California Is So Grateful!

My Jeep has always had personalized license plates. I think they make it feel special and cared for compared to cars with only a standard issue tag, and they give it bragging rights in the parking lots. (Yes, my imagination runneth over.)

In New Jersey my license plate said LEEZARD because that's what I call my trusty vehicle. (There's that whole iguana & gecko thing I have going on too.) I mean the Jeep IS green and if I ever got brave enough to take it off road, I'm sure it would love crawling up on rocks to sun itself. (I'm not scared to go off road, I'm scared to rip the transmission from the axles and be sans transportation!)

I had several possible plate combinations picked out months before I left for California. When the time came to register it, none of them felt right. I ended up going with FZY LOGC because it means a couple things to me: 1) The chinnies needed their turn to be represented on the license plate and fuzzy logic could imply chinnie logic since they're so fuzzy and all; 2) I love physics and even tho fuzzy logic is technically a math concept, it's used in physics; 3) I love irony and I thought it more than a little ironic that I would pick something math-related since I am so allergic to math.

Unfortunately the FZY LOGC plate has not thrilled me. It still doesn't feel right and being in the Home State of Silicon Valley, I've already had a couple enginerds ask me about it as if I actually UNDERSTOOD what fuzzy logic is... then I've had to hang my head and admit that I suck at math. They always look so disappointed.

I started thinking something along the lines of gratitude might be a better fit, especially since I have the Cafe Gratitude sticker on the back to ask anyone checking out my rear, "What are you grateful for?"

I went to the DMV's web site where they conveniently have a program to type in your license plate to see if it's available. These are the things I typed in:

GRATEFL
GREATFL
GR8FUL
GR8FL
GR8FAL
GR8TFAL
GR8TFUL
GR8TEFL
GR8EFUL
GR8FULL
GR8TFIL
GRATI2D
GRATY2D
IMGR8FL
AMGR8FL
GR8TFL1
GR8FL4U
RUGR8FL
THNKFUL
THANKFL

Apparently California is the most grateful state EVAR. Not one of those combinations was available. Of course, we are also the most populated state I think, so if I cared a whit about math, statistics (or perhaps fuzzy logic) would probably have saved me the wasted time and explained why I most likely wouldn't get the plate I want.

To be fair, TH4NKFL and GR4TEFL were available but considering the font Cali uses I'm just not convinced I'd get the message across. Still thinking about it. Maybe I should just go with LEEZARD again. (ACK!!! Except I just checked that and someone has my plate now! Should've grabbed it when it was available. :( )

(Incidentally, URAWSUM and IMAWSUM are both taken. How AWSUM would it be to see both of those at a stoplight together? LOL)