EMPS: Charcoal Disaster

For Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #49, Carly wants us to match a word with a color and photograph it. My color: charcoal. You know the color I mean: it's that range of grays, almost but not quite black, that replaced chrome as the default color of electronics and other products, stuff made of metal or high impact plastic. It's the color of carbon, the color that absorbs light and turns it into the most heat this side of true black, the color of things that burned up at the worst possible time.

The color of disaster.

If you've been reading this blog, you know I've been griping quite a bit about the weather here in Arizona this summer. Normally by mid-July, we're getting lots of afternoon thunderstorms to cool things down. This year: not so much. Day after day we're getting high temperatures of 107 to 111 degrees, with some late afternoon clouds but only rarely any actual rain - and when it finally happens, it lasts about five minutes.

Charcoal-interior on a hot day - like we need to retain more heat!

Result: it's hot, all day, every day. Except for those hardy souls who can tolerate such temperatures, and the unfortunates who have no air conditioning or can't afford to use it, we Arizonans are running our air conditioners a lot - at home, at work, and in the car. We've already had at least two blackouts at the house as the overloaded grid reacted, and bits of it burned out.

When I take the dogs to the park, I try to do it in the cool (only 90 degrees!) of the evening, and even then, my dog who is bred for northern climes, with charcoal highlights to her long black fur, hangs out a few inches from the car's air conditioning vents, running full blast. But yesterday, I didn't take her at all.

Charcoal highlights on my suddenly-injured dog, Pepper.

That very dog, Pepper, somehow hurt one of her legs (hips? feet?) on Sunday. She was limping intermittently, enough so that John and I were lifting her on and off the bed. There was no sign of one of the "goat's head" burrs that we sometimes have to remove from the dogs' feet or our own, and nothing seemed to hurt to the touch. We figured it was probably a sprain, and decided that I would take her to the vet today. Disaster, right? It was at least a minor one. If she really needed x-rays and treatment, it would be uncomfortable for her, and financially difficult for us, considering that my new unemployment claim still hasn't gone through, and nobody's getting back to me on any of the jobs I've applied for lately. We haven't really dug out from the debt of Tuffy's cancer treatments from 2007 to August 1, 2008.

But when I called today, there were no appointments available, so we'd have to pay urgent care rates, an extra $20. I didn't want to make Pepper wait any longer, so I agreed. But I watched as I led her into Valley Animal Hospital, and she didn't visibly limp at all. So I made my apologies to the assistant at the front desk, and took the dogs back to the car. (Cayenne was along for the ride.) We then hit the drive-throughs at the bank and McDonald's, and started home, a/c blasting.

That's when I noticed the burning smell in the car, like hot tar, like burning electrical wires, like melting plastic.

Like disaster.

I tried to ignore it, explain it away; but I looked at the engine temperature and it was halfway up. Thermostat failure? I opened the windows and hurried home with the dogs.

This afternoon, I was called to St. Michael's to write an emergency check for fixing the air conditioning on a house the church owns and currently rents out. On the drive over, not a whisper of coolness could be detected in the hot air my car was blowing. The interior of my car was hotter than the outside air, I discovered as I stepped out into the St. Michael's parking lot.

So after my errand at church, I headed over to ask the mechanics at our favorite local garage to give me some idea what the problem was and how much it would cost. Martin opened the hood, and we saw this:

On the hot charcoal-toned bits of engine, there was visible evidence that the clutch of my air conditioning compressor had quite literally burned out. There were bits of charcoal-colored ash, actual charred bits of ex-clutch, coating the charcoal-colored metal.

And what looks like bits of actual burned wiring: charcoal-colored, of course:

Disaster! The clutch assembly alone costs more to replace than the whole compressor, including the clutch. We're looking at $450, even with the mechanic giving me a good customer/pity break on the price. Without this repair, a drive in the car is suddenly infinitely more miserable, and it's impossible to drive across town to a job interview (if any) and arrive cool and dry. More immediately, it's not safe to drive the dogs for more than a couple of miles, if that, and even then I'd better have cold water out for them.

But how can we spend the money right now? John has asked, and I've agreed, that I wait out the week and see whether the unemployment payments, which I supposedly applied for successfully a week and a half ago, finally start getting approved and posted to my account. If that doesn't happen soon, and if potential employers continue to ignore my resume or two-hour application, our personal economic disaster will be darker than the ash on my engine block.

And Pepper is limping again.

