paul.

LOL, I'm half-dutch/half-English. I find it hilarious that we're having this exact thread about so many of us dutchies around texas, just to find this one going on with my other nationality!

I'm up in Tulsa, but may be working around the GOM for awhile from Galveston to Jackson on a pipelining contract for awhile, saving up some dosh. If I'm round your all way, I'll holler on here and we'll grab a pint!

Plus, I agree wholeheartedly with the "when in Rome do as the Romans do!" statement. I love my new culture of native american heritage, as I live on the Osage indian reservation north of Tulsa. Cowboy hats, a nice gringo 'tache and some menthol copenhagen in my wranglers and I look the part with a stupid accent LMAO!

Spybot is only against spyware as it's name implies. Firefox or Opera as a browser have built-in warning systems against known virus hosting sites, it makes you aware before the threat presents itself.

I friggin wish mate, I wouldn't be hanging around here, I'd buy my way in to the USA LMAO.

It's just our internet that is $160. We have pretty much everything on Dish Network too (confused now...directTV = dish network right?), so at a guess 100 bucks also then.

Our rip-off provider, wildblue, charges us 160 bucks a month for business satellite ADSL. 1.5MB down, 256Kbps up. Extortionate, but we have no other choice out here in the sticks. DirectTV, don't know the monthly cost as I don't pay the bill.

Like rnmcm, I use my brain, but as people can now put viruses in to jpeg files, silent installs when you look through a site that has been hacked and more, they can literally just appear on your system. As I am a so-called "power user", I need something that has a light footprint yet is powerful. So I use NOD32 AV, not their security suite. This protects me against viruses and trojans and a lot of spyware. I use spybot search and destroy once a month to clear any unwanted spyware and I use ccleaner once a week to clear my temporary files, often a hiding place for silent trojans.

Haha, that's like me enjoying watching Rally car racing just for the crashes...we're sick, sick people!

LOL was kidding on4 near misses. We've had like one or 2 go within 1/2 a mile of our house last year, but they are so damn geo-specific that it can do that and you won't notice it if it's a little one. We don't often get the big ones, they're reserved for central Kansas, poor buggers. Even I don't want to live there LOL.

Yeah, I am a Helicopter Pilot by trade. It's my most favorite thing to do, so I am blessed that I can smile all the time in my office. Our website has some photos of Oklahoma and stuff if you care to look.

LOL, well I lived up the road from soton in Stockbridge for years, so should be geography be a Soton fan, but my family is from S'set, so as Taunton completely sucks.....either way, I prefer rugby! No magic sponges!

Well, versus your botched para-military raids graph there isn't one to show the raids that saved countless lives. If everyone in the United States had your thoughts, there wouldn't be a Police Force as it is a democracy after all...

That you can't understand my arguments is plainly your simple mind, as every Officer has to deal with people on a daily basis and any Officer can tell you that it is a judgment call on every job. Judgment isn't something every person can is gifted with and it isn't something that is fool-proof when taught. All I ask for is a little respect for someone who does a job that is particularly hard while serving you as a citizen.

Oh and btw, I am the imported one and I have served in my home nations Armed Forces in numerous conflicts and now will be serving the United States of America as I feel duty to pay back the graciousness of me being allowed to remain indefinitely. This actually gives me much more authority on the subject of whether the two or remotely like each other than you, my dear friend.

I am certainly not the type of person to willy-nilly arrest someone because they bad-mouth me, but you certainly are clearly anti-police and so I am probably right in saying this argument will just go on and on, as you just won't understand the complexities that exist in dealing with human beings every day when they are agitated, upset, injured and anything in between.

Busy busy busy in RL!!

Not too good, see this thread. Mostly fixed now though, thank god.

It's not that bad here in NE Oklahoma, we only get about 4 near misses a year.

LMFAO, Yeovil Town all the way fella! Up yours!

Well my GP signed me off with perfect heart beat and blood pressure yesterday, so that'll be fixed for the snotty cow to mooch over. Now just waiting for the blood results, I think, I haven't heard anything yet...just hope she doesn't read VJ haha.

And Dutchie moving to near Texas...Oklahoma LOL. Must be the Southwestern charm taking us by storm eh!

Hey, if you need jobs and want to stay relatively close, you could do worse than to look at Tulsa. We're 6 hours drive North of Dallas. Our stats say we get 113% of the national average wage with only 75% of the national average living costs. It's a great place to be and unemployment is currently only at 2% with a boatload of jobs available. I guess no one likes Oklahoma, but it really is great living. no different from how I experienced Dallas, really.

I take serious offense to the Police being called anything but your friend! Yes, this guy clearly wasn't great at his job, but d

Like the military that fight overseas for your right to protest in freedom in your own country, you should honor the Officers who put in relatively long hours at relatively low pay to keep you relatively safe in your own country. It's no different. A bit of common decency is required here. Everything is relative to the situation at-hand. Yes, this guy clearly wasn't great at his job, but do we chastise the entire military for one blue-on-blue encounter, for kicking in the wrong door in downtown Baghdad? No is the answer, we don't, as mistakes happen. From first-hand experience, I can tell you it isn't always what it looks like on paper, he may have been pulling him for another offense and the guy got mouthy, so he decided to try and get more ammo to teach him a lesson of respect. I feel that one has a right to express their opinion, but please, only if it's educated does anyone else really care...

