Sounds like a probe up the butt is preferred to THAT
1 Like
Whoa there, big guy. Speak for yourself!
2 Likes
Making a bad assumption about TECO’s Houston working hours was the last real mistake I made, fortunately. However, I had already made a far worse mistake, yet another bad assumption by me that would cost me two more weeks in Austin, a mistake that kinda sears even more than mis-timing my return from Singapore or my assumption about TECO in Houston. A real doozy. I haven’t mentioned it yet because in the timeline I wasn’t yet aware of it.
However, I’ve shown you this mistake (twice). Have you seen it yet?
I spent the rest of Tuesday, April 7, tussling with UPS. The UPS Store guy speculated that if UPS sent it back to Austin it wouldn’t arrive before Thursday. He could not guarantee the time it would arrive in Austin on Thursday if I chose to have it returned. Fine, I said, as long as I have enough time to pick it up and send it right back out again for delivery the next day, Friday (by noon!). Was there any way to have UPS make the third and final attempt before noon on Tuesday? No, UPS can’t make hairpin turns like that, even if you offer to pay something extra.
His recommendation was to ask somebody at TECO in Houston to find and then travel to the UPS facility in Houston and take delivery there. I tried calling TECO in Houston, but nope: noon means noon and nobody was picking up. I left a voicemail, and resigned myself to an extra three days spent needlessly in Texas.
Then the next day, Wednesday, my phone rang. Houston area code, but the number wasn’t familiar. It turned out to be a real hero in this story, a TECO in Houston employee named Jerry.
Jerry called me to ask if I’d like him to drive over and pick up my package, to take official delivery for TECO in Houston. Wait, what? Would I? Are you kidding?!
And he did. My package was now safely in the hands of TECO in Houston, and TECO would have Friday, April 10 to work on it. Or a half day, anyway.
I felt like a Family Mart had been lifted off my shoulders. Whew. Finally I could breathe.
Feeling the tension ebb out like bath water, I started to take the opportunity to shop for some things to take back. A new pair of athletic shoes, a half-dozen DriFit tees that were actual XL size (even XXL in Taiwan makes my shoulders feel like they’re in a vise), some good anti-perspirant, some things I simply can’t find in Taiwan.
Obviously I didn’t have a suitcase, so I bussed out to a Lowe’s and picked up a small, heavy-duty cardboard box and some packing tape. Lowe’s was an “essential” business, but Amazon would not deliver clothing before the end of April.
Dick’s Sporting Goods wouldn’t either, and because they weren’t “essential” no stores were open for customers, but they were allowing curbside pickup. On Wednesday night, feeling relaxed, I bought some shirts and arranged to pick them up curbside at a Dicks in northwest Austin, a place called The Domain.
I stayed in the morning of Friday, April 10, just in case TECO in Houston called. No call, but I knew for a fact they had my application and its supporting materials so no worries. Early in the afternoon I took a long bus ride out to The Domain to pick up my stuff.
The Domain turned out to be a vast, sprawling shopping center that was almost completely deserted. I got off the bus stop on the eastern edge, and a little over a kilometer later I found the store. Instructions printed on typing paper were taped to the vast front door glass: call this number, return to your vehicle, and wait for the staff inside to bring out your order. Step outside of your vehicle and it will be handed to you.
They were happy to hand me my order while I stood outside the door, observing proper social-distancing. After confirming it was all there, I stuffed it in my backpack and began a walk of unknown distance to a bus stop I’d never visited before (the lady who handed me my package did point me in the right direction, though).
About 500m later, I was walking next to a building with beautiful, yellow sandstone walls, watching a bit of packing paper blow around the vast, empty parking lot next to me, and thinking how I felt a little like the protagonist in I Am Legend, a lone man walking in a blasted city, when my phone rang.
“Hello, is this bojack?” asked the woman. “This is TECO in Houston. We’ve received your package, but did you send your passport? We did not find it in your envelope.”
“My passport?” I asked. “No, of course not. I was told to send you a copy of my passport. Do you need the actual passport?”
