This office opened at 10am. Sure, others opened earlier, but this is the one directly between home and work (also, I’d have been back in sleep deficit if I’d tried for one of the other locations – which apparently had similar lines). In any case, the line behind me was as long as the one in front of me.

I know it’s a tradition and all that goes back to 1889, and I’m happy that we have separated the two holidays, but it makes me a little sad to still celebrate Lee-Jackson Day. At the very least can we continue with our government services for that day?

Single Point of Failure:

Using one device or communications line to perform a function. In order to ensure continuous operation, two or more devices or lines are used. Any computer or communications system that contains only one component to do a job creates a single point of failure. If that single component fails, there is no alternate one to take its place.

In the case of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles the Single Point that failed this morning was the apathetic woman working at the front desk. The DMV’s system for managing lines at their service centers works like this:

Customers entering a Virginia DMV service center proceed to a central information counter where a staff member gives them the proper forms to fill out and assigns them a number based on what service they require. This ensures that customers end up with the right form at the right place, rather than waiting in an endless line only to find out they need to get more information and stand in line again. (source)

Looks great on paper except here’s the thing, sometimes (today for instance) you need more than one person performing triage on the line and BOTH people ought to be more on the high speed spectrum of employee ability. The girl at the desk clearly hated both her job and people. Maybe if it is only one hour into your job and you’ve just had at least three days off (two of which were paid by fellow citizens of the Commonwealth), maybe you should find another job. Please.

The lobby of the DMV had several hundred chairs, most of them empty, meanwhile the line to sit in the chairs was out the door, down the hallway, and snaked past Talbots and the kiddie play pen thing. I waited 51 minutes in line for a ticket and was then out the door and to my car 5 minutes later.

Time ticket B114 was printed: 10:51 am

Time receipt was printed: 10:56 am

What really sucks is that the service center is going to get credit for a five minute transaction. “Hey, go us… customer B114 showed up at the front desk on Jan. 2 and was out the door and satisfied in only five minutes! Aren’t we just the model of efficiency?”

No. No you are not DMV.

Now, the purpose of my visit was to renew my (expired) vehicle registration, a process that I began way back in August ‘07. Since then the car has been in the shop at least three times because in order to renew your registration you must first pass an emissions test, a test that my car has been reluctant to pass.

Anyways, my number is called and I go up to the counter…

DMV Guy: What can I do for you today?

Me: I’d like to renew my registration! <big smile>

DMV Guy: Do you have the form?

Me: Yes! <hands form over>

DMV Guy: <looking over form, typing into computer, realising how way, way past expired my car is, brows deeply furrowing>

DMV Guy: Sir, have you been driving your vehicle with expired plates?

Me: Um, no? <hopefully displaying completely innocent face>

DMV Guy: <not believing a word of it but continuing to process the transaction>

DMV Guy: You know the fees went up as of Jan 1?

Me: <blank stare, thinking… wtf?! Like I’m not going to pay it now that I’ve learned the fees have increased? Is there another option that I missed where I no longer have to register my car in the state where I live? Is there some kind of appeal process for not paying the higher fees? Of course I’m going to pay the fees. It’s $103? So what! I just paid $1,700 to get the damn check engine light to turn off and thus allow me to pass the test. What’s another hundred buck? You dummy.>

Me: Ok <hands over credit card>

DMV Guy: Thank you, Happy New Year.

Me: <indeed>

Almost home, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

Got a niffty gps for christmas. Now I can collect all sorts of nerdy data about my commute. Today’s drive home took 27 minutes w/ 25 minutes of moving time… Not too bad.

Several years ago my old friend Brooke returned from a business trip ranting about how much she hated the rental car she was given. It was a PT Cruiser and she could not say enough bad things about this vehicle. In fact, Brooke ranted so strongly in opposition to this car that her story stayed with me for a long time. Now, it also happens my officemate has railed against the crappiness of this vehicle, and while perhaps not with the same vehemence as Brooke, his driving woes certainly served as a cautionary tale.

