One reason to love Georgia

is something that many of you will be a little jealous of: lax inspection requirements for car registration.

Now, you all know that my car is safe. There's nothing *much* wrong with it, except that it eats fuses frequently when I shift into reverse. My friend Dave thinks that this may be a fairly simple problem, gunk buildup in the socket causing a short, but I just haven't gotten around to taking the light panels off yet to check - esp when swapping in a new fuse fixes the "problem" just fine (the "problem" being not a lack of reverse lights, per se, but a lack of dashboard/odometer lights, and the inability to start the car. I like to call it an anti-theft mechanism: If you REALLY want my car, you'll have to figure out how to start it when the next fuse blows!) So, yeah, nothing that's a safety issue, much, you just have to stay on top of it and keep extra fuses around.

In many other states, Mass being at the top of the list, my car easily would have failed emissions/inspection today. But not Georgia. They gave me a "pass" with a smile.

Do any of you remember in 2002, when my truck "failed" Mass inspection because the frickin windshield wipers didn't work perfectly???

So, it looks like I will be keeping my car registered in GA until I feel like fixing its little "character" issue. Well, the good thing about that is, since I was 2 months late re-registering and getting emissions inspected, the emissions test will still be valid *next* november, when I go to renew my tags. Not that I've used THAT one to my advantage before.

This brings the sum total of things that could have caused me great inconvenience had I driven north for the holidays to: very sick dog (who is now MUCH better), sloppy snowstorms en route from Detroit to Ct (which might have left me stranded in PA for xmas eve, with afforementioned sick dog), nail in tire (found that when I got home; easy to fix, but that would'a put a wrench in a 2000 mi road trip, eh?), registration expired (oops), license missing (tho fairly speaking, that may not have happened had i left earlier). As frustrating at it was to have not been able to spend some time up north in Dec and over New Years, I think it's safe to say it was for the better?