Tuesday morning I was successful in navigating the rapids of the local DMV and got a new sticker for my license plate. Some investigation online the night before revealed a branch location much closer to my apartment than the main office that I had been to in vain on Friday. The posted hours were 7:30 am to 4:30 pm. Since Tuesday was going to be the first day after a holiday weekend I anticipated a long line.
When I arrived at 6:45 there was one guy waiting in his car, and another car just parking. The three of us assembled at the door, with me in second place. By 7:00 there were a half dozen other people in line, and by 7:30 my estimate was over sixty people waiting. Forty-five minutes in the fresh, cool morning air paid off.
Much to my amazement, telling the clerk that I had spoken to “Francis” on Friday and that she had okay-ed an exemption for my title, worked. In five minutes I had a sticker and was on my way. Now I have eleven months to secure a loan here in Kansas so I’ll have a title here in Kansas. Since the loan in Illinois is 5% and a new loan will likely put me in the 9% range I think I’ll keep the current loan for a while yet.
The current car I have was purchased in Illinois about three years ago. The dealer worked with us and we were able to get a fantastic loan through a small local bank. Only 5% interest, and the payments were exactly what we wanted.
The move to Kansas was almost perfectly timed to happen about the time the license plate required renewal, so it was easy to not transfer the plate to Kansas the first year. Last August however, the plate was due to expire, so the property tax was paid and a Kansas tag acquired. Michele handled the transaction, which required coordination between the bank in Illinois, the State of Kansas, and Johnson County. As far as I knew (and for all I know, as far as Michele knew) we were now a part of the system here in Kansas.
In late July I got the renewal notice for the tag and, like the rest of you, managed to put it off until the final week. Discovering that I didn’t have a PIN number that would allow an online renewal, I mailed proof of insurance, the signed form, and a check for $324.40 to the county clerk.
Today in the mail I got an envelop from the County that I assumed contained the new sticker. [Aside: I normally do not open mail that comes on Friday or Saturday. Rarely does good news come on those days, and bad news can’t be dealt with until Monday anyway. Or Tuesday on a holiday weekend such as this. My mistake was opening the envelope.] It turns out it wasn’t the sticker but rather all the paperwork I’d mailed off, my check, and a form indicating that I need to call the State with regards to my vehicle title.
Lovely.
After a series of calls to the State of Kansas and to my lender in Illinois I discovered that I was trapped between two competing bureaucracies - neither of which was inclined to bend. Kansas requires an original title to the vehicle - they want to title it IN Kansas. The lender in Illinois doesn’t allow loans on vehicles that are titled out of state. The bank refuses to waive in-state requirement, and Kansas (a considerably larger organization than the bank, and one with an armed police force) isn’t budging either. I did manage to get an exemption for this year which will allow me to get a sticker for my plate, but I have to go in person to the county building.
There were roughly 200 people in line ahead of me at 1:00 this afternoon. I was number 808 and they were serving number 596. I’ll go back at the opening bell on Tuesday.
The exemption buys me a year, but ultimately I am going to have to re-finance the car here in Kansas to get out of this trap. The current rates for used cars are running about 9 or 9.25 percent. Almost double what I’ve got now. Phooey. However, there is a silver lining - I think I should be able to vastly reduce the monthly car payment by extending the term of the loan. Knocking three or four hundred dollars off the monthly payment will ease my budget nicely.
Last spring, in one of the final conversations I had with my Mom, she expressed a concern for my Dad, her husband. She said that she didn’t know what he was going to do. I promised her that I would look after him. I told her that I was planning on offering to be a Sherpa for his camera equipment if he wanted to take a trip somewhere to shoot pictures.
He was delighted with the idea and we eventually decided that I would join him for a week on the Oregon coast while he attended a seminar there. He is driving out with stops along the way, and I am flying into Portland; then we travel to the Oregon - California border for a week of photography. I am not the photo enthusiast he is, but I am looking forward to seeing the beautiful scenery and, more importantly, spending some time with my Dad.
I know all too well how fleeting time with loved ones can be, so I am glad for me as well as him, for this opportunity. I have finally let go of the need for him to meet my father needs. I’ve found ways to meet those on my own, thus freeing our relationship to be more friendly. I think we are going to have a good time together in Oregon.
Snow Blind is the latest Monkeewrench mystery from mother daughter writing team P. J. Tracy. They continue to develop the characters central to all the books while adding new periphery players.
