ARGHHHH!!!!!!!!

The sound of a Daveon hitting the brickwall of the DMV at full speed.

On Sunday we bought a car.  It's not a fantastic car, but it has a lot of nice stuff in it.  The mileage is a tad higher than I'd like in a 3 year old car, but it seems to have been well looked after and its a Honda so one can presume that it'll last pretty much forever mechanically.  Plus the car dealer were able to arrange some credit which was quite important for establishing some kind of credit track record.

However, now it's got silly.  Washington have apparently changed a lot of rules about car ownership recently (i.e. last 6 months) so that now we need to have a Washington Drivers License to get a car and insurance.  So first thing this morning we presented ourselves in the rugby scrum of a queue.  As we were there before it opened we got seen reasonably quickly.  Sadly that's when the next block of problems started...

... UK driving licenses are not acceptable in Washington and we have to take a retest.  "It's the law m'kay" - (I am not kidding)

... Driving testing centres in Seattle do not open on Mondays

... There is no appointment system

... You have to take the written test, for which there is one crappy online trial test, and no other books of any kind

...  Then the real problems kick in...  you need to book 1-4 weeks in advance for a driving test...

Apart from having been driving for 20 years, 15 years with an unblemished record, I can see the need for the theory test, but a driving test???  Come on guys... Get real...

Not to mention there isn't a single reference to what to do if you're not a US citizen anywhere on the WA DMV website.  For a state which has Boeing and Microsoft that's just daft.

Bored Now...

Time for some tea I think.

Today is not working well, even if the weather is.

General Car Stuff

So, apparently the problem is the Credit Union who were giving us the car loan, they are the ones insisting on a Washington Driving License.  So the car dealer has gone to some other lenders to see what they can do.  This will certainly mean paying a higher interest rate, which is a pain, but given the rate that we had got was 6.5% (which I must say is pretty good for a loan to a person with no credit) we might be ok.  This exercise is more about establishing a line of credit than actually needing it.  If we had to we could transfer the money from the UK, but that would be a pain.

Anyway, we've got our study booklets for the Driving Test and we're going to present ourselves at the DMV at 8.30am tomorrow to take the theory test and then we'll book a driving test asap, but that could take a few weeks.

Hopefully, we'll have no trouble collecting the car on Thursday as planned.  Certainly the credit broker at the car dealer didn't think he'd have any trouble, especially after taking copies of my P45 and multiplying the number by 2, or a copy of my mortgage, my UK credit cards and other stuff suggesting that $9,000 isn't really a big risk.

We'll pay the thing off early anyway.

I want my new car! WAHHHH!!!!

Not Working As Hard As I Should...

Its been a lovely day.  So I took some pictures of the house.


This is the back of the house, the lower deck is the main bedroom and the upper deck is the living room.  That space ship thingy is over in the corner.


This is the living room, M is doing work for me.  Thanks!


This the BBQ deck which is just along from our appartment.  Later in the year I can see this getting a lot of use.

Anyway, back to the grindstone.  First visitors arrive on Thursday and we're pretty much fully booked now until end April.