Almost legal!

Liveblogging from in line at LA county office, applying for SSN. It's 9:35, we'll see how it goes.

10:18 and I'm about to see security and get in.

10:26am: That line was to get to a waiting room. Security went fine, but he was confused by my two phones. The good phone on roaming and the burner with the battery. (Also, the security guy had to deliver a message inside, so it took longer to get screened.) Looks like seven people ahead of me with my letter, but I've got time. I only start work at noon.

10:33am: I'll need to resist the temptation to call out bingo when my number does come out.
11:02am: Might not have the time to lock up the place when I get out of here, but I'll try.
11:07am: I'm the next B... Might be out soon!

11:30ish: Alright, I went in with my application, and all I needed was my passport, and my immigration documents, the I-94 info. It went well from there, but because I don't have a consistent place to work, I put my current work address, which happens to be the same building I was applying at! So, he wanted to make sure that would get to me, and I ran in and out quick and confirmed the suite number. It took a little while, but he had good and bad news. Everything got approved, but I'll only have the number tomorrow (and the card in like 2 weeks). Since I work there, I'll just show up when the office opens, I have an appointment, so I'll skip the line, and all should go well. Almost there!

I also got an e-mail back from that parking lot... turns out the guy who did the pass tallied the payments in the wrong stalls, so they tore up the ticket. Huzzah!

So, tomorrow, I should have my SSN, and over lunch, I'll lock up that apartment. The next step is to look at a real phone, but it's starting to look like all the big companies are equally terrible, and my best bet might be to go with a prepaid. If I knew this, I'd have done that weeks ago! But it seems I can't even recreate the plan I had in Canada without paying twice as much.

But, we'll see. I need sleep, since tomorrow is my 7 am debut.