Rating: Good escapist fiction
(Originally seen here: notmyself.com)
Fear is caused by a gap in knowledge. When we are uninformed or lacking in understanding we have an open spot for fear to fill. Depending upon our current emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual energy and comfort levels the fear may be easily ignored or handled. Or it could be something that completely derails us until we overcome it.
The place, it seems to me, that it is easiest to generate new gaps in our knowledge is through relationships with other people. Friends and family all interact with you time and time again, creating a continuous experience. Even without actively trying to set expectations you begin to count on certain behaviors, certain responses or attitudes. A change in what is expected can be very difficult to absorb without also taking on some fear.
It is easy enough to question the other, to try and fill the gap with knowledge thus displacing the fear. But questioning from a place of fear is hard to do without transmitting your fear to them - usually in the form of anger or hurt. So we tend to sit quietly with our fears hoping that they will go away on their own. Occasionally time does bring understanding and knowledge to replace to fear, but not always.
Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the acceptance of fear.
Roughly two months ago it occurred to me to take some body measurements so that I would know how much size I had lost in addition to the number of pounds. Acquiring a tailors tape I added a new page to my Hacker’s Diet Spreadsheet and started measuring.
I decided to track the following measurements: Neck, Upper Chest, Bust, Waist, Hips, Thigh, Calf, and Biceps. And in that order here are the amounts I’ve lost in the last eight weeks:
1 inch, 3.75 inches, 2 inches, 4.5 inches, 2 inches, 1 inch, 1 inch, and .25 inches.
More than one person has now told me that I need to buy new clothes (or have some of my current wardrobe taken in), and with these losses I can see why.
Twenty-six pounds and four and a half inches in eleven weeks. Hot-damn-diggity.
The Dash Poem Movie
As a part of my campaign to lose weight (twenty-six pounds lost so far!) I’ve been doing some resistance weight training at a nearby gym. Several of the machines are quite challenging for me, particularly the shoulder press which taxes an old rotator cuff injury. A couple are fairly easy. One of those was the crunch machine. With only thirty-five pounds on the stack I was easily able to complete two thirty repetition sets each workout.
So I upped the total to eighty a week ago Friday. While a bit more strenuous it still felt like it was inside rather than at my limit. So last Monday I upped the total to one hundred reps - in hindsight not my brightest move. By early evening I was noticing some stiffness, soreness when I moved my legs a certain way, or made twisting motions. I figured that I had just made the abs sore and all would be well in a day or two.
Tuesday I could barely walk. The pain was all through my groin and upper thighs, and even simple things like side-stepping came with an incredible zing of pain. I had four Motrin for breakfast and more for lunch. The pain level really didn’t diminish, so if the Motrin was working it was only keeping the pain at bay, it wasn’t reducing it at all. That evening I felt a little better and did some light household chores - the movement seemed to improve things.
Wednesday I was moving more normally, with some awkwardness once in a while. I felt good enough that I attended my kendo workout. Once I was warmed up I felt good through out the workout. The calm before the storm.
Thursday I was once again hobbled but still relatively capable. My left leg was sore, especially when asked to move sideways, but I was generally okay. Friday was spent in the car driving to Illinois for the weekend. Those six hours were increasingly uncomfortable - there are only so many ways to sit in a car - and I was getting stiff and sore.
Friday evening was the most uncomfortable yet; a softer than I like mattress added to my pain, as it was hard to move around with out causing myself a jolt of pain. Saturday I was once again fairly active - spending several hours in a museum, and then another walking around a miniature golf course. Sunday was another six hour day in the car, which again left me tight and sore. Thinking that a walk would loosen things up was misguided. The post dinner walk just aggravated the pull and consequently I had a long, uncomfortable night.
Since the Motrin hadn’t touched the pain before, when it normally works well for me, I hadn’t really tried anything else. Needing to do something to regain at least the appearance of control, I took a couple of Alieve first thing this morning. Imagine my joy at discovering that it was actually working. While I haven’t been pain free all day, I am mobile and not uncomfortable.
I’m going to skip the weights this week, and kendo as well, to give my leg plenty of time to heal. The last thing I want is to create a chronic injury situation for myself. I guess the moral of the story is that even though I’m still twenty-eight or thirty in my head, physically I am forty-five.
This is perfect.
FAA Bans People From Flights
What makes it scary is the fleeting thought that some one inside the Beltway actually had this notion and had to be talked out of it.