“Yes, of course,” she scoffed. “How are we supposed to afix your visa to your passport if we don’t have your passport?”
I crumpled against the sandstone.
“Can I send it to you for delivery tomorrow?” I asked.
“No, we aren’t open on Saturday. I’m sorry, but if you had included it in your package we could have sent it back to you today.”
I started kicking a harmless curb. Hard.
“So I’m afraid I have even more bad news, bojack. Due to the spread of the coronavirus in Houston we will be closed all next week. We will reopen on Tuesday, April 21. Maybe you can have it here then? Hello, are you there?”
I removed my hands from around my throat and begged her to accept it tomorrow. The US State Department tells us Americans never to part with our passports that way, I told her (I think this may even be true). UPS would send it overnight, I said. Maybe you could take it home and mail it to me next week? No, that won’t be possible, she said. I know that your State Department says things like that. I’m sorry.
Yes, in the rush of writing instructions down, in the fog of jet lag, I had made a very bad assumption. TECO in Houston had asked me to send my original passport. I’m not sure exactly why I wrote “- copy” at the end of the first requirement.
I had even wondered why, exactly, they would ask for copies of my passport stamps pages when I’d stuffed the printouts into the package I sent them. I never even considered asking why. Idiot. Grrr.
Do you see it now?
Another very bad weekend. The last horrible one, fortunately.
10 Likes
@bojack, 21st century Kafka? 
1 Like
Possible. Felt more like Job at the time, though.
One thing I was wondering. Why the rush? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just hang out in Austin for a while and take the whole process a little slower? I mean, did you really miss your wife that much?
Hah. Nudge wink etc
Actually, Austin is dead, dead, dead. Public Austin, that is. No bars, no restaurants, no music. Extremely grim when I was there. As boring as Hsinchu is, it’s 10x better than public Austin was last month.
There were also 6 or 7 days of highs in the 10s, lows in the single digits, and me in clothes for Singapore.
I think it’s improved in May, though. Supposedly restaurants and bars are reopening, and maybe the city will come back to something like life.
4 Likes
Do you know the ‘50/50 = 90’ saying? It means if you give an engineer (or whoever you’re trying to make fun of) a 50/50 decision, they will get it wrong 90% of the time. I feel like it applies to your story a bit 
That’s really hard to imagine, but I’ll take your word for it.
2 Likes
You’re welcome to give it yer best shot, but believe me: you’re not going to be able to kick me harder than I’ve kicked myself over this thing. 
The passport thing was incredibly dumb. I’m still in shock how I managed to do that to myself. Jesus.
2 Likes
No no, not trying to roast you further, part of the fascination with this whole debacle is that I can see myself making the exact same decisions. Just commenting that it’s amusing how often you had two choices, tried to make the right one based on the information available, and somehow it led to even more trouble. 
For example, sending the fast mail to arrive at 8 am instead of noon - that seemed like the obvious choice, but it ended up costing you more time! Hopefully this isn’t the post-virus ‘new normal’ people are talking about…
1 Like
Oh I see. 
The thing is that, of all the decisions I made over the 40+ duration of my ordeal, I got two spectacularly wrong.
That’s another reason I wanted to be back in Hsinchu, too. In a cv19 reality, being closest to home is the least-risk solution. Not good when you’re forced to make so many decisions in an environment defined by risk and change.
5 Likes
H-E-B markets are great (as well their Central Markets), more so the newer big ones. Hope you went to a super sized one but these days not being normal days less crowds. PS. Did you try self serve coffee vendor at the Austin airport (AI coffee?)?
Yeah, I was an instant fan of H-E-B. In fact, I think I prefer them to Wegmans on the E coast, although they’re two different animals.
Seems like you can buy almost anything at the bigger ones. I’ve certainly never seen an entire full-size end-cap display of thirty (?) different shapes of cast-iron skillets in a grocery store anywhere else. Must have been many hundreds of pounds of cast iron hanging in one humongous display I saw at one on South Congress.
In my two recent walks through the Austin airport, I think I counted two establishments open for business. One was a BBQ joint, and the other wasn’t a coffee vendor. So afraid not. I will next time, though!
