Check out my fancy new digs! After 7 years, I've hung up Twirling Towards Freedom and become the Virtual Escape Artist!
This year has been my year of change, the Year of the Goat, the Year of Merry G. And as much as I loved ol' TTF, I have outgrown it to make room for this new moniker, which suits me even better.
Stay tuned for more of my adventures, as I roll out the next phases of my site re-brand!
I will say of all the states I have lived in, Rhode Island has taken the most research and legwork to get all my automotive ducks in a row. In order to register an out-of-state vehicle, you need all the usual stuff you might expect (proof of address, insurance, driver's license, etc), but you also need a title and a VIN verification.
The Marylanders back home may be saying, "Pfft, that's easy! You get the title when you buy the car!" Well, in pretty much every other state in the union, if you have a lien, you don't get your title until it is paid for. And I'll spare you the details since it infuriates me to relive this, but I called my lender no less than 10 times trying to get them to fax the title over to the DMV, with no guarantee it would arrive. Faxes weren't trustworthy in 1993, and they still aren't now. Why do they still exist? Eventually I got to the right lady at the credit union, who was kind enough to just email it directly to me!
Now, a VIN verification is something I had never heard of until moving here. This requires a separate pre-DMV trip to a special station where a police officer has to verify your VIN, to make sure it isn't stolen I presume. The office is only open from 9-2, and the service costs $15.00. And you absolutely have to do it.
Toto, I don't think we're in Live Free or Die country anymore.
You also have to camp the DMV at least 40 minutes before it opens to get anything done in a timely fashion. Last time I stood in a line that long wanting to get in somewhere this bad, the guy in front of me was dressed like Boba Fett.
I will say for all the hoopla, once I got in there the actual DMV process was relatively quick, inexpensive, and painless. Not at all like this video:
