It turns out that Christmas may not be such an unreasonable goal for the completion of my security clearance after all. But that doesn’t mean any of you are off the hook for presents.

Since I last complained about nothing happening with my security clearance, some stuff happened. My lead investigator contacted me for the first time and then came over to my apartment for an hour-long interview. He dropped in to meet some people I know in the building too.

I also learned that my case has a target completion date of November 24. Admittedly, these target completion dates can mean close to nothing. They’re arbitrarily set based on when your case was opened, and for some very unlucky people they come and go with no fanfare, and it’s not until many, many months later that their security clearance is granted (or not).

However, there are at least two good things about this November 24 date:

1. From what I can tell, this must be two months after my case was opened. When Alex went through this process last year, her target completion date (and everyone else’s too) was three months after her case was opened. The fact that two months is now the target must mean there’s some pressure to get these clearances done quickly.

2. Alex got her clearance about a month after her target completion date. Although you never know for sure, my case should be even simpler than hers. So hopefully the November 24 date won’t be too far off.

However, there’s some bad news too. As far as I can tell, no one has even begun looking into the five-year chunk of my life spent in Detroit.