updated adventure= Me and the BMV

This and That

Diehard followers of SOMETIMES may recall my dismay at having my old Toyota being rejected by the Ohio E-Check people, and need to deal with temporary license tags … complicated by the long waiting list at my chosen repair place. My 2003 Toyota Camry had to have work done, which eventually fixed the Check Engine light, and racked up a repair bill of about $1,,200. If anyone is interested, the work required involved repairs to the “vapor cannister” and a new vapor vent valve, and something called calipers. But then the brake things went out and had to have a day’s work done on the brakes.

Fortunately that crisis was solved (they almost always are 🙂 and we moved on to driving the car enough on the highway so she would pass the E-Check and obtain the registration process.

Happily, the E-Check passed with flying colors. The BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) was not so packed that I had to wait my turn in the car, and after maybe half an hour waiting my number to come up, I was awarded my two-year sticker for my license plate upon paying the $119.00 Now I won’t have to worry about the E-check for two years.

A subtle comment from my repairperson reinforced the logic of avoiding possible situations like in the photo below… I hereby pledge to clear out the garage so Toyt doesn’t have to endure issues like this.

40 thoughts on “updated adventure= Me and the BMV”

      1. Um…you don’t get such heavy snow all the time though, do you? I mean /every/ winter?
        And yes, Toyota’s are incredibly resilient, but even they have a limit. 😉

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      2. Scott and I discussed your question: “you don’t get such heavy snow all the time…?” Our consensus… we could get this kind of heavy snow every winter…and we are prepared for it, heavy salt-trucks with snowplows, mountains of salt-stuff, snow shovels handy. OTOH, when I took x-country skiing as one of my required phys-ed courses at the collge….two years in a row…we did not have enough snow to ski on it. Disappointing! Another year we had temps that got down to -22F… minus 22 degrees…and stayed below zero for two weeks. Caveat…the photo of the snow on my car, that was collection of straight-down snow. The Snow God decides how much we will get in a given year…between December and April… I’m not sure if the Aztecs had a “Snow God,” they had a Rain God, and a Fire God…. hmmm, in retrospect worshipping snow or rain or fire or corn…whatever…makes more sense that worshipping men who supposedly walk on water and etc…

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      3. Wow…just trying to get my head around that temperature. 32 F is freezing, right? So /minus/ 22 would be insanely cold.
        Then again, your state obviously has mitigation as part of normal practice. A bit like us have bushfire preparedness.
        Bottom line, cold can kill just as easily as fire. Sobering thought.

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      4. Yes 32F is freezing, It was extremely cold, We are close to Lake Erie, and the Lakes do help to mitigate cold temperaures somewhat. I’ve been meaning to ask you (or Greg) are you familiar with our Great Lakes? I always assume our geography is common in the world…obviously it wouldn’t be. My grandfather (the Aussie) was a sailor when he came here from Australia, and he met my grandmother, who was connected with the Lake ships six or seven years later. One of my cousins insisted that they met inland, in the area where I live now, and married. Actually I think they met in Buffalo, NY…. both would have been there connected with their ships and it is logical to assume it was in New York that they met….my mother was born in 1911 in Lackawanna, NY.

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      5. I kind of know that your Great Lakes are up north, between the US and Canada, but that’s about all I know. sorry. 😦
        That sounds so romantic, Aussie lad meets pretty Yank and never sees Oz again.

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      6. Gramps ran away from Australia on a sailing ship when he was 16. Gram was on lake freighter because her mother had died, and she spent summers with her older sister, who was a cook on a lake freighter. (she had to go to school and stay on land the rest of the time.) Now, far be it from me to make up a story here, but a map of the Great Lakes, the path from the Atlantic, down the St.Laurence River eventually to Lake Erie…explains how my grandparents probably met in a shipping port like Buffalo, NY, which is far inland from NY City.
        A bit of a geography lesson there. LOL (Now I kicked up my writer’s curiosity here.)

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      8. We have known since before I was born about Grampa’s running away from home on a sailing ship…etc… then when my Cousin Greg sent us copies of his wonderful published books a bit over a year ago, and I for one have been corresponding via email with Greg we have had a lot of information about the family. We in the near area where we live are quite unique as a family branch because of Grampa and the sailing ship… My three cousins who live within about 30 miles and their an my offspring…are the only Schwonbergs in this area to this day….. apparently Grandpa was the only one among his 12 or more siblings that left Australia, the others stayed in Australia or moved to Germany, etc. (The war maybe?” Two of Grampa’s brothers joined the army and both subsequently were killed in fighting in France during World War I. We just learned about our Scottish grandma very recently.

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      9. I wonder what brought your Grandpa’s family to Australia in the first place? Could it have been the goldrush? I don’t know enough about Australian history to tally up the dates, but I know that the country had a massive influx of people when gold was discovered. Not just once, but many times.
        Warrandyte, where I live now, was once a goldrush town/area. In fact, when I was a kid, my best friend’s Dad would drive us out here to ‘the country’ to see where old gold mines used to be. All filled in now, I think, and Warrandyte is not real country any more.
        Would be interesting to know what sent your family out here. 🙂

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      11. My Aussie grandpa was Cousin Greg’s mother’s brother. Greg did excellent research on his books, and vastly widened our knowledge. All we knew growing up is what info grandpa shared with his kids…my Mom and an Uncle Ken. We got the story from them. Grandpa S was just 16 when he left Australia. (Meanwhile the girl he would marry was from a family that were several generations Americans, formerly from England and Wales.) Geneology is interesting!

