By: Sean
[2001-04-20]
SEAN AT THE D. M. GODDAM V.
Assuming that being rear-ended on Friday meant that I'd have to talk to cops and insurance companies, I decided there was no time like the present to finally get that California driver's license and car registration taken care of. You're supposed to do it within eight days of moving to California. Oops. Maybe I could claim I thought it said eight months.
I'd looked into getting the registration taken care of a few months ago. As soon as my insurance in Oregon expires in a few months, I'll have to get insurance in California. So I called the DMV and asked them what I needed to do in order to register my car. They told me that first I'd need to get insurance in California, then take the car in a for a smog test. I asked the insurance company what I needed to do, and they told me that first the car had to be registered in California. I called the DMV again and explained my problem. They said that I'd need to come to the office, begin the registration procedure, then use what I had to get insurance, then come back and complete the registration. Like everything else important, I decided to put it off until the last minute so I could stop thinking about it.
The nearest DMV office open on Saturday was in San Jose, about 45 minutes away. I went down and took the written test to get my license and passed. Then I stood in line to talk to someone about registration.
"Oh, you don't need insurance or a smog test to register your car in California. We can take care of it right now. Just pull your car around back for the inspection, and fill out this form."
Sounded easy enough. She gave me the form and I drove around back and rang the buzzer. The friendly blue-suited inspector came out a few minutes later and gave my car the once-over. He passed it despite the damage, then said all he needed was to see the title. I didn't have the title with me. I asked him if the registration would work, and he said no. I said I'd have to get the title from home, and there wasn't time enough to go get it and get back before they closed. I asked if I could complete this procedure on Monday in Oakland and he said sure, just take the form with me.
Monday morning I went into the Oakland office and stood in the registration line. After an hour or so of waiting, I presented the partially completed form to the woman at the counter, who then said "OK, I'll need to see either the title or the registration."
I gave her the title.
"OK, I can't complete this because you haven't completed the smog test."
I hate the DMV. She also told me I had to pay $260 in registration fees, most of that because of late penalties for waiting so long.
More than one person has expressed surprise that I didn't lie about how long I'd had the car in California. Maybe honesty is not always the best policy.
I asked if I could pay the fee with a credit card and she said no, I'd have to call their toll-free number and do it over the phone. She wrote the number down for me and sent me on my way. Driving out of the lot, I realized that I had my checkbook in my car, left there from when I got my library card a few days prior.
I never could get through on the 800 number. All day it was busy. I guess the DMV doesn't have to worry about losing customers.
I had the smog test done. I went back and stood in line again then paid with a check, and they gave me California plates and made me surrender my Oregon plates. I hope I'm done with the DMV.
the rules at the DMV change whenever you deal with a different person. the inspection folk seem pretty decent for the most part, but the desk workers... indifference is common, as you noticed, and they can get vicious (you didn't fill out this line. no, you can't fill it out here, go sit down, then get in the back of the line and wait 3 more hours, even though it'll take you 10 seconds to do it) at the slightest provocation.
One way around car ownership is to wrangle a company car. One local construction group leases new Benz for management. Many of the large concrete jobs, they'd lease us new pick-up trucks for each job. Once,
I got a truck with a flashing light-bar on top so I could make U-turns anywhere! The bomb crew, we got new leased Ford AeroStar vans each job, billed to Army Corps of Engineers. They gave me a deisel Ford
with overdrive and saddle-tanks that I drove from Washington to Canada on one fill-up! Company credit card, too. Same deal in Alamo, California when we built Rancho Paraiso. It's a big perk when the co. pays for your ride, or one can lease and deduct it as a biz expense.
Sorry that you got rear-ended, butt you'll notice that I didn't make a joke about it!
Thank God I don't drive. But I do play bass.
Haha, yeah, I could just get a company car. I'll also demand exclusive access to the company zeppelin while I'm at it.
I think I am going to place an ad in the Bay Area Guardian soon looking for a drummer and bass player to play with.
Have to drop the car off for repairs on Monday. Luckily I only live a few miles from work. Hopefully it'll stop raining.
If you drive down Monument Ave. in Concord 'til you smell crank cooking, that'd be where to find some musicians. Berkeley is full of
musicians, too. Maybe recruit The Berkeley Drummers, they play down
at Ceasar Chavez Park on the Bay on weekends. Here, there's a lot
of ads in the Free Paper for musicians wanted for bands and musicians looking for bands. Also, a musicians co-op that sets-up jams and finds
gigs. Well, you could start your own corporation. I filed incorporation papers and business license for a friend who does freelance C++ programming for $100 per hour. Then you could lease a car for your CEO, namely you. A Mini Cooper would be nice, huh?
