"Show Me" my Licence Plates

Today, we set out with the goal of getting Missouri licence plates. After all was said and done, it was actually a lot less difficult and stressful than I was expecting. That said, there are a lot of small steps. To get new plates, you have to procure:

• The original title. This was not to tricky to do. I had it in my "Misc.to Keep" folder which holds a wide array of mementos, paperwork, passports, etc.
• The application form. Slightly tricky as you're supposed to fill in things like "horsepower" and "cylinders" etc. requiring trips online to figure out what exactly is the horespower of a Prius, which uses two different engines, sometimes in tandem, to provide power. 
• Proof of insurance. Quick trip to the friendly insurance website to print the proof- boom boom done.
• Statement of Non-Assessment. This WTF document essentially states that you don't owe the Missouri department of revenue any money. As an out of state resident coming in, I fail to see how I could possibly owe the state, but what the hey, I don't make the rules here. Apart from the pain of having to physically go to the office (involving finding parking in downtown Clayton, finding the building, etc.) actually getting the statement was very easy. The window tellers were friendly and fast and we pretty much zipped in and out of there in about twenty minutes. 
• VIN number and Odometer check. I would never have guessed reading two numbers would be so time consuming. We took the cars to the nearby Car X service station which was licensed to perform these checks, and we thought hey, two strings of numbers, how long can it take? At least half an hour passes. I start to get emotionally involved with As the World Turns airing in the waiting room. I don't understand the process- maybe they're waiting to see if the numbers will change over time. And Saori's car took even longer to check. Maybe for the odometer they ran out of fingers and toes and had to call up some friends to come over. Anyway, at the end of that you get an official stub of paper they don't even sign.
• $35 fee.

I took all of this stuff to the licence bureau which is actually run by a small company in a small empty shop that could have been an AT&T store at one time in downtown Clayton. Free parking, walked right in, and stamp stamp got my new "Show Me State" licence plates right there. 

The rear licence plate I swapped out with no problems. The front licence plate was a bit of a challenge. There are only a few states that require front and back licence plates. The state where I purchased my Prius (Arizona) does not require them, and so there was nothing on the front of my car to mount it to, since Prius's have a plastic bumper that comes to a gentle point. There were two small dimples where the licence plate holes should be, so I picked up some licence plate screws and drilled two small pilot holes where the dimples were. As it turns out, the dimples are where the licence plate bracket should be installed, and are nowhere near where the holes on the plates are. This close to school starting, I'm starting to feel like a chimpanzee in a space shuttle. I need to think a little more about what I'm doing.

Anyway, I did a little research online, found the bracket I needed and ordered it, so it should be coming here in the next two weeks. In the meanwhile I've got the front plate just kind of shoved up against the front windshield. (Yes, on the inside of the car). It feels kind of weird to lose my AZ plate, I'm going to miss it.

---

Speaking of things to get, we did end up ordering a futon. We were torn between two futons, this nicer looking one which was comfortable and attractive and three times as expensive as the cheap one, and the cheap one, which was probably uncomfortable and would have degraded the rest of the living room, but was ridiculously cheap. So following my father's footsteps, I created a weighted chart to help us decide. For each of the categories- cost, comfort, appearance, we assigned a weight from 1-5, and then assigned a value to each category for each couch., so the cheap couch got a 5 for cost, for example. At the end, the weighted variables favored the cheap couch.

Ultimately, however, we ended up buying this couch which was almost as cheap as the cheap couch, with the added advantage of not making our home look like a sleazy dorm.

The Sofa is Complete

About three years ago, I wrote about my sleeper couch:

This is a low gray fabric covered couch which unfolds into a bed, and while the couch is decently sittable, the bed is incredibly uncomfortable. The four inch thick mattress has been folded so many times, its compressed the springs in spots and you literally feel the bars of the bed frame beneath your back spaced out every three feet. The best way to lay on this mattress is to lie parallel to the couch if you are short enough, or diagonally, with lots of padding beneath you. Interestingly, this was the same couch owned by my parents since before I can remember, and sold to Sally before my parents moved overseas for the first time about ten years ago. Now, Sally and Jonathan are moving, and the couch is passed back to the son like Anakin's lightsaber. The circle is complete.

