Well, the United States government, in it\'s infinite quest to cut costs and
reduce our deficit, offers an option when you are obtaining a passport for the
first time. If you pay an additional 60 dollars on top of the already
exorbitant cost of the passport, you can receive it with *rush processing*,
which is defined as two weeks.

It has now been 3 weeks, and I still do not have a passport. I should be
flying to Finland on Monday. Things are not looking up.

On top of that, one of my lovely coworkers decided to borrow my credit card
for the weekend. 500.00 is now missing from my checking account. All hail
visa debit cards. *sigh* Bank returned 250 due to fraud, so I\'m not short
250.00 for my trip as well.

Bearing all this in mind, combined with the holidays, I\'ve decided to put the
trip off until january. Apologies to the Kamikaze+ crew and everyone else who
tried to set time aside for me. I shall provide no more dates on my trip
until my passport and tickets are in hand.

Mali