Archive for October, 2007
Paperwork you gotta love!
I have always hated the DMV. In the town where I grew up, the DMV meant queuing by Window A, being sent to wait in the line for Window E and then of course going to Window H to pay, no Visa cards accepted. The whole process could day hours. In fact on one occasion in particular, I arrived at the DMV at about 1:30 and had not reached the first window by closing time and was told to come back the next morning. Needless to say, I got to the DMV the next morning at a quarter after 7 (they open at 
and there was already 15 people in line ahead of me.
Did I mention that I hate going to the DMV?
In North Carolina the DMV is separated into drivers services and vehicle services. ID and Drivers Licenses are handled by the Drivers License office. Titling and registration are handled by the License Plate office.
I am in the process of selling my sister’s car (which is titled to my parents) to a friend. My parents located the title and signed in the appropriate fields and then mailed me the title. On the way to the NC plate office, my friend asked me to review the title and make sure all the missing fields were complete. As he read me the odometer reading, I started writing, digit by digit. Sure enough, I realized about 5 seconds too late that I should have started in the second space instead of the first. The car has about 60k miles on it, not 600k. I crossed off the mistake and wrote the actual odometer reading. Whoops! I shouldn’t have done that.
The nice lady at the License Plate office tells us that she’s not able transfer the title because the odometer statement had been altered. My parents (who are the sellers) would need to complete a separate form releasing the DMV from liability from the false odometer reading. Since my parents live out of town about 3000 miles away, this would involve a lot of fedex and notary fees. She hands us a packet of forms and tells us to come back when they are completed. Hopefully, our second visit will go smoother than the first.
Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford.
Posted by Daniel in banks, credit cards, finances on October 20, 2007
People that know me know that I have not always been responsible with money (and that’s being really nice about it. I was downright irresponsible with life, bills and finances included. It took a lot of help from family and friends to develop any kind of financial discipline and overcoming the buy-it-now message that is so prevalent in our consumerism oriented world. When credit limits are high and finance charges are in the fine print it is easy to get carried away.
Some people treat credit cards like winning the lottery. A new 5k limit? That’s as good as getting a check in the mail! Let’s see what we can get for it at the mall. With all the online shopping and one-click buying, it’s no wonder the average American with at least one credit card carries about $8000 in debt. There is an entire industry created on repairing credit, and providing “financial counseling.”
What can we do to combat this growing problem of unmanageable consumer debt?
There are mandatory seminars before you take out a student loan. This teaches you the terms and conditions of the loan, what consolidation is and when to do it, defining terms like forebearance. There ought to be a mandatory workshop on responsible credit card use before being issued a card.
Or maybe it’s much simpler than that? Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford.
Sad news about the shrubs : The Replacements
Remember those really sad looking shrubs I described about a week ago? Well, my “shrub doctor” decided that they weren’t really worth saving. He and his highly surgical skilled team have introduced some radical changes to my yard. They are about half way done with the process and the results are nothing short of phenomenal.
I got so excited I started snapping pictures during the process. I will post pictures once the whole landscaping job is complete.
I had no idea that I had so much space in the planter beds in front of my porch. In fact, I had almost forgotten that I have a porch. I know that I’m really looking forward for the azaleas to flower. I haven’t asked him yet, but I am awaiting post-surgery rehab instructions. Haha. If you are in the North Carolina “Triangle” area and looking for a skilled professional landscaper designer with an impressive client list and 30 years of experience, do contact Mr. Angel Redoble, 919-638-7436.
Sad news about the shrubs.
brown shrubs
This morning, my good friend and his landscaper came over to my house to take a look at the condition of my yard. Needless to say, the news was not good. The diagnosis? Fireblight. Apparent this highly infectious disease is like a cancer for plants. It spreads quickly and there is no known cure. The only course of treatment is radical aggressive amputation. The diseased portions of the plants must be cut out, and an additional 8 inches of “good” plant material from the point of disease must be pruned as well.
What can I say. I’m going have to throw a funeral for the shrubs the succumbed to the illness. They fought a good fight.
Since the bacteria spreads really easily, removal will probably require wearing gloves and burning or discarding the trash. I’m told to make sure that none of it spreads to the ground where it will infect other surrounding plants. It affects both shrubs and trees, so you can’t be too careful. It sounds so toxic and the results so damaging, I’m wondering if it infects humans as well?
Needless to say, I’m not happy. It’s killed a couple of the junipers that border my neighbor’s yard and also a bunch of the shrubs on the berm behind my house. I’m a bit apprehensive since I haven’t received the bill from the landscape doctor yet. Keeping my gloves on and fingers crossed.
A Cappella Concerts Fri Oct 26 and Sat Nov 3
Posted by Daniel in entertainment, live music, vocal on October 12, 2007
From one of my mailing lists:
The first is the Heart of Carolina Chorus show, on Friday, Oct. 26, 8:00 PM in Durham at the School of Science & Math. This is a 30-man barbershop chorus, and the show will feature the HOCC and a number of guest groups. The headliner group is a quartet from Dallas, TX called “Dallas Knights”, who are an incredibly entertaining group. The DK website is http://www.dallasknights.com/ (worth checking out, if only to see the picture on the front page). More information about the show can be found at http://heartofcarolinachorus.org.
The second opportunity is totally different… it’s a mixed a cappella group called the Looney Tunes, and the style is more of “collegiate a cappella”. This is multi-part harmony (sometimes 7 or 8 parts) with vocal percussion. The Looney Tunes are a local group comprised of twelve men and women from around the Triangle. This show will be held on Saturday, Nov. 3, 7:30 PM in Raleigh at Raleigh Little Theater. There will be 3 guest groups performing on the show as well, including: Ladies in Red (NCSU), Wolfgang Acappella (NCSU), and the Spartones (UNC-Greensboro). More information and tickets for this show are available online at: http://looneytunesmusic.org. You can also hear a sample of current music on that site.