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      12. Yes. Tracing family histories can be fun. Sadly my Dad’s family died out in Hungary, but apparently there are a lot of distant relatives in the US somewhere.

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      13. We have issues with my grandfather on my Dad’s side. Personally I suspect that he was adopted…or something…his bio is ambiguous. I do know who his mother was. Whatever his heritage, he was THE most wonderful, good, loving man ever.

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      15. Yes…I just zapped an outer limits study of my genetic history and future via my assortment of grandchildren. It was very entertaining, but completely out there. It just whisked off into cyberspace… whoosh. I realize that “American” and “Australian” are non-terms. A teacher once told my grandson that “no one is from Australia,” which is something like saying that his heritage was non-ethnic. What the eff does that mean?

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      16. Yes, I do remember that weird comment. Here in Australia you could say that only the First People’s are ‘truly’ Australian. But then the white Settlers see themselves as truly Australian while all new arrivals are ‘New Australians’. -shrug- I wasn’t born here but I definitely /feel/ like an Australian. In the end it’s all just labels. 🙂

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      17. Way back in the beginning who knows where are ancestors originated? I always considered myself to be English. Once when Bob and I were in Portugal and the US was involved in some particularly nasty affair (Panama invastion, to be exact.) we joked about wearing our little maple leaf pins a Canadian flight attendant had given us once. Canadians are like Australians and Americans…seemingly generic. LOL When I was in Mexico there were a lot of German tourists, who can be even more obnoxious than Americans.

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      18. DNA will turn up information, but although my DNA matches records I already knew about, Its fun to know who kin is, but still there is the question of if we really want to know about long lost relatives. 🙂

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      19. In this case a heated garage is one in which the temperature is kept just above freezing. Marj lived in a large retirement/assisted living facility, which had indoor-parking for residents.

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      22. I am fascinated by our impression of geography and environmental features. I still have a vague impression of Australia…a big irregular shaped island with major cities on the coasts…Melbourne, Sydney…I have an idea where they would be on a blank map… I know there’s the big rock Mt. Ayer? in the middle of the country, surrounded by desert-like land, and has a big jungle-like “out back” in which the likes of Crocodile Dundee lives. Yikes! not much of a map. LOL (That all sounds like a blog topic.)

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      23. Ah, I was wondering what the other comment was about. Didn’t realise it was the most recent one. lol.
        Your mental map of Australia is pretty good except Ayers Rock is now Uluru, which is the First Nations’ name for it. Oh and the crocs are all up north – Queensland and the Northern Territory. 🙂

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      24. The first time I searched for NSW I thought it meant NorthSouthWest…. My Australian family is from Maclean, Grafton…area on East Coast near Sydney? I think? (Originally they were German and Scot, Welch and other area. There was a Viking back in the family history…I guess everyone from that part of the world had a Viking granddad.)

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      25. I’ve never been to Grafton but I think it’s a great fruit growing area. Could be wrong though.
        lol – you have Vikings, I have Attila the Hun. 😉

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      26. Someone sent me word one time that Grafton is famous for its certain blooming trees…actually it is maclean where my family grew up…orignatlly elsewhere including Scotland and Wales.

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      29. Oh…there are definitely some stunning places in Australia! I’ve been to all but 2 states, yet still feel as if I’ve seen nothing. Would love to see Uluru and Kakadu. Maybe one day.

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      30. I was reading about Maclean, which is considered a “Scottish” town…. Yo! Grama Ann Hunter…” and reading about my great-uncle who gave his life for the cause of the World War One.
        In my fictitious daydream of Australia geography I dream of packing a lunch and knapsack and driving from Melbourne to Sydney for the afternoon. If I had the money and thought I could survive such a journey I would be on the next boat across the oceans. Don’t worry though….it is highly unlikely that I will ever see Australia. Actually, I know several Aussies now (including blood relatives) well enough to announce that I’m coming over…put the kettle on! Or whatever. When I actually had the wherewithal and physical shape to travel I went the other way…South.

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      31. lol – I think you’d need maybe a sleeping bag along with that picnic lunch. 😉 I suppose a fast car and a dedicated driver could make it within 24 hours, but that would be driving pretty non-stop? I’ve only ever driven up once and I remember it as being pretty gruelling, but that could just have been me. As for the kettle- no problem. Could probably stretch to some cake as well. 🙂

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      32. cake is good… I have always been into traveling alone and into adventure tours. I dislike organized tours, so I try to avoid getting hooked up with other tourists. I like to do what I want to do and have freedom to pick and choose activities. Guided tours are helpful to get the lay of the land, Bob always like tours; he was good about making sure I got to see and do the things I really wanted to, although had I been alone I would have made different choices sometimes.

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      33. I saw an interesting show about a train trip across Australia, and always thought that would be fun. There was a segment of the show that covered a specific itinerary on a scenic railway. That I would have liked. I used to travel some with my late friend Dorothy, who was a good travel companion. My biggest fear was getting involved with some person that I didn’t like much…I admit I’m something of a snob. I dislike bourgeois and show-off people who brag constantly about their travels, and make fun of the “funny natives.” When in Mexico I don’t give a flying fig how things are done in Morrocco…

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      34. My sisterinlaw Marj gave me the car when she became unable to drive…she had already had it for umpteen years, and kept it in a heated garage during the winters. This ~$1,300 I put in for work on the emissions thingy and the brakes… is the first major expenditure I’ve had. She religiously (not really) had it to the dealer for service.

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      35. Ah. lol In that case it’s money well spent. A heated garage though? I love my old Toyota too but it only gets a windy carport. Of course we don’t get snow. :/

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