Whew! Glad this day’s over

It’s been a long day – mostly consumed by three trips to AZ’s Motor Vehicle Division.

I had been reading and re-reading their website over the last couple of days trying to figure out what I needed in hand to get the motorhome titled and registered. But the more I read, the more confused I got. Nowhere was there a clear description of what was needed for a motorhome purchased out of state from a private party. In fact, I only found one brief mention about a possible inspection that may be required but was only done is certain places. So I gave up and decided to just go to the MVD and ask in person. Then come back when I had all the right stuff.

So this morning I was down there when the doors opened at 8am. After a wait in line to get to the gatekeeper – the one who hands you a ticket so you can go inside and wait some more until your number is called – I found out I needed an emission test on the motorhome. OK, I expected that. But then I needed to get a three day temporary plate so I could legally drive the motorhome to get the test. So I sat around another 20 min to get that. Note, that wait was my fault; I could have come home and gotten the temporary tag on line.

At home I wait for Ken to get back from his appointment. He then guides me safely out of the RV gate and I’m on my way to the emission testing station. It wasn’t too bad a wait, maybe only 20 minutes. I briefly thought about going directly back to the MVD but decided to go home for lunch. Besides, it’s easier to drive the car in their parking lot.

I come home, Ken directs me safely back in through the gate, and I have some lunch. Back to the MVD. It’s definitely more crowded now and it’s nearly an hour before I get my ticket and it’s called. The lady starts in on my application and then asks me if I had driven the vehicle here. Of course, I hadn’t. It appears that I need a “Type I” inspection done here at the MVD before they can proceed. I whined a bit about coming earlier that morning to find out what I needed to do and that particular inspection never came up. She said the need doesn’t show until the VIN # is typed into the system and the body type is determined. I politely refrained from saying what I thought about *that*!

At least she said that if I could get it done and be back there before 4:30, I could just wave her down directly and not go through the ticket line again.

So I went home and had Ken direct me out through the RV gate again. Then back to the MVD and the inspection station behind it. Where I waited another 20 minutes or so before someone came along and did the inspection. Which seemed to consist of looking at the odometer, asking me how many cylinders, and deciding how to describe the make and model. But it was done and entered into the system.

Back around to the front part of the building where I caught my lady’s attention and was told to wait until she finished with her current customer. After that, it went relatively smoothly. The only kink was the amount of time it took for her to dig out the original list price for the motorhome. (AZ is another one of those states that base the registration fee on the vehicle list price.) But she finally found it, I paid, got my plate and sticker, and left.

FINALLY, home and through the gate one last time. It’s about 3:15 now and I just want to sit back with a nice hot cup of tea. So I do.

When will the buying end?

I’m still not done back-filling the older posts. But I have a (better) excuse than my usual “too lazy”. Instead, I’ve been purchasing a new (used) motorhome!

		2008 Lazy Daze VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This motorhome popped up on the LifeWithALazyDaze Yahoo group on the 14th. It met all the criteria I had mentally set for a new motorhome plus it had most of the improvements I would have wanted to make. All for a great price. I hesitated for a day, paralyzed at the thought of making a major purchase. Especially since Ken wasn’t highly enthusiastic.

The next day I took a walk around the neighborhood and did some thinking. The result of that thinking was the conclusion that this was something *I* wanted, I could afford it, and I would be foolish to pass on it when it so perfectly fit my criteria. This struck me as one of those “I wish I would have…” decisions that would be regretted later if I didn’t do it.

When I got back from my walk, I sent Ed (the seller) an email asking if the motorhome was still available. (I knew there was at least one other person who was interested.) It was. So I scrambled to get the money together, get insurance in place, and make the arrangements to go pick it up.

Ken and I left here Monday morning and drove to Santa Fe to stay that night. That’s about halfway between our home in Mesa AZ and Ed’s home in Longmont CO. Tuesday we were in the storage lot and I got my first sight of my new motorhome. Ed showed more things than I can now remember, we signed the various paperwork, and I headed south toward the Castle Rock Wal-Mart where we would spend the night. I had originally planned to stay the night at the nearby fairgrounds, but Ken agitated to get south of Denver in order to miss the morning rush hour. I acceded and thus had the joy of hitting the Denver evening rush hour. The joys of driving a new to me motorhome in the dark during rush hour cannot be described.

