I spent the morning at Panera Bread making tweaks to my web site and realizing it’s something I’ll probably be doing forever — there’s always something that needs to be done.
After that I made my way to Mill Creek, WA where I had an awesome meet-up with Kimberly, someone who follows me on Facebook. We spent about 3 hours hanging outside of Starbucks chatting about everything.
As we wrap things up, Kimberly walks me over to “Frost Doughnuts” — a place I’d never heard of, but apparently it’s well known in the area. I order a half-dozen to “sample”. After Kimberly and I say our good-byes, what was truly intended as a “sampling” very quickly turns into dinner. :)
And then this happened…
Denied Entry Into Canada
Late in the day I connected with a friend & former coworker of mine who now lives in Vancouver, Canada. Before our conversation was over, I made a last minute decision (actually, he insisted) to make the two hour drive to Vancouver, Canada this evening, rather than wait to cross the border in the morning.
I was excited. This would be my first trip to Vancouver and only my second to Canada (which is odd, because I grew up in Maine — which I’ve heard isn’t too far from Canada).
As I make my way north, I’m in a jovial mood and I make jokes on twitter about “not speaking Canadian” and wondering if there will be a language barrier. (Well, I thought it was funny).
Finally, around 9:30 pm, I get to the border and through the line of cars to the border agent. As I expected, she begins asking me all kind of questions…
And me being me, I answer all questions openly and honestly…fully expecting to not to have any sort of trouble (as I rarely ever do)…
But as the questions keep coming, I begin to get the sense that things are not going so “well”… yet I have no idea why. This perplexes me. More questions…more answers. And then I realize she’s asking me some questions that I’ve already answered.
Wait… don’t they do that when they’re trying to see if you’re lying? – Oh my, this isn’t going well at all.
And finally, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to pull your car up to the left and park under the white canopy. Please walk inside the building and speak with the officers at the counter.”
*Gulp!*
I do as she says and park my vehicle, compose myself, and walk inside. The counter is to the left. I walk up — and that’s when the real fun begins.
Now keep in mind, I’m not easily intimidated. I’ve been through a lot in the rodeo of life. And there are few things that make me truly on-the-spot nervous — but I must say, this was definitely one of them. Not at first, though. At first I just had an uneasy feeling…
The man behind the counter is a large fellow & wearing what looks like body armor — not someone I’d ever want to mess with.
The questioning begins — and it starts off well enough. Many questions I already answered for the lady outside, so I guess you could say I was prepared now. But within minutes, I get the distinct sensation that there’s sweat on my brow.
Seriously? I’m sweating? — Boy, I must look guilty now.
The questioning continues nonstop for about 10 minutes. To be frank, it felt like 20…and it might’ve actually been 20, but I don’t want to exaggerate here. Whatever amount of time it actually was, it was enough.
The questions?
What’s my business, why am I here, where am I going, who do I know, what do I have with me, do I have drugs, weapons, explosives, what do I do, what does the person I am meeting do, how do I know this person, where do I live, where have I lived, how much money do I have on me, how much money do I have in the bank… etc.
And then I’m asked questions again — and this time I’m certain it’s to see if I’m lying.
It’s weird when you know what they’re doing, but you’re still completely intimidated by it. It’s like I was sitting over my own shoulder taking it all in from another perspective — while also experiencing it first hand.
And looking at it from this “head disconnected from shoulders” fashion, I get the distinct feeling this guy was trying to be intimidating. Like maybe he went to school for it. Clearly I was outmatched.
Despite me telling it not to, my mouth begins to get dry — like very dry. I start to have a hard time talking because I feel like I need to keep swallowing, but I can’t generate enough saliva – This is an odd sensation and I cannot say I’d ever experienced it before this moment.
So as I’m trying my best not to look guilty…and I am, in fact — as I have to remind myself — not guilty! — my body betrays me.
I’m asked to empty my pockets. Which I do. And to be honest, at this point he could’ve asked me to stand on my head and I would’ve done it. I am really quite surprised at how quickly my confidence escaped me.
My phone comes out of my pocket turned on (it was an old “junker” and sometimes did that) — and I lay it on the counter. Then I realize, um, I should probably turn that off, so I make a move to turn it off. He notices and says…
“No sir, you can leave it on.” and then the officer takes my phone and starts looking through my recent texts. After a minute of that, he backs out and fumbles into my email.
