The cops can apparently smell me.

Last year, my old 1987 BMW 635 broke down (radiator), and Maggie was against me spending more money to fix it, so we traded it in, and got me a new (to me) 2003 BMW Z4:

Seen here at Craters of the Moon National Park

We got a *really* good deal on it, which I'm pretty sure has something to do with the fact that we bought it in the Bay Area, just weeks before the Facebook IPO. I swear, as we were shopping, there was a glut of used sportscars that week, almost as if there were about to be 500 new millionaires in the area, all of whom were preparing to upgrade their whips.

It's great, and owning a convertible has made me like living here more (I think I'm affected when I don't get enough sunlight), although vehicle ownership in California in general is a pain in the ass.

I've been putting off getting my own license plates for it (note the picture: no California-mandated front plate). This is just paperwork I never find time to do.

This means, however, that I've not affixed the registration stickers (I *have* registered it). So I've got a parking ticket I need to pay.

In January, I got a speeding ticket down near L.A. ... thankfully, the officer didn't even notice my lack of front plate, or tags. It was a "speed trap" in every sense of the word... my car feels like a golf cart at 55 MPH on straight flat roads, which is what I got stopped on -- a straight-away thru the desert with the guy from CHiPs hiding just over a small hill, picking off weekend drivers who'd been going 70 on the interstate minutes before.

Finally, I got another ticket back in NYC, in the rain, where I didn't properly read a "No Turns between Xpm and Ypm" or something, and an officer waved me over on the street.

In a friggin' rented Chevy Aveo.

So, I need to spend a little time at the California DMV, and online, taking care of paperwork, and paying a few hundred dollars in accumulated fines. I don't think it's any "points", though, actually. I'm still not really sure what those are.

All this after over a decade of no issues. It's the car, I swear. It made my foot heavy.

I'm still slowly teaching Maggie how to drive stick-shift.

However, we'll be taking her Volkswagon to DisneyLand, and giving my ride that weekend off.