Funk Babblings

Those of us in the Great Lakes states can easily forget that we're actually living in border states -- Canada is just across the lake.

With that in mind, I was interested to learn that not only will passports be required (rather than just drivers license and birth certificate) to cross the Canada border by air starting in 2007, and by land starting in 2008, but that the passport requirement is not planned to apply to crossing by ferry or private boat. There are a LOT of private boats crossing between the US and Canada on the lakes every day.

If I were the type of person to be paranoid about terrorist attacks, I might start worrying about attacks on Cleveland -- or the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant. Instead I'm more interested in the quickest and easiest way to flee the country if and when necessary. Well, I'd also just like to go see Toronto sometime.

Still gotta find my birth certificate though. And I've been intending to get a new passport anyway for a year now; the one I got when I was 17 is long-expired, and I'm hoping to avoid a passport with an RFID chip.