spugbrap’s blog

I had to go to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) last week, for the first time in several years. Their web site is very useful and usable, so I’ve done most of my DMV transactions online in recent years. Things like vehicle registration renewal, change of address, driver’s license renewal, etc. only take a few minutes on the website.

Apparently every other 5-year driver’s license renewal cycle, you have to get a vision screening, though, so you have to go in to a physical DMV location. This year was one of those years, for me.

Before going in, I looked up my local DMV location (Manassas) on their Office Locations page, to see how long the wait time would be. The site shows realtime stats for your closest location and two or three other nearby locations. At 11:41am, the site said 9 minutes and 12 seconds, which seemed reasonable enough.

So, I headed down there. The wait ended up being a bit longer than that–35 minutes or so to get called to a window (just the first of 3 things I had to wait for).

When I got to the window, I had to take my vision test, and apparently I did not understand how to use the simple device they use to perform that:

I was supposed to put my forehead on the pad, look into the machine, and read the first line of letters. But I could not find a “line of letters”! Not a first one, not a second one, none.

I could see a tiny ‘F’, and what I believe was a tiny ‘B’ or something, but depending on how I looked at it, the B was sometimes below the ‘F’, sometimes to the right, and sometimes below and to the right. In any case, these definitely did not constitute a “line of letters”, and I could barely see them.

I tried numerous times to step back, re-set my forehead on the pad, and look into the device, but I kept seeing the same thing. This went on for a minute or two, and I was freaking out by this time, thinking I was going to be unable to renew my license because the machine says I’m blind.

I asked if I could try a vision test machine at a different window, but she said this one should be working. She tried looking into it, to make sure, and she somehow saw lines of letters. She suggested I read the second line instead of the first. I maintained that I could not see any lines of letters, let alone a “first” or “second” line.

Eventually, I bent down and looked into it from a different angle (I looked upwards instead of straight down the barrel of the machine), and saw a whole chart full of large, clear letters. I read the first line, with no trouble at all, and we both breathed a sigh of relief.

In hindsight, it might have helped if she (or I) had angled the machine upwards towards me, since the thing that finally worked for me was bending down AND looking upwards. Not once did she suggest changing the orientation of the machine to fit me, though, and I didn’t know if/how much they actually move, so I never thought to ask.

After the vision test, I paid the renewal fee, then sat down and waited to have a new picture taken. I didn’t ask to get a new picture taken–I kind of liked my old picture. It’s from 8-9 years ago, when my hair was the longest it’s ever been. It was a conversation piece, if nothing else. Here it is, feel free to point and laugh and call me a dirty hippie (notice the Phish t-shirt, too)! I’ll post the new picture eventually, whenever I have a reason to scan my new license.

It was about a 10 minute wait to get my picture taken, then another 5 minutes waiting for the new license to be printed. So, all told about 50 minutes of waiting. I’m glad I won’t have to do that again for 10 years.

After I got home, I checked the website again, expecting to see much higher wait times (since I’d just experienced them first-hand). The site did show a longer average wait time: 17 minutes and 32 seconds, but that’s still way less than what I actually sat through.

Summary:

There are 2 main points I hope that I’ve conveyed with this blog entry:

1. Although the real-time average wait time information on the Virginia DMV website seems pretty cool, and may be useful as a *very* rough indication of how busy they are, there is a huge margin of error. I don’t know what exactly they’re averaging to come up with those numbers, but my actual wait time was at least 3 times as long as the website showed.
2. When looking into the vision screening device, look upwards a little bit, rather than straight down the barrel of the machine. Otherwise, you’ll look like a moron, and waste time, which means longer wait times for everyone else.

A couple years ago, Lacey and I had an argument about the correct wording for referring to upcoming dates.

For example, what does “This Sunday” mean? What about “Next Sunday”?

Lacey ended up winning that argument, for some reason, so ever since then I’ve tried to speak/interpret these phrases carefully, conscientiously trying to use what she taught me back then. As it turns out, she does seem to be right about the general rules for using these future date words. I’ve paid attention every time I’ve heard anyone mention “this {x}” or “next {x}”, ever since that discussion/argument. But it’s definitely a source of ambiguity that bothers me whenever I hear these terms used.

She told me [something like]:

When referring to the next day {x} that will occur, it’s called “this {x}”.

When referrnig to the day {x} after that, it’s called “next {x}”.

So, since today is Sunday, January 20, 2008:

• this Wednesday is January 23, 2008
• next Wednesday is January 30, 2008

*** fast forward to last night ***

We had an upcoming event to write on the calendar on the fridge. Lacey told me “Next Saturday” at 4:30pm. Since it was Saturday, January 19, 2008 when she said that, I first interpreted it (based on what I learned from Lacey way back then) as Saturday, Februrary 2, 2008.

