"I think we're going to make it after all"

Yes sports fans, this is a 90-day, double entry visa from the Republic of Azerbaijan.


So, I guess we are ready to go, the airline tickets have been settled for January 11 departure, and this document firmly affixed in our passports should get us through the gate. I spoke with our contact in Ganja, he said he is happy we are still coming to Azerbaijan. Apparently this type of thing is enough to dissuade others from following through on plans to visit/live in the country. He further commented that "it will not be too hot when you arrive." I am still pondering if this is his sense of humor or perhaps he likes the cold...?


Things are going well with the long-term visa acquisition as well, England, the gentleman I will be working for, has instructed me to obtain some letters of reference (since I am not a degreed person) stating my proficiency in marketing--it will be easier to procure a work permit for a marketing director rather than just a graphic artist or even designer. Gathering the letters of recommendation will be no problem, I already have three and will have another three or four by the time we depart.


A couple new things for Shah Asari, we have some "limited edition" coffee mugs now, the Coffeeman will be sending them around to his supporters and I have a few as well. We also have done a printed piece as well, so, along with the website we are beginning to get the word out about the coffee shop/cultural center, in the USA anyway. The Coffeeman and his family are really wanting to get back to Azerbaijan, they have been living out of a suitcase for more than a year now. Congratulations to them on the recent arrival of their son, I wish I could remember his name!


I've been staying plenty busy here in the Hometown, painting some signs and doing some electronic design as well for the Salesman. He has landed a contract in Kansas City that should keep us busy for a while, so that is good news. Still doing two days a week for Spirit, and enjoying that.

Christmas holiday is coming up soon, the kids will join us at the cabin. I got a new lens for the camera (Merry Christmas to me) so I am hoping to be able to post some more photos soon. Then we fly down to Florida on January 4th and on the plane to Azerbaijan on the 11th. 

More later!

ShahAsari.com

Just got the new website up and sort of running, it is at www.shahasari.com

Yeah!

Visa Update

It's been a couple weeks now since my last post so I think it is time for an update. A lot has been going on in recent weeks, and one of the crazy things about this delay we've been in is that we have been able to take advantage of a couple things that we would have missed out on.


One of the more significant events that we were sad about missing--had we taken off for Azerbaijan on October 19--was a meeting of business people hosted by The Connector. This forum was held in Colorado Springs, and was delightful. We heard from several businessmen that are operating such operations as translation services, training companies, book sellers, travel and resorts, all sorts of people. There were men and women from the USA, Canada, Norway, Azerbaijan and others.


It was very insightful to sit and hear strategies and concepts about operating small businesses in Azerbaijan. I sat next to an older gentleman from Southern Azerbaijan, he spoke very little English. However, he was respectful and genuinely glad to be in America spending time with foreigners (to him) that want to help his nation prosper and see new concepts.


We also got to spend some time with The Coffeeman. It's always nice to see him, we have a great time together. We had produced a flyer for this conference, he had it printed and brought it with him. It turned out nice and was well received.


One neat bonus of this conference was that it was that it was held  in Colorado Springs, right at the base of Pikes Peak and a fe minutes from a National Park called "Garden of the Gods." If you ever are in the area and get the opportunity to tour this park, do so. It is not huge, and even a couple hours will give you a really neat experience. These rock formations are fascinating and I encourage you to see them if you can.


One other event that we, or at least I was happy to have been able to take part in was an annual event in my Hometown, a motorcycle toy run. This is a motorcycle rally held each year to raise funds and donate toys for under privileged kids. My daughter A shares my love of motorcycles so she joined me on the run. There were over three-thousand motorcycles on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, it was huge fun to be part of.


Today we sent off our passports to the Azerbaijan embassy in Washington DC with our visa applications. We had met an American gentleman at the forum who showed us his recently acquired 90 day tourist visa. We are hopeful that this will be the last step that getting out of the country now. We have our airline tickets set, and we will know in about 14 days if we have visas to enter the country of Azerbaijan.


More later!

Homeless and Jobless

Well, maybe not as bad as all that.


It's been a couple weeks now since we've gotten back to the Hometown. Welcome back to the midwest, what to do now after all the big "good-byes" have been said? "Oops, we will be here a little while longer..."