Fast forward to Tuesday. I’d finally decided to do something about the check engine light that has been glowering at me from the dashboard for quite some time. As long as its amber light remained lit I would never pass the Virginia emissions test, so I took it to a shop near my office. This shop, which came recommended, could not fix the problem. They kept the car for hours and hours and hours and finally called to say, “Hey, so we think we know what the problem is, and what we’d like to do is cut this wire, and ground it off, and see what happens.”

They wanted to cut a wire to the computer that runs the engine. And they weren’t 100% sure what might happen after cutting the wire. WTF?! My options varied from the light would go off and the car would pass the test or the engine might never start again. I chose plan B and took the car into the dealer, but not without first paying $90 for the privilege of having the first shop do absolutely nothing of value.

The dealer couldn’t look at the car until the morning so I was now presented with a few more decisions, like, do I drop off the car and walk home and then telecommute for a day or two? Or, do I suck it up and get a rental? I went for the rental, secretly hoping I’d end up with something fun and/or cool (I’ve always regretted not going for the Mercedes that time in Hollywood, it wasn’t that much more).

I did not get a Mercedes.

Earlier in the year I’d been to Boston and was given a Ford Freestyle, a not particularly impressive vehicle. The Freestyle is one of those hybrid misfit autos that wants to look like an SUV but ride like a car. What you get in the end is crap. And not very impressive crap. I didn’t hate my Freestyle (maybe because it had a nice GPS nav system), but I quickly figured out that I’d never buy one.

I did not get a Freestyle either.

No, instead I got a PT Cruiser. I wasn’t immediately unhappy, but then, I’d only heard stories, and you see these cars everywhere so some people must like them. Maybe my friends are just a vocal minority, I thought. Maybe they just missed the draw of this classic looking car. My friends, they missed nothing. The PT Cruiser is the worst car I have ever driven.

Let us begin with olfactory senses. This car did not come with the nice, new car smell, no, it came with the odor of stale cigarettes. In fact, the smell was bad enough that the previous driver had left both front windows cracked. The cracked windows presented the next problem… How to raise them… For it was after all cold and misting outside. I searched the door panel for a switch. Nothing. Stopped at a red light I clicked on the overhead and looked for an old fashioned window handle. Nothing. I pawed around the center console area, feeling around for anything that might raise the windows. Nothing. Finally, after quite some time, I found it. The controls for the windows are on the dash. The dashboard, because that’s intuitive.

Other things of annoyance… Several times I accidentally flashed high beams at my fellow drivers because the turn signal wand allowed me to do so with the slightest amount of pressure and while the retro analog clock looked cool at first, the grey on grey color scheme made it difficult to read (same for any of the other gauges). In the driver’s seat I never found a comfortable position for my body. Small windows mean the sill is up too high to rest an elbow and the arm rest was actually too low. I felt a little like Goldilocks. The small windows and large columns added another drawback, namely blindspots. It didn’t matter which way I turned my head, I could barely see the traffic that I knew was out there. Consumer Reports sums up these problems by saying, “flawed driving position and compromised visibility are detractions.” No kidding.

The good news is that while my real car remains in the shop for day two of it’s repair odyssey, today I was able to get a new, different car to drive around town. And as much as I hated the first I’m kind of loving (maybe a little too much even) car #2. Somehow I ended up with a brand new 2008 Xterra. It’s so new in fact that there were only 65 miles on the car! And yes, it does have that new car smell (which I know is likely the results of toxic chemicals). Still, it was familiar and easy to drive (at least once I took it out of 4 wheel drive low. How anyone managed to drive it like that I have no idea) and I made it home without any sort of angst at all. Now if only there could be a Christmas miracle that would magically lower my impending auto repair bill. Do you think they have grants for this sort of thing?

