Category Archives: California

Geek License Plates

It’s not uncommon to see geeks with personalized license plates in Silicon Valley. It’s a strange thing to see, but somehow makes sense. Some of my favorites so far:

  • HEY RTFM
  • HAXORED
  • NOMOREC
  • DO U GNU

Then, of course, you have Zod (a Yahoo!) with “KILLAOL”.

Mmm… Toasty

It’s nice and toasty warm in Death Valley! We saw some awesome stuff, including sand dunes, a volcanic crater, and many miles of crazy desert.

There was an amazingly intelligent group of folks at the crater that locked their keys in their car… darwinism at work. This whole concept of “death” in Death Valley was obviously lost on them. On the way out we saw the park ranger headed their way.

There are two hotels in Death Valley Junction, CA… they are both owned by Xanterra Parks and Resorts, who charges $250/night for the decent hotel and $140/night for the touristy motel place. Upon examining their website, I noticed that they also own the hotel in Stovepipe Wells. Nice monopoly, guys. In any case, we drove on…

There are three hotels in Pahrump, NV, and they are all full. We drove on to Las Vegas, where we were pretty much guaranteed to find a room… and we did! A very nice Hilton Garden Inn for only $99/night. I suppose we’ll do a drive-by of the strip today. I suspect it will be a lot like a “shit-hole bar” where it looks really great until someone turns the lights on.

Pictures will be posted when we get home!

Driving to Death Valley

Adrienne and I are driving to Death Valley this weekend to hang out and take some pictures and such. On the way out here we noted that the radio station selection is rather slim. The stations are:

  • 60% spanish-language
  • 20% religious
  • 15% country
  • 4% rap/hip hop
  • 1% decent music

On another note, there is some seriously bad smelling farmland just before Wasco, we nearly gagged.

Getting My License in Silicon Valley

You would think that, in Silicon Valley, a few computers would be involved in getting your license. The DMV system here is, however, quite low tech. Basically you go there, and this is the process:

  1. arrive at the DMV, in a residential neighborhood in a bad area of town
  2. circle the parking lot for 15 minutes trying to park
  3. spend 10 minutes figuring out where to wait for step 4
  4. wait in line
  5. take a number (from a person, although it was printed by a queue machine) and a form
  6. wait in the waiting area for an indeterminate amount of time while filling out your form
  7. when your number is called, go to a counter
  8. answer some questions, take a paper
  9. wait in line
  10. get your picture taken, take another paper
  11. wait in line
  12. more questions, take a written test form
  13. fill out the test form (you can miss 6 for an out-of-state transfer)
  14. wait in line
  15. give them the test form, answer more questions, get a temporary license paper
  16. wait up to four weeks to receive your new license, since they don’t print them on-site

How I yearn for the technology of Kansas, Tennessee, and Ohio. Wait. Don’t we live in Silicon Valley? I can’t wait for the fun times that are sure to follow when we try to transfer our vehicle registrations to California and get license plates.