I’m standing there silently this entire time, but my brain is screaming — “Wow! You can do that!?” I was just “stunned”, really.
Now, I don’t have anything to hide on my phone — and there’s nothing on my phone worth “discovering”, but still, it felt extremely invasive. As was being asked how much money I have in the bank! – Did NOT like that at all.
Another minute of just standing while he snoops into my phone life and then he tells me to go sit down.
I sit next to a cute Afghani girl on a bench. She basically turns to me and says, “I know why I’m here, why are you here!?” (and this is where I discover she’s Afghani — interesting story — sounded suspicious).
After about ten minutes of waiting (which really wasn’t bad…did I mention I was talking to a cute Afghani girl?) — and I can see through the front glass doors that they are searching my car — with dogs — I get called back up to the counter.
“Sir, there are some concerns about items found in your vehicle.”
Ok, now I’m like, “Whhhhhaaaaaat!?” (In my head). I’d stopped sweating, but it was just how he delivered that line that reminded me of how nervous I was supposed to be. As such, I probably looked about as guilty as anyone could at that moment.
I start thinking about how or where people snuck things into my vehicle! And I’m wondering what those things are — drugs!? Oh god, I have drugs in my car! I’m going to prison. Or maybe I picked up some Mexicans! — no wait. I would know if I did that. Get a grip Zero, get a grip!
So I have no idea what it could be — but the way things are going, I would’ve probably admitted to anything! Yes, I am smuggling Mexicans! I had no idea!
That’s when he pulls out one of my “tickets”, the business card I hand out to people during my trip. It looks like a “Zero Dean Experience” movie ticket and has $100 written on it.
There are about 2,000 of them in two 1,000 pack boxes under my driver’s seat (where they fit perfectly).
“Are you selling these?”
Suddenly my jaw drops (well, my “mental jaw”), because I’m thinking how bad that looks. Because they do look like tickets — sort of. They are the same size and shape of business cards, though. And they have the “synopsis” written on the back. That’s not really normal for tickets, is it? Maybe he doesn’t know because he’s Canadian! Suddenly I’m feeling like quite a foreigner — and here I thought Canadians are like “us”!
I explain that they’re just business cards and how “Free” or $1 just didn’t seem to have the same impact as $100, so I figured I’d give them a solid value. I felt ridiculous having to explain it — which didn’t help. I’m sure I looked guilty of something because as I’m telling the truth, I hear the words come out of my mouth sounding like lies.
We then have a nice little chat for another ten minutes. And by chat, I mean further interrogation.
He pulls up another one of my things I kept in my pocket — a mini notepad. He starts going through it — has names, numbers, and addresses in it.
“What are these addresses!?”, etc.
Um, it’s my notepad. I keep notes in it.
That’s when he notices this one page — it has dates with numbers next to it — it looks like this…
- May 8 – 1
- May 9 – 2
- May 10 – 3
And it goes up to 40 — which is also the end of the page.
“What are these dates and numbers!”, “Why does it only go up to 40!?”, “What happens on the 40th day!?”
I had to explain, I left on my trip on May 8th, day #1, and I was constantly forgetting what day I was on, so I wrote it down.
Again, “Why does it only go to 40!?”
“Because that’s the end of the page! I ran out of room!” I’m thinking how “convenient” that sounds. And then, suddenly, we’re back to my “ticket”. He notices the website address on my business card and asks me about it.
“ZeroDean.com. This is your website?”
“Yes.”
“Is it a business? Do you make money from it.”
“Um, no. I’m doing everything for free.”
“You are not working? How is it you are doing this “for free”? What is your source of income?”
I basically answer, “I’m spending my savings.”
Then there were more questions about how much money I had, how much money I had before I started my trip, and how much money I had when I lived in Vegas. And then questions on how I could spend so little money in “X” amount of time.
I didn’t think it was a “little” amount of money. I guess I’m just thrifty.
Finally I’m asked to sit down again while he says he’s going to look over my web site. I use the opportunity to ask if he has a pen and a piece of paper.
“What for?”
“Because, you see that girl over there? I want to give her my contact info.”
A pause. He looks at me — his expression changes slightly. It’s less intimidating.
“Wow, you make friends really fast.” He almost says it like he’s impressed. (She is really cute — alright, she’s gorgeous.)
“Yeah, that’s kind of true.”
