This one was, surprisingly, not really a nightmare. I get there, the short power-tripping security guard is no longer there. There is a much larger male security guard. He has me go through the medal detector and leaves me alone, he assumes I can figure out where to go from there. This is good, because I do know where to go. There is an obvious line outside the “Will Call” desks. I stand in that line for a relatively short line considering the number of people. After all, this morning it took about half an hour to get from 009 to 016, with far more people working than these two ladies at the two “Will Call” desks. Anyway, I get up to the front of the line, sign the little slip saying that I have received my passport (and birth certificate, since the lady this morning kept that bit of identifying information), and I was good to go.

I am not quite sure how exactly generating piano music from sonar advances volcano erruption prediction, but it does generate some interesting audio files.^[1] Perhaps the lack of clarity is intentional in the press release, or perhaps its because I did not devote the time to reading it that I should have. Either way, the audio alone makes the site worth checking out.

I went to the regional passport office downtown this morning as scheduled. First I deal with this crazy little security guard lady, who is quite adamant that, as the check-in windows were not open yet, everyone must sit in the seats between her station and those windows, and must do so in the order they came in. Standing is not allowed. Sitting in a different order is not allowed. Starting the line at the wrong end of the first row of chairs is not allowed.

All of this might be understandable, except for what comes next. A man comes out, organizes us into a line, resorting us by the time of our appointment. So that chair order went out the window as the first row (which I was in) contained a mix of 0800, 0815 and 0830 appointments. Not only that, he does not want us sitting in chairs, he wants us standing in a line.

So we queue up, process through the check-in window, where our paper work is checked out, organized, and stapled and/or paper-clipped as appropriate. Apparently you do not need proof of travel, unless, like me, you want a same-day passport. Or at least, that is the impression I received.

My impression should not be generally trusted however, because I had also received the impression on the phone that I would walk out with my new passport, having paid my fees (which total up to $157). This is nearly true I suppose, but not really. I can pick my passport up between 1400 and 1500 today. So I need to head back into D.C. in approximately an hour to make that time period, where I will have to go back through security with the power-tripping little security guard lady.