I have expanded the circle- today I sold the couch to a new family. I'd originally posted it on Craigslist for $40, but slashed the price to $20 after a day of no contacts or questions. They showed up with a pickup truck and a big guy helped me muscle the couch down the stairs. I'd spent the morning toying with the idea of removing the bed mechanism and installing some simple wood reinforcing and MDF board, since I really did like the couch. However, it would have been a lot of work, taken a lot of time and expense, and there's no saying if the couch would even fit up the L-shaped stairs in our apartment in St.Louis.

Anyway, I'm still going to miss it. It's literally been passed around in my family and friends for decades. It's an incredibly hard wearing sofa- the bed may not be comfortable at all, but the fabric looks fantastic for being over 20 years old.

Alexanders, not-bad, semiproductive, extended day.

This morning, I took the Graduate Record Examination, or GRE.
This is a necessary step in the application process for applying to most graduate schools, even though my personal GRE will probably mean very little in my application to architecture grad schools, as they tend to look much more heavily at portfolio work. In terms of preparation for the GRE, I read two books of tricks, techniques, and practice sets and did a few parts of the test online. In terms of total time studying, I spent about an hour every other day of the week for the past two weeks in preparation. I wouldn't say I felt extremely prepared, but I felt confident enough in the strategies I'd learned.
The night before, I had a hard time falling asleep, although I slept well through the night. This morning, I got up at 6:30, got dressed and drove over to ASU where the test was administered. I was early, so I got a breakfast burger and a small cup of coffee. Little performance enhancing drugs called sugar, protein, and caffeine. The testing rooms were hidden at the end of the corridor on the third floor of a mostly locked building. Absolutely no signage of any kind. There were only six of us who signed up today to take the test. After a few forms to fill out, they took my photo, checked my ID, and assigned me to a computer to take the test. The GRE is a computer based test which adapts itself to the tester, asking harder questions when the tester gets a right answer, and easier questions when the tester gets a wrong answer. It was kind of funny going through the tutorial of "how to use a computer," obviously geared to people who have never used one. How these people will manage in graduate school, I don't know. The parts about how to use a mouse was the best, as it demonstrated what to do if your mouse is stuck at the edge of the desk, and the importance of making sure the cord comes out the top of the mouse (away from you), not to the side.
Anyway, the test was long, started with two essays taking up an hour and a half. It was nice, I admit, writing essays with a keyboard instead of by hand. I think I did really well on those. Then came math, verbal, and in my case, another math. The entire test ran just shy of four hours long. Math was really depressing. I didn't feel very good about it, I used up most of my time at the front, and rushed through the last questions, barely finishing the session in time. For both sections of the math.
At the end of the test, I elected to keep my scores (hey, I paid $140 for this!) Out of a possible 800 points, I found I scored 620 verbal and 620 math. I was shocked my scores were the same, and I was disappointed that my verbal was so low. However, when you look at my scores in terms of percentiles of the test takers from last year, 620 verbal is a higher score than 89% of the test takers, although 620 math is only higher than 51% of the takers, so after all, a good verbal score and an average math score.
After the test, I walked over and picked Tay up from his dorm. It was about noon, so he was mostly awake. I took him to MacAlpines with Saori for a milkshake and a burger, and it was pretty good although we really stuffed ourselves. Afterwards, we did a little shopping, hitting up best buy and then Red Modern Furniture. Red Modern Furniture sells new and original mid-century modern furniture. Really cool, funky pieces, great quality, beautiful cabinetry and woodwork, and unbelievably expensive. As I put it to Taylor, if you were to find this piece of furniture at Goodwill, it would cost literally 50 times more at Red. A red, single molded fiberglass chair was sitting outside which had apparently been sold. Taylor ventured $20. The real price: $1100. Needless to say, we don't actually buy things there, although the furniture is great and the staff are really cool people.
We took Tay back to our place, and we played cards for a few hours before finally dropping tay back off at his dorm. All in all, its been a long day.