“Here, you can take these.”
He hands me back the plastic bin containing my stuff (notepad, pen, etc). And that’s the moment where I figure I’m not going to be arrested or sent to prison — but I’m still not sure what’s going to happen.
I go back to the bench to give the girl my information.
And if you’re wondering why I wrote it down instead of giving her a “ticket”, it’s because they treated those “tickets” with such suspicion earlier, I didn’t want to do anything to cause inconvenience to the girl. So I simply wrote down my info, which he gladly accepted — though sadly, I never heard from her. And I can’t remember her name because it wasn’t an english name. I sometimes wonder where she ended up.
In any case, a few minutes later I’m called back up to the counter. The officer has my web site printed out. He shows it to me… gulp. Ok, maybe I am going to prison after all!
He goes through the motion of flipping through a few pages of my site and says,
“We know what you’re doing…” and “You admit it right here…”
He’s pointing at a passage where I said I quit my job and sold everything that wouldn’t fit in my 4Runner.
“Your application to enter Canada is being denied.”
And then he proceeds to show me a form and some bullet points on it — some of which apply to me. Basically, why I’m suspicious. And then he hands me another that I have to sign. Basically a form to formally “revoke my application to enter Canada” or something.
So why?
Well, the primary reason is that I had too much “stuff”. Clearly more stuff than was necessary for a 2 day trip to Vancouver. He said that it looked suspiciously like I was trying to move into Canada…
And after all, I did pretty much have all of my possessions with me — that’s true — though still, not THAT much stuff! Keep in mind, I sleep laying down in the back of my 4Runner.
At this point, even though I drove a couple hours to get to the border, only to be denied entry, I felt extremely relieved.
The way things were going, I thought I might be an unknowing terrorist or something and was being shipped off to prison somewhere. And even though I was totally innocent and “got off easy”, I still felt like, “Phew! I really dodged a bullet there!
After my encounter with the border officers, I drove to the nearest US Walmart in Bellingham, WA and slept in my car.
[picasa width="528" height="528" autoplay="0" showcaption="1"]http://picasaweb.google.com/zerodean.com/Day15RedmondWaToVancouverCanadaBorder[/picasa]
Video: At the Canadian border.
–
Commentary:
November 17, 2010
There’s one final part of this story that I’ve only told in person until now…
As the officer was escorting me back to my vehicle and just before he explained to me the path I would have to take in order to exit the country, he turns to me and in a completely different voice than the one he used inside and says:
“I think what you’re doing is pretty cool.”
He also explained to me that “if you want to get across the border…here’s what you need to do” if a very friendly, non-intimidating fashion. And what he said? Basically, “less stuff”. And that was it.
About Zero Dean
My name is Zero. I'm an optimist, explorer, life adventurer, photographer, artist, and motivational doer. I also write stuff & teach stuff & eat stuff. I took all the photographs on my site (that have my name on them). If you like them, you're welcome to share.
After that I made my way to Mill Creek, WA where I had an awesome meet-up with Kimberly, someone who follows me on Facebook. We spent about 3 hours hanging outside of Starbucks chatting about everything.
As we wrap things up, Kimberly walks me over to “Frost Doughnuts” — a place I’d never heard of, but apparently it’s well known in the area. I order a half-dozen to “sample”. After Kimberly and I say our good-byes, what was truly intended as a “sampling” very quickly turns into dinner. :)
And then this happened…
Denied Entry Into Canada
Late in the day I connected with a friend & former coworker of mine who now lives in Vancouver, Canada. Before our conversation was over, I made a last minute decision (actually, he insisted) to make the two hour drive to Vancouver, Canada this evening, rather than wait to cross the border in the morning.
I was excited. This would be my first trip to Vancouver and only my second to Canada (which is odd, because I grew up in Maine — which I’ve heard isn’t too far from Canada).
As I make my way north, I’m in a jovial mood and I make jokes on twitter about “not speaking Canadian” and wondering if there will be a language barrier. (Well, I thought it was funny).
Finally, around 9:30 pm, I get to the border and through the line of cars to the border agent. As I expected, she begins asking me all kind of questions…
And me being me, I answer all questions openly and honestly…fully expecting to not to have any sort of trouble (as I rarely ever do)…
But as the questions keep coming, I begin to get the sense that things are not going so “well”… yet I have no idea why. This perplexes me. More questions…more answers. And then I realize she’s asking me some questions that I’ve already answered.
