Today was supposed to be a nice, lazy, relaxing day. The Restaurant Week Project is finished, and I’ve got nothing pressing to do. So I decided to take my new bike (Oh yeah, last weekend I bought a bike off Craigslist. $25 for an old Schwinn hybrid in pretty good shape.) for a ride and get some things accomplished.

First things first, I decided I’d go back to the RMV to try again to get my California license converted to a Massachusetts one. So I got on my bike and headed towards Boston. I got all the way to the Boston Common before I ran into my first problem: a nut on my rear wheel had come loose and my wheel got pulled out of position so that it was rubbing up against the fork. I had foolishly not brought any tools with me, so I just locked it up and went the last few blocks on foot. I got to the RMV and got in line with 51 people ahead of me. One hour and 30 people later, I figured I was finally going to be getting my license. Then, all of a sudden, things slowed down. Up until that point they had been calling a new person every couple minutes.

Then for a long time nothing happened.

Then, as before, in a flash of smoke and brimstone an RMV employee appeared and announced to us all that the Social Security computers were down. AGAIN!!!

This is now the fourth time I’ve been to the RMV to try and convert my license and failed. It’s the second time that my trip was a failure thanks to a crappy Social Security computer system. Had I previously had any faith in the state of the RMV, the Massachusetts state government, or bureaucracy in general, it would now be lost. Having never had such a thing, I’m simply wallowing in despondency and despair at the thought of having to try yet again.

So I left the RMV thwarted yet again and contemplating the issues involved in getting my immobilized bike home. Fortunately, I was able to borrow some pliers from a friendly bus driver and get my rear wheel mostly straight and my bike ridable again. So I continued along my planned route to the Copley Square branch of the Boston Public Library where I checked out a copy of Charles Stross’ Accelerando, then bike back home via Storrow Drive and the Harvard footbridge.

All told, my main accomplishment of the day—which was supposed to be getting my Massachusetts license—turned out to be the fairly pedestrian achievement of biking ~12 miles. It is, at least, a very nice day for a bike ride.

Most of you probably know about Boston’s Restaurant Week. For those that don’t, it’s a week (or more) that happens twice a year during which participating Boston area restaurants offer meals from a prix fixe menu at very low prices. For example, Excelsior will be offering a three-course meal for $33.07 (I might just have to give that a try).

What you probably didn’t know is that there’s a fantastic website at restaurantweekboston.com (offered by bostonchefs.com) that will show you all the participating restaurants, the details of their participation, the prix fixe menus that they are offering, and a Google maps mashup to help you locate and get to those restaurants.

I helped create it, so you should go use it to help justify my services.

Apparently it’s not just the MBTA and RMV that are extremely horrible at expediting transportation in Massachusetts. I’m starting to think that poorly implemented transportation is simply endemic to the Commonwealth.

I was at Logan airport earlier, at the E terminal, waiting to pick up some friends who have since flown in. The signage there is less clear than it could be. I wanted to just stay in the terminal E loop, but the only options I could see were Airport Exit and parking to one direction, and indeterminate other things in the other direction. So I went the other direction. It didn’t seem quite right, but it was an airport, and they’re never laid out logically, so I kept going. Besides, there was no obvious way to turn around and go the other way. Eventually, I found myself in Maverick Square; clearly I had made a wrong turn somewhere.

Having never been in East Boston or Chelsea before I didn’t really know where to go. The plus side was that I had, by that time, learned that my friends had missed their flight and wouldn’t be coming in until later, so I could go home rather than trying to find my way back to the airport. I had no idea where I was, but I could see the water, and, as I still know very little of the local geography, figured it must be the river and that following it must eventually lead me to Cambridge. So I drove toward the water …and discovered many large ocean-going ships. Last I checked there are no large ocean-going vessels in the Charles river. This was when I realized that East Boston is on the other side of the harbor.

Still, I figured, following the water would probably be the best bet. Eventually it led me to the Sumner Tunnel where the signs indicated that the normal car toll is $3. I very rarely carry cash, and had been expecting to only have to pay the $1 I’m used to getting on and off the pike, so that was all the cash I had on me. So I decided to keep going and see if I can find a cheaper way to get home. A little while later I saw signs pointing towards the Tobin Bridge. Again, my lack of familiarity with the local geography, cause largely by the fact that I pretty much never drive here, got me in trouble. For some reason I had it in my head that the Tobin Bridge was actually the Bunker Hill Bridge. This idea was reinforced by the fact that the Bunker Hill Bridge is clearly visible from East Boston. So I followed the signs knowing that from the base of the Bunk Hill Bridge I could easily get myself home. The signs, of course, didn’t take me where I expected and I ended up on the on-ramp for the Tobin Bridge, hoping that there was no toll to cross.

