Passports

Everything you need to know about US passports (not really)!
I'm going to detail the US passport application process, and I'll see if I can include instructions for making foil covers to keep the RFID from setting off bombs in my vicinity.
So, you want to go to a foreign country? First, you need a passport.
This can be obtained by jumping through a series of hoops that are perpetually increasing in difficulty. Because my last passport was issued when I was fourteen and a minor, I had to reapply in person. I got to fill out my application online, but I had to print it off and take it to the courthouse in downtown Pasco. I also had to get my picture taken, which a friend was gracious enough to do for me in the Warren 3rd South hallway.
The pictures turned out a little blue, but I hoped that they would be satisfactory because my face was clearly shown in the middle of the photo without shadow and the background was free of shadows. I printed off two sets, one on matte cardstock and one on shiny photo paper.
Over Jan Term break, I went to the courthouse and hoped that they would accept my debit card. My dad came, too, with $25 cash and a checkbook, just in case.
I had my driver's license, photocopies of the license, my old passport, and my completed application with two sets of photos.
They told me I was supposed to have my birth certificate, too. The website and the application just said that I needed two or more of the following: driver's license, social security card, most recent passport, birth certificate.
I had to have my birth certificate for my first passport, which I took; why they needed my birth certificate again when the documented proof of my existence was sitting there in the form of a little blue book was beyond me. The lady told me I would probably get a packet in the mail demanding my birth certificate and possibly new pictures, but that was preferable to having to go back home to get the bloody thing and end up driving an extra hour when I'd probably have to get new pictures anyway.
The lady took both sets of photos, just in case; my dad paid the $135 dollars ($25 in cash, $110 as a check, because apparently that's how things are done), and then we left.
When I got back to school, I waited for the packet to come in the mail for my birth certificate and new photos. However, the first packet I got from the federal government actually contained my old passport, the extraneous set of photos (the matte cardstock ones), and a slip announcing that I had been approved for a US passport!
I was pleased, although not by the fact that my new passport was God only knew where.
It was in the mail, actually, and came a week later as a package.

I promised you foil passport cover instructions, and here they are. Rather, they're at Contactless, a paranoid blog concerning identity theft in its various forms. I am making one out of yarn. Maybe I'll post how I did it later.
Enjoy the paranoia you will feel after reading Contactless.