Wait… don’t they do that when they’re trying to see if you’re lying? – Oh my, this isn’t going well at all.
*Gulp!*
I do as she says and park my vehicle, compose myself, and walk inside. The counter is to the left. I walk up — and that’s when the real fun begins.
Now keep in mind, I’m not easily intimidated. I’ve been through a lot in the rodeo of life. And there are few things that make me truly on-the-spot nervous — but I must say, this was definitely one of them. Not at first, though. At first I just had an uneasy feeling…
The man behind the counter is a large fellow & wearing what looks like body armor — not someone I’d ever want to mess with.
The questioning begins — and it starts off well enough. Many questions I already answered for the lady outside, so I guess you could say I was prepared now. But within minutes, I get the distinct sensation that there’s sweat on my brow.
Seriously? I’m sweating? — Boy, I must look guilty now.
The questioning continues nonstop for about 10 minutes. To be frank, it felt like 20…and it might’ve actually been 20, but I don’t want to exaggerate here. Whatever amount of time it actually was, it was enough.
The questions?
And then I’m asked questions again — and this time I’m certain it’s to see if I’m lying.
It’s weird when you know what they’re doing, but you’re still completely intimidated by it. It’s like I was sitting over my own shoulder taking it all in from another perspective — while also experiencing it first hand.
And looking at it from this “head disconnected from shoulders” fashion, I get the distinct feeling this guy was trying to be intimidating. Like maybe he went to school for it. Clearly I was outmatched.
Despite me telling it not to, my mouth begins to get dry — like very dry. I start to have a hard time talking because I feel like I need to keep swallowing, but I can’t generate enough saliva – This is an odd sensation and I cannot say I’d ever experienced it before this moment.
So as I’m trying my best not to look guilty…and I am, in fact — as I have to remind myself — not guilty! — my body betrays me.
I’m asked to empty my pockets. Which I do. And to be honest, at this point he could’ve asked me to stand on my head and I would’ve done it. I am really quite surprised at how quickly my confidence escaped me.
My phone comes out of my pocket turned on (it was an old “junker” and sometimes did that) — and I lay it on the counter. Then I realize, um, I should probably turn that off, so I make a move to turn it off. He notices and says…
I’m standing there silently this entire time, but my brain is screaming — “Wow! You can do that!?” I was just “stunned”, really.
Now, I don’t have anything to hide on my phone — and there’s nothing on my phone worth “discovering”, but still, it felt extremely invasive. As was being asked how much money I have in the bank! – Did NOT like that at all.
Another minute of just standing while he snoops into my phone life and then he tells me to go sit down.
I sit next to a cute Afghani girl on a bench. She basically turns to me and says, “I know why I’m here, why are you here!?” (and this is where I discover she’s Afghani — interesting story — sounded suspicious).
After about ten minutes of waiting (which really wasn’t bad…did I mention I was talking to a cute Afghani girl?) — and I can see through the front glass doors that they are searching my car — with dogs — I get called back up to the counter.
Ok, now I’m like, “Whhhhhaaaaaat!?” (In my head). I’d stopped sweating, but it was just how he delivered that line that reminded me of how nervous I was supposed to be. As such, I probably looked about as guilty as anyone could at that moment.
I start thinking about how or where people snuck things into my vehicle! And I’m wondering what those things are — drugs!? Oh god, I have drugs in my car! I’m going to prison. Or maybe I picked up some Mexicans! — no wait. I would know if I did that. Get a grip Zero, get a grip!
So I have no idea what it could be — but the way things are going, I would’ve probably admitted to anything! Yes, I am smuggling Mexicans! I had no idea!
That’s when he pulls out one of my “tickets”, the business card I hand out to people during my trip. It looks like a “Zero Dean Experience” movie ticket and has $100 written on it.
There are about 2,000 of them in two 1,000 pack boxes under my driver’s seat (where they fit perfectly).
Suddenly my jaw drops (well, my “mental jaw”), because I’m thinking how bad that looks. Because they do look like tickets — sort of. They are the same size and shape of business cards, though. And they have the “synopsis” written on the back. That’s not really normal for tickets, is it? Maybe he doesn’t know because he’s Canadian! Suddenly I’m feeling like quite a foreigner — and here I thought Canadians are like “us”!