But, she was actually talking about Saturday, January 26, 2008. I called her out on that, because it screamed “inconsistency” at me. After a brief review of what we talked about back then, I still don’t feel 100% certain of the English language rules deal with future dates.

I found a couple similar questions on Yahoo Answers, tonight:

• If someone said: “please send me the material by the end of next week”?
• What date is next Friday?

But none of the answers on those questions linked to any authoritative Enlglish Language sources.

Does anyone know of any websites that might help me straighten this out, once and for all? A web page that even somewhat resembles an official English language rule/guideline/etc. regarding “this/next (day_of_week)” usage would be greatly appreciated. If you know of any, PLEASE leave a Comment, below! Thanks!

When I see the name Clorox on a cleaning product, I automatically think “this kills germs”. Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner, and the king of all germicides: Clorox Bleach. But what about Clorox 2?

They call it “Bleach for Colors”. I’ve been using it for years, and have always kind of assumed that it’s just like bleach, only somehow without the hardcore whitening power. Sometimes, if I know that some clothes (or, more often, towels or rags) have been in a particular nasty situation, I’ll throw in some Clorox 2, thinking it might help kill germs, along with washing out whatever scary stuff is present.

After years of wondering whether it actually does have germ killing properties, like most Clorox products have, I finally looked it up. I found the answer in the Clorox 2 Bleach For Colors FAQ:

Q. Can Clorox 2® Bleach for Colors be used to disinfect clothing?

A. No. Clorox 2® Bleach for Colors is not registered as a disinfectant with the E.P.A. Of course, Clorox® Regular-Bleach can be used as a disinfectant if the fabric is safe for sodium hypochlorite bleach.

Looking at a bottle of Clorox 2, this fact is not readily apparent, as you can see from the photos below:

However, I did find the answer to my original question (”Does Clorox 2 kill germs?”) in an unexpected place (after I’d already found the answer on their official website): on the back label of a bottle of regular Clorox Bleach (see photo below).

There it is, plain as day: “This product is not an EPA-registered disinfectant.” Now why couldn’t they just put that on the actual Clorox 2 bottle? Hmpf!

From the FIA Card Services (aka Evil Spawn of the Bank of America+Fleet and Bank of America+MBNA mergers) Privacy Policy (emphasis added by me):

This notice describes the privacy practices of FIA Card Services for consumer financial products and services governed by the laws of the United States of America and applies to open, closed and inactive accounts with FIA Card Services.

For some reason, this concerns me a little bit.

I have two open accounts with them right now, and am going to go ahead and opt out of their information sharing options for both accounts. But it’s not people like me that I’m concerned about.

I’m concerned about people who may have ever had an account with Bank of America, MBNA, or any of the other credit card companies that they have collectively gobbled up over the years. People who may have canceled their cards long ago, cut them up, and forgotten all about them. People who may have even thrown away all of their bills/terms/etc., because it’s been so long.

According to the paragraph quoted above, FIA Card Services may share their information with other companies, even if their accounts are closed! Maybe I’m just naïve, but I never would have imagined that after I closed a credit card account, and stopped doing business with a company, they might still share my personal data with arbitrary third parties.

I’ll bet they don’t still mail annual Privacy Policy notices to everyone who has closed accounts. But, all of this may be a moot point. The wording is ambiguous enough that even though they *might* do something with that data, they probably don’t, and I have no positive proof that they actually do engage in this unethical practice. So, they get the benefit of the doubt, for now. But it’s still creepy, and they’re still evil for other reasons.

While it’s clear, to me, what this sign really means, I enjoy laughing at potential misinterpretations of things, due to ambiguous wording.

Obviously, the actual intention is for people to remove their own food from the refrigerator, in preparation for a periodic fridge-cleaning, and not to remove the actual sign.

However, the words, “have all food removed” could imply “having someone do something for you.” With that in mind, the message at the bottom, “Please do not remove, will be removed by the Receptionist,” could be interpreted to mean “Don’t trouble yourself with removing your food, yourself. Have the receptionist remove it.”

In fact, if you’re lazy, lack common courtesy, and don’t care about anything you have in the fridge, someone else *will* remove (and dispose of) your food, when cleaning time comes. So, in that case, this sign can just be taken as a notice that someone’s going to be cleaning the fridge soon.

I don’t actually have anything in the fridge, but every time I see one of these signs, I chuckle to myself. Just thought I’d share this mild English-language-misinterpretation humor with others, for once.