I recently went through the vanity callsign process and acquired my new call, AE6RS. Some things I learned along the way are:

• The FCC ULS database is in the Eastern time zone so submission deadlines etc are processed in that timezone. I was under the initial impression that it was first come first serve so I submitted my application late at night Pacific time after the FCC ULS came back up from a maintenance window.

• After the window opens for a callsign there is a waiting period for postal mail submissions/payments to come through to be fair to people not able/willing to submit online.

• I submitted in the wee hours of 2014-11-17, I was granted the callsign on 2014-12-05, so its not instant.

• There is no longer an active vanityhq site which I originally used to find my new call, instead there is AE7Q's site which has some great tools. He seems to use a daily dump of the ULS data so if you're trying to track in real time it's best to use the FCC ULS site.