We did make it down there, went to Chili’s for supper, and paid for our parking spot by shopping for breakfast and lunch fixin’s. It was a cold night but we made it through with the help of the furnace and headed on our way south the next morning. At the lunch stop, Ken decided he would head for home at his preferred speed while I came on behind at my preferred speed. He made it home by 8 that evening. I made it home around 1pm the following day (Thursday). It was another cold night for me in Milan NM, but not as bad the the previous one (39* in the morning) and the furnace was better able to handle it.

A little more excitement was had when I got home. I almost took the corner of the garage roof off when I was angling in toward the gate. That disaster was averted by our wonderful neighbor, Javier, who stopped me in time. Next Ken stopped me from scraping the side of the nose cap on the gate wall. The gate wall opening is 10’ and my motorhome body (not counting the mirrors) is 8’3”. So there is not a lot of room to spare. I can see where home parking will always be an exciting time especially since we don’t have a straight shot at the gate. But we did it. And we’ll do it again.

Note: I did not feel a need to fly up there and inspect the motorhome first because I felt I already was familiar with it and the care Ed & Carol (the owners) gave it. I had been reading their blog (The travels of Ed, Carol and Gopher the dog) for nearly a year. A quick skim of the posts since their purchase of it showed no untoward problems and lots of loving care. I think I got an excellent deal and Ed’s a honest person.

The complete set of electronic toys

ASUS Windows 8.1 tablet/netbook, iPad Air, Sony ereader

Well, I just couldn’t help myself… Millenicom redid an offer for an unlocked cellular iPad with free data until April 1 for the same price as a wi-fi only model. They had the same offer around Thanksgiving but I wasn’t ready to jump then. Especially since I had just decided to go with the ASUS. They only offered the 16GB model and I was a bit concerned about that, but I finally decided that was good enough for the way I would probably be using it.

Rationale?

• I (or Ken) am highly unlikely to download space hogging videos/movies/TV programs to be view at a later date
• Ditto music
• My ebooks are in the cloud on SkyDrive and even if I did load them all on the iPad (if I couldn’t figure out how to access them on SkyDrive) they total less than 1GB
• Based on how I’ve used my Android phone, I don’t appear to be an app junky

So I concluded that, while I preferred something a little roomier, I would probably be OK. And it certainly was going to be the cheapest way for me to test out the Apple ecosystem. And I wanted it. So I ordered one and it came 6 days ago. I’ll cancel the service in March and go without the cellular. Or I may look into the 500mb data offer from T-Mobile. I think you get that just from buying a SIM card from them. I shouldn’t need much, after all. I expect to be using it almost exclusively with wi-fi.

So, what do I think? I’m not really sure yet. I’m really still setting it up and learning how it works. No matter what Apple says, it is not an intuitive experience – especially to an over-thinker.

Here’s my gut take on both devices so far:

• I have the Google app installed on both devices. I’ve really only used it for reading the News so far. And I like that experience better on the ASUS – the home screen on the iPad lacks density. i.e. too much white space and too large a font. It rather surprised me since the screens are very similar in size.
• In fact, there have been several times on the iPad when I wished I could decrease the font size but there was no apparent way to do so. As I tweak my preferred apps, however, I expect that to go away. Or I’ll just get used to it. Or, as I get older, I’ll even appreciate it.
• The other common app I’m using is a jigsaw puzzle game – Magic Puzzle. Same maker, two very different feeling apps. I like it much better in Windows 8.1. I’m surprised that it’s so different.
• I like the email app on the iPad better. Once I got used to it
• I was trying to stick with the native apps as much as possible but I couldn’t stand iBooks. So I bought Marvin (for epub) and GoodReader (for PDFs). Mostly for font size, page color, and layout options. I’ve downloaded Freda for the ASUS but haven’t really done much exploration with it. I do need a better PDF reader – one that lets me get a sepia background or somesuch.
• I like being able to tweak things from within the app itself (Windows vs iOS) rather than going to a general settings app. ‘Course, I could be missing something obvious to veteran Apple users. As I said, it’s not completely obvious to me.

Back to catching up on posting old posts. I’m almost caught up!