I am the ghost of groovymother.com. Woooooo!

This is an old page from Rod Begbie's blog.

It only exists in an attempt to prevent linkrot. No new content will be added to this site, and links and images are liable to be broken. Check out begbie.com to find where I'm posting stuff these days.

Filed under 'greencard'

October 23, 2008

Ten Years in My Life: US Immigration Status

Ten Years in My Life: US Immigration Status

On Saturday, 24th October 1998, I flew from Glasgow to Boston, with little more than a suitcase of clothes and a credit card with a decently high limit.

It's now 24th October 2008. Ten years have gone by. Time for little personal retrospection. How have I spent these ten years?

November 7, 2006

No taxation without representation

I’m a political junkie. Election night is like my Superbowl—Watching the results trickle in, cheering on my “team”.

Which makes it odd that, aged 30, I have only twice in my life cast a vote in a political race, and the only time I did so by visiting a voting booth was in a referendum rather than an election. (In 1997, I was a student in Edinburgh, and cast my vote by proxy for my hometown MP whose seat was more marginal.)

Shortly after moving to the US eight years ago, I attempted to get my name onto the British electoral register as an overseas voter, but due to a screw-up by the registrar in Stirling I failed. Since then I haven’t bothered trying again as the new rules for registering as an overseas voter are too much hassle (involving finding a British citizen to whom I am not related). Besides, overseas voters can only vote in General Elections, not local or Scottish ones, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out on much and have just resorted to trundling along as a disenfranchised soul, grumbling occasionally about taxation without representation.

But today, I was looking at the US Immigration Services site, and realised that I will be able to apply for American citizenship in January of 2008. The naturalization process reportedly takes an average of six months so, theoretically, it is possible that I will get to have a say (beyond trying to convince Joy how to vote) in the 2008 presidential election.

(As an aside, only a true child would be amused by the fact that the final page of the official Guide to Naturalization, in an appendix giving examples of the kind of sentence you might have to write in your citizenship test to prove your English-speaking abilities, includes the sentence “The colors of the fag (sic) are red, white and blue.”)

But for now, I’m sat on the sofa with a beer, refreshing CNN.com every so often and cheering as the Democrats steal seats in the Senate, and just enjoying waiting for the victory speech from our new Governor Elect, the splendid Deval Patrick.

UPDATE: And today is my extra innings. The bases are loaded, and Webb‘s at the plate. Fantastic!

April 11, 2005

Not particularly green, but definitely a card

Not particularly green, but definitely a card

This is what all the sweat, paperwork, and panic attacks lead up to: My "green" card.

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April 5, 2005

Immigration officials have a sense of humour, right?

Immigration officials have a sense of humour, right?

The location? Outside the JFK Building, home of the Boston branch of the US Immigration Services.

The occassion? Just successfully had my Green Card interview.

The T-shirt? A gift from my sister. It reads "I ordered by bride from paulfrank.com"

The shirt? Stayed buttoned-up the whole time I was inside.

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About This Site

This is an archive of groovmother.com, the old blog run by Rod Begbie — A Scottish geek who lives in San Francisco, CA.

I'm the co-founder of Sōsh, your handy-dandy guide for things to do in San Francisco this weekend.