[quote=“bojack, post:114, topic:191407, full:true”]
Yeah, I was an instant fan of H-E-B. In fact, I think I prefer them to Wegmans on the E coast, although they’re two different animals.
Seems like you can buy almost anything at the bigger ones. I’ve certainly never seen an entire full-size end-cap display of thirty (?) different shapes of cast-iron skillets in a grocery store anywhere else. Must have been many hundreds of pounds of cast iron hanging in one humongous display I saw at one on South Congress.
In my two recent walks through the Austin airport, I think I counted two establishments open for business. One was a BBQ joint, and the other wasn’t a coffee vendor. So afraid not. I will next time, though!
[/quote
1 Like
While TECO in Houston was officially closed the week of April 13-17, they were working from home. An official called me that week to follow up.
According to the official, the office had closed because someone in their Houston building had tested positive for Covid19. While it seemed that TECO in Houston had elected to close temporarily their offices in an abundance of caution, she did mention that the entire building relied on the same HVAC (a/c) system.
At any rate, TECO in Houston would reopen on Tuesday, April 21, she said. If I could have my passport in their hands that day, then they’d do their best to affix my visa and return it as soon as possible. They were still on a Tuesday-Friday, schedule, so the soonest day they could send it back would likely be Friday, April 24.
So Monday, April 20 I made yet another trip to the local UPS Store. There I sent my passport by overnight delivery to TECO in Houston, careful to choose the less expensive, “by noon” option.
Once delivery was confirmed by UPS on Tuesday, I booked my return flight to Taiwan (AUS > DEN > LAX via United, and LAX > TPE via EVA Air). I would depart Austin on Monday, April 27, and arrive at TPE on Wednesday, April 29.
Was this a risky decision? Yes. It was risky because the official of TECO in Houston would not confirm that my visa could be affixed to my passport in time to arrive in my hands by Monday, April 27.
And to make things worse - naturally - my Airbnb was up on Thursday, April 23. That meant that the return address on my return envelope (the envelope to be used by TECO in Houston to return my passport to me in Austin) would not be accurate. I had booked yet another Airbnb, which I moved into that Thursday afternoon.
So yet another nail biter on Friday, April 24. That afternoon an official with TECO in Houston texted me to say that she thought my passport would be turned over to UPS late that afternoon, but that I should wait for confirmation.
I called the UPS Store to ask what my options were. The UPS guy told me that, once the package had been accepted into UPS’s system, I would be able to go in and change the address.
The UPS Store closed at 6pm. At 6:30pm, I got my confirmation from TECO in Houston. I checked the tracking number in the UPS system. UPS acknowledged receipt from TECO in Houston. Sweet. All I had to do was go to the UPS website and change the address to my new address in Austin.
And so, as per the theme of last month, UPS tells me that no, my UPS guy gave me wrong info and I can NOT change the address until one delivery attempt is made. To what is now the wrong address. Motherfucker, what a month.
So fuck it. I got up at 7am the next morning. I checked the status on UPS. When the status of my package changed to “Out for delivery” at 9:40am, I called Uber. I grabbed a camp chair out of the box of them in my new Airbnb place, and headed over to my old address across town.
Uber guy drops me off at 10:00am. I take my camp chair over to a spot under a big oak tree in the corner of the parking lot, set it up, pull my Kindle out of my backpack, and wait on the UPS driver to show up. At 10:40am, as he’s walking by, I ask if he’s got anything for my (old) unit. He does. I take possession of my passport, visa firmly attached within. I had almost 48 hours to spare. Life is good.
With nary a full fingernail left, I caught my flight back to Taiwan that Monday, April 27. No further issues. And here I am.
12 Likes
So the “Special Visa” as basically a Visa that doesn’t fit any other category, but there is a compelling case (in this case, married to a TW Citizen who was in TW)?
And that Special Visa will now be used to obtain an ARC I gather?
So shut up and post! 
1 Like
Wow, what a story. If it’s not too personal, what kind of info did your wife need to put in her letter?
Have wife - will travel