We arrived back after our departure-turned-into-vacation from Florida and immediately began to seek ways to become useful and at the same time gainfully (self) employed. I have not worked full time for myself in almost six years, but as a commercial artist I have been doing side-work for some time, so now it was time to turn side-work into real work. Fortunately, since we do not have a mortgage to pay, we are not needing to make particularly huge sums of money to live on. Also, there are any number of dear friends that are making the rounds of, "come stay with us for a few days." We are somewhat of a celebrity, or perhaps at least an oddity, it seems that moving to the middle east by choice these days requires a lot of explaining.


So, some background may be appropriate at this juncture.


I am now 45 years old, and have been in the commercial art field my entire working life. I had started out wanting to be a technical illustrator, but while waiting for a job opening I got a job at a small sign shop. It was there that I fell in love with the written letter, and was trained as a sign painter. I worked solely as a signwriter for 13 years, then made a move to Tulsa, Oklahoma and spent most of my time there behind a computer doing printed-page design and layout.


While in Tulsa I became acquainted with a gentleman working in Tallinn, Estonia. Looking for a change of pace and a new opportunity, we took advantage of an offer to move to northern Europe and lived and worked in Estonia for three years, 2000-2003. My wife and I had travelled to Europe several times, to England, France, Finland, and then Lithuania twice. We liked the Baltic States so the move to Estonia was a wonderful time for the four of us, out children being with us in the move.


Coming back to the USA in the fall of 2003, I started working for the Boeing Company as a contract graphic artist in 2004. Boeing sold its Wichita plant in 2005, and I was offered a full-time position as a graphic designer with the new company, Spirit AeroSystems.  I worked for Spirit for five years and loved every minute of it.

As an occasional signwriter I was keeping my skills up and charging as much as I liked--a nice by-product of not relying on it to make my living. Perhaps because hand lettering is more of a specialty these days I have been blessed to be able to charge a premium and get it. So, I have been doing a fair amount of lettering and pinstriping and getting a good return on it. And I love doing it.


I also have been doing typesetting and ad design on pharmacy bags for The Salesman pretty regularly now. It's good work and we are able to do it anywhere we can get an internet connection, so we will be doing this work for some time to come. There are also some other electronic design work coming around, so we are confident that we will not be checking in at the homeless shelter any time soon.

We are not really homeless anyway, its just that our house is not in the Hometown. It is about two hours drive south of here. We were invited two years ago now to visit a friend in a smallish cabin community north of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I'm not an Okie, but we really enjoyed this little place on the river. We enjoyed it so much that when Todd told us of a place for sale, and asked us if we might be interested, we purchased our own little cabin by the river. We call it Serenity. We own it outright, and the cost of keeping it are very minimal. We just spent five days down there and it is a wonderful place to get away from it all.


We are back in the Hometown tonight, getting ready to accomplish some work that we've lined up tomorrow. We are here until Tuesday, November 2, election day. On Tuesday, after we vote out all the bad guys and vote in all the new good ones, we are driving to Colorado Springs to take part in a conference on Azerbaijani Business Interests. We are really excited to be able to attend this conference, we went to the same event last year in Minnesota, and a number of individuals that were there last time will be there again. It will be a nice opportunity to re-acquaint with other like-minded business people. The Coffeeman will also be there. With regard to him, we just established our website for The Business, and that is an exciting milestone.


Work continues for The Business, Shah Asari, which means, "Masterpiece." The Business will be a cultural center of sorts, 30% art presentation display gallery, 30% family-friendly gathering space, and 40% coffee shop. Coffee is still a relatively new beverage for this tea-based culture, so we are hopeful that the coffee shop will be the income generating arm in the beginning. We are also hopeful that the gallery will draw local artisans and customers/collectors to the space and eventually outpace the coffee shop income. The other arm of the Business is to establish a space where women and women with children are accepted on equal terms with all patrons. The Coffeeman, a resident of this Azerbaijan city of 300,000 does not know of one. There are a couple that are women-only, so we are seeking to present a place where all are welcome, and all are respected.


So, I am exited to see what next week brings in regard to what the other expatriate Azerbaijan business people are doing about the visa situation and how to get one. Ill be sure to let you know.

Still in Florida, Still no Visa #2

We heard back from England in Azerbaijan, the possibility of getting a visa and work permit as an artist will be explored, more to come soon.


