I will hold final judgement until I get my passport, but it has been a long time since I saw a government process work as well as this one.

Our timing was good. Your old passport has to be at least 9 years old and that was the end of August, so we applied in early September. So much better than the old way, especially the photo piece. You can take the picture with your phone now. Takes 7-10 weeks if you don't pay the rush fee.

That reminded me. The CIA website is very interesting - check out the world factbook about any country you want. Mission country, places you might visit, current event locations, etc. Every statistic is ranked against the rest of the world. I find the site very fascinating.