Living in the US: How to get a green card

by Anna Brones on

Tired of applying for visas to visit the US? Feel like life would be a whole lot easier if you could just hang out in America for more than 90 days? For our foreign readers, we figured it was about time to provide a little insight on how to legally get into the United States for more than just a brief visit.

Obtaining legal residency in the United States entails getting a green card, a most coveted document that allows foreigners to become permanent residents of the United States. The process of obtaining a green card isn’t the easiest of tasks, but it’s definitely doable.

Applying for green cards can be done in three different ways: as an employee, as a family member or through the lottery. If you’re not already permanently employed in the US or are having a hard time finding someone to marry you, the green card lottery may be your best of options. Each year the Diversity Lottery issues 50,000 green cards. The lottery is free to all applicants, but you do have to come from an eligible country.

If none of the above applies to you, you can always file a petition on your behalf. Look pretty in your picture and you never know…

Visit Maholo for the full guide on how to get a Green Card, then do your paperwork and cross your fingers.

Russian man too drunk to notice a knife in his back

by Iva Skoch on

Man, those Russian can really drink! I mean, can you honestly be too drunk to notice somebody stuck a knife in your back? Not figuratively speaking–I know that happens all the time when one is intoxicated–I mean literally: a knife in your back.

As The Irish Examiner reports, a Russian electrician took the bus home from a vodka binge, ate breakfast and slept off his hangover never realizing a kitchen knife had been plunged into his back. The discovery was made by his wife who noticed the handle of the six-inch knife sticking out of his back when she went to wake him.

Yuri Lyalin, 53, said he had been sleeping peacefully before his wife woke him with the bad news. Fortunately, no vital organs were harmed, provided he still has any functioning vital organs left. I don’t think he would exactly make the liver donor list.

Apparently, Lyalin’s drinking partner is responsible for the stabbing. Why? The answer is engraved at the bottom of a vodka shot glass, my friends. I am sure he meant no harm.

Two men found guilty of harassing Dave the dolphin

by Iva Skoch on

There are drunks and there are drunks. Some people drink themselves into depression, others get silly. Some apparently like to harass dolphins.

Two British men, Michael Jukes, 27, and Daniel Buck, 26, were today found guilty of harassing a dolphin when they frolicked in the sea with it after leaving a party in the early hours of the morning, The Guardian reports. Specifically, they were found guilty of intentionally or recklessly disturbing a wild animal under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

Dover magistrates court heard how the pair had “touched and stroked” Dave the dolphin as they went for a late-night swim at Sandgate, near Folkestone, Kent, in June last year. The bottlenose dolphin was a popular tourist attraction for visitors to the Kent coast, but a lack of recent sightings has led to speculation that Dave has since died.

A witness to the incident on June 9 last year heard one of the men shout: “People pay hundreds of pounds to do this in Florida, and I’m doing it in Folkestone.”

People must “pay” when they do this in the UK, too, as those chaps learned the hard way. They were ordered to complete 120 hours of work in the community within the next 12 months, and pay £350 ($700) each in costs.







How do I upgrade my airline ticket with miles?

by Grant Martin on

We had a question from a reader here at Gadling about upgrading a purchased ticket with miles into first class. Reader Ashley writes:

“My husband and I are blessed (cursed) enough to live in an area almost completely served by Northwest Airlines, and are trying to get a grasp on the requirements to upgrade an upcoming Europe trip to first class. We have enough miles to cover even the highest “cost” for upgrades according to the website (60,000), but are confused by the stipulations placed upon the “class” of ticket. It appears that, by selecting the box that allows you to upgrade, ticket prices more than TRIPLE!

Is this really the only way to upgrade? Is this one of those ploys that experienced travellers can find their way around?“

Unfortunately, Ashley, you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. But let’s back up real quick.

On most carriers, it’s possible to buy an economy class ticket with cash or miles then upgrade that ticket at a later date into business or first class. It can be an economical way to fly in first without having to pay the often-ridiculous prices for a full fare.

The trick is, however, that airlines require you to be booked into a certain fare class in order to upgrade your fare — that is, you can’t upgrade the 170$ budget ticket to London that you bought in the super discounted fare class. Airlines do this on purpose to make it difficult for you to spend your miles; after all, miles you don’t spend are dollars in their coffers.

In your case, Ashley, you need to book a Y or B fare class in order to upgrade your ticket with miles, the former of which is “full” while the latter is “slightly discounted” economy. And I’ll bet those prices are significantly more than a regular “deeply discounted” economy ticket.

One long shot that you can use to get around this is by tracking down a System Wide Upgrade. Super-elite members are given vouchers that allow them to upgrade any ticket to first class. If you can find one of those members and make him or her a deal, they might give away their voucher. But you have to fly at least 120,000 miles per year to get these vouchers so they may be sparse.

In that light, I’d recommend you use your 60k miles to buy one economy ticket for the pair of you and pay out of pocket for the other. If you’re proactive, you can book a bulkhead or exit row on an A330 giving you unlimited legroom and in-seat entertainment. Then, use the money you saved to get a nice hotel room in Europe when you get there where you can sleep away your jetlag and any recollection of your flight in coach.

How long is too long on a tarmac?

by Jamie Rhein on

Many people, who have flown frequently, have probably had their plane taxi out to the runway and sit and sit and sit for what seemed like an extraordinarily long amount of time. Peering out the tiny windows, people have wondered, “Why me? Why now?”

They’ve possibly fiddled with the window shade, putting it up for a bit and down for a bit for something to do. After awhile, they can list several items from the airline’s duty free catalog and which movies are on which route. If left sitting there long enough, people may wonder what the tipping point is for a nervous breakdown and if they, perhaps, have wandered into the set of a horror movie. They may even curse their fate that if they must be stuck on an object that’s supposed to move, it’s not the London Eye, the world’s largest Ferris wheel. If stuck on that thing, people get better service than on an airplane.

With summer travel rapidly approaching, the being stuck out on a tarmac scenarios have not improved much since last year. The gap between what passengers think is a time they can be stuck on an airplane without going bonkers, and the airline industry’s version, is not any closer because there hasn’t been a length of time established for when extra services need to kick in. Airlines view”Trigger thresholds,” within a range from “30 minutes to two hours on arrival, and from 90 minutes to three hours on departure.” When it comes to deplaning, thresholds “range from 30 minutes to five hours on arrival and and between one and five hours on departure.” What is to occur during delays isn’t established either. Do customers get a snack? water? sympathy?

According to this AP article about this stuck on a tarmac issue, to avoid spending part of the summer in a metal cylinder with wings, unsure of when life will move forward, don’t fly in or out of O’Hare in Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul or any of the three major New York City airports. Here’s a detail that gives some insight into why being stuck is not uncommon. Northwest Airlines has 56 departures scheduled for a 15-minute window in Minneapolis/St. Paul. That number is physically impossible to meet.

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