Somehow I missed seeing Last of the Dogmen when it was originally released. It turns out to be a pretty good movie, if for nothing else than the beautiful settings and cinematography.
Rating: Good rental fare
My current car, a 2001 Lexus LS 430, just crossed the hundred thousand mile mark. Purchased used three years ago last month, it had a mere twenty-seven thousand miles when I started driving it. That’s an average of nineteen hundred miles a month, give or take.
At this rate I should see two hundred thousand in about four years.
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(Yes. The pictures were taken while driving.)
Eldest is the second book of Christopher Paolini Inheritance trilogy. It’s a good story, one that I am enjoying, even if it is aimed at a young(er) audience.
Rating: Hurry up with the third book already
I have passed the thirty pounds lost milestone. To celebrate I went out this past weekend and bought new pants for work. The current set are not only starting to show their age, they are baggy enough to draw comments from friends at work. On several occasions now I have seen people who haven’t seen me since I started my weight loss and they have all commented on the change in my appearance. It feels very good to have the weight loss recognized by others.
So far I’ve been averaging about ten pounds of loss per month. Provided this rate of loss keeps up I should see my initial goal of two hundred pounds by Halloween, and be in the one-ninety range for Christmas. That would be amazing.
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.