RunningWithScissors

I just saw this today, I'm very sorry to hear this. If CFL needs hosting and some disk space, I may be able to provide it at no cost. If you want, please contact me and we'll see what we can arrange. CFL was a huge help to me back when I needed it (going on 10 years now, sheesh) and if I can return the favor somehow, I'd be happy to do so.

We do plan to get her a US Passport for sure, but hell, that'll be easy...I could do that in my sleep with my frontal lobe tied behind my back.

I'm very proud to announce America's newest United States Citizen. Sakha passed her US Citizenship Exam this morning, April 30th 2012, and was sworn in a few hours later around 12:30pm. http://discoverseattle.net/forums/Smileys/akyhne/smiley.gif To get to this point we fought our way through the State Department, the California Immigration Service Center, the National Visa Center in Vermont, the Department of Homeland Security investigators, the Phnom Penh Police Department, the Cambodian Records Center, the Cambodian Emigration Authority, the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh, US Customs & Immigration Services, and finally the US Customs & Border Protection. (I'm sure many of you went through similar mazes.) We turned in over 1,000 pages of documentation, had her fingerprints taken 4 times (at $680 a shot), sat through multiple interviews and jumped through numerous other hoops. After almost 4 years of this sort of thing, she is now a full-fledged United States Citizen. And believe me, we are soooooooooo done. lol I want to make special mention of this site... CandleForLove was very, very helpful to us in many ways, and Sakha and I thank each and every one of you here. It's been a long journey and CFL helped make it possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Cheers!

We've been told that if we get an appointment early in the day (which we do) then she can be sworn in the same day, else we can come back another day. In this case it's just gonna be me and her so the sooner the better. Man, after this last hurdle we are SO done. We spend time every day quizzing her on the US Citizenship Test site I made (shameless plug!) and she's batting about 99 out of 100 right. There are a couple that she still trips over but I'd bet almost anything that she's gonna pass the first time through.

Well....after a fair amount of screwing around, we finally have a date for the US Citizenship test. We had to make an appointment online to go down to USCIS, and at that appointment we were able to make an appointment for the actual appointment to get Sakha's fingerprints taken (sheesh) Cost about 4 weeks of time what with making the appointment to make the appointment. I know, it's *#^! crazy, but that's the way they do it here. At the first appointment I told them, "Look, she's here and she even brought her fingerprints with her, can't you just take them now?" Oh no, we can't do that. That would be, like, crazy or something. So we finally got the prints taken and we just today got the notice of the test dat: April 30th. We'll show up there early in the morning and she'll do the test. If she passes then we can hang around until ~1:00 when they do the swearing in ceremony. I'll let you know how it goes.....wish us luck!

A while back I had posted about a page I had created for my wife to help her practice for the N-400 US Citizenship test. It was hosted at http://discoverseatt...et/citizenship/. I'd mentioned it here so that other people could use it if they wanted to. I sort of forgot about the page and didn't pay much attention to it. Well, apparently word got out, lol, and the page started getting boatloads of traffic. I had no idea. I only found out when my wife pointed me to an article one of her clients had recently written about it: American Citizen. (It's kind of a cute article, and yeah, that's my wife the lady is talking about Now, the last time I looked it had maybe 30,000 questions taken. But when I went back and looked I saw that it now had over 1.5 million questions taken so far (!!). So, I guess a lot of people are using it (duh). Because of the traffic and apparent popularity, I decided to move it to a dedicated domain. You can now find the N-400 US Citizenship test at: uscitizentest.net. I'd like to improve the site a bit, but I'm not sure what would be useful. If you have any suggestions, please let me know and I'll see what I can do. But in any case, I'll be updating it whenever any of the questions or answers change. Please feel free to send people there if they're getting ready to take the N-400 US Citizenship test. http://uscitizentest.net

I'm not sure how it is there, but you can't do that here. They won't let you into the building without a letter and an appointment. You can't even call them (they refused to give us the phone number so we could contact them). It's US Mail only. I hate those people. DHS runs the lobby like it's the entrance to a secret nuclear facility. Come to think of it, back in the 80s/90s when I was going to various nuke sites, it was easier getting into them than into the USCIS building. I used to go to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, GE Vallecitos, INEL, Rocky Flats, and gobs of other nuclear research sites and it truly was easier getting into them than it is getting into USCIS nowadays. I can only imagine what it's like getting into Rocky Flats today. They probably do a colonoscopy now. On a brighter note, I'd mentioned some time ago that my wife and I introduced a friend of mine to a lovely Cambodian lady. They've been married a while now (I was his best man!) and they're retiring to Cambodia in ~75 days, he has his tickets and everything. He is sooooooooooooooo ready to go. He sold off most of his stuff, gave away a bunch more, and now they're just waiting to go.

