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badkarma56 wrote:Fellow Dudes and Dudettes,

I'm pleased to announce that, as of today, my status has officially changed to "Application Completed - license issued or certificate active" on the DPS website!!

Congrats! We're all thrilled for you! Too bad about the impending postal strike though.

rkhal wrote:

badkarma56 wrote:Fellow Dudes and Dudettes,

I'm pleased to announce that, as of today, my status has officially changed to "Application Completed - license issued or certificate active" on the DPS website!!

Congrats! We're all thrilled for you! Too bad about the impending postal strike though.

Ha Ha, not funny ...seriously though, the U.K. is likely to have a postal strike very soon.

The dedicated professionals of the USPS would never make such a rash decision!

Any new status changes for the Houston crew?

badkarma56 wrote:
The dedicated professionals of the USPS would never make such a rash decision!

I don't think they have the choice, actually. If I recall my history lessons correctly, I believe the agreement they reached after their last strike (sometime in the early 70s) makes it illegal for them to go on strike again. One can hope, anyway.

badkarma56 wrote:Any new status changes for the Houston crew?

no change yet, probably will happen the beginning of next week . Congrats on your "license issued" man, make sure to let us know when it actually arrives.

SiG239 wrote:

badkarma56 wrote:Any new status changes for the Houston crew?

no change yet, probably will happen the beginning of next week . Congrats on your "license issued" man, make sure to let us know when it actually arrives.

Keep the faith, dude, it'll happen for sure.

As luck would have it, I actually received my CHL in this afternoon's mail delivery!!! I had a feeling this morning that it would be here today, and sure enough it came.

Funny thing though, when I first opened my mailbox I was a little disaapointed because there were only two "thin" letters inside. The one on top was a pre-sorted marketing spam letter, and I just assumed that the bottom letter was the same sort of spam mailer. Luckily, I actually decided to look at the second envelope before reflexively tossing both into the trash. Imagine my surprise when I noticed the return address in the upper right corner of this seemingly ordinary envelope (i.e., "Regulatory Licensing Service MSC 0245, Texas Dept. of Public Safety..."). Dudes, I nearly junked my own CHL without even looking at the envelope.

The moral of my postal experience is this; do not expect any sort of extraordinary letter or super-thick envelope from DPS...your CHL will be delivered discretely inside a very nondescript, unremarkable envelope. The envelope will not contain any sort of letter, official acknowledgement, or literature/pamphlet. The only "thing" you'll find inside this precious envelope is an envelope-sized piece of plain white paper with two slits cut into it; your CHL will be tucked into the two slits (imagine a smaller version of the passport photo holder that came with the application packet, except with no writing/markings whatsoever).

I did notice two oddities with my CHL. The first had to do with the specific issue date of the license. For those that don't know, the license will have the date of issuance encoded in a series of numbers to the left of your photo. To decipher the issue date, simply ignore the first two numbers and also the last four numbers. For example, this is how the information appears on my CHL, 01071620070842...thus, the issue date for me was 07/16/2007. This is odd because DPS received my completed application packet on 12JUL07, just four days prior to the issue date! So, I'm left wondering if they simply have been sitting on my CHL since that time. I can't figure out why they would have stone-walled like that, but who really cares now that the plastic is here!!! Also, because the issue date occurred after my June birthdate, I essentially lucked into an extra year of licensure...my CHL is set to expire on my birthdate in the year 2012 instead of 2011.

-BK

badkarma56 wrote:[just four days prior to the issue date! So, I'm left wondering if they simply have been sitting on my CHL since that time.

That four days is the time it took for a tech to open your application. Since it is "Shall issue" it was issued. The remainder of the time is a cursory review of your history to see if there are reasons not to issue.

lrb111 wrote:

badkarma56 wrote:[just four days prior to the issue date! So, I'm left wondering if they simply have been sitting on my CHL since that time.

That four days is the time it took for a tech to open your application. Since it is "Shall issue" it was issued. The remainder of the time is a cursory review of your history to see if there are reasons not to issue.

Interesting, I suppose you've got a "contact" with the bureau? Now I'm curious as to why such a date would be recorded on the CHL itself...a mystery indeed.

Where is In Search Of..., hosted by Leonard Nimoy, when you really need it?!!

So... I had a feeling that DPS extended the truth when saying that the lady dealing with my application was on vacation. Woke up this morning and decided to keep the tradition alive and check the DPS site. I logged on and to my surprise "Application Completed - license issued or certificate active"



I guess my application was only 2 days behind badkarma's the whole time. Thanks for your support this whole time dude! And to everyone else, its a good idea to contact DPS through email or call for any valid excuse. I believe this keeps them actively involved with your application.

Glock19, hopefully you are only a couple days behind me man, keep us updated!

My plastic officially arrived today! BadKarma was right, Definitely now frills on the packaging.

SiG239 wrote:So... I had a feeling that DPS extended the truth when saying that the lady dealing with my application was on vacation. Woke up this morning and decided to keep the tradition alive and check the DPS site. I logged on and to my surprise "Application Completed - license issued or certificate active"



I guess my application was only 2 days behind badkarma's the whole time. Thanks for your support this whole time dude! And to everyone else, its a good idea to contact DPS through email or call for any valid excuse. I believe this keeps them actively involved with your application.

Glock19, hopefully you are only a couple days behind me man, keep us updated!

Awesome, Sig239! Doesn't it just feel so good to ya'!

L8RG8R wrote:My plastic officially arrived today! BadKarma was right, Definitely now frills on the packaging.

Outstanding, L8RG8R! It seems as though we're all getting squared-away right on time!

Congrats BK and Sig! I'm glad your long wait is finally over.

Hopefully I will be just two weeks behind because of my clerical error and receive mine by the 29th! I have been out of town and was pretty sure you all would have plastic in hand by the time I returned.

glock19springtx wrote:Congrats BK and Sig! I'm glad your long wait is finally over.

Hopefully I will be just two weeks behind because of my clerical error and receive mine by the 29th! I have been out of town and was pretty sure you all would have plastic in hand by the time I returned.

Thanks, Glock19, I suspect you'll be next. DPS seems to be movin' pretty fast right now which is great for us!

plastic was in the mailbox when I got home!