Friday, August 10, 2007

You Bastards!

It had been a good day. I'm finally starting to feel recovered from the OSH experience, and it looks like we have a candidate for the Weekend Editor position at ANN who I think will be a great asset.

Combined with sunny skies... and one especially brave hummingbird, that has taken to flying right up to me when I'm outside working; one of these days, I think the ballsy little bird is going to try to land on the laptop screen... it had been a pretty good Friday. A necessary trip back to the DMV looked to only temper that slightly.

I shoulda waited until I got back to check my mail... but alas, I didn't. There was but one letter in the mailbox...

...From the Albuquerque Police Department...

...Photo STOP Division.

Knowing full well I haven't run any red lights, I opened the envelope... and was greeted with photographic evidence that my car was at the intersection of Montgomery and San Mateo on July 31st. The ticket -- for $200! -- states I was doing 45 in a 35 mph zone.

I'm not necessarily disputing that I may have been speeding; I would like to know whether the other four cars in one of the photos -- one of which I believe I recall was passing me -- were also ticketed, or did APD instead focus on the lone Texas plate in the bunch. Most gratingly of all... I had no idea the damn cameras -- also used in Dallas -- could give speeding tickets, too.

And I really wonder if that's right or not. The "officer's signature" on the ticket is an illegible scribble, that looks a little like binary code, shrunken to the height of a micron.

Today's the day I became a Libertarian. Wait, I was one already... nuts. Anyway, as I contemplate whether to fight this injustice or not -- no points are taken off your license whether you dispute it or pay, which means this is nothing but a pure money-grab by the city, nothing more -- I'm planning to visit my friend Ana in Las Cruces this weekend.

And I'm tempted to drive at 35 mph for the whole 220-mile trip.

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