I’m flying out in a few days to speak at the Corporate Podcasting Summit in London. It’ll be my first time in London and I’m so looking forward to it. I’m also looking forward to catching up with Paul Colligan, Anna Farmery, Jason Van Orden, and Karin Hogh and to finally meet 2 of my former clients face-to-face, Barbara Bradbury and Claire Raikes.

As I’m preparing for my trip, I’m double checking that everything’s in order. Since this is a corporate conference, I have to leave the jeans at home. So, I’m drycleaning stuff, buying a few things just so I don’t look all “campy” at the conference.

One of the things I will definitely need is my passport. So, I start looking for it, but guess what? I can’t find it. And I could swear that the darn thing expired on February 13th. I’m cursing in my head because I know that at this late stage, I won’t get my password back in time to travel this weekend, nor will I have it in 2-weeks when I head to New York for Podcamp.

The reason? New legislation came into effect in the U.S. that states that Canadians wanting to cross their borders into their country must have a valid passport. To date, Canadians could get in just showing a government issued driver’s license or birth certificate. But times they are a-changing and as of January 31st, Canadians must show a passport to get into the U.S.

This only applies to Canadians who fly into the U.S. If you drive into the U.S., you can still show a birth certificate or driver’s license, but that will all change in 2009.

So what does this have to do with my trip to the U.K.? Nothing really. Except that the timing is rotten. Because of the new legislation, it’s now taking anywhere between 30 to 60 days to get a passport. In comparison, when I got my passport 4-years ago, it took 5-days.

But guess what? I found my passport this morning and you wouldn’t believe it. While my passport picture looks like I’m about to hurl something large across the room (just picture the expression on the face…yup, you got it), my Queen-royal blue passport with the gold etch-a-sketch crest doesn’t expire until 2008. Silly me. I was getting worked up for nothing.