Quick, pop quiz… you are not allowed to look up the answer:

When does your driver’s license expire?

I took that test yesterday and failed miserably. Mine expired on my birthday this year… back in May.

MORON!

Jen noticed it yesterday while she was investigating home insurance. I’ve been a licensed driver since February of 1988. Every time I’ve had to renew my driver’s license I got a message in the mail telling me it was coming. This time… nothing. I asked around the office and some other folks said they had heard that was the new way. Jen, however, got a renewal letter earlier this year. I don’t know who is right, I just know that I never saw a renewal letter.

There is a Mass Registry of Motor Vehicles Express office at the Natick rest area on the Mass Pike. That’s the closest RMV branch to my office. All they do is renewals, so it was where I headed yesterday. It was just after lunch time but I had to get this done right away, so I blew down there and waited in line for an hour and went back to work. The branch opens at 8:00am so I got up wicked early today and went back. This time I had more luck. I am licensed again, and I will have a new bad picture. Yippee.

Two quick customer stories from the RMV.

The office handles two things: License renewals and Registration renewals. That’s it. After waiting a long time in line one woman finally gets up to the counter and says she wants to transfer a Title.

License renewals and Registration renewals.

Another woman says her inspection is going to expire tomorrow and she needs to order vanity plates so she can have the new plate on the inspection. Tomorrow. So she expected to walk into the office and ask for vanity plates and take them home right then. As if the poor people working in the registry customer lines were going to go in the back somewhere and manufacture her vanity plates to order.

License renewals and Registration renewals.

The vanity plate woman was pissed off, and the woman working was getting equally pissed off. It’s like going into a restaurant and ordering home repairs. You’ve gotta be seriously soft.

Anyway, the situation is resolved for me. For now. Hopefully in a little less than a month I will have to go back and have the address on my license changed. Hopefully.

Today is the first day of school for the kids. They are very excited and I am very excited for them. I am also very proud of both of them.

Happy first day to you both. I know you are going to have a fun year, and I am positive that you will both do AWESOME!!!

Go get ’em!

It could be worse… Much worse.

Frantic! Crazy! Out of Control! All phrases that describe my stomach right now. Urgh… it’s supposed to get easier as you jump over the hurdles on the path to eternal debt, isn’t it?

Urgh! I say!

This weekend Jen, the love of my life, and I had planned to pack. Or at least start packing. Then Jen made a comment that I 100% agreed with. I don’t recall the exact quote but it was something along the lines of, what if we start packing before we have a mortgage commitment letter and we some how jinx the whole deal? Kinda like how you’re not supposed to buy baby gifts for some one who is pregnant (except for baby showers? How does that compute?). What if, cosmically speaking, throwing all of the shoes at the bottom of the closet into a box or two (or ten, I have big feet) caused fate to measure up our karma as slightly lacking and it flushed the whole house deal down the john? (I’ve often mixed metaphors… but mixed philosophies? This might be a blogger first for me)

So we canned the idea of packing for a few days. We did lighten our load slightly though. Jen and I had five laptops between us. One is her work issued machine, but still… five… for two people. She had her work box, a super awesome gaming machine, and a MacBook. I had my main lappy and my old Gateway that runs Linux. We decided to look into selling the MacBook and the Gateway. The Gateway might have nabbed us about $20. The MacBook though… those suckers age well.

She tried to sell it on ebay and got a really good price for it. Unfortunately the twit who won the auction defaulted. Asshole. So she tried again, this time on craigslist. Success! She got a bunch of offers and settled on the best one. On Saturday we met the buyer in Burlington where we looked out my favorite restaurant and fought back tears of temptation and made the sale. We then went into Barnes and Noble and perused the home improvement section. Just looking… not jinxing anything.

On Sunday we spent the time that we should have been packing at my parent’s house playing with my niece. After a long day of being the star of the show she did something that made me nearly combust with glee. She was getting really cranky and decided she wanted a ride in her stroller. No, said mom and dad, we’re getting ready to go home so the stroller has been put away. While her dad, my brother John, held her she started to cry and she… she… called out for her uncle Rob!

I nearly bust with pride! She does like me! (granted I had just finished wheeling her around the yard in her stroller, so maybe she was just assuming if she came to me she’d get another ride… stop it Rob, don’t ruin the good uncle feelings!)

Yesterday was back to reality. The mortgage broker sent us a conditional commitment letter. That’s right, if we can answer a few questions they will give us a truck load of money to buy a house! Success! Happiness! But…

For some reason Jen and I both felt our excitement over the commitment letter disappear to be replaced by nerves and fear. So what if we have a conditional commitment letter… so what… we still don’t have the commitment letter. We don’t expect to have that until the middle of September. A lot can change between now and then. Now we’re both really unsettled when we should be drawing up furniture floor plans. (not that we’re not doing that anyway, but you know what I mean)

We are excited. We can’t wait to move. We’re just scared to death at the same time. It’s an odd feeling, ya know?

8:19pm… still no post… what’s that fat red head doing? We (meaning the no one who loves to read this ridiculous drivel) need today’s post!

Well let me get on with today’s question.

Why? That’s the question. Why?

Why is it that now that we have the conditional commitment letter from the mortgage company are we more stressed than before? I don’t know. It’s crazy, we should be dancing around the house with glee.

But we’re just extra stressed now. I can’t believe it.

Maybe this will cheer us up…

What was that you said Mr Banker Mortgage Broker Sir?

The appraisal is all set and the first commitment letter will be sent out to us tomorrow?

WhatWhatWhat?

Look behind us… what do you see? A couple more hurdles crossed, that’s what you see.

Love love love.

Ya know… Just in case.

Last night my step kids were shining stars on the stage at their summer camp’s gym. It was wonderful. First my step son played the Star Wars theme on the piano. He was awesome. He forgot the second section and just stopped, but otherwise he was spot on perfect, including crossing his hands on the keyboard. I am so proud of that guy! Next my step daughter did a little unaccompanied vocal performance of some pop song I don’t know. She belted out that song like the Earth depended on it. She was by far the best performer of the night. No one even came close. She was awesome.

Today looks to be an important day. We haven’t heard back about the home appraisal yet, and we don’t have a commitment letter from the bank (our mortgage broker was on vacation this week), but we are going to start packing today. This is a momentous occasion.

I wanna move NOW!

The Jonas Brothers are evil. Pure Evil.

Just saying.