Of course there is, and as I was in a Zipcar which has commercial plates, that toll was $4.50. Being $3.50 short I had to tell the guy that I had no cash. I figured he’d give me some sort of ticket so I could mail the toll in later, maybe with a small fine. Well, he did give me a ticket, but closer examination leads me to believe that I’m going to have to pay a $50 fine. Plus whatever fee Zipcar charges me for having to deal with receiving the notice of violation and informing MassPike that it has to go to me instead which I think is about $20.

So, just because I don’t usually carry cash and am not really familiar with driving in the area I may be out $70. That’s just a load of crap. At least they offer an option to appeal the violation. An option of which I am definitely going to avail myself. One advantage to being self-employed is that I actually have the flexibility to deal with bureaucratic nonsense without fear of being fired.

Well, Zooomr (my photo hosting service of choice) is currently in the middle of an upgrade so I can’t upload the pictures I have either from the trip or of the car. So I’ll unleash my newest rant about the RMV.

As you may recall, Jessi and I went to the RMV a little while ago to convert our out of state licenses to Massachusetts ones. After more or less an entire day and two trips to the RMV in Chinatown, we had failed. So we decided that this past Monday, as our first full day back from Wales and the day before Jessi started her new job, we would handle all the car stuff: picking up the plates and registration from the insurance company who had taken care of all that for us, getting our Massachusetts licenses, and actually driving the car to Somerville from Franklin. The RMV, of course, apparently felt the need to throw a wrench in our works yet again.

We got there pretty early, maybe 10 am, so there weren’t that many people in front of us. We waited for about an hour until there were only two people ahead of us in line. Finally we were going to be finished with the damned RMV and have all that needless, inefficient bureaucracy behind us! Then, mere minutes before Jessi’s number was to be called, and mine right after, an RMV employee appeared in a flash of smoke and brimstone to inform us that ‘Social Security [was] down’ and so they couldn’t process any new licenses or license conversions. All they could do was renew existing licenses because that process didn’t require confirming your identity with social security.

As I had already gone most of the way through the process before only to be turned away when my passport, California license, and bank statement proved to be insufficient proof of my date of birth, signature, and Massachusetts residency, I thought that maybe they would still be able to take care of my license. Alas, this was not too be. They also informed me that the problem would be affecting all branches foiling our backup plan of going to the Watertown RMV once we had our car.

So now we have our sweet new ride, insurance, registration, and parking permit, but are still without our Massachusetts licenses. For the time being, at least, the RMV has overtaken the MBTA (and IRS) as my least favorite governmental body.

Well we’re back in the US. Today is mostly dedicated to sorting out the car (I’ve got another nice rant about the RMV to post), and that’s keeping us pretty busy. But once that’s all taken care of and I’ve sorted through the 300+ pictures I took in Wales, you can expect some updates.

Somewhat ironically, a story was just posted on TreeHugger entitled ‘10 Reasons to Ditch the Car’. Why is this ironic? Because Jessi and I just bought a car after six months or so of car-free living.

When I moved here from California, I brought my car with me. But it didn’t take long for me to decide that I’d be better off without it. Both the apartment we were in before and now our condo are only blocks away from a T stop, we live within easy walking distance of all the necessities, and I haven’t really felt compelled to spend all the money involved in getting a Massachusetts license, registering a car in Massachusetts, insuring a car in Massachusetts, paying for gas, and paying for parking. And for those few times when we needed to get somewhere the T couldn’t take us, Zipcar has done a fantastic job of meeting our needs.

But now, with Jessi’s new job, our needs our changing and we’re getting a car. Being me, I put quite a bit of thought and research into choosing the appropriate car. Really, there’s only one important factor when it comes to choosing a car, and that is cost. Cost of purchase, cost of insurance, cost of fuel, cost of maintenance, and, of course, environmental cost.