Laura+Tom, exactly. They have to screen my kidneys, liver and blood for alcohol misuse signs. Bloody hell, I was in the Army for 11 years, I'm scared shitless!

The thing that bothered me, wasn't that she thought I was a possible alco, as she was just doing her job with that I guess, but the fact she thought that when I said I didn't think 6 pints in one night was a lot, she gave me a stern lecture about how British culture is f-ed up and disgusting and how she's never had that many units in a week, let alone a night...I just thought, "well you haven't lived, love". So it's a conflict of cultures, because her culture clearly isn't British and mine is British of the worst kind I guess, squaddie and all.

Now I've had a good sleep, I'm not feeling too awful about being an obese alco tho...I'm just craving a night out with a good donner kebab at the end of it!!

The correct response is congrats, Alan. So congrats to you guys.

I admitted yesterday that I smoked 4-5 cigs a day for 6 years and got told off, but not failed. Pot smoking should flat out be denied and you should have none in your bloodstream, to be honest. I don't use pot or any other drug, but they took blood from me, so it would be easy to tell if I had.

I had my medical today at Bentinck Mansions. I had Dr. Syad, the Asian lady. Very professional, to the point, but a touch too critical of my lifestyle for my personal likings. I was told that I was obese because I have a high BMI. In actual fact, I have a small belly going, but I'm a 6'3" rugby prop forward, so most of it isn't fat...

Added to the minor issue of being obese, I had an extremely high blood pressure. I think it was mainly due to rushing to the appointment on foot from Great Portland street at Mach 2 as I tried to be on time and the fact that in my rush to leave the house this morning I took both lemsip flu pills for today, instead of just one as I've had a pretty nasty cold the last week. I can't believe I did that, it was an absolute accident, but all the medicine really turned up my BP and I got marked down for that too.

Finally, as I have an alcohol-related offense, I was made to feel like a complete alcoholic as I'd had 1 pint the day before the medical, as I told her that I do not drink to excess anymore as my job is a helicopter pilot and it isn't worth my career to be found under the influence of alcohol, so I basically don't drink. Well cue the fact I'd had one the night before with friends and again, I should have thought but I was nervous and she made me feel quite little about the fact that I had "lied" to her, stating that alcoholics mask there drinking habits and she had to consider that I might be masking it.

Nevertheless, I had to have bloods taken to ensure I'm not a raving alcoholic and I have to have my GP check my BP regularly until it is at an acceptable level. Luckily, I made this appointment about 2 months before a potential interview, so even if there is an issue, I have time to solve it.

Total cost:

180 for the medical

60 for vacs

40 for bloods

280 quid total cost!

Quite annoyed with the way it went. Mainly with myself for making some rather silly mistakes in my personal administration, but slightly at the Doctor for being quite rude about the way I live my life. Advice is one thing, but making you feel downright stupid is not on.

Top tips: don't drink for a week before the medical, don't rush to get there - give yourself plenty of time, ensure you budget more than the basic 180 or you could be in trouble.

We flew our 2 9-month old kittens from London to Tulsa a year and half ago with AA. They had to go in cargo, but we lined the carrier with one of those pet incontinence mats, had a warm blanket lining half and nothing on the other half so they could cool down or stay warm as appropriate. We then attached the largest hamster lick bottle from our local pet shop to the carrier.

They didn't eat for over 26 hours and were absolutely good as gold, so don't worry about it too much, they're more resilient than us poor humans that can't handle it past lunchtime! But hydration is the key, maybe a bunch of smaller bottles of water, or even asking cabin crew for extra bottled water once onboard.

Yeah, the Army lost my med records. Going in to camp tomorrow to see if they have them anywhere physically located, otherwise I'm going to need 3 from what I can tell an average 29 year old would need. Pisses me off cos the Army gave me every damn jab under the sun when I joined up, my arms and legs were blue for a month!

Finally booked my medical, bentinck mansions at 2pm, hopefully I can get in with my GP for jabs beforehand. I'm a bit skint right now and 180 is already pushing the boat!

Ahh ArubaDolphin, sorry I haven't replied yet. I find it very hard to see what is new and old here at visajourney with so much activity!

We didn't file anything to do with our marriage with the I-130, or later on with the DS-230 and I-864. I made a website with our photos on a year ago, so our families can see us doing our thing on both sides of the pond. I'm hoping that will help. Other than that, we have a tonne of photos of us in Paris, Amsterdam, The Hague, London, etc. that we hope will help. Other than that, we have a joint bank account in Oklahoma (I live in such a small town that the bank manager let me join without an SSN, so that's lucky!) but other than all that, we don't have that much to show other than our personal circumstances, which I can't repeat online as I used to be a member of the Armed Forces, but which are very specific and will definitely prove us as a real couple, of that I am certain.

Taxes. We only provided 1 year of my Mother-in-law's taxes, her W-4 paystub (??) and a letter with proof of employment, but again this is purely coincidental as we are very lucky that she makes good money, to the point where we felt it didn't matter (and as of 2 days ago, we heard it went through fine). Kourtni only filed a letter of employment and w-4 thingies as she doesn't earn that much yet and we're mainly dependant on her mother until we get settled there, as we're going away to work together on a contract.

Physics...?