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!

Ryan Somma recently blogged about software glitches due to the extended Daylight Savings Time that was introduced by the US government’s Energy Policy Act of 2005. One of the issues that he experienced was:

My cell phone has been waking me up an hour early all week because it thinks that Daylight Savings Time (DST) began last weekend. I can’t change the time because it’s managed by Cingular, so it’s the fault of their systems.

My cell phone’s been wrong this week, as well. I know I applied a DST patch back in the spring, but I think I must have installed a new copy of Windows Mobile on my phone since then, and it didn’t include the patch.

At first, I tried setting my phone’s clock manually, but then I experienced the same automatic time setting that Ryan did, care of Cingular. Yesterday, I finally got tired of seeing the wrong time, so I changed my time zone to Atlantic (GMT-4), and then went looking for the Windows Mobile Extended DST patch.

You can find the necessary patch(es) and instructions for Windows Mobile devices here, if you still need them. My phone is back to the Eastern (GMT-5) time zone, now, and is showing the correct time. Hopefully it will adjust properly on Sunday, too.

On a humorous but not directly related to DST note, I accidentally set my alarm clock one hour ahead when attempting to turn it off, earlier this week. Later that day, I was sitting in my room, working on my laptop, and tried to see what time it was. My laptop said one thing (the correct time), and Lacey’s alarm clock showed a similar (+/- 5 minutes) time, but my alarm clock was an hour ahead, and my cell phone was an hour behind. That was rather confusing. :)

I woke up this morning, turned off my alarm, took my morning wake-up medicines, and got in the shower. About half-way through my shower, I noticed that it was still dark outside. This was odd, because I’ve been noticing sunlight peeking through the edges of the miniblinds during my showers, lately.

Then, it dawned on me–the alarm I had turned off was not my “morning-wake-up” alarm; it was my “middle-of-the-night” (take second Xyrem dose and go back to sleep) alarm.

So, I finished my shower, then puzzled over what to do next. One option was to go back to bed, but I had already taken my wake-up medicines, and did not have any spare doses to take upon reawakening. The other option was to proceed as usual, getting to work freakishly early, but only having had about two hours of sleep. If necessary, I could always take a nap in my car, at some point during the day.

I decided to head to work. When I got there, I realized that if I was going to take a nap in my car, I needed to do it early, because it would be too hot later in the day. So, I found a nice, quiet, shady corner of the parking lot, cracked the windows, set alarms on my cell phone, and attempted to get comfortable.

Unfortunately, my new car is not so good for sleeping in. No matter how I adjusted the seat, at least one part of my body was either cramped or unsupported. After about 45 minutes of trying to get reasonably cozy, I finally found the right combination of seat position, neck support, and foot placement. For neck support, I ended up using my owner’s manual package (it’s inside a zippered soft leather case) wrapped in a towel, with the seat’s headrest up a few notches. About 30 minutes later, my alarm went off, and I went into the office, feeling very much like a zombie. I bought an energy drink from the deli on the way in, which helped a little bit, but really I was pretty zombified all day.

This started out very similar to the last time I got up way too early, but I took a very wrong turn this time (in part due timing factors, like my current prescription wake-up meds running out next week). Last time, I went back to bed after the shower. If this ever happens again, I will be doing that.

It is also worth noting that last time, I woke up insanely early without any external cues, whereas this time I had an alarm go off. I’ve had that middle-of-the-night alarm go off every night for months, though, so why did I handle it wrong this time?

Perhaps it’s because I changed some variables last night, relating to alarms. I’ve been having trouble remembering to actually take my Xyrem when that alarm goes off, more and more lately. I’ve also been crawling back into bed after turning off my morning-wake-up alarm, on several recent occasions.

So, to combat both of these issues, I did two things differently last night:

1. I put my morning-wake-up alarm clock on the floor, on the other side of my nightstand, with the time facing away from the bed. This way, I would be forced to get up to turn it off, and would have to get conscious enough to figure out that it’s facing the wrong way, in order to successfully find the little tiny switch on one side that turns it off.
2. I put my middle-of-the-night alarm (an old cell phone) under a paper towel, inside an open box, with my Xyrem bottle on top of the paper towel, and a sheet of bubble wrap partially covering the top of the box. Really, there’s no way to adequately describe what this looked like, so here are some pictures:

If my alarm clock had been on my nightstand–facing towards the bed–I might have noticed what time it was, when I turned off my middle-of-the-night alarm. If my middle-of-the-night alarm had not been hidden inside the odd little box, the way it was, I might have simply turned it off and gone back to sleep. Even if I didn’t take my second Xyrem dose, at least I would have gotten more sleep.

Tonight, to be on the safe side, I’m going to put things back the way they were. Well, I might go ahead and hide my morning wake-up meds a little bit, so I might think twice before taking them. Really, the thing that would help most with my sleep/wake cycle would be to stop staying up late doing things like finishing blog entries! :)

My alarm was set for 5:00am, but I got up at 1:00am, took my morning wake-up medicines, and hopped in the shower. It wasn’t until half-way through the shower that I noticed what time it was. Ugh! So, I finished my shower, and went back to bed.

The weirder thing is, I specifically remember that when I woke up, I went into the bathroom and put my glasses on, then went back into the bedroom… The only reason I can think of that I would have done that is to check the time, and make sure my alarms were turned off before taking my shower. But, as it turns out, my alarms were still set for 5:00am. So I’m not sure what I was thinking.

This is not the first time this has happened. It happened at least once before, sometime in the past year and a half. Weirdness. I’m guessing there was some dream<–>reality mixup involved, kind of like what used to happen to me in high school and college, but with opposite results…

I used to turn off my alarm clock without waking up, and then proceeded to dream that I took a shower and got ready for school. Then, my mom would wake me up when it was nearing time to catch the bus, and I would be all sorts of pissed off and confused, because I truly believed that I had gotten up with my alarm, taken a shower, got dressed, etc. This happened way too often.

This time, maybe I was dreaming that my alarm was going off, and that I was shutting it off, and then heading to the bathroom to take a shower… and my body physically did go through some of the motions, and ended up in the bathroom, where I proceeded to actually wake up for real. Since there is no clock prominently posted in the bathroom (I only noticed the time in the shower because of the little tiny clock on my shaving mirror in the shower), I did not question that it was time to be awake, because I still remembered turning off my alarm (which happened to be in a dream).

Oh, the joys of narcolepsy!

Consequently, when my alarm really went off at 5am, and I got up (and triple-checked that the alarms were turned off, and that it was really the right time), I took my meds again (unorthodox to take an extra dose, but I think the situation warrants it!), and took another (slightly shorter) shower, for medicinal purposes (can’t function well without my morning shower, especially when I’m sick [I’ve got a cold and/or sinus infection right now]).

I’ll definitely be checking the clock *before* taking my showers, from now on. I hope the rest of the day goes smoother!