Happily enough, there’s one easy way to minimize the purchase, insurance, and environmental costs involved in buying a car: buy used. Used cars obviously sell for less and are cheaper to insure (we’re not talking about a collector’s car here), what’s less obvious is that they’re also the more environmentally friendly route. For the most part, new cars don’t get any better mileage than older ones did. In some cases they’re even worse. Additionally, when you buy used you’re not incurring the added environmental damages of the manufacturing process. Money-wise, with a used car you’re not committing yourself to any sort of financing plan, and it will depreciate in value much more slowly, so you can always just put it on Craigslist and sell it again without throwing away most of the money you spent on it. So we’re getting a used car. The issue of minimizing cost of fuel and maintenance is a little trickier.

There are two ways to minimize fuel costs: get a more efficient car, or get a car that uses cheaper fuel. There aren’t that many choices for fuels, it’s pretty much gasoline or diesel. For a select few ethanol might be an option and I suppose compressed natural gas might work for some people as well, but in general that’s it. Despite the bad rap that it seems to have, diesel is actually a very good choice. Diesel vehicles pretty much always get better mileage than their gasoline counterparts, and even an older diesel will get as good or better mileage than pretty much anything on the road today (other than hybrids, obviously). Some modern diesels get even better mileage than hybrids, though they aren’t currently available in the US, and won’t be until we start selling low sulfur diesel at the pumps (which should start later this year, I believe). Plus, diesel isn’t particularly expensive (Usually $2.99 around here, while 87 octane gasoline is about $2.85. Although one place I saw right by our condo was actually selling diesel for less than gasoline.), and diesel prices are a little more stable than gas prices. Diesel really appears to be the way to go, especially in hopeful anticipation of the introduction of the modern diesel cars that the rest of the world already enjoy.

As for maintenance, you either have to get a car that’s cheap to repair (such as a Civic or something), or a car that won’t have to be repaired very often. One good thing to note when dealing with reliability in cars is that all cars, even new ones, have the potential to be lemons and require a ton of repairs. In fact, new ones are probably more likely to have problems, because the old cars that are still around today are the ones that were well made and not prone to problems. Over the years, the cars that aren’t so reliable are just going to get weeded out, so that the only used cars available to be bought are likely to be pretty sturdy. Of course this only applies to cars above a certain age as the weeding out process can take some time, and new cars will have warranties and lemon laws to protect you. So this one’s a bit of a toss up. It really depends on your situation. But considering the low price of a used car, if you get one and it craps out on you, you can get another and still have paid less than on a new car.

So, with all that in mind I picked a car with a low purchase price, good mileage, great dependability, and a touch of class: a 1983 Mercedes Benz 300sd turbo diesel. It was cheap (another car in the same price range was a ‘92 Accord), it gets 25-30 mpg, it’s probably one of the most reliable cars ever made, and it’s also an absolutely beautiful piece of machinery. It looks like it must have cost a fortune, and in 1983 it did at around $40,000. Adjusted for inflation, that’s over $80,000 in 2007 dollars. It’s currently still sitting in the driveway of the guy who sold it to us, because he was kind enough to let us leave it there while we’re in Wales next week, but as soon as we’ve picked it up on the 21st and brought it home, you can be sure I’ll be out there with my new camera. So there will be picture of it available soon.

In Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, he uses the DMV (or whatever local variant he said) as an example of why people generally feel that the government isn’t really working for them. Today has left me inclined to agree with him.

Today Jessi and I headed over to the Massachusetts RMV to (finally) get around to changing our license over to Massachusetts ones. A process that I’m sure you know was loads of fun.

The first obstacle to converting our California and Illinois licenses to Massachusetts ones was one of location. There is no RMV office in Somerville. The closest one is in Cambridge, annoyingly enough at the Cambridgeside Galleria which is on the Green Line, not the Red Line. Of course, that doesn’t really matter, because that location doesn’t let you convert an out of state license. So we had to go into the Boston location, which is on the Orange Line at the Chinatown stop.

Once we got there, which took 30-45 minutes, we headed inside and found ourselves at the ‘Greeter Desk’. This isn’t something that I’ve encountered during my previous experiences with the California DMV, but I think it’s actually a pretty good idea. Rather than forcing us to figure out which part of the building we need to go to and which line we need to stand in and which form we need to fill out, we simply told the greeter what we were there for, she handed us the appropriate forms, gave us each a number for the appropriate line, and directed us to the third floor.

It was at this point that we realized we had forgotten to bring any of the documentation needed: a passport or social security card, proof of date of birth, proof of signature, and proof of Massachusetts registry. We didn’t have anywhere to be just then, so we got back on the T, came home, got the documents, went back to the RMV, got new numbers, and got back in line.

