Post #4171 J: False Traffic Charges; BEB Update

Working on Military Installations

Years back I worked a short-term gig on Quantico, VA. Yes, the capital of the USMC. To my surprise, I didn't have that much problems getting on base. I still had to drive several miles past the gate to get to the hall/building for my IT duties. Along the way I saw a number of Marines bearing weapons. I still have to chuckle when my new colleagues mentioned how my predecessor quit one day into the job; seeing a Marine with a rifle had  literally stressed her out. I'm not sure what she thought working on a military installation entailed. I once went to a hangar at a Florida AFB where a plane was sitting in an enclosed painted rectangle. There were printed warnings that unauthorized personnel who approached the aircraft would be shot without warning. Maybe because I grew up as an Air Force brat (not to mention a short career as a Navy officer who has honorably discharged), none of this stuff really fazed me.

I'm an excellent driver and have rarely been pulled over the years. (The last time I was pulled over was because my right-turn signal wasn't working.)  To date, I've never been pulled over for speeding. It's funny because I have a brother-in-law who lives in the Dallas suburbs; his mother and my folks at the time lived in San Antonio suburbs, pretty much a straight shot on IH-35. He's gotten so many speeding tickets to and from, it's ridiculous. Once they caught up to me at a rest stop, but when we left, his family SUV was our of my viewing range within 5 minutes. I once drove on I10E from El Paso through Ft. Worth (take my word--a long-ass drive and as soon as I hit the Ft. Worth, cars in adjacent lanes were zooming past like I was coasting, but I was driving the speed limit.

I've written this incident before, but it's a signature example. In 2001 I was negotiating with an east Indian immigrant owned government contractor for doing an Oracle Apps/EBS install in Austin, TX. The company president (a dishonest jerk for reasons beyond the scope of the example) had problems with the reference project in a Milwaukee suburb project; I think their project DBA left for Oracle Consulting; the 6-month fixed bid contract was behind schedule; the predecessor had done a trial upgrade that had at least 67 major issues. So he negotiated (in bad faith), a key point being they would only pay travel expenses for 1 month; they agreed to pay moving expenses, which they considered cheaper in the long run. (There's a long soap opera there; let's just say it took a long fight to get reimbursed.)  However, I wisely moved to the Chicago suburbs; they wanted me to move to Wisconsin, but they only had 1 client there, the current one. I still would have a one-way 83-mile commute.

I had to make arrangements for movers, car location servers, ending my California lease, flight arrangements, a 3-day weekend in CA to move out. When the company VP/co-founder, without warning, announced 2 days before my flight home, he had committed on my back to upgrade a new test instance by Aug. 1. (It later turned out there was no such contractual requirement.) Basically there was no feasible way for me to do this without cancelling my trip home. I was livid; I now had to cancel and replace arrangements--and it wasn't easy. My landlord already had signed up a new tenant.

I had another, more pressing issue. The county had a fair scheduled over the weekend, and the Best Western I had been staying at was booked solid. So were all the other area hotels I checked. I thought I had found a spot at a Travelodge near I94. I didn't notice the small print, including a warning that the reservation wasn't quaranteed. And I, buried in the middle of an upgrade never saw a late afternoon email canceling the reservation.

So at 10 PM, hungry (no dinner) and tired. I made it to the Travelodge and found myself in a line at the desk. Only to be told I didn't have a reservation The turnoff for 94E to Chicago had started with a lane meridian, meaning I would have to cross under the underpass and double back to the interstate.I came to the first intersection. There was no opposing traffic. Either I just didn't see or didn't notice a no U-turn sign. And this intersection was one block away from a police station. And guess who was seated at the intersection.

It wasn't until I was into the ramp to 94E that I realized the police car was following me and motioning me to pull over. At first, he was irate, thinking I was trying to escape him.  Then he blamed me for a U-turn violation. I'm not saying anything, but I'm thinking, "This is really a chickenshit charge, Never mind I never saw the sign; there was no opposing traffic." I pleaded for a warning, noting that I wasn't local to the area. So he continued playing the badass cop, saying if and when I next transgressed, we wouldn't just be talking tickets but my ass in jail. I spent the rest of the way driving like a Granny. I think I finally spotted a Holiday Inn Express near Kenosha.

So, a while back I was at an Army installation. Of all things, I ran into an issue emerging from a parking lot where the outlet merged with a side street. I paused before crossing a lane and taking a left. I KNOW I paused for a good second or two at minimum. . The street was completely deserted--apparently except for some police car in a side street.

So now I have a couple of military cops pull me over. When nobody emerged from the police car after several minutes, I thought maybe I had misinterpreted things and started pulling out, but this time the police car immediately responds. Keep in mind I have no clue why I was pulled over. Finally, the male cop gets out and reads me the riot act about restarting my car, dismissing my point over the long delay, and then wrote me a ticket for allegedly (and FALSELY accusing me of a rolling stop. I know what a rolling stop is; I was at a full stop before I entered the intersection. I'm not sure where the police car was, but it had to be blocks away from me.

It was just a chickenshit charge. Technically the burden of proof is supposed to be on them. But two lying cops outnumber one truthful driver. This is over and beyond the fact that the street was completely empty of traffic. But I'm not arguing the ticket simply because there was no traffic safety issue. I dispute it because the accusation was a lie..

The traffic ticket was for over $100. It was probably more trouble than it was worth to pay the unfair fine. It does seem after they screwed me over they put up more signs in the area. I simply avoided the exit in question in future driving in the area.

BEB Update

I've been tracking my old UH office mate, another PhD student who suffered multiple strokes just over a month back. As of my last update, Bruce Breeding was been moved from the ICU/hospital to a rehabilitation facility. I'm summarizing from (usually spouse) Susan's daily blog posts

Susan had been concerned by what she saw was a regression from Bruce's more communicative state a couple of weeks back. In addition, Bruce was having tolerance issues with his nutrition and other issues from his throat surgery.

More recently they had noticed some liquid discharges related to the skull flap from surgery to relieve pressure following the second, major stroke. This complication led to his readmission to the ICU/hospital. The "good news" is his flap related treatment seems to have restored Bruce's more active interaction with his visitors, and Susan saw some new movement on the weaker left side of his body, especially his left leg.

 I'm Beginning to Develop Trump Derangement Syndrome

I'm sure Trumpkins would tell you I've had it all along. And make no mistake: I've written hundreds, if not thousands of critical Trump tweets. But I've also sniped back on cheap shots at Trump, innumerable Russian conspiracy and especially the numerous "I remember when we had a REAL President (Obama)"texts. I especially detest the "concentration camp" rhetoric over detention centers.

But regular readers know that I'm especially fond of Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and Tom Massie. (There are a few others I sometimes add to the list, including Mike Lee.) Justin Amash after he wrote that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice has been largely ostracized by Republicans, even ally Massie saying that was a step too far from him. Amash had already left the Freedom Caucus he helped co-found after it voted to rebuke him.The Trumpkins already recruited a challenger for his House seat So I'm sure Amash had waited until yesterday (July 4) to symbolically leave the GOP. And Trump wrote another personal attack tweet on Amash., and I just snapped.

The second thing was a column suggesting the establishment GOP is also targeting to primary Massie for not being flexible enough to be Trump's bitch on key votes.

And then there are absurd gaffes which seem to suggest nobody's fact-checking  Trump's speeches, etc. One was when he declared tariffs were used to finance the interstate highway system. And then in the July 4 address, he claimed that American revolutionaries had secured (nonexistent) airports. I have less tolerance for this type of sloppy thinking.