Seriously, the people at USCIS are retarded jerks, and that's about the nicest thing I can say about them. We applied for my wife's US Citizenship and got the notice for the "final" biometrics, scheduled for January 19th. On the 19th we head down to DHS/USCIS in a pretty ugly snowstorm and fight our way down to Tukwila where the office is. Traffic was just insane, driving conditions were gruesome, but we weren't going to miss this appointment for ANYTHING. We get down there only to find out that DHS has closed the building due to snow. (WTF?? I mean, WE could get there, why couldn't they??) So anyway, the office is closed. We get back home and I call USCIS. We're told just to "sit tight" and that since they were the ones that canceled the appointment they would reschedule it and contact us. So we wait. And wait. And wait. Over the next 3 weeks I call them 4 times asking when we can expect to hear from them. Each time we're told to "be patient", "sit tight", and not to worry, that they'll contact us. They wouldn't tell us how long it might be before we heard from them. Estimates ranged from "a couple of weeks" to "six months" (!!!). Yesterday I called again and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. After a bit of yelling and arm-twisting we're told that it's our responsbility to contact USCIS for a new appointment, even though they were the ones that canceled it. WTF?? That's right- if we'd just sat passively we would have been waiting until the Sun burned out, because USCIS "does not and will not reschedule appointments" that they cancel due to weather. You have to contact them, even if they're the ones that screwed everything up. What a bunch of a-holes. So we sent them a certified, return-receipt letter requesting a new appointment, and we requested that they expedite it because we lost nearly a month due to their incompetence. We'll see what happens. *^&@%!

So far we like the Hyundai a lot. Fit and finish seems very good, it's reasonably quiet and it's peppy enough so you won't die merging onto the freeway. Yep, we're hoping (expecting) that the citizenship process should go smoothly.

Been a few months since I posted here...I'd submitted my wife's US citizenship papers but I'd sent them in too early (my mistake). December 15th I updated the forms and sent them in again, and we just received the "application received and is in process" notice. Now we wait to see if all the stuff we sent is what they want to see or not. On a "what's new" front, my wife just bought her first car ever and is so proud of it. She picked a cute little "girl car" (her words), a blue Hyundai Elantra. It's no luxury car (trust me on this) but overall it seems like a pretty decent little commuter car. We had a nice quiet holiday season so far and we're looking forward to the new year. Happy holidays to everyone here, and may your new year bring good things! It's good to see everyone here, I recognize a few names from way back when.

After a long and somewhat frustrating discussion with USCIS, I'm still unsure, lol. The paperwork says to use the date on her Permanent Resident card, not her Green Card (Employment Authorization card). It's a little confusing.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrr. I got a big ol' package from USCIS in the mail today and I figured it was another bunch of forms and maybe a Citizenship study booklet (that's what it felt like). Noooooooope. lol They kicked our application back to us because, as they explained, Sakha hasn't been in the country long enough. My response was, "WTF?? B*llsh*t!" But they're right, and it's my fault for not paying close enough attention to the forms, or at least the actual meaning of some of the fine points. Doh. It says that the applicant must have been married to a US citizen for at least three years (check) and that the applicant must also have been a permanent resident for 3 years. I mistook that to mean that the clock started ticking from the day she arrived, which is wrong. It's from the date that the applicant received their Permanent Resident status. My bad. Okay, so since that's the case, we just have to wait till December to file. No big deal. Unfortunately, I have a friend who is running along a similar timeline to me and he and his wife plan to emigrate to Cambodia the moment she gets her US citizenship and passport. He was also under the impression that the clock started when his wife arrived, not from the date she received her Permanent Resident Card. And that's gonna add 6 or 7 months onto their earliest departure date. So that's gonna bugger up his plans a bit, but it is what it is. Live and learn, lol.

I'm happy to report that we sent my wife's N-400 Citizenship Application in about a week ago. We got the USPS confirmation of delivery and we're waiting for the USCIS "official" confirmation of delivery/acceptance. Some time ago I made a simple little web app for those who need or want to study the N-400 test questions. It has the correct info for each State (governor, representatives, capitol, etc). You can take the questions in order or randomly and you can display the answer(s) to each question. In case anyone wants to use it I'll post the URL here again. My wife (and a few of her friends) have found it to be a big help in studying the questions. N-400 US Citizenship Test Questions & Answers I'll let you know what happens next, but we're in the home stretch.... -

Thank you, I'm glad you like it! I've run through the questions quite a few times with my wife, and I have to say that I don't know if I could qualify to become a US citizen, lol. I knew a lot of the answers by osmosis, but I couldn't name my state reps or senators (doh!). And I couldn't have told you who one of the writers of the Federalist Papers was. Lol, at 83%, you're reasonably safe to go bar-hopping. If you liked that one there are some others that you might enjoy: Online Pregnancy Test Online Rorschach Test The Death Psychic

