In California, buried somewhere deep within a secret underground nuclear-proof concrete bunker, the state DMV is being run by a little department called the Mandatory Actions Unit. The true function of the DMV’s vast bureaucratic remainder is to ensure that the average citizen stays as far away from that department as possible: and preferably, doesn’t even know it exists.

I had discovered this little band of Illuminati during last week’s flurry of pissed off phone calls. I didn’t get very far – a rather rude, loud woman (who was obviously annoyed that someone broke the DMV Omerta) told me that it wasn’t their problem, go talk to the insurance company again, nothing to see here, move along, this isn’t the DMV you’re looking for.

Kristi had much better luck with them when she called on Monday (I love you, babe). We might – repeat, might – have a breakthrough. They’re telling us now that if we can provide a letter from Orange County, Florida, on official letterhead and stamped with the county seal, testifying that I was assessed zero points for those tickets, and if we mail it to the MAU Black Iron Fortress buried deep under Yosemite – along with a vial of golden dragon’s blood and the coveted +10 Scroll Of Inexpressible Exasperation – the High Priests will take the points back off my license and I’ll be blessed to rejoin polite society as an upstanding citizen once again. So I get to call Orange County again today.

Meanwhile, Tuck’s behaving himself (so far). He’s been locked in the office overnight for the last two nights, and yesterday he went the whole day without even once messing with the dog door. If he behaves himself today, we’ll let him roam free in the house tonight. Hopefully he’ll forget all about his outdoor adventures for another six months or so.

Client business is going well. We’re getting a lot of regular work from a small handful of clients right now, exactly what you want in November – we won’t be seeing much in the way of new clients before the start of the year now, so the regular assignments mean we likely won’t be dealing with an end-of-year billing gap.

I think what’s happening is that more businesses are laying off, and even the ones who aren’t laying off people are still putting hiring freezes in place. But businesses still need to market if they want to stay in business. In a recession, we’re a much more affordable alternative to developing marketing materials in house, so we’re starting to get more wholesale department outsourcing. God I hope that’s the case: if that’s what’s happening, just 5 or 6 of those kind of “long” clients will mean a very, very busy and profitable 2009. With the state budget fiasco happening in Sacramento (and its impact on public school spending) and our lingering wedding debt, we could use the money. I’m not above profiting from a financial collapse; someone’s got to do it.

In other news, the last of my stuff arrived last night from Florida: five boxes of books, papers, office stuff, odds and ends, the flotsam and jetsam that we crated up last weekend in Orlando. My bike’s almost fully reassembled. So now it’s just a matter of figuring out where to put everything.

So it’s a better day. Hopefully tomorrow will also be a better one. We’re working on it, anyway.