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.

… and I don’t mean potholes.

As I was sitting at a traffic light with 2 left turn lanes, in the right left turn lane, I noticed a pickup truck to my left pull up closer to the car in front of it, so that it was directly next to me. I looked up and saw the passenger (and possibly even the driver) in the truck making faces at me. I thought to myself, “Wow, you don’t see that every day. What is this, high school? Or a college campus on a Saturday night?” I avoided making any more eye contact with them, because I didn’t want to react and give them any more satisfaction.

When the light turned green, and I was turning left (making an appropriately wide turn, so the people next to me had room to turn, and the people turning the opposite direction had room, as well), I heard some honking. I had no idea why, but assumed it was directed at the people turning from the opposite direction.

I soon noticed that the black SUV in front of me, in the right lane, had a middle finger sticking out of it, towards a white SUV in the left lane. I looked over at the people in the truck next to me, and they were clearly entertained by this display. I decided to back off a little bit, because I feared something stupid might happen between these people.

The truck next to me decided to get up closer to the white SUV, and then moved over in front of me, and pulled up next to the white SUV. They lingered there, for a minute, presumably to make their own immature gestures at the people in the white SUV. Then, the truck swerved over towards them a little bit, making them swerve a little bit towards the median. This was exactly why I had backed off, because I wanted to be prepared in case some idiot caused an accident.

Thankfully, the truck then sped up and passed the white suv, and shortly after that, they turned. The rest of my commute was uneventful. That was more drama than I’m used to during my morning commutes, and am just glad none of these idiots took it any further.

Accidents suck, and it just seemed like someone was begging for one. I should also point out that most of this took place near an elementary school, at a speed of around 40mph, while the shool zone 25mph speed limit sign’s lights were flashing. I’m glad the kids were already in school, so they were not put at risk by these immature drivers.

Read about this on one of my favorite geek/productivity blogs, lifehacker:

Google Maps: Drag and drop to tweak your driving route
Don’t like the driving route Google Maps doled out to you? Now you can change the driving directions by grabbing the blue route line and dragging it to create a new destination point, which will in turn create a new route.

I’ve been wanting this feature from any online mapping service, for *years*. I’ve talked about it countless times with friends, co-workers, classmates, etc. The ability to say “No, dummy, I’m not taking 66. It’s rush hour!” or “Ack! No way, they’re doing road work on that road this week, and it’s a mess.” is something that I’ve always wished for.

I haven’t tried this feature on Google Maps yet, but I look forward to playing with it sometime in the near future!

As a narcoleptic, I have to constantly battle with sleepiness all day, every day. Falling asleep at the wheel, especially while sitting in traffic, is a very real danger. It is my responsibility, as a driver, to avoid putting myself and others in danger.

So, I’m always looking for new ways to stay awake while driving. Here are some of the methods I’ve used. Hopefully they can be of use to someone:

- chew gum (had to stop this when I got braces, though)
- munch on something. chips, crackers, french fries, M&M’s, etc.
- listen to the radio instead of CDs, especially talk radio (but not if it’s boring to you)
- listen to CDs, but make sure it’s music that you know well, so you can sing along the whole time.

I haven’t decided if sunglasses help me stay awake, or help me fall asleep. On the one hand, the bright sun in my eyes makes me feel like closing my eyes. But sunglasses make it darker, so it feels more like night time, thus I feel like closing my eyes then, too.

Do you have any tips that work well for you? Please leave a comment and tell me about them!