I explain that they’re just business cards and how “Free” or $1 just didn’t seem to have the same impact as $100, so I figured I’d give them a solid value. I felt ridiculous having to explain it — which didn’t help. I’m sure I looked guilty of something because as I’m telling the truth, I hear the words come out of my mouth sounding like lies.
We then have a nice little chat for another ten minutes. And by chat, I mean further interrogation.
He pulls up another one of my things I kept in my pocket — a mini notepad. He starts going through it — has names, numbers, and addresses in it.
Um, it’s my notepad. I keep notes in it.
That’s when he notices this one page — it has dates with numbers next to it — it looks like this…
And it goes up to 40 — which is also the end of the page.
I had to explain, I left on my trip on May 8th, day #1, and I was constantly forgetting what day I was on, so I wrote it down.
“Because that’s the end of the page! I ran out of room!” I’m thinking how “convenient” that sounds. And then, suddenly, we’re back to my “ticket”. He notices the website address on my business card and asks me about it.
“Yes.”
“Um, no. I’m doing everything for free.”
I basically answer, “I’m spending my savings.”
Then there were more questions about how much money I had, how much money I had before I started my trip, and how much money I had when I lived in Vegas. And then questions on how I could spend so little money in “X” amount of time.
I didn’t think it was a “little” amount of money. I guess I’m just thrifty.
Finally I’m asked to sit down again while he says he’s going to look over my web site. I use the opportunity to ask if he has a pen and a piece of paper.
“Because, you see that girl over there? I want to give her my contact info.”
A pause. He looks at me — his expression changes slightly. It’s less intimidating.
“Yeah, that’s kind of true.”
He hands me back the plastic bin containing my stuff (notepad, pen, etc). And that’s the moment where I figure I’m not going to be arrested or sent to prison — but I’m still not sure what’s going to happen.
I go back to the bench to give the girl my information.
And if you’re wondering why I wrote it down instead of giving her a “ticket”, it’s because they treated those “tickets” with such suspicion earlier, I didn’t want to do anything to cause inconvenience to the girl. So I simply wrote down my info, which he gladly accepted — though sadly, I never heard from her. And I can’t remember her name because it wasn’t an english name. I sometimes wonder where she ended up.
In any case, a few minutes later I’m called back up to the counter. The officer has my web site printed out. He shows it to me… gulp. Ok, maybe I am going to prison after all!
He goes through the motion of flipping through a few pages of my site and says,
He’s pointing at a passage where I said I quit my job and sold everything that wouldn’t fit in my 4Runner.
And then he proceeds to show me a form and some bullet points on it — some of which apply to me. Basically, why I’m suspicious. And then he hands me another that I have to sign. Basically a form to formally “revoke my application to enter Canada” or something.
So why?
Well, the primary reason is that I had too much “stuff”. Clearly more stuff than was necessary for a 2 day trip to Vancouver. He said that it looked suspiciously like I was trying to move into Canada…
And after all, I did pretty much have all of my possessions with me — that’s true — though still, not THAT much stuff! Keep in mind, I sleep laying down in the back of my 4Runner.
At this point, even though I drove a couple hours to get to the border, only to be denied entry, I felt extremely relieved.
The way things were going, I thought I might be an unknowing terrorist or something and was being shipped off to prison somewhere. And even though I was totally innocent and “got off easy”, I still felt like, “Phew! I really dodged a bullet there!
After my encounter with the border officers, I drove to the nearest US Walmart in Bellingham, WA and slept in my car.
[picasa width="528" height="528" autoplay="0" showcaption="1"]http://picasaweb.google.com/zerodean.com/Day15RedmondWaToVancouverCanadaBorder[/picasa]
Video: At the Canadian border.
–
Commentary:
November 17, 2010
There’s one final part of this story that I’ve only told in person until now…
As the officer was escorting me back to my vehicle and just before he explained to me the path I would have to take in order to exit the country, he turns to me and in a completely different voice than the one he used inside and says:
He also explained to me that “if you want to get across the border…here’s what you need to do” if a very friendly, non-intimidating fashion. And what he said? Basically, “less stuff”. And that was it.
About Zero Dean
My name is Zero. I'm an optimist, explorer, life adventurer, photographer, artist, and motivational doer. I also write stuff & teach stuff & eat stuff. I took all the photographs on my site (that have my name on them). If you like them, you're welcome to share.