Karen

Weekend Assignment: #278: Time to Blog

Tonight's Weekend Assignment should be relevant to anyone who blogs:

Weekend Assignment: #278: How often do you blog? Do you try to maintain a schedule, or just blog when you're inspired and have the time? How do memes affect your blogging habits?
Extra Credit: Are you blogging more or less often now than you were a year ago?

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that my blogging schedule has gone all to heck in recent months. For years I blogged every single day, no matter what. There were at least two occasions when I pulled all-nighters at hotels with bad internet connections, trying desperately to connect long enough to get a blog entry posted. Okay, so I might have gone 30 hours between entries one day, 18 hours the next, but the rule was, I always posted before going to bed. Or if I had connection problems or was just too sleepy, I would take a nap for a couple of hours, and then get up and get the entry done.

But several months ago, between Facebook, CPA review assignments and a suspicion that obsessive daily blogging was not necessary a good thing, I gave myself permission to miss a day. And then another day. Soon I was only blogging three or four times a week! It eased my immediate time pressures, but it didn't make it any easier to blog effectively, to come up with good pictures to post and interesting things to say. And I feel that I've lost a measure of self discipline and good writing practice, without gaining anything substantive in return.

I have never, ever missed a Monday Photo Shoot or a Weekend Assignment, not since John Scalzi started the former and I first discovered the latter, both in his now-defunct AOL journal By the Way. It used to be that I always posted my entries on Monday and Thursday nights, respectively, without fail. Now it may take me several days (in one case almost a week) to get to the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot. And even as the current host of the Weekend Assignment, I've often let Thursday night become Friday night. Having written over 250 WA entries as participant or originator, I now find it a little harder each week to come up with a new topic that might entice you to write something. It's much easier to keep up with the Round Robin Photo Challenges, because they're only biweekly, and we have a pool of suggested topics that we periodically manage to refresh. I'm sorry to say that despite my frequent dog-blogging, I haven't managed to participate weekly in Feline and Furball Friday, which Steven may be passing the baton on soon as his elderly cat Pickle is reaching the end of his life. My heart goes out to him; the death of a beloved pet is never easy, even when it means the end of months of worry about your furry friend's prognosis and quality of life. We went through this with Tuffy Toro, exactly a year ago on August 1st.

This blog is not just about the memes, though, nor will it ever be. I still appreciate the opportunity to write a nice cathartic rant, or tell an amusing anecdote, or show off my dogs. I may not be adding to it daily at the moment, but don't expect the Outpost to be deserted any time soon.

So how about you? Is your blog primarily a place to share family news, or keep up with all the photo memes? Do you try to post daily, or on certain days of the week, or just when you feel like it? Please tell us about it in your blog, and include a link back here. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below, so that next week I can direct people to your blog, thus:

For Weekend Assignment #277: Running the Gauntlet, I asked you to recount your experiences with government bureaucracy. Here are excerpts from the responses:

Julie wrote...

Most of my dealings with the city and county have been via their web sites, which, amazingly, work fairly well. I can pay my water bill, renew my car registration (except I forgot, so I'll be standing in line later this week), get hold of city and county departments, and so on. It's not perfect, but it beats sitting on hold. Now corporate entities are another issue.

Mike wrote....

This year was a little different. We tried to file our state return electronically ourselves but we needed a PIN number for some reason. Since we have someone else do our taxes usually, we had no PIN. And since I was being the typical me and waiting until the second-to-last day, when I tried to call the number I got the, "We are experiencing and unusually high call rate. Please try again later." Yeah, right. I ended up mailing it in.

Your turn! And please, if you have an idea for a future Weekend Assignment, email me at mavarin2 (at) gmail.com. Thanks!


Karen

F&FFF: The Dogs in the Daytime

For Feline and Furballs with Feathers Friday:

Pepper's pre-grooming shedding and post-grooming sleekness
(and bandanna!)

From Reid at Random

As I mentioned in my previous entry, Pepper was groomed this week. She had been shedding clumps of black fur all over the place; more important, all that fur can't have been comfortable for her in all this 100-degree-plus heat. So I took her to PetSmart on Tuesday for the "Furminator" treatment. Most of her undercoat is gone, her coat is soft and shiny, and she has hardly been shedding at all. She also acquired a bandanna that actually looked semi-decent, before shedding it in the back yard.

It was suggested to me the other day that the problem of taking the dogs out in the Arizona heat might be solved by taking them out early in the morning. I try never to be conscious that time of day, if I can help it; but nevertheless I tried it on Thursday morning.