I posted about this in a message in another CFL forum (http://candleforlove.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=34747&pid=569241&st=0entry569241) but I thought I'd mention here in case it's of any use to people. My wife, Sakha recently got her 10-year Green Card and is now starting to study for the US Citizenship test. To help her learn the Citizenship test questions I made a simple web site for her, and I offer it to everyone here in the hopes that it'll be of some help. You can find it here: http://discoverseattle.net/citizenship/ It's nothing fancy, but it works. You can take the questions randomly or in order. Just pick the state you're in and it'll also provide all of the state-specific answers for stuff like your senators and representatives, your state capital, etc. If you find a bug or see something that doesn't look right, please let me know. I hope you find it useful! -RunningWithScissors

For what it's worth, I've heard both sides of this argued passionately, lol. When I was waiting outside of the embassy while my fiance had her interview I spoke with about a dozen other guys who were also waiting....and to a man, they all said using an attorney was a good idea. A couple of them them said they did the paperwork on their own and they had screwed it up rather badly, learning as they went. They each said they should have gotten an attorney involved at the outset. So....I'd say if you can afford an attorney, go for it. I understand that due to financial considerations this isn't always an option. Yes, you should always check what they do but I'd consider it another chance to make sure things are done correctly (assuming the attorney is any good).

I simply wanted to have the best chance at making sure everything was done correctly. If you can afford an attorney I'd recommend retaining one, if not you can certainly do it yourself. An attorney isn't mandatory by any means.

Now that *most* of my process is completed, I'd like to offer two recommendations, one positive and one negative. These are my opinions, your mileage may vary, objects in mirror are closer than they appear, etc etc etc. Positive Recommendation: For an immigration attorney, I highly recommend a gentleman named Bart Klein, located in Seattle WA. Bart is very knowledgeable, easy to work with, competent, fast, and also just generally a nice person. His staff is friendly and he doesn't require you to make an appointment to come to his office. At last count I think he said he'd done 20,000+ immigration cases. Several of my friends are also working with him and have nothing but good things to say about him. "Highly Recommended". Bart Klein 605 1st Ave Suite 500 Seattle WA 98104 TEL: 206-624-3787 FAX: 206-624-6371 Negative Recommendation: I cannot in good faith recommend Lisa Ellis, of Ellis, Li, & McKinstry. In my opinion she did not serve me well, does not know family immigration law well, is unfamiliar with the process of immigration as it relates to the real world, and her paralegal, "Yvonne MacGregor", is surly, condescending, and was generally unpleasant to work with. Yvonne made mistake after mistake after mistake in my paperwork; when the mistakes were pointed out to her she became very upset, said she was "offended" by my "uncooperative attitude", and then refused to work with me anymore. Here's one example of what I consider (in my humble opinion) to be her poor advice: Ms Ellis advised me to wait for six months before filing any paperwork. I understand her reasoning as she explained it, but as it turns out, she was full of crap. NO ONE waits 6 months, and I mean NO ONE. I've since spoken with dozens of people and numerous attorneys and they ALL uniformly scream "WHAT?!?!" when I mention Lisa Ellis' insistence on waiting 6 months before filing. Another example: The paperwork that Ms Ellis and Yvonne MacGregor provided to me had quite a few serious, potentially "fatal" mistakes, and contained a lot of extraneous "junk" (cover letters and other crap) that my subsequent attorney removed, terming them 'needless' and 'distracting'. More importantly, the paperwork DIDN'T contain some items that should have been included. Turning the paperwork in as provided by Ms Ellis would, in my humble opinion, almost certainly have resulted in big problems and long delays. In my opinion, Lisa Ellis of Ellis, Li, & McKinstry charges a premium for her services but delivers very little. I would never EVER recommend Lisa Ellis to anyone for any immigration matter. In my opinion, equally competent (or more competent) representation can be had for much less than what she charges. And yes, I keep saying "in my opinion", because we all know that some lawyers have a pathological need to sue anyone who utters simple declarative sentences about them that might touch on their shortcomings. Now, we all know that all attorneys are perfect, God-like beings who walk on water and can heal injured swans just by touching them, but (unbelievable as it may seem), some of them aren't good at what they do, just like auto mechanics, plumbers, and house painters (try to contain your shock, kids!).

