Yep.  Three copies of the standing certificate showed up today.  I was charged for it three times.  All because their website appeared not to work.  And before anyone says, “You should call them” let me counter by saying, “Yeah.  Right.”

I do a lot of work for Rider University.  They’re an excellent client.  I’ve done a bit of install work for them, and I’m set to do another renovation that they’re doing.  The General Contractor for the job contacted my client and said that he needed to make sure his low voltage contractors got permits for the job.  I told my client that I didn’t think we needed one, since I’ve NEVER needed a permit for a low voltage job before, but I’d humor him and check with the township.

Sure enough, Lawrence Township has decided that they require a permit for low-voltage work.  I can’t understand WHY, since you’d have to try incredibly hard in order to set a fire with low voltage work, but whatever.  I’ll file for their damn permit.  So I call to find out what I need.  It turns out that in order to file for the permit, I will need to register for a license in Lawrence Township.  An annoyance, to be sure, but fine.  I bring the paperwork over to the township and the woman tells me that I’ll need to get her a copy of my insurance certificate (already on the way) and my exemption card.  “My what?”  “You’re exemption card.”  “I…have no idea what that is.”  She proceeds to show me what a Telecommunications Exemption Card looks like and what department within the state I need to contact in order to get it.

I do some research, and it appears that this Telecommunications Exemption card basically licenses me with the state board of electrical examiners to say that it’s okay for me to not be a licensed electrician.  There are specific parts of the FCC code and National Electric Code which I agree to follow by filling out this paperwork, but none of it has anything to do with what I do.  Mostly it relates to plugging into phone lines.  But I have to have the card in order to get licensed with Lawrence Township in order to pull my permit, so I’ll do it.  I have to get crap notarized and pay them $120, but I file…

Today I get a call from the State Board of Elecrical Examiners.  They got my paperwork, and they’re ready to file it, but they need a copy of my Standing Certificate.  “My what?”  “Your Standing Certificate.”  “I don’t know what that is.”  The woman proceeds to tell me what department I have to call in order to file.

So I look online, find the information, and discover that I can file online.  Great.  Basically, this form seems to just say that I do, in fact, still exist.  Oh, and I have to give them $50.  WHATEVER.  I fill everything out, hit the button, and then wait.  And wait.  And finally the server times out.  I’m really annoyed now.  So I try it all again.  And the server times out.  So I do it a third time, but this time I create a login account, because I figure maybe that’ll make a difference.  But it still times out.  I call the number I was given, but all I get are automated instructions that tell me where to go on the website to find the information.  I find information on the website about fax filing, but it tells me that in addition to the precisely filled out cover page, I need to fax the completed form.  But I can’t find a link to the form.  I find a link that takes me back to the page that tells me I can file online or by fax, so I’m basically clicking around in a circle. Finally, I decide to log in to the system, just out of curiousity.  According to the system, I’ve filed the form, which means I’ve probably actually filed three times, now, and my credit card will probably be charged three times.  But maybe I’ve actually filed.  MAYBE.

So I guess I’ll wait to see if I get my Standing Certificate.  Then I can send that over to the State Board of Electrical Examiners so I can get my Telecommunications Exemption Card.  Then I can show that to Lawrence Township so I can get my license with them so that I can FINALLY pull a friggin’ permit for something that NO ONE ELSE requires a permit for.

Fuckin’ bureaucracy.

In about two months, I’ll be turning 30.  That doesn’t bother me.  The biggest change I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is simply that my perception of time changes.  I think I’ve talked about this here before, but it’s interesting how, when you’re in school, 4 years can seem like an eternity.  When you’re a freshman in high school, you can’t fathom the amount of time it’ll be before you’re a senior.  When you’re older, 4 years isn’t such a big deal anymore.

And yet my whole perception has really shifted in the last year or so.  Consider this: I was watching an episode of Seinfeld with Michelle the other day, and we determined that the episode was probably from 1991.  Now, Seinfeld doesn’t seem like that long ago, and 1991 definitely doesn’t seem like that long ago.  But it was 15 years ago.  15 years.  That’s entirely HALF of my lifetime ago.  Now consider this one: I’ve now been with Ali for 10 years.  I’ve been with her for a third of my life.  In another 10 years, I’ll have been with her for fully half of my life, so that in 10 years+ I’ll have been with her for a larger portion of my life than I haven’t been with her, and when I’m, say, 80, the portion of my life that I’ll have not been with her will really be a very small portion of my life.

Weird, huh?

Growing up, I had a reasonable sized bedroom, but it only had one window, and for the majority of the year that window was blocked by a very large, leafy tree.  This meant I had almost no natural light in my room, no matter what time of day it was.  As a result, I crave rooms with sunlight.  I can’t understand how people can live in places with nice big windows and then keep them covered up all the time.

So it’s understandable that I was very happy to have so many windows in our new house.  I mean, there’s a ton of them, and there’s tons of sunlight coming in and it’s great.

Except when you have to clean them….

I was listening to a song by Ween today, probably my favorite Ween song, “What Deaner Was Talkin About”, so I thought I’d share some of the lyrics:

The wash is out,
It’s hanging up,
And all I have is nothing.
Nothing to do,
Nothing to say,
I think I must be dreaming.

The sun comes up, and I’m all washed out,
Is this what Deaner was talking about?
I don’t think I will ever return again, my friend…

I know you guys can’t get enough….

Am I the only one who finds it fascinating to look at the “Top 25 Most Played” song list on their iTunes?  I mean, I look at it, and I think, “How did THAT song end up being played that often?”  I mostly listen to my songs on Party Shuffle, so it’s shuffling through everything, and yet there are some songs that are clearly played more than others.  How does that happen?  And some of the songs that are on there?  Weird….

Now that I have more workable archives, I was reading some old stuff, and I happened to click on September 2001 and came across this post.

It’s amazing how life has seemingly returned to normal, how we rarely mention or seem to think about September 11th the way we did at the time.  I commented that I didn’t think we would ever get back to normal, and although 9/11 is part of our collective consciousness now, we have pretty much resumed life as we did before it happened (or, at least, I have).  Is that a testament to our spirit to move on, or an indication of our short attention spans?

M-D fixed it!  Well, sort of, anyway.  It’s a start.  See, I was getting pounded today with 100+ spam comments, and I couldn’t take it anymmore.  So M-D moved me over to WordPress.  It’ll be a while before it looks like good old Eh… again, but we’re on our way. 

If you can sit through the almost 3 hours of “Saving Private Ryan” and NOT get choked up at the end when the adult James Ryan asks his wife to tell him he’s lived a good life, well, then you must be made of stone.