Finished up a Pharmacy Bag for The Salesman back in The Hometown. Should be an interesting ride, I am very much looking forward to it. I have known The Salesman for more than 15 years but have only just recently begun working for him. We are producing advertisements that will go on pharmacy bags. I have done several for him already, but he has just recently landed a contract that includes over 200 bags in the coming year. It's great work, it doesn't take a whole lot of time and pays pretty good. It is one of our income streams for supporting ourselves while in Azerbaijan, so you may hear of these bags and The Salesman from time-to-time.


We went to the beach this morning, figured if we're going to be in beautiful sunny Florida we should go to the ocean. It was very pleasant, a nice family time.

Working around the yard with Beloved's dad all afternoon, dinner and perhaps we'll watch Amazing Race® on cbs.com. What explorer wouldn't love that reality show?



And that was Monday, goodnight.

Still in Florida, Still no Visa

Wrote an email today to England, asking about considering a little different avenue for our visa application. Seems most of the concern is about our qualifications to teach English as a second language. Some might doubt my ability to use it as a first language, but that is a different matter altogether. We are exploring getting into the country with me as an artist instead of an instructor, I'll let you know what England thinks of this idea.


We celebrated Kid B's birthday today, many family members converged on Beloved's parent's house. It was a nice afternoon, we had 12 for dinner.


Kid A arrived tonight, I picked her up at the airport about an hour ago. This was her first experience flying cross country by herself, and she did great.


That's all the news for today.

Welcome to Azerbaijan... or not

So my good friend says to me, “You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?”  Well, I thought I might at least get to the country before seeing a challenge or two. I guess it’s not an adventure if everything goes as planned...

This is the first post of our adventures in the middle eastern nation of Azerbaijan. Counting down the days until we arrive in-country, I was going to do something cool in the title like, “Day One minus 12...” we were (are) holding airline tickets to arrive in Baku, Azerbaijan on October 19, 2010. That title, of course, is reliant upon the fact that we do indeed arrive on October 19. However, that fact has now become history, so I had to go with the other cool title that now sits atop this post.


My Beloved and I have been planning a move out of the country for some time now. We have done our research, made contacts, we have sacrificed and saved and made arrangements for this move. I resigned my job at the end of September and we’ve been renting a house in anticipation of leaving on this date. 


So two months ago we purchased airline tickets to AZ, departing out of Orlando, Florida. The plan was to take one last road trip with the kids, A & B, to Florida and spend time with them as well as Beloved’s parents before exiting the country. Kid B secured time off from his work and the plan was set in motion. (Kid A couldn’t get quite as much time off and will be flying down to join us) After a joyous farewell they would drive back to The Hometown and we would jump on the 747 and send them an email when we arrive.


That was the plan, the rest of the story goes like this.


Wednesday morning, Oct 6, our last day in The Hometown. I awoke to a text from The Coffeeman, a partner in our still-forming business, Sha Asari. The text says, “call me when you’ve read the email from England.” England is the gentleman that runs The School. The School was to be our first employer over there, trading instruction of English for learning the Azerbaijani language. Their tested and true method of entrance into the country was to arrive in Baku, purchase a 30-day tourist visa then work out the details to acquire a one-year work-permit and visa.


This plan, it seems, is no longer viable.


The email from England stated that one of their recently arrived instructors--going through this exact method--had been denied application for the one-year visa and was going to have to leave the country while this was all being sorted out. The email also stated that England was “concerned” that our entrance into the country was now impossible, for the time being anyway, and that we should “consider” postponing our travel plans for a couple months to see how it all washes out.


I was unable to speak to The Coffeeman, he was taking his kids to school. I called another dear friend, The Connector, a 15 year veteran of Azerbaijan, and though now a resident of the USA he is still a frequent visitor to the nation, and I forwarded to him England's email.


The Connector read the email with interest and knowingly uttered, “yeah, I thought they might get to this point...” It seems that the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Office of Immigration have been fighting over who will get to do what job, and in a massive power struggle have made things difficult on a lot of folks that would like to come visit their dear country.


The Connector's other insight was the use of England's words, "consider," and "concerned." "I've seen England and his wife boldly walk into things that would make others run away screaming, so if he says he's concerned, you better take that as a huge red flag, and my opinion would be that you postpone your departure for a couple months to see how this all shakes out."


When I eventually spoke to the Coffeeman, his opinion was the same.


So, that is what we're going to do, we will wait a couple months. It's not what we wanted to do, but we will make some research into what's going on and we will get there eventually.


Welcome to Azerbaijan, just not yet.