners", and thieves "illegal repo men".

Could be a great improvement to the language, if you think about it.

I said American Indian. Unless American Indianian is something i don't know about?

Hoosiers, perhaps?

the chinese, when did they come into play?

Railroads and mining.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans

In fact, they've grown so close that they got matching tattoos on their palms — the numbers 8-5-12, the date the gunman opened fire at a Milwaukee-area Sikh temple before killing himself minutes later.

Off topic, but I read this and immediately thought "this poignant and beautiful tattoo is going to cost them a job someday". Sad.

Anyways...

I saw this in the comments section and thought it was a really good idea:

Sadly folks, the media still subscribes to the "if it bleeds it leads" philosophy. The media LOVED the IRA vs the UK stories - but barely touched on how that centuries old "battle" was all but ended when the women on both sides got together and essentially "shut down" dealing with their men sexually until the guys decided to talk it out instead of fight it out.

Watch for "good news" stories at least locally - and every time you see one, send an "atta boy" email or even snail mail to the source. I know we'll never get rid of all the bad news, but we DESERVE to have the news really "fair and balanced" by presenting those "feel good" stories in as front and center a manner as the "feel bad" stories!

I can't wait until he starts. Mostly because I can't think of him as anything other than Malcolm Tucker, and I'm hoping (knowing) his performance will erase that problem for me. But until that point, I'm just going to be imagining the Doctor screaming profanities at Daleks (there are some pretty hilarious YouTube videos already that are a mash-up between Doctor Who and The Thick Of It that perfectly illustrate this).

The only authority they need is if you don't agree to it, they don't give you the pet.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about something more official, like criminal records and things like that, not interviews and references.

You have to go through a background check to adopt a pet? #######? What are they looking for? Seems odd they would do that, when the alternative is the gas chamber for Tiger.

To be fair, the ones that have such strict rules are usually no-kill shelters and rescues, who are really paranoid about who they adopt to because they want to make sure the animal will never go "back in the system". So the alternative is just a bit more time in a cage or foster home. The ones that will put the animals to sleep if they haven't gone out in a certain time typically aren't nearly as picky.

That said... wow. I've seen some strict rules in my time but never a background check. I wonder how they even get the authority to perform one.

Edit:

When I adopted my Shepherd 6 years ago, not only did I have to provide references, but they actually sent someone out to my house to interview me and make sure the house was suitable for a dog of that size.

Ah, that makes more sense. I worked with cats, so they're less concerned about that sort of thing.

In your mind GZ was told "not to get out of your car"

If trayvon is free to walk where he wants why is not Zimmerman?

That's not what I said, so I can't really respond to that.

Zimmerman, of course, has and had a right to walk wherever he wanted (though I think people were more concerned about intent rather than specific actions), but again, that's not what I was talking about. We were discussing the perceptions that people would have, and the questions they would ask, if we looked at the situation through gender instead of race. I disagreed with the conclusions presented and said why. It had nothing to do with what someone is "free" to do, but what facts would color a person's perception in a hypothetical situation, and how the situations may or may not change when gender versus race are involved.

You should compare auto accidents with accidental homicide, if you want to compare automobiles vs. guns; or consider researching how many persons use their automobiles in order to murder others.

May also be worthwhile to consider proliferation and use as a controlling factor as well.

Just looking at gun ownership versus car ownership (and the corresponding accident/homicide rate) doesn't really give us the true scope. Many guns are not carried (and ownership is concentrated into fewer hands since many people who own guns have more than one), while most cars are used on a daily basis (and it's far less common for someone to have more than one car), so this would artificially skew the numbers.

If there were as many people carrying guns in public (as often and for such durations) as there are people driving cars, we would likely see a pretty large shift in numbers.

I need a REAL American tooo look at this paperwork!..not the immigrants they have working there..

I think you'll enjoy Tennessee a lot.

I know NOA1 is not a big deal, but still this was very exciting for me and my fiance.

Given the circumstances, it's a HUGE deal!