By 8 AM(?) we were at Miko's Corner. Even at that time, things were heating up. Most of the humans were congregated at the picnic tables under the ramada roof. Even the dogs tended to be in the shade, and did very little running around. All in all, it was no improvement.

There was a definite advantage, though, when we left the dog park itself for the wider romping grounds of Reid Park. The dogs and I finally got to see the critters that have dug so many holes in the ground outside the rose garden. I had thoughts of gophers, or possibly something even more exotic, but the truth was more prosaic. The morning shift at Reid Park featured lots and lots of rock squirrels, the Arizona equivalent of the common gray squirrel. They were popping in and out of holes, some of them freshly dug, peeping and peering warily at the dogs.

And the dogs were peering right back, making noises of their own! I have never felt them tug on the leashes quite this hard. But no, I didn't let go!

One year as a Blocher dog.

**Update: after posting this I went to Steven's newest F and FF entry, and learned that his beloved cat Pickle will probably be put to sleep on Monday at the end of a long illness. Let me take this opportunity to extend my sympathies to Steven in this difficult time. Exactly a year ago, we took our dog Tuffy Toro to the vet for the last time, and felt the gamut of guilt and grief and relief as her evident suffering came to an end. The next day, we adopted a dog called "Ireland," who was soon renamed Cayenne - not a replacement, but a new friend. Tuffy and Cayenne are very different dogs. This isn't necessarily the right answer for everyone who loses a pet, but for us it was. **

Karen

EMPS: The Two Towers

When Carly assigned "Landmarks" as the topic for this week's Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot, I was briefly stumped. Over the years, this blog has featured lots of photos of Tucson landmarks already: historic buildings, ballparks, Tucson's one downtown skyscraper, interesting bridges, public statues and so on. What was left that I hadn't already photographed for you? And, could I get to it on a day when I was scheduled to give blood and Pepper had a grooming appointment?

But as I dropped Pepper off at PetSmart on Tuesday, I thought of a few places. One, the Mission San Xavier del Bac, is too far south of the city to reach quickly, but there was something else that I'd been meaning to photograph for a while, just off Broadway Boulevard near Reid Park. As I drove toward it, with Cayenne still in the car and perhaps a little nervous at the absence of her "sister," I came across another major Tucson landmark, one I should have thought of before. Here it is:

5151 East Broadway is the tallest building for miles around.

From the Picasa albumTwo Towers

This is the office building at 5151 East Broadway Blvd. As far as I can tell, the street address is the complex's only name. It stands at the corner of Broadway and Rosemont, across the street from Barnes and Noble and very close to a travel agency I worked for in the late 1980s.

Built in 1975, it is the fourth tallest building in Tucson, and can be seen from miles away. Tucson doesn't go in for skyscrapers much, partly I suspect because nobody wants to block the mountain views we have in every direction. 5151 is the exception. According to a really neat page on Google 3D Warehouse, it has 16 floors and is about 246 feet high. My late mom's friend and therapist has an office there, as does one of my recruiters.

In front of the tower on the Broadway side of the property is a long, flat annex, which has recently been gutted. I don't know why this is, whether there was a fire or a need to remove asbestos, or they just want to redo it for some reason.

5151 makes the Rincon Mountains look short by comparison.

Parking for 5151 is on a large, slightly sloped deck behind the tower, accessed primarily from Rosemont. This flat expanse makes the tower stand out more than it does from Broadway itself.

And check out the view from the back of the parking lot!

It's kind of hard to get a sense of the size of the building. If you're back far enough to photograph the top of it, chances are good that the view of the bottom is obstructed. Also, the fact that it's broad rather than narrow mitigates the impression of height. But trust me; it's not a small building. And by the way, I appreciate its modern style.

A little over two miles west of 5151 is a very different tower, from a very different period in Tucson's architectural history. This is the El Conquistador water tower. Built in 1928, when Country Club Road was at the edge of the city rather than in the middle of it, the tower is all that remains of the ambitious but doomed El Conquistador Hotel. According to the book Tucson: The Life and Times of an American City by C. L. Sonnichsen, the project ran out of money before the hotel was completed. Even after it was finished it continued to lose money, having too few rooms to offset the cost of its opulence. The El Conquistador underwent bankruptcy reorganization in 1935, changed hands a few times, and lost its appeal as the city grew up around it, particularly the El Con shopping center, which opened across Broadway from it in 1959.