One time I was down by Fisherman's Wharf and this guy in a monster stretch limo wanted to drive me to San Jose for free! He'd got paid to drive some people up, it would have been a fun ride, maybe I shoulda got him to cruise the Tenderloin first, but I'm like, "What the hell I'm gonna do in San Jose?" Around Grant Ave. & Broadway there's usually bands to play with, too; for money, even.
Sean, Sean, Sean. I'm so sorry; I'd assumed I'd already given you the lecture. Okay, here it is:
When dealing with a bureaucracy, you will always, always be penalized for honesty. Rule-bound organizations run on people's honesty/dishonesty/verbal assertions: The person at the desk doesn't care if you're telling the truth, just which words come out of your mouth.
Learn from my mistakes. I spent a long time being fined and denied benefits before I learned. And there's no satisfaction in being virtuous with bureaucrats.
Two exceptions: Cops will more often reward honesty than dishonesty, and don't ever lie to a nurse.
TRUE STORIES OF THE DMV PATROL
when i was going for my moped license as a lanky 15 year old, i had to wait behind a group of pimply faced geeks like myself and some obviously drunken motorcycle cowboys. but nothing held up the line like, and i can't make this up, a disabled individual who had some sort of half moped/half scooter/3 wheeled motor bike type contraption which was custom made for his disorder, which i'm guessing was some sort of parapalegia mixed with a horrible horrible sense of balance. watching this little man with his useless legs was totally and completely awe inspiring. while navigating the cones, he managed to tip the 3 wheeled thing over several times, after which the attendant guy would have to come over, place him back on, and strangely enough put his helmet back on, because his helmet kept falling off his head. on the back of the 3 wheeled thing was a specially made bumper that looked like a smaller version of a beetle bumper, and on were two bumper stickers. one said "need for speed" and the other was something like "eat bertha's mussels" i remember i watched a greasy leather clad fellow eat 5 foot long slim jims as we waited in line.
and then once at the customer service desk, the lady refused to let me borrow her pen unless she physically held the little string that dangled from it.
and they wonder why i never spring for the donation plates.
Konig - you mention the mini cooper. you know that they're finally importing them next year, right? although it doesn't look like the mini's you see like on mr. bean. the 2002 mini has like some plastic crap around the fenders. of course being- 6'5" i'd never get one. although i had honda's smallest car, the crx, and it had the most leg room. actually i don't know if thats true, but i'm pretty sure. the nash metropolitan was so small the armrests were on the outside of the car door. it was called 'america's smallest car'. too weird. it looked like an upside down bathtub.
( http://members.tripod.com/~metguy/metpic.jpg )
-buzz
Our typical Survey War Wagons are GMC or Chebby Silverado carry-alls w/ deluxe everything, I like to ride in the back seat so I can sleep, sprawl, and unroll plans; but when it's really hot, the a/c doesn't seem to get beyond the front seat. I like those 455 cubic inch motors,
and I'm glad that I don't buy the gas! One local survey tradition is the annual surveyor's canoe trip down the Rapidan and Rappahanock Rivers. Friday evenings, we load the canoes and put in, then hold up
early behind Reggie Nash's house. We shoot out pistols into the air, that's the signal for Reggie to trundle down some ice and firewood.
If you get any of the antique car collector's newspapers, you will likely see Reggie Nash selling something like a 1927 Cadillac, or
a Nash Metropolitan. There is a tiny car called a Berkeley, at 5' 15",
I can lay down beside the car, and I'm longer than the wheelbase! It's
got a Norton motorcycle engine. The old Mini Coopers, you can gut them and re-mount the seat farther back. I saw a new VW bug with the 220hp motor get airborne going over a hill just down the street; the road was wet, so when he hit the pavement, it got sideways into a phone pole. Small, light cars are fun. In Reno, the company car was a big silver Chrysler, and a Ford pick-up with saddle-tanks and a SilverCap. I found a Fiat Topolino on a steel tube frame and a Pontiac rear, it was set-up for a Chrysler motor, which I had a 354" hemi with 6x2bbls., Jahn's 13:1 aluminum pistons, Vertex magneto, and 10lb. aluminum flywheel. I found a 1952 Anglia for thirty-five bucks, and put a Chebby 327" in it. I had a '59 MGA, and I'd like to get a Lotus 7, not the new kit-car, one of the wood frame originals, 140mph on
4 cylinders.
