U.S. VISA

Sorry folks, I’m really upset.

My VISA is expiring in few months, so I’m looking for a job, and of course an extension of my VISA.. or a new one, or a green card, it doesn’t matter. I found a good job, in a really nice location, close to downtown LA and Pasadena. It was March, end of March. After few days they called me to give me this wonderful information. We are slow in the process, we are not able to apply for a H1 Visa for you. But we are working hard to get a legal status for you, such that you can stay in US and we can hire you. Ok… I’m not getting a H VISA.. but looking at the good thing.. if the transfer my current VISA, a J1, I can start immediately to work for them and I don’t need to wait till October.

We spent all April faxing and emailing form, application form, passport, several documents they needed for the transfer. I am happy, I’m ready for the new adventure, and, as they suggest, I talk with my employer. He is happy for me, he is gonna help me preparing all the documents, but of course before to release me he wants some achievement. Ok… I’m still really happy.

After one months of talking about transferring the J VISA, I write them that a need their J program number, because the International Center needs this number to complete the transfer to another institution. And…. wow the answer is… we don’t have a J program! But what the hell, we are talking about transferring J VISA since March, and now only now you thought you don’t have a J program. And you are lucky that a pool of attorney… not one…is working on the VISA applications.

Sorry, but I think I have good reason to be upset, and also if I don’t have one, I really am.

Bits about me

I think it’s time to make a decent presentation.

My name is Roberto, next Sunday I’ll be 26 years old. I am Italian but I work and live in US from October 2006. Without many details about my position, let say I am a Software Engineer at the University of California, Irvine but I don’t want annoy you with my skills, this is not a resume.

I love Soccer, I played soccer for almost 15 years, I have broken my bones playing soccer, I had a lot a satisfactions playing soccer. But I am also starting enjoying Basket. Of course, NBA is more a show than a sport, but I’m starting following it as much as I did with soccer years ago.

I don’t read much, honestly I don’t read, except online newspapers. By the way, why we do not stop to print newspapers, magazines, books and use only online version, that’s not clear not me. Internet access is almost anywhere, and we would save a lot of trees. But I’m not an environment-guy, so let go ahead. Anyway, I’m reading Don Quixote, few pages per day, I’m planning to finish it before the Italian soccer team will win another world cup.

Due to nine hours of distance between Italy, I have few contacts with my friends. Mainly because I like Skype and I don’t like MSN Messenger, while all of them like MSN Messenger. Probably we can fix this problem. But I’m still in touch with them because they are using an online forum to organize parties, dinners, whatever. The forum is in Italian, take a look if you wanna waste your time: http://lasacrasede.forumer.it.

Now, my hobbies. I like coding, usually I have a lot of ideas which I forget before to realize. The last one is implementing a famous Italian card game, “TreSette” using Ruby. But the best part of the history is why I have this idea. Basically I play cards every day with my girlfriend and she will never beat me, I would like to create a better adversary. Status of the work: nothing done, I’m still waiting for a good heuristic to emulate a decent way to play. I miss you Magro, you were a good adversary. Of course, because you are really luckier than me.

That is it for today, but soon I’ll tell you about the VISA problem, about my current job and potential future job, about Facebook and whatever in my mind.

Ok, I did it.

Well, yes, I created my personal web page. Nothing special. Take a look if you want: www.ics.uci.edu/~gamboni.

I used my preferred editor TextPad and only simple HTML. So, I solved all my doubt. Now that I have a page, I’m curious to see how many visitors I’ll get. I would say a number between 0 and 10 the first two months, but I have plans for the future. But right now I don’t know when the future will arrive.