The hotel was razed in 1968 - all except for the water tower, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is designated as an official Tucson Landmark. These days it's tucked away about a block behind Broadway, between an urgent care facility and an unmarked condo or apartment building, a few blocks north of Hi Corbett Field. Several other features from the hotel have been moved to other locations around Tucson, including a copper dome that adorns the Casa Blanca shopping center on North Oracle.

The "Spanish Colonial Revival" or "Arizona Mission" style was added to the tower in 1932 under the direction of Tucson architect Roy Place, who was also responsible for the Hotel Congress and a number of other historic Tucson buildings. My favorite detail on the water tower itself is this weather vane, depicting a miner and his donkey.

Be sure to check Carly's blog Ellipsis each week for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot. I'll have an entry sometime tomorrow morning for Steven's Feline and Furball Friday, followed a little later in the day by the new Weekend Assignment - assuming I can think of a new topic by then! Any last-minute suggestions?

Karen

The Photo Not Taken

Back in the days of his AOL blog By the Way, John Scalzi used to periodically warn his readers and fellow bloggers not to post pictures of other people's children without permission, because of the privacy and security issues this might pose. I have not always complied perfectly with this principle, but I try to be sensitive to it, and not to cross a line. So when I drove past the Alamo Wash early yesterday evening and saw a child doing something rather amazing, I did not stop the car, turn around and try to get a picture. But I will tell you about it.

The photo above is from back in May, right after a rain storm. Where you see water flowing in the picture, substitute a dry street and dry dirt, and you'll have some idea of the scene Tuesday evening. As I approached the wash on my way home, with newly-groomed Pepper and rather relieved Cayenne, I noticed there were a couple of kids playing under the blue bridge. It wasn't until I drove past them that I saw what they were doing.

The boy, maybe ten years old, was wearing a Spider-Man costume, a decent one but with a crummy mask. He was hugging the slab of concrete in the left (west) side of the wash, trying to crawl up the wall! His sister(?), a few years older, was dangling a rope from above, presumably trying to help. I tried to give her a high sign, but I doubt that she understood the message. Already past the wash and the kids, I shouted out the open window, "I LOVE that!" and drove away.

I've taken my photos for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot and will edit and post them after I've slept. They do not involve Spider-Man or the wash, but please stop back anyway.

Karen

Round Robin: "But It's a Good Car"

***Note: my Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot entry for the week ending July 26 is dated to when I started writing it, and thus appears two entries below this one. Please scroll down or click here to see it.***

This week's Round Robin Photo Challenge, My Vehicle Of Choice, was suggested by Suzanne of Suzyq421's Photo Blog. I'm not going to write much about fantasy vehicles I'd like to own. Frankly, my appreciation of cars hasn't advanced all that far from when I was 6 years old. Back then I believed that there were two kinds of cars, Ford and Rambler. These days, I could wish for something newer and more environmentally benign, but have only a vague idea what that might be (a Prius? a Tesla?). Surely whatever vehicle we actually drive, unless it was a gift(!), is the vehicle we chose.

Here's mine: a 1994 Eagle Vision Tsi. I got it several years ago, after a kid in a 1965 Ford truck totaled my 1997 Saturn. Before I bought this car, I knew the make "Eagle" only as a word in the advertising phrase, "See your Jeep Eagle dealer." Yet this is what I chose to buy, because it was the best car my Saturn dealer had on the lot for the money I had to spend, which was less than the replacement cost of a 1997 Saturn. Besides, it was pretty.

Having been in the punishing climates of Arizona and before that, Florida (according to Car Fax) for all these years, my poor old Eagle has lots of mostly cosmetic imperfections these days. The finish is going on the teal-colored exterior, to the point where there's little or no paint left in spots.

Inside, the panel covering the air bags is sun-warped, and I admit I've let the Arizona dust take over a bit.

I can't even get out of the car without rolling down the driver's side window, which is itself barely functional. The interior door handle broke off months ago, and the window goes up all the way only if you push against the glass with one hand while operating the window's motor with the other.

But I still like this car a lot, for two reasons. One: it seems the perfect size for a woman and two rambunctious dogs...

...one of which likes to ride shotgun. One advantage of not having a pristine car is I don't worry about the dogs messing it up, scrabbling and scratching and licking and jumping around. It's already a mess.

