I just received the picture on my phone this morning. Brant and Terra’s baby, Harrison, was born today. Brant sounds like he’s excited. He asked me when his heart will slow down.

It’s fascinating to see Brant’s transformation from roving bachelor to happily married father in the past three and a half years. He would have been the last person to believe anyone who’d tell him back then.

Life on our end is thankfully calm. I do my work during the week. I write in my free time. I do the TV show every other weekend. In fact, I was in the studio yesterday. Had to be there at 7:30 AM. Got up at 5 because I kept having dreams of sleeping in too late. I was dead tired and dazed the rest of the time. I barely remember shooting the shows. The scripts are still getting outrageously funny. We had crosses and garlic necklaces as props for an episode where we are trying to thwart Dracula (of whom I’m also the voice).

We finished at 1 o’clock. I got some sandwiches and took the long subway ride home, having difficulty staying on my feet. Brant gave me a text message when I got home. I mentioned to Eun Jeong, “Terra’s in the hospital to have the baby,” before collapsing unconscious in the bed. Had a good three hour nap.

Immigration is screwing around with E-2 visa applicants still because of the latest KBS news “report.” I think Immigration is changing the rules so that schools have to verify the degrees — which goes only to prove that Immigration had not been verifying degrees all along, even though they had us all go and re-verify our degrees a couple of years ago. If anyone’s listening, they basically admitted that they had been just doing a flashy dog-and-pony show to fool the public and their bosses into thinking they were actually fixing the problem.

If this new rule is true it also will not work. They’ll have bigger penalties on schools, yet they already have penalties on schools using illegal teachers anyway. It doesn’t stop schools from taking the risks and hiring them. So how does passing the job of verifying degrees to the schools solve it too?

And if this new rule is in effect, why do I hear that it’s taking longer to process E-2 applications? What is Immigration doing differently?

I’d better stop ragging on Immigration. I know that public officials sometimes read this little blog, and it can get me in trouble again.

Chuseok is coming, and we get a five day holiday starting this weekend. I want to continue my annual Foreigner Chuseok parties, but I don’t think anyone would show up this year. Everyone from last year but David and Cathy has left Korea. The friends that are left will either be doing obligatory family things or would not want to leave Seoul for the ‘burbs. Too bad. I had a list of new dishes I wanted to try out on — guests.