small cars can handle nicely, though I don't like the feel of front wheel drive. which is part of why I hate my NX-1600. drove a friend's Miata tonight, which is much nicer, though underpowered.
the new Mini Coopers are nothing like the originals. there are 2 of the old ones parked on the lawn in front of a body shop around here, and they're tiny. those were one of the original working-class cheapo cars, like VW bugs or the original Civics or MX-2's. now, it's just a small luxury car. I wish they still made something like the old Bug, that was cheap enough that you didn't care about modifying it, and blessed with enough potential that lots of aftermarket parts were available. now all the cheap cars are soulless boxes. sure, you can get the intake, aero and header packages of your choice for Civics, which start at like 10 grand (for the 90 some horsepower bare-bones models), but everybody has the damn things. if I go out on a Friday or Saturday night, every yokel will either be driving a Civic with 18" rims (enrobed in 35-series tires that look like they were sprayed on) and clear taillights, or a lowrider truck with unholy purple flourescence shining out of the bottom. I want something unique. maybe I could grab an old Fox-body and turn it into something Mad Maxesque. the NX is not coming with me when I move, wherever I go.
the best modification I've seen is the rear wheel drive conversion. front seat is removed, dashboard is pushed back to make the front trunk into an engine compartment. disconnect the old driveline, fit a driveshaft and transmission under the body, which apparently is not that hard to do, and install a 3.8L Buick V6 up front. yeeha.
A buddy got a nice, kinda new Buick Riviera, it was white with a white leather interior. He got it for very cheap because the front-wheel drive trans-axel was roached, but he knows how to fix that kinda stuff. So, he came by on the way up to Uniontown, Pa.; the front-wheel car feels funny on normal pavement, but we hit snow in Pennsylvania and it handled ok. The house we went in Pa. had about 50 Harleys and 200 slot machines in the basement! I lost all my quarters. Front wheel drive is good for snow, but I don't like trans-axels.
yeah, I see lots of RWD cars fishtailing in snow and mud. oddly 4x2 trucks do not do this, even though they have less weight on the drive wheels, at least when empty. must be the tires.
I want a Supra or a Z, despite the horrors of wet surfaces. this is compounded with pre-1990 Z's, which rust like crazy. Datsun/Nissan had the worst steel of any Japanese car - must not have picked up on buying it from other countries til the late '80s. Japan doesn't have much access to what metal ores are available, I guess because of the mountains, and I think they used up all the good stuff making sharp things to poke each other with in the feudal days.
Steve, the singer from Dubbed in English and an acquaintance of mine, tried to sell me his rusted out 280ZX, but I have neither the time nor the skill to pull the body panels off and go at the entire frame with a wire brush.
We did the Japanese a favor by bombing-out all of their steel factories in WWII; they built new factories, got a competetive edge in the world steel market, and Pittsburg went belly-up. One Chinese guy in Seattle wanted me to get bids on 5,000 to 15,000 ton loads of scrap steel to ship to Taiwan; I figured that if I could make three bucks per ton it would be a good deal, try to ship three, four times a year.
Butch from Maple Shade said that the NY Shipbuilding company built the Glomar Explorer, but mostly they cut up ships for scrap to send to Argentina; I've used steel concrete forms here that say, "Made in Argentina!" But I guess that the Japanese do like Atlas Machine and Foundry does in California: they get loads of scrap, melt it, look at it with a spectrascope, then doctor the batch in the crucible. That Datsun 6-cylinder is a screamer! One DMV here, they got a drive-thru window, the clerk has to be quick and efficient. So, unless one has to take a written test, it's easier to go through the line sitting down in your car, listening to tunes, and eating 5-foot long Slim Jims. There are many recent immigrants here, the Latinos seem to handle bureaucracy OK, but the Orientals mill about like they've been poleaxed. I don't like DMV or offices with lines and weird clerks.
a few comments back, AC Cobra wannabes! that would be neat. more character than a replica kit, too. I've heard of MG Midgets with '62 - '65 Buick Fireball and Olds F-65 215" all-aluminum V8's, 280ZX's with Mouse motors, Miatas with Ford smallblocks, and so on. I saw a '79 Triumph Spitfire for $1000, with nice paint and interior, leading me to believe I could get a scuzzy one for cheaper. wonder if there are bolt kits for 'em. time to check all the rednecky auto parts stores pages...