And two: it has the most entertaining, most useful silly accessory for a car in Arizona: a temperature gauge. I don't swear that it's completely accurate, or know precisely where it takes its readings from. But I take a perverse glee in being able to report that it's 109 degrees at midafternoon, or 92 degrees at 8 PM, well after dusk. Okay, so the car stereo no longer works, but at least I get to gripe about the heat!

When I was in college the first time, my first car was a 1967 Dodge Coronet wagon, a hand-me-down from my mom. I loved the thing, but my friend Howard used to tease me about it, repeating back my own defensive words, "But it's a good car!" Eventually the Syracuse winters took their toll, and the hinges holding the hood of the Dodge rusted into dust, sending the hood sailing over my head one day at 55 mph. That was pretty much the end of that car. The Eagle, so far, has no problems sufficient to end its usefulness. May that be true for a while yet!

Now let's go see everyone else's vehicles of choice:

Suzanne R - Posted!
SuzyQ421's Photo Blog
http://suzyq421sphotoblog.blogspot.com

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Betty - Posted!
A Corgi In Southern California
http://acorgiinsoutherncalifornia.blogspot.com

Monica - Posted!
Shutterly Happy
http://monica-frameofmind.blogspot.com

Jen
Phun with Photography
http://phunwithphotography.blogspot.com

J.R. **Welcome New Member**
Eskimo Blue Boy's Deviant Art
http://eskimoblueboy.diviantart/gallery

Chrissie
Chrissea's Corner
http://chrisseascorner.blogspot.com

Martha - Posted!
Menagerie
http://meandering-martha.blogspot.com

boliyou
Endomental
http://www.endomental.com

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Linda - Posted!
Mommy's Treasures
http://mommytreasures.blogspot.com

Molly Mavis - Posted!
Visual Dialogues
http://visualdialogues.wordpress.com

Sherrie - Posted!
Sherrie's Stuff
http://sherrie-plummer.blogspot.com

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com

Lin **Welcome New Member** - Posted!
Ups and Downs With Anastasia
http://ups-and-downs-with-anastasia.blogspot.com

Betty - Posted!
A Glimpse Into Midlife
http://glimpseintomidlife.blogspot.com

Maria**Welcome New Member** -Posted!
Everything Can Be Green
http://alltkangronska.blogspot.com/

And a little programming note, because I'm woefully behind: please see the entry below this one for the Weekend Assignment, and watch for my Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot entry later today. See you then!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #277: Running the Gauntlet

I have an unfinished EMPS entry from earlier in the week, a Feline and Furball Friday entry to work in, and a Round Robin entry to do later tonight. But let's get this one done first:

Weekend Assignment: #277: We've all become used to automated phone routers ("To continue in English, press 1"), long waits at government offices and other bureaucratic obstacles to getting something done. Have you any particular horror stories along these lines, or have you had mostly good experiences with government agencies?
Extra Credit: Does this problem seem to be getting better or worse?

As I've mentioned before, I haven't received an unemployment insurance payment since the end of May, despite filing weekly claims every week since. When I discovered this in late June, my online research and a notice from the state led me to file a claim for an additional seven weeks of emergency federal unemployment. The week after I did that, I learned that this was not the correct thing to do. Perhaps because I first filed my original claim at the end of May, 2008, after losing my job at Beaudry RV, my benefit year ended at the end of May 2009. Any benefits earned by me through working from June 2007 to May 2008 ended with that fiscal year. To get any new benefits, I needed to have earned them by working between June 2008 and May 2009. So far, so confusing, right? But the good news is that I worked solidly for a good wage between June and early September, 2008, and for a few days in January 2009. And guess what? That's enough to qualify!

So I supposedly filed this new claim over the phone in early July with someone from the state unemployment insurance office, who had actually called me about my case. But for whatever reason, nothing we talked about that day got into my electronic file. My new claim never went into effect.

Okay, then the logical thing to do was to file a new claim myself, right? Only I couldn't, or so it seemed. Every time I tried to file the claim online, I got through every screen of the online form, only to be told on the last page that a system error occurred. This happened over and over, on different days, using Firefox, IE and even John's Mac (also with Firefox). Nothing made any difference. The error screen at the end helpfully directled me to call and file by phone, advice which was reiterated by the notice I got in the mail about my 7-week claim being denied because of the benefit year ending.

And when I called?

"Thank you for calling the [blah-blah-blah]. We are experiencing a high volume of calls and cannot take your call at this time." The recording goes on to say that you should file online instead. I got this same recording in many attempts to call over the last two weeks.

Catch-22.

