No one deserves this

About a month ago I got a speeding ticket on NW Highway.  Everyone speeds on that road but the cop got me and I got the ticket.  I’m not going to lie, I was speeding and I deserve the ticket but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up that easily.  I decided to do what every 20-30 year old white male does; take defensive driving.  I got all the forms filled out, wrote out my check and dropped it in the mail.

 

Two weeks later I got two pieces of interesting mail.  One was my ticket, returned check and a letter saying that unfortunately, I mailed it to the wrong address and made the check out to Dallas County, not the City of Dallas.  The second piece of mail was a letter stating there was a warrant out for my arrest!  Great, perfect, wonderful.  Now my fee has gone up to $297 and if I still want to take defensive driving I have to go downtown to the courthouse and see a judge.  Fine, I messed up, I’ll go down there and take care of this.

 

Friday morning I get there at 7:00 and as I’m driving by I see a massive line of people waiting to get in.    On Friday they only take the first 50 people and there were well over that number waiting in line.  So I just kept driving, found an empty parking lot and listened to the radio until it was time for work.  I’ll try again on Monday… maybe Tuesday.

 

Monday was a rough morning because I was at the Radiohead concert on Sunday night so I decided to try on Tuesday.  I get downtown early so I would get a spot in line but alas!  I didn’t have any money to park.  This begins my search for an ATM, and that is darn near impossible to find downtown. I finally found one, got money and then parked.

 

This marks the time I stepped out of our world and into a world I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to.  It’s crowded, dirty, oddly cold and it’s full of employees who would rather be anywhere but at work and full of lower class citizens who would rather be anywhere but at the courthouse.  It’s so efficient that they have a metal detector and a bag screener but no one is looking at the bag screener.  So basically if I’m smart enough to stick my knife/pipe bomb/pistol in my bag and not in my pocket I could have had a field day.  OK, enough ranting.

  

Monday-Thursday they take 90 people but due to my ATM saga I didn’t get a good spot in line.  A lady who works there passes out numbers depending on your place in line and I was in the bottom 40.  The first 50 get to see the judge right then and the next 40 have to have their paperwork processed and then come back at 12:45 to see the judge.  I asked the lady how long this would take and she said it was an hour and a half to have your paperwork done and then at 12:45 it would take another 3 hours to get in and see the judge.  That’s a total of 4 and a half hours.  And they payoff for all of this?  Another 6 hours in front of a computer taking defensive driving!  It took me about a half a second to weigh my options.

 

I politely handed her the number she gave me, asked where I go to pay the ticket, and got in that line and paid the damn thing.  I can’t sit down there all day and fight through the nightmare of our tax dollars at work.  I know it’s a lot of money but it was worth it in the long run.  Plus, I’m 99% positive I was the only one in line that had a steady job.  The girl in front of me had to get out line because she had to go to Lew Sterret to get paperwork that shows she had already served time for not paying tickets!  I was surrounded by criminals!!  And there were over 90 other people like her there!

 

In summary, this speeding ticket cost me $297.00 plus $5.00 to mail it (to the wrong address) plus $6.00 in parking fees, plus two mornings of getting up before six.  Moral of the story, don’t speed.  If you get caught, make sure you have the right address.

My new car…maybe

I have a tendency to obsess about things.  Once I get something in my head I can’t stop thinking about it or researching it or talking about it or asking my friends about it.  If you don’t believe me ask my wife, it makes her crazy and I know it does but I can’t stop.

My latest obsession has been my next new car.  As you probably know we’re expecting our first child this year and it’s time for me to get back into the SUV world.  Besides, what’s more American than driving a huge vehicle and burning up our natural resources!  But I digress… This obsession has moved to a whole new level.  Not only have I drowned my wife with car stats and pricing and MPG I’ve also dragged my friends David and Josh into it.  They’ve gone along with it, for the most part, because they both love cars more than me and because they can see I have a sickness. 

Well I do believe I’ve found a cure for my disease.  It seems I need a shot of Tiguan.  What the heck is a Tiguan?  It’s the new Volkswagen SUV that was just released and it is awesome!  I’ve always loved the Touareg but it’s just out of my price range.  The Tiguan is smaller than the Touareg but it still accomplishes everything I want it to do, and it gets pretty good gas mileage for an SUV.  Plus I happen to know a guy who sells them so I know I won’t be taken to the cleaners on the deal.  So take a look below and let me know what you think.

MS 85?

Last weekend was the MS 150, a 150 mile bike ride from Frisco to Ft. Worth.  This year is the third year that I’ve done this and I love it.  It’s hard as hell, it makes my entire body hurt and I curse myself but I still do it every year.

This year however the MS 150 is the MS 85 for me.  Actually…it was 90 miles.  I’ll explain that part later.  First of all it was very windy on Saturday and riding a bike into the wind is not much fun.  So I had that to deal with.  Then about 30 miles in me and 4 other people missed a turn and wound up going 5 miles out of the way.  Thankfully one of the guys I was riding with had GPS on his phone and we realized it before we hit the Oklahoma border.  So I’m back on track and making progress.  My legs are killing me but I’m clipping off the miles pretty good.  At about mile 75 another rider pulls up next to me and tells me my back tire is out of balance.  We stopped to take a look and I had broken a spoke.  Hence the above picture.  I made it to the next rest stop and a mechanic balanced my tire but he said I shouldn’t ride on it on Sunday.  So my MS 150 became the MS 85, or uh, 90.  But at least I crossed the finish line on Saturday!

Does this deter me?  Of course not!  I’ll be back out there next year, punishing myself again.  Be on the lookout for me asking for money again.

And to Josh, one of my many (by many I mean three) readers, it’s time for your prize!  You name it.

Allow myeslf to introduce…myself

Hey there world wide internet.  The internet?  They have that on computers now?  My name is Chris and if you want to read the crazy rantings of a 30 something/adolescent man then you’ve come to the right place.  I’ll use this platform to discuss all sorts of things including movies, music, cars, sports, my family, becoming a FATHER!!

And from time to time there will be guest writers on this site.  Lefty Punchdrunk is my music/movie correspondent and he probably hates whatever you’re watching/listening to.  Don’t blame him, he’s had a troubled life.  Claus Hagelman will pop in if I need to flee the country…or go grocery shopping.  And 4×4 John handles all things bowling/dangerous/crazy/rude and strange.  He’s basically me but the 4 wheel drive version.

PS. Most of my posts will probably have a Simpsons or random movie quote.  If you pick it out and give me the name of the movie or the episode of the Simpsons then you win a prize!*

*The prize will probably suck and you’ll probably never see it.  But sit by the mailbox just in case.

Hello world!

I’ve done it.  At the urging of my good friend Mr. Josh Kryzak (www.joshsworld.com) I now have my own blog.  More to follow…