Not Guilty

After a long, tiring, but blast of a weekend at a wedding in Milwaukee this past weekend, I had to be up and wide awake for a court trial at 8am this morning.  For a glance back at the last time I was in court, see this old post - it's a goody.


Flashback: Almost two months ago, I was pulled over for speeding.  The officer claimed I was going 70 in a 55. I could swear I was going a shade over 60.  Admittedly, that is still speeding, but I knew that police in this area had been recently trained on eyeing speed without using actual radar.  Knowing that, if that was the case in this situation, that kind of evidence wouldn't hold up in court. This was a good ticket to fight, even though it was only a $30 ticket.


I showed up to my arraignment back in August and plead "Not Guilty" and was assigned a court date.  It was during a time that I work so I called to have it changed and of course they moved it to the morning right after I would be traveling back from a wedding.  Oh well.    


That all brings us to this morning.  I got up early, went through my morning routine, and then sat down to write down the thoughts I'd been collecting regarding how I would question the police officer in court.  


The proceedings are such that my side of the case would be presented in the form of questions directed at the officer.  After consulting with Leni's aunt, an experienced court translator who has seen lots of these cases, and a little bit of online research, I went into court ready to ask these questions:

1. When you clocked me, were you driving your vehicle or were you parked? (He was driving)
2. Does using radar from a moving vehicle compromise accuracy of what vehicle is being clocked, as compared to being parked?
3. Was I driving alone or were there other vehicles around me? (I was in a pack of cars)
4. Is there a possibility that you inadvertently clocked another driver?
5. When you pulled me over, did I ask to see the radar? (I did)
6. What was your response to that? (He refused to show it to me)
7. When had the radar equipment last been calibrated? (Next question asked only if he did not know the answer or if it had been quite some time)
8. Is it possible then that the radar gave an inaccurate reading at the time you pulled me over?

As I said before, I was geared up for a fight.  I was naturally nervous but also excited to fight for myself.  I wasn't concerned about the measly amount of the fine but wanted to do all in my power to prevent the citation from being reported to my insurance company.

In the end, the officer never showed up and my case was completely dismissed.  Part of me had been hoping for this outcome but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I also had really wanted the opportunity to face the cop and get the chance to question him.  I was looking forward to the hopeful chance of having the experience of being found "Not Guilty", followed by shooting him an annoying "you suck and I win" smile from across the court room.  But oh well....in any event, I'm keeping my money and my auto insurance company will never know a thing.  Mission accomplished.

Stay tuned when this weekend, Leni will mow our new lawn and I'll actually take some pics and post the sequel to my most recent post, Landscaping Part I.  Sorry about the month long delay between posts.  I don't have an excuse.  Just didn't happen to get anything up.  My bad.

Keep It Real!

Landscaping, Part I

Meet my yard:

It seems generous to call it a yard.  "Dirt lot" would probably be more appropriate.  Leni once had grand plans about the stages in which he wanted to landscape the dirt lot including bushes, redoing parts of the terrace, steps and walkways, and finally.....grass.

Since the snow melt, however, I've had different thoughts.  Every time the dogs go into the backyard, they wrestle and roll around and bring in TONS of dirt and dust.  By the beginning of summer, I was just plain SICK of it.  So we decided (read: I decided) to plant grass on the lowest, largest level of the yard this year so that the dust-in-the-house issue wouldn't be such a problem next spring.

After researching what grass to plant and how to do it, we chose the end of the summer to do the project, hoping that the monsoon rains would aid in the watering process that germination requires.

So we broke the project into two weekends.  Last weekend,  we hauled and tilled more than two and a half tons of compost into the yard.

Moving from the truck, up the steep front yard, and into the back.

Spreading the compost out.

 

8 HP tiller!

Weekend 1: done!

Next came this weekend.  Just one day's worth of work this time instead of two.  The plan was to install some edging, actually plant the grass, and then cover it with straw to protect it while it germinates.

Installing the edging

Edging doesn't want to be straight....wonder why

Putting down 20 lbs of grass seed

Seed now covered with 5 huge bales of straw
Chicken wire fence keeping the poor dogs off

So there you have it.  The seeds are being heavily watered as I type this and the copious amounts of water will continue for several weeks.  We should start to see little blades coming up in about 2 weeks, or so we're told.  Time will tell!

Stay tuned for the eventual Part II post, hopefully with pictures of green grass!

Keep it Real!

Trip Report: Handies Peak

As the last hurrah of summer 2011, we planned a trip up to Colorado this past weekend to get into some cooler air and beautiful scenery.  Oh yeah...we were going to attempt to summit our third 14er too :)


Accompanying us on this trip were my brother and sister, Nick and Claire, as well as one of Leni's co-workers, Rob.


Nick, Claire, Leni and I left Los Alamos together early on Friday morning.  We made the drive up to the last city before the road to the trailhead, Lake City.  This is a delightful, small mountain community built upon a historical 19th century mining boom.

If you ever go to Lake City, you MUST go to the restaurant pictured above.  Three words: pulled pork nachos.  I would trade an average to better-than-average friend for these.