At this point it was about 2:30. Jessi had a 3:30 appointment, which fortunately was nearby. So we waited in line. And waited. And waited. And then Jessi had to go to her appointment before her number got called. So I stayed, and 15 minutes later my number was called.

I went up and gave the woman behind the desk my form. Had my picture taken. Then gave her my supporting documentation. Only to discover that I didn’t have all the supporting documentation needed. I had my passport, I had my old license, and I had a bank statement. By any reasonable standard, this should be enough. The passport proves that I am who I say I am. It proves my birth date. It proves my signature. My old license also proves my birth date and my signature. And my bank statement proves my Massachusetts residency. But no, that’s not good enough. Apparently each document can only be used for a single purpose. You need separate documents for each of: passport (why?), date of birth, signature, and residency. This is just completely ridiculous. Why is my passport, a federally issued document intended to prove my US citizenship, identity, date of birth, and signature, not count as proving my date of birth and signature to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? And why can a single document not prove more than one thing, especially when it’s specifically designed by the federal government—and recognized by state governments in other capacities I might add—to prove those very things?

I just saw a very interesting Google Ad. I was on a discussion board I frequent (the MacNN Forums) reading a thread about Mitt Romney. Above the thread I saw this ad:

Apparently, someone’s still paying to run Healey/Hillman ‘06 ads. Perhaps a disgruntled campaign worker left it active to cost her some money. Or perhaps her team was just so disheartened they completely forgot to clean up after them selves.

In any event, I encourage everyone to follow the link. Maybe they’ll get enough ad clicks that they’ll actually notice it’s still up…

and I’m still continually finding things that make me like it here even more.

Moving to Boston from San Francisco, I was a little worried that I’d be giving up the amazing variety and quality of food that was available to me. I was particularly concerned about Mexican food. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Jessi to introduce me to Anna’s Taqueria, a burrito joint that makes burritos almost identical to those at Gordo Taqueria, my favorite burrito place in San Francisco (and it’s been said that the owners are related, certainly their menus are). I won’t say that it was a condition of choosing this condo, but the fact that there’s an Anna’s right down the street from us certainly made this location a little more amenable to me. Then, after we moved here, we discovered Tacos Lupita, a Salvadorean restaurant that’s also within easy walking distance of our condo and which serves absolutely amazing food (though not quite Mexican).

I’ve since put together a rather extensive list of good-sounding restaurants around us to try. One of the places on that list was The Half-Shell which is actually right down the street from us. I’m a huge fan of gyros, and they have a sign advertising their gyros right out front, so I’d been meaning to give them a try for a while. This afternoon I went to get a haircut (Charlie’s Barber Shop is a really good barber shop that’s also right down the street from us) and decided to stop in at Half-Shell and finally give their gyro a try. It was really good, but that’s not the best part. The best part, is that they serve gyro pizza.

I first had gyro pizza while I was a student at Carleton College in Minnesota. I was immediately a fan. Sadly, I’d never, until now, found a place that serves it outside of Minnesota. One of the reasons I was looking for a place around here that has good gyro is so I could try and get them to make me a gyro pizza for me. But now, my search is over. If you’ve never had a gyro pizza before, I highly recommend you head over to Half-Shell and give it a shot. Now that I know there’s one, there’s probably other places around that serve it too, I’ll have to try and put together a list, because I’m definitely going to be insisting that all my friends in the Boston area give it a try.

A Massachusetts politician, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino no less, may actually be doing something in a way that isn’t completely moronic and doomed to fail! Menino’s wireless task force, charged with coming up with a solution to providing a free wireless network for Bostonians, has created a new 501(c)(3) non-profit entity called openairboston.net that will be in charge of providing this service under the leadership of the former CEO of Lightbridge Inc. Pam Reeve.

Now, I’m not going to make the claim that this is the best way to provide a city-wide, free wireless network, or even that Boston should provide a city-wide, free wireless network, but I am going to claim that this is the first time that I’ve every heard a plan that sounds even vaguely reasonable and designed to succeed come out of Massachusetts politics at any level. This is not, of course, to say that this new 501(c)(3) won’t fail miserably, but at least the approach seems well thought out and maybe even good.

Way to go Mayor Menino! Now if you’d just stop trying to prevent Bostonians from being safe in their own homes and decrying the state of parking in Boston while simultaneously—and hypocritically—actively working to make it worse, I might even put you on the list of reasonable, if not good, politicians.