Okay, here it is, what will likely be the last "trip log" for a long, long time (maybe forever). Trip #10: The Final Frontier After a year-and-a-half of paperwork and waiting, I went back to Cambodia one last time on May 18th to be there for my fiance's interview... I'm happy to report that Sakha passed her interview with flying colors, got her visa 3 days later, and we flew back to the United States together, landing at Seattle-Tacoma airport on May 25, 2008. I hope you all have enjoyed reading the log as much as I enjoyed writing (and experiencing) them. Also, Sakha and I would like to send out a big "thank you" to all of the people who supported us in various ways throughout this one-and-a-half year long journey, including the great folks on the CandleForLove message boards. We couldn't have done it without you! Waylon & Sakha

Okay, finally had a moment to add this...it was worth it. In response to the "Why do you love an old(er) man?" question, my fiance said "Young man no care about my heart, no care about love, just want to play, have 2nd wife, no good to my heart. No love me for real. Older man, he love my heart, take care of me, really love me, no want to play or hurt my heart." I asked my fiance how the interviewer liked that answer and the conversation went something like this: Fiance: "She said I am a lady and must leave." Me: "What?" Fiance: "I saw her thumb. I am the leaving lady." Me: (confused) "What?" Fiance: "She show me her thumb, she said I am a girl." Me: (really confused) "I don't understand..." Fiance: (exasperated with my denseness) "Her thumb! I am a going girl, she said it!" Me: (head explodes) "What the ?!?!" Fiance: "Yes, that I am to go as a girl. With her thumb, she make a thumb to me!" Me: (writhing on ground) "What the...Oh Christ, I give up!!!" After a little more head exploding and writhing and whatnot, I finally determined what happened. My fiance gave her answer and the interviewer gave her the "thumbs up" and said "You go, Girl!"

Well.....I still have this last one to do, plus some miscellaneous stuff to add, so stay tuned. There's a very funny addition to the "why do you love an old(er) man" question that I'll get to in a day or so. B)

My fiance, Sakha, had her interview at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh on 20 May 2008. They only asked about three questions, and I think this was because I sent Sakha in with my passport. My passport showed them that not only had I been "living on the plane" (10 trips!) but that I flew over for her interview as well. The questions were: 1) "How did you meet your fiance?" This was an easy one to answer, we met through a friend and we had some docs to support that. 2) "Why do you love an old(er) man?" I'm 20 years older than Sakha. She says the interviewer said "old man" but I think she actually said "older man". At least my fragile male ego hopes so. Sakha answered this very simply; I'll put her response here more or less verbatim. She said, "Young man no care about my heart, no care about love, just want to play, have 2nd wife, no good to my heart. No love me for real. Older man, he love my heart, take care of me, really love me, no want to play or hurt my heart." The interviewer liked that response a lot, according to my fiance. 3) The third question was whether or not Sakha had children. She said "No", but that we will probably have a child once she's in the USA and we're married. That was about it. The interviewer wanted to see my 2007 taxes and sent Sakha back out to me to get them (I was waiting outside the embassy), but they're still in process and weren't available. I sent Sakha back in with 2006 and asked her to tell them that's all we had at the moment. That was about it....Sakha came out with a card instructing her to come back in 3 days on the 23rd to get her visa (which we did). The End (or maybe just The Beginning!)

A quick update........... I'm in Cambodia right now, writing this from our room in the New York Hotel. My fiance had her interview this morning at 0700. It took about 90 minutes and I'm very, very, VERY happy to report that she passed! We're scheduled to go pick up her visa on Friday and fly back to the US on the 25th or 27th. I'll make a little more detailed post later, but right now we're going out to celebrate. I can't believe we're actually going to come back together- no more using Skype every night, no more tearful goodbyes at the airport, and no more being apart 95% of the time. Finally, a big "thank you" from me to everyone here for all the help and support this last year and a half.

We're closing in on it, so help me god. I got back a week ago from the last trip and I'll be leaving for what I hope will be the final trip, or at least the last one for a long, long, time. My fiance's interview is on May 2oth, so I'm going back on the 17th to be there with her for it. Wish me (her) luck! If you're interested, there's a new trip log here: In this episode: Really, Really Hot, Moto Accidents, and Hacking The Hotel Room...plus other Bonus Stuff. Trip # whatever (the page may take a moment to load) Some sad news to mention that's not in the trip log...my fiance's father passed away very suddenly just after I left on the previous trip. He had a stroke and was gone in a couple of days, so this last trip was bittersweet. He felt sick, then he lost the ability to move one side of his body, then he couldn't speak...and he died while they were taking him to a hospital in Vietnam. He was a very well-liked person in his neighborhood and I couldn't believe it when I heard what happened. The first time I saw him he was smiling and laughing and welcoming me into his family, and he and his wife made me feel right at home immediately. I'm sad that he won't get to see his daughter go to the US, which was something he was looking forward to very, very much, and this has blown a huge, father-shaped hole in the family. He was given a traditional Vietnamese funeral and was laid to rest near his sister's home in Vietnam. On a happier note, I introduced one of my best friends to one of my fiance's girlfriends...they hit it off and he'll be going with me on this trip to get engaged. How cool is that? I gotta tell ya, due to all the trips and time zone changes this last year and a half, my sleep cycle is completely whacked. I get up at 1 or 2am, take a nap about 10am, and feel drowsy again by dinner. Argg.