HadleyNet.Org: Marc

Interesting, Defender is my all time favorite 80s video game.

Posted @ 08:46 | Category: /misc | Permalink

Sun, 13 Feb 2005

Skiing

We've lived in the snow belt for a couple of years now with mountains on our doorstep and yet somehow we've never gotten round to any kind of winter sports unless you count a bit of sledging and making big log fires. This weekend we ran out of excuses so Caleb and I headed out to learn how to ski at Mount Sunapee which is about an hours drive north west of our house.

Not being the fittest of men, I'm now 'very tired' (TM) but it was great fun and I plan to head back up there next weekend to take a couple more lessons. Here's a couple of pictures that Alison took in between trying to keep Alex warm and amused.

I realize the slopes we're on in the pictures look pretty flat but I can assure you that's just an optical illusion ;-).

Posted @ 19:30 | Category: /outdoors | Permalink

Sat, 12 Feb 2005

"Green" Card

Congratulate me, my permanent resident (aka green) card arrived today although, slightly disappointingly, its not at all green. Our application to adjust status was approved on Jan 13th while I was in Melbourne and we went to visit our local USCIS office on the 24th to hand over photos and get our index fingers printed for the cards. I was told it could take up to 6 months to get the physical card but in the end it was only 3 weeks - which was nice.

Having a green card has the following advantages:

• Permanent residence - my previous visa could have been extended up to a total of 7 years but after that I would have had to leave the USA for at least a year and then reapply for a new visa. The new card is valid for 10 years and can be renewed as required.
• Fast track when entering USA - green card holders can use the "US citizens and permanent residents" line. With my previous visa I had to wait in the "aliens" line which can sometimes be kind of slow (I was once stuck in the immigration queue in LA for 2+ hours). There's also no need to fill in any immigration forms just like when returning home to the UK.
• Open employment authorization - my previous visa required me to only work for my current employer, any change would have required getting a different visa. Alison can now also work though that's not on the cards in the near future.

We still don't get to vote in presidential elections and could be deported for a misdemeanor but for all intents and purposes we are now free to stay here for as long as we like. It took a little over 2 years to get through the green card process. I was quite fortunate as I qualified for a 'manager or executive' visa in the first place and that allowed me to skip one of the longer steps in the process. If anyone reading this is in the queue for a green card, good luck and hang on in there.

Posted @ 22:32 | Category: /misc | Permalink

Mon, 07 Feb 2005

Geocaching

I guess I'm pretty late to the game of geocaching judging by the number of caches round here but, just in case you haven't heard about it, the basic idea is that people hide stashes of nik-naks (called caches) around the place and then publish their location on the internet. You get yourself a GPS unit, grab the coordinates for some local caches and then set out to find them. I was introduced to this pastime during a recent W3C meeting and decided it would be a fun thing to try so I picked up a GPS from Amazon and today was our first attempt. Using the geocaching.com site we found the details of a couple of caches in the nearby Beaverbrook conservation area and set off to find them.

We've had a fair bit of snow (a couple of feet in total) over the last couple of weeks so I was bit dubious about our chances of finding anything but it turned out that the trails were fairly well packed down and the caches we'd picked were not too far off the beaten track so we didn't have to wade through too much snow. We'd picked a couple of easy ones to start with and luck was with us so we found both without too much hunting around. Top fun, here are some pictures.

Alex, Marc and Caleb on the way into the woods.	Caleb unearths the Elkins Road cache.
Caleb and Alison examine the contents of the Lucky Tiki cache.	A rest before heading back to the car.

Posted @ 09:17 | Category: /family/pictures | Permalink

Sat, 22 Jan 2005

Jet Lag

This has to be the best/worst case of jet lag I've ever had. I spent last week at a W3C WS-Addressing meeting in Melbourne, Australia (very nice btw) but have been home since Thursday evening. Its now just after 5am on Saturday morning but I've been awake since about 1.30am. This is pretty churtling because I'm 'very tired'(TM).

Posted @ 04:09 | Category: /misc | Permalink