Someone at the local DES (Department of Economic Security) office suggested that I write a letter to straighten things out. I did so last week, and they helpfully faxed it to the right place. Result: a further hold was placed on my file, pending resolution. "You're going to have to talk to them in person - on the phone, I mean," a DES employee told me yesterday.

I explained that I hadn't been able to get through on the phone. That's when she suggested that I come in at 8 AM Friday morning and use their direct line phone, hanging up and letting it redial as many times as it took to get through. She told me that the first word I would hear on a successful call would be "Welcome," and to hang up as soon as I got anything else. When I did get through, the number to press would be 4. I would then be on hold for perhaps 20 minutes, maybe longer, but would need to keep holding. Hey, I had no intention of hanging up if I ever got through!

Now, let me tell you about my morning today. I walked into the DES office at about 8:01 AM, but the DES employee from the previous afternoon, who said she would be there and willing to help me get set up on the phone, was nowhere to be seen. I found the directly line phone myself, sat down and started dialing. About 50 minutes later at 8:54 AM, after dozens of "Thank you..." messages, busy signals and "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and dial again" recordings, I finally heard the welcome word, "Welcome....." At 10:20 AM, after a further hour and six minutes of jazzy hold music, friendly recorded apologies for the delay and notices that the 7-week extension could not be filed by phone, I got through to a person!

And she was wonderful. She read and understood what was in my file, asked all the right questions, and researched my 2008-2009 work history, determining that I was indeed eligible for a new benefit claim, at the same compensation level as my previous claim. I had been worried that the new claim would be effective today or even later, but no, she set the start date at the end of May 2009. All those weeks in between that I filed for without immediate success will now be paid, less my gross wages from St. Michael's.

As you can imagine, this is all a big relief. John had been talking about all the cutbacks we would have to make if this didn't go through, assuming I didn't get a job soon. John has no great hopes about the job market right now, but at least my safety net is back in place for the next five months. I can find a job by then - can't I?

Well, we'll see. Meanwhile, I expressed my gratitude to Deputy 771, verbally presenting her with "imaginary flowers and virtual cookies."

"Thank you, they're lovely!" she said.

I'm not telling you all this as criticism of the Arizona Unemployment Insurance department or its personnel, or DES folks, or even the AZ UI web site. The glitch in my online claim was frustrating, sure, and perhaps needs tweaking. It could be that it was programmed to not go through if the file is set on hold, pending a telephone contact. If so, it would be nice if the web site could be scripted to say so.

Nor am I criticizing the ARRA phone system (I swear to you, though, one of those Rs stands for Rapid!). The truth is that the state is swamped with claims in the current economy. They need and are hiring more people to work the phones, and I have no doubt that the telephone infrastucture itself isn't up to the workload. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the whole system is a big, confusing, frustrating mess!

Are things getting better? Well, I have hope that the UI situation will improve with the economy and with the influx of new staff, and things certainly got better today for me personally. Meanwhile, I can point to a different state department where things are already much, much better than they were. For a number of years now, the Motor Vehicle Department has had a website called Service Arizona. Using it means you almost never have to make a trip to MVD to renew vehicle registration, replace a missing one, or even order a vanity plate. It's fast, it's clearly and simply laid out, and it works great. As someone who in the old days sometimes sat in the MVD office for two hours on a workday, it's a huge, huge improvement.

How about you? Have you had generally good experiences with your local MVD or DMV, courts, water department, social services or other agency? Is it getting better or worse? Please tell us about it in your blog, with a link back here so people can find each other's entries. Then come back here and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your responses. With your help, I'm sure we can find a number of people with something to say on this subject. Unlike last week....

For Weekend Assignment: #276: Your Alias, I asked you to discuss the idea of a pseudonym or alias, and to create a temporary one for the purpose of your entry. Only Florinda took up the challenge:

I actually use a pseudonym regularly, although technically it's not a pseudonym. I always give my name as Elizabeth (my middle name) at Starbucks, because spelling out Florinda gets really old. (Actually, it's spelled like it sounds and it sounds like it's spelled, but still, people have always had trouble with it...maybe that's more because it's unusual than because it's a difficult name, but I've never known for sure.) I've used screen names in a few online forums in the past, but during the last few years, I've almost always been online under my real name. I never intended to blog under a pseudonym, because if I ever want it to lead to anything, it all has to come together as part of the body of my written work.

That's it! I hope this week's Assignment is more to your liking. Florinda will be out of town, so I'm counting on YOU to participate, okay? Thanks!

Karen