What a Wacky World

Two dispatches from the "what were they thinking?" department:

North Korea. Seriously, nuclear weapons? Do they realize how isolated they are now?

France. A D-Day celebration without the Queen of England. How can you make a mistake like this? Oversight? Really?

There. And now, from the "I can't believe I'm saying I'm lucky" department:

When I immigrated to Canada, it took about six months to complete my paperwork. That's not full-time work, of course, but elapsed time. I did it myself, no lawyers necessary. Then it took them about nine months to process and grant me approval. I had been told that that was fast.

Wednesday I chatted with two Canadians working in the U.S. After several years, they're both applying for green cards. Their employers are using attorneys. One of them submitted his paperwork first in November of 2001 (talk about bad timing) and received acknowledgment that it had entered the review process in 2005. That's four years.

So I'll say it once more: I was lucky. Of course, I was also smart to cross the border in the correct direction.