Wow. Traffic sucks, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

Even though I sacrificed and did my part for commuting-kind by staying off the roads until late morning (and um, sleeping in a little extra), traffic was still a big huge mess!

You know things are bad when you’ve been driving for about four minutes only to come to a complete stop well before any of the normal places that you might come to a complete stop.

Immediately after snapping this pic with my cameraphone I managed to sneak across a couple lanes to an exit. From there I worked my way through a series of back roads and managed to both avoid all major traffic arteries and not slide off the road (though there was one close call). I can report that the sign stating “Bridge Freezes Before Road” is very much true.

My commute took the same 40 minutes as it normal and I got to drive through some really pretty stretches of countryside. It’ so easy to think of the suburbs as tract housing interrupted by strip malls, but less than 10 minutes from my house are wide open spaces with horses. With the first layer of fallen snow it looked quite pretty and while I am already sick to death of all the many horrible commercials and bad x-mas displays, I do love the music and have to admit that more than one Christmas carol popped into my head as I drove through the woods and over streams and the dry snow blew about as if shaken in a small glass globe.

Cancelled + Diverted = 1st class upgrade, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

I was supposed to fly out of hilton head this morning at 550am but there was much fog, an impediment to take off and landing. Also there was no airplane, an even bigger impediment to manned powered flight. The ticket agent was good though and gave me an option to catch a slightly later flight out of Savannah. Good news for me.

This, however, was bad news for my sleepy parents who’d been looking forward to a quick return to dreamland but now faced a two hour round trip drive to SAV (the Hilton Head airport is a quick 7 min drive from there house). (Thanks again Mom & Dad).

So we drove through the fog and made it the airport on time. I checked the bag at the curb and skipped the long line inside as well as paying the $50 fee for an overweight bag (mine was like 2 pounds over). The security line was a snap… Just like last week it was almost too efficiently fast. I hate to complain about the TSA line moving too fast but we got waived through so quickly that on the other side it became a jumble of bodies and bags.

Anyways, the rest of the morning was relatively uneventful. The first flight had me on the aisle in an exit row (extra leg room) and the second flight had me in the above mentioned first class. The second plane though was a CRJ and so first class was only three seats across (seat, aisle, two seats). I was in the single seat row which meant I had both a window and aisle… best of both worlds! Plus, you get a drink before take off which was nice, but they didn’t do the warm towel thing, which was missed. Or maybe I slept through the warm towel part.

When we finally landed at Dulles (after what seemed like a fair amount of circling the airport) I was able to be one of the first off the plane, which meant I could be first on the people mover (I love the people movers), and somehow my bag was one of the first onto the baggage carousel.

Then I had to wait an eternity for the Purple Lot shuttle, but eventually one arrived and just shy of an hour after landing I was on my way to the office. Good times.

Soon to be me, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

2007/11/21 11:33 :: Periodic updates as time and batteries and network connections allow…

IAD = ghost town?, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

2007/11/21 11:59 :: Wtf? It took exactly ZERO minutes to get through security (ok, I’m exaggerating, but only a little. It took maybe two minute top). Also there was no wait to check my bag with US Air. The economy lots are filling up, but unlike over Veterans Day weekend there are people at every intersection waving flags and directing traffic and there were several buses waiting at the Purple Lot stop #8.

I am now sitting at the gate using one of the only nice features of my phone… its ability to hook up my laptop to the web via bluetooth.

In case of a water “landing”, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

2007/11/21 13:38 :: In case the plane should hit the water at 500 knots, use bottom cushion for flotation.

Window seat?, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

2007/11/21 13:47 :: Not the best window seat I’ve ever had what with it being directly behind my right shoulder and instead, where a window might normally be located, there is a pillar.