Congratulations! I'm so very, very happy that you are finally allowed this opportunity along with the rest of us, and I can only apologize that it took so long for it to be made right! Good luck with your application!

Lets suppose Zimmerman was a women

.With all those injuries and witness statements suggesting "she" was being attacked and Trayvon was a White male, do you suppose there would be a bias favoring the self defense claim because the battered face belonged to a women?

Now but we often hear it when some white family gets off at the wrong exit.

Not if it came out that she had gotten out of her vehicle when they told not to (with a gun, no less) when told to stay put and then followed the white male, who was only on his way home from the store. We might question why the white male felt the need to be so aggressive towards the woman in defending himself (which I do about Trayvon, as well), but I think the main line of questioning would definitely be "why did she follow him with a gun?".

I don't know much about Charlotte, but Chicago is pretty racially divided and segregated, and I still never once heard anyone say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, whether in personal conversation or on the news. Maybe if someone got caught in gang crossfire, but that would be true no matter their race (I'm thinking specifically of a little black girl who was killed in a similar manner last year). Perhaps this is more indicative of your area that this phrase is applied only when white people are involved?

Cool, I had some of this info collected in my research but the additional stuff helps out too.

In regards to the immunization stuff, did you just book an appointment with a doctor and ask for them? Or is there more to it?

I'm the petitioner, not the beneficiary... just one of those people who feels much better by having a good grasp of stuff even when it's not my part to play (in other words, I want to be able to keep my fiance on track)

Unfortunately we haven't gotten so far as the immunizations yet. It's my understanding that you are not actually required to have the immunizations to get your K-1; it's at Adjustment of Status that this becomes necessary. It's just that most people take care of them while still in the UK because, well, it's d*mn*d expensive here.

Looking at various forums it doesn't seem that you need to have a special "approved" doctor administer them or anything. "Travel nurse" is being bandied about quite a bit. So you're probably good just going to your normal GP or whoever. That's what we're planning to do.

Is there a source for this? I've tried, but finding the list of cities seems more difficult than a list of states.

As soon as I figure out the word combination I used in Google search yesterday that allowed me to find the article I have in mind, I will give you the link. I've found a couple others so far that deal with individual cities (as opposed to states), but their sources aren't as solid (IMO) as the article I read yesterday (and am now having difficulty finding).

When some poor white guy takes a wrong turn and ends up with his head bashed in, while his cell phone is pilfered.... what do we say?

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

How come on the rare occasion a Black person is shot or harmed in a white area we never say "he" was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I don't think I've heard "wrong place, wrong time" used in either of those situations.

Take out New O and LA is low.

we may be on to a trend

Maybe something besides guns could be the root cause

Why does Chi town have very restrictive gun laws , but is the gun murder capital of the nation. Surely all those extra laws cured the problem

Chicago is not even in the top ten, actually. It's just become the punching bag from the media lately.

So you think I should leave out the 200 pages of Facebook Logs? I doubt they would want to read it anyway, and we are quite worried, as we are both, erm....broadly spoken...

I included excerpts from our Facebook logs... about 10 pages worth from various dates. I did screen captures (instead of copy/paste) and I captured the screen that said "loading over 35,000 messages" so they could see we had TONS of conversations back and forth

Guess they realized no one ever posts about religion.

Thanks for that. So from this point on, we should:

• wait and see if we get a notification NOA2 letter from USCIS.
• wait about a couple of weeks to get a letter from NVC regarding the next step, and give them a call to get our case number and any other info.
• we should now put together our support package, fill the forms and get the transcripts and other paperwork.

Is that pretty much right?

I put this together when I was trying to wrap my brain around the process.

This is my understanding of the procedure from NOA2 to POE but I would welcome anybody who might want to correct or clarify as necessary.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/442674-process-from-noa2-to-arrival-in-the-us-notes/

Thanks for the info. We did get the cash discounted rate to see the doctor. It was $15 off.

Seriously? Wow, that's barely anything.