After hanging out in the city for a while, it was time to begin the journey up the 20 mile road to the trailhead.  The first 12 miles were smooth sailing driving.  The website that gave details concerning the road had called this a "rough 2WD road".  We were braving this in our 1988 Toyota Corolla and Nick and Claire were in their much newer Pontiac Vibe.  This was no problem when the road went from pavement to packed dirt and when it transitioned to gravel and rocks, it was okay at first.  But the rocks started getting bigger and closer together and it became a pretty stressful drive.  Here's some video of Leni getting Nick and Claire's car over a particularly rough spot.





We all made it up and over but not without some scraping, some bottoming out, and almost getting high-centered.  If I were authoring that website, I would have labeled the road as "High Clearance Only".


We found a parking spot about a mile below the actual trailhead.  The views were really breath-taking.

Not too long after we arrived, Rob arrived too.  It was dinner time.  Rob's dinner cracked me up.

The morning came quickly and we got up, ate, packed our daypacks, and were off!  

Virtually all of the trail is through fields of wild flowers.  The word on the street is that the peak season for viewing these blooming beauties is the last week in July and the first week and August...perfect!

Not too far up the trail, we happened upon this waterfall.  I hadn't seen pictures of it or read about it in online trip reports so it was a nice surprise.

This was Nick and Claire's first 14er so it was nice that the trail was relatively easy.  I say relatively because there's really no such thing as an "easy" 14er.  But the nice thing was the steep parts weren't too long and they were usually routed with switchbacks.  That said, it was still challenging.

Nick, Claire and Dottie

Rob plowing ahead with our pooches

Leni and the dogs with the peaks that watched over us all day

At about 12,800 feet in elevation and about 2.5 to 3 miles in, we came upon a clear lake called Sloan Lake.  The online pictures of it were good but didn't do it near enough justice.  It was a perfect place for a snack break.

We kept going.  The trail was well-defined and we were moving at a good pace, given the varying levels of experience in the crowd.  A bit above the lake and we came upon a scree field crossing followed by some of the steeper switchbacks of the climb.

From the saddle, the summit was looking pretty close.  The trail was generally steep but that was compounded by the gravel that covered it.  It was exhausting because the gravel caused us to lose footing and sometimes slide back a bit.  This was the toughest spot for me.

Here are some summit shots:

Looking southwest back to Sloan Lake

Looking east into Grizzly Gulch, home to another route that summits Handies

Rob, Leni and the dogs were waiting for me when I got to the summit

Nick, Claire and Dottie arrived not too long after me

Me and the dogs enjoying the long rest on the summit

The Moores with Sloan Lake in the background

The Moores and Porters

It was time for the journey down.  That gravel just below the summit was hell and I slid out a little.  Before too long, we were back down to the lake where we had another snack and pumped some water.  Just below the lake, we ran into a couple making their way up the trail with their two goats.  Awesome.

When we got back down to the waterfall, we left Nick and Claire there, as Claire wanted to do a little water color painting of it.  Rob, Leni and I pushed on the final stretch to camp.  My feet were very tired and wanted badly to get out of my hiking boots.  I settled down for a little nap and when I woke up, Nick and Claire were back and it was time to start dinner.

The next day, we started the dreaded drive back down the awful road.  Things were much easier going down than coming up, a major godsend.  We stopped for lunch in Pagosa Springs and then made our way home from there.

It was another good trip to summit a 14er.  We are SO blessed that we've always had good weather for these trips.  I read trip reports all the time about people making big trips to CO only to have their bid for the summit destroyed by storms.  Here's hoping for similar blessings in the future!

Keep It Real!

Wrong Number

We've all gotten  calls on our phones that were wrong numbers.  It happens here and there.  

What happens less frequently, however, is the wrong number text.  I've gotten them once or twice before.  This past weekend, I got one from an unknown number that read as follows:

Unknown Texter: Hey girl...let's hang out around 1? Is that too late?

I had no idea who it was, nor did I have any idea if 1:00 was too late.  AM?  PM?  

Under normal circumstances, I would just text back letting them know that it was a wrong number and get on with my day.  But on this day, I just felt like kidding around.  So I texted something different back:

Me: Sure, where?

Unknown Texter: Cottonwood

Me: Cool okay

And that was it.  I was hoping that when 1:00 rolled around, I'd get a text from this person asking where I was but I never heard from them again.  Bummer.  

It was worth a try and still did provide a little entertainment.

Keep It Real!

Still Hiking?

The answer is yes.  For those of you wondering, I do still get out on the trails here in Los Alamos, despite the fact that I haven't reported any new mileage in months at the bottom of my blog posts as I used to.


As the winter came this past year, I started hitting new trails less and less because all of the trails I needed to bag were not close to my house.  Accessing them meant getting in the car and driving.  Because it was winter, the ground was muddy and snowy and that meant that the dogs were tracking all kinds of goo and nast into whatever vehicle I took.  


So for the last few months, we've stuck to the trails here in the neighborhood.  Today, I felt the urge to try a new trail and since it definitely isn't wet around here (please Lord, send rain!) we hopped in the car and shot down to pick up a short but lovely trail a couple miles away off Barranca Mesa.  It was a nice jaunt but it was HOT and provided little respite shade.  Look how worn out my pups were:

So I think I'm going to hold off a little longer yet.  It won't be long before we start getting some cooler Fall temperatures that will make some of the long hikes we have left on the list more comfortable for all of us.  