Meanwhile, we sit at the gate while the crew deals with several issues with passengers… First issue being two middle eastern looking guys who the crew seem to have a problem with (i think maybe dealing with an exit row and their ability to speak English, only one of the guys is speaking English and from his condescending reply to the flight attendant I’d wager he feels as if he is being profiled – and he probably is). Second issue was the girl who boarded with someone else’s ticket (issued to her by mistake while transferring from united to usair). She was supposed to be on a later flight and the gate attendants were confused. Compounding all this is the woman across the aisle from me who sat in the wrong seat setting off a chain reaction of musical chairs.

Hopefully we’ll be wheels up shortly!

UPDATE: The flight was smooth but the crew was clearly feeling some holiday stress. I can’t help but think the negative vibes they were casting played a role in our delayed departure. They were much more on edge than anyone else I encountered (including the crew on my next flight – Heather, btw, was the only crew member in the cabin and was extra nice and had a smile for everyone).

My barns from above, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

2007/11/21 14:29 :: Finally in the air! We took off from Dulles flying approximately due south. Being on the left side of the plane allowed me to snap a shot of Manassas Battlefield where I have taken so many photos recently. The gray line stretching from the south east corner and heading north west is Interstate 66. The battlefield is the green patch sort of in the middle of the photo.

New plane!, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

2007/11/21 15:52 :: Now with propellers!

Dash 8~100… Next stop HHH.

This plane seemed older than most, but it worked, and that’s all that matters.

3/4 full over HHH, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

2007/11/21 17:22 :: You can’t see it, but the moon looks amazing tonight.

Today turned out to be a good one to fly, but I’m still on the fence about driving vs. flying.  On a good day the drive from DC to Hilton Head is 8 – 9 hours. But you never know… One Thanksgiving I drove down and got stuck in a miles long backup around Fayetteville caused not by accident or weather but a TV news crew parked in the median, sat antenna extended, and camera lights blazing. The idea I’m sure was to report on the terrible traffic, but of course the traffic was flowing fine until the cameras arrived.

The point of my story I suppose is that in the end the decision to fly or drive is a crapshoot with far too many variables out of your control. And so I lucked out today.  Talk to me Monday afternoon after I fly home along with the rest of America.

Chapter One: The Commute

Rainy Morning Commute, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

With the morning’s wet weather I was dreading a little my drive to work.

Having gone so long without rain, I knew traffic was going to be bad. Not 66 eastbound bad (where all four lanes were blocked this morning causing a backup that at one point stretched from Nutley to 234), but still, bad enough to illicit oaths and tight gripping of steering wheels.

I held out hope. I hoped that my later departure might make for less clogged roads. I hoped the lighter than expected rain would allow for smooth sailing. The light traffic shown in the photo above was enough to sustain those hopes, was enough to have me think, “Hey, this drive might not be so bad after all.”

After the jump, the rest of my commute and “chapters” 2 & 3!

It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This is, when it comes to my commute each day, something I have managed to prove over and over again. Because each day I think, “Maybe this will be the day that traffic doesn’t suck.” And each day it always does suck. Always. And at the same places. Perhaps it is time to come to terms with the fact that there is no such thing as a commute “against traffic.”

Ugh. See why in this slideshow of four on Flickr.

Chapter Two: In Which I Document a Possible Environmental Hazard and Admire its Beauty

Slick, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

After work I stepped out into a world that was once more becoming acquainted with the ways of water.

The sky was spitting, trees were dripping, and on the ground puddles fed streams that fed puddles. The parking lot out front of my office looked like someone had murdered an oil tanker. Beautiful splotches of a shiny oily substance covered the lot in a fine sheen. It pooled and flowed and glistened in the rain water and I immediately reached for my camera bag.

Many angles, shapes, and colours covered in this set of twenty-one on Flickr.

Chapter Three: Refuge and Solace

Split fence, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

After my Veldez parking lot shoot I was still not ready to face the afternoon slog home. Instead I drove to the battlefield that has lately become both my go to refuge from the daily grind as well as played the part of photographic muse.

Check out a quick slideshow of four on Flickr.