NZ's crazy war on drugs

Just a little rant: I can walk into a drug store and buy acetaminophen with codeine, but I can't buy any decongestant that has pseudoephedrine in it--since I might, you know, buy 300 of them, run some chemical processes on them, and get high. And we all know codeine can't get you high--I mean, it's not like its heroine or anything. I don't know ... maybe the junkies in NZ just lack imagination.

Some more pics ...

Including X-Mas, the beach, and pictures of our neighborhood and local school.

Kia Ora!

Welcome to my latest efforts, my attempt to document our experiences as we attempt to leave the United States and head to New Zealand.

I'll get into the whys of the move later ... most likely several times, as the answer is pretty complex. I'm going to start with a little bit of a timeline.

After thinking about it for three years, in July of 2006 I sumitted an Expression of Interest to be a skilled migrant. Four months later, I received an Invitation to Apply for permanent residence as a skilled migrant. After much, much paperwork (which I'll post on later) I submitted my application on February 2nd, 2007.

Right now I'm 'in the queue' and waiting for my application to be processed. It could take up to 4 months before they even begin looking at it and as many as 7 additional weeks to actually process it.

Of course, there's a lot to get sorted out between now and our planned departure date of September 2007 ...