Keep It Real!


P.S. Los Alamos Trails Goal Update: 18.8 out of 29.5 miles completed.  18 trails down, 7 to go!

A Fallen Hero

Last weekend, I learned of the death of a young man from the small town in Washington, Colville, where I lived during a lot of my "growing up" years (age 9-16).


Sergeant First Class Wyatt Goldsmith, age 28, was on his third tour in Afghanistan when he was killed during a rocket-propelled grenade attack on his unit a little more than a week ago.  His remains were honorably transferred to his family yesterday and the largest funeral the town has seen in quite some time will occur this coming Tuesday.


Wyatt and his family moved to Colville in the later years of our time there and we only overlapped for about 2 or 3 years.  He was one of the few kids around my age that went to our church.  We once played in a brass quartet together during a Christmas Eve service.  On a couple occasions, he was a ski buddy on the slopes in the winter.  


Though our paths crossed often during those few years, I have to admit that I don't recall having thought about him at all in the last decade of my life.  Once we moved away, he wasn't someone with whom I kept in touch and his memory seemingly faded in my mind.


That all changed last weekend when I learned of his passing on Facebook.  Upon seeing his name just once, my memory was instantly tapped and I remembered everything.  Seeing his name flash across the screen so many times in the last week in other people's statuses or in news reports has been so sad but amazing at the same time.  Witnessing how that small community (just shy of 5,000 in population) has gathered around the Goldsmith family and each other is beautiful.  In that town, small children are being taught what a true American hero is, one of the last of many priceless gifts Wyatt gave his community and his nation.


Below is a short news clip about Wyatt and his hometown that loves him so much:





Thank you, Wyatt, for your sacrifice.  Rest in peace.


Keep It Real

A Disproportionate Response

Caution: The contents of this post contain insinuation to crude, volatile language.  Read on at your own risk.


So we all know I'm a big jerk that likes to tell people what to do, right?  Right.  Keep that in mind and we'll come back to it.


I have mentioned before that I am a Craigslist fan.  Sometimes I'm searching for stuff in particular.  For example, Leni would like a good extension ladder right now and I'm keeping my eye out for one.  In addition to searching for specific items, I also just like to know what people are trying to sell in my town.  So I'll often go on and just check the ads that have "Los Alamos" in them to see what's around town.


In performing this process, I am constantly coming across the same ad.  The guy has been reposting (read: overposting) it every couple days since the winter months and I was SICK of reading it.  It was an ad for a Bluray DVD of the incredibly disturbing movie, Let Me In.  It was being sold in Albuquerque but had the name "Los Alamos" in the ad because a lot of it was filmed here exactly when we moved to Los Alamos in December of 2009.


So back to me being a jerk.  After seeing this ad for the umpteenth time, I decided that it was my nosey responsibility to tell this guy what I thought.  I knew I shouldn't do it.  But I had to.  Partially because I wanted him to hear some "truth" and perhaps mostly to see what his response would be.  


That response, as it turned out, did not disappoint in the least.  This guy had a temper that could win contests and a mouth to go with it!  Below is the transcript of the emails we bounced back and forth for a couple hours.  My text is in purple, and his is in green.  I have taken some liberties to minimize the effect of his colorful language.

If you have an ad up for several months and don't sell it, it either means that no one wants it at that price or that no one wants it at all.  Truth be told, very few people do blue ray, so that's not in your favor.  Secondly, I could get this exact movie on blue ray, brand new and not from someone who says it is brand new, for a dollar less on Amazon.  Nothing ever sells on Craigslist for anything near what it goes for in real life as a new product.

So please do yourself and the rest of us (who are sick of seeing the ad) a favor and either drop the price dramatically or quit running the ad altogether.

MIND YOUR OWN F**KING BUSINESS MOTHERF**KER!

 

I reported you to Craigslist for abuse of the flagging feature.

My ad didnt violate any rules in craigslist. It was only 1 ad.

And who gives a sh!t how long I've had it for sale in Craigslist.

Oh wow! You can get it for $1 less? BIG DEAL You cheap piece of sh!t!

 

If you don't like my ad DON'T F**KING OPEN IT YOU F**KING STUPID D#####BAG!

(DANG!  I was more amused than I was offended and wanted to shoot him another simple message back, just to see how much more ridiculous he could get.)

Wow. Do you kiss your mom with that mouth?

I DON'T HAVE A MOM, ME AND MY BUDDIES SHARE YOURS YOU F!!KING C$NT!  F!!K

 

OFF! YOU LOS ALAMOS SH!TBAG!!

I tried one more time to get him after this but I think he caught on because I never heard back.  It's probably for the best because I think I'd already seen his worst.  I know I shouldn't have messaged him in the first place but I was just shocked and appalled at the level of insanity to which he took it.  

I hope that he is less intense in real life to the legit people around him.  Someone should wash his mouth out with soap.

Keep It Real!