To really screw things up requires a government agency.
On Saturday I received an official-looking letter in the mail. It was one of those envelopes with the carbon paper inside so the letter can be typed right thru the envelope, the things that businesses stopped using thirty or so years ago. At first I thought I'd been called for jury duty. It turned out to be a Failure-To-Appear notice on a parking ticket for a Fairly Small Town (FST for short) in New Jersey I don't think I've ever been to.
At this point I must offer a little aside. I work for a consulting company that processes parking tickets for a Very Big Municipality (VBM). I've worked there for nine years. VBM processes more parking tickets in one day than most NJ towns will see in a year. I can quote to you, from memory, the various ways a ticket can move thru our system, from issuance to payment, or judgment, or collection proceedings, or towing your car and auctioning it off, or hearings, or automatic dismissal, etc etc. I've forgotten more about parking tickets than most people will ever know.
So anyway, FST promises me dire consequences should I fail to pay the amount shown, those consequences including suspension of driving privileges, inability to register my vehicle, additional penalties added to the ticket, arrest, and being tied to a chair and forced to listen to Barry Manilow. They provide me with a web site where I can look at details of the ticket, and a phone number I can call on Mondays thru Fridays between the hours of 9 am and 4 pm. Being the technically savvy person I am, I fired up my home computer and checked out the web site. Hmmm, confusion, the ticket in question was left on the windshield of a Chevy. A quick look in the driveway confirms that the vehicle out there is a Jeep Liberty. It was such when purchased in 2006, it is now, one assumes it's always been a Jeep Liberty. Therefore, whoever wrote the ticket got the license plate wrong and, co-incidentally, wrote down my plate by mistake.
I need to make another little aside here, explaining via my vast store-house of information on how parking tickets are processed. The police officer, traffic-control officer, or whoever, who leaves a ticket on your windshield doesn't know who you are. He or she sees your car parked illegally and writes the ticket, keeping a copy for the official record. If you don't pay the ticket the town will contact the state Department of Motor Vehicles to find out (via your license plate) who owns the offending car, they then mail you a nasty letter telling you to pay your fine or Suffer The Consequences.
So, this is obviously not my car, I am not responsible for this ticket, and I can in good conscience plead not-guilty. First thing this morning (Monday) I call the supplied number, push a couple of buttons, and, surprise surprise, get a real live person on the phone. I tell her my plight and she tells me she needs to contact DMV for information on my car and to call back Wednesday (tomorrow being January 1, thus a holiday).
*blink blink*
I can go two possible ways at this point. I can call upon my extensive knowledge of the processing of parking tickets, point out that DMV has already been contacted (that's how they knew who to send the letter to), that if their system was at all sensible they'd have gotten my vehicle information at the same time as my personal information (more efficient since DMV charges for these contacts, so why contact them twice instead of once?), and that the ticket could and should be dismissed right now.
I'll call back on Wednesday.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Christmas Meme
MorningGlory at http://morningglory2.wordpress.com/blogroll-bios/ tagged me with the Christmas meme, so here goes:
1. Wrapping or gift bags? Usually wrapping paper, unless what I'm wrapping is really oddly shaped.
2. Real or artificial tree? Growing up we had artificial trees, since I've been married my wife and I get real trees.
3. When do you put up the tree? Growing up the tree went up the day after Thanksgiving. My wife and I go with friends the day (or weekend) after Thanksgiving to cut down our trees and we usually get them up (if not completely decorated) that weekend.
4. When do you take the tree down? Again, family tradition was that the tree stayed up until after my parents anniversary on January 7, my wife and I continue this tradition too. We get it down on whatever weekend we can, generally after 1/7.
5. Do you like eggnog? I LOVE the stuff! Strangly (given my mis-spent youth), I've never had egg nog with alcohol in it.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Toy trains (the beginning of a hobby that I still love).
7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes, I started out by buying the Fontanini Jesus/Mary/Joseph set, my wife added the manger, angels, animals, wise men, etc when we were dating.
8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't recall ever getting a BAD Christmas gift, there were years I didn't get ANY at all though (after my parents died, when I was single and unattached).
9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail (thanks to my wife, if it were up to me they'd probably never get sent)
10. Favorite Christmas movie? I've seen surprisingly few of the classic Christmas movies (It's a Wonderful Life, Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, etc, I don't think I've seen any of those all the way thru). Have to remedy that someday. I always loved the Peanuts Christmas Special, and I also like A Christmas Carol (I especially like George C. Scott as Scrooge).
11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually sometime after Thanksgiving, but seldom on Black Friday. I only buy for my wife so....
12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Chocolate Chip Cookies. On a related note, there's one cookie my Mom made that I really miss, she called them "Ice Box Cookies", they were slightly almond flavored. They were WONDERFUL when they were warm from the oven and excellent when fresh. After a few days they turned hard enough to use for hockey pucks (I'd say skeet targets, but I doubt they'd have broken) but still tasted good dunked in milk (me) or coffee (my parents). I also like Yule Kake (Norwegian for Christmas Cake), I pretty much managed to duplicate my Mom's recipe for this (she made it much less sweet than the traditional recipe). It's basically a sweet soda-bread with raisins.
13. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Either one, but colored lights should be kept inside the tree to make a colored glow and neither type should blink, flash, chase or otherwise give the impression of a carnival barker shouting "Hurry hurry hurry! Step right up and see the Baby Jesus! Thrill to the Virgin Birth!"
14. Favorite Christmas song? There are so many! Just a few of my favorites: "Carol of the Bells" (preferably played on handbells), "Do You Hear What I Hear?", "I Saw Three Ships", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". If I can be permitted another aside (and since this is my blog I can!), that last one appealed to me as a child. My father's name was Harold, and I thought that my Dad had the same name as an angel. Anyone who knew my Dad would be rolling on the floor laughing at THAT.
Now I'm supposed to tag someone else. One of these days I have get a meme BEFORE MorningGlory so I can tag her! Maybe I can get my wife to answer in comments.
1. Wrapping or gift bags? Usually wrapping paper, unless what I'm wrapping is really oddly shaped.
2. Real or artificial tree? Growing up we had artificial trees, since I've been married my wife and I get real trees.
3. When do you put up the tree? Growing up the tree went up the day after Thanksgiving. My wife and I go with friends the day (or weekend) after Thanksgiving to cut down our trees and we usually get them up (if not completely decorated) that weekend.
4. When do you take the tree down? Again, family tradition was that the tree stayed up until after my parents anniversary on January 7, my wife and I continue this tradition too. We get it down on whatever weekend we can, generally after 1/7.
5. Do you like eggnog? I LOVE the stuff! Strangly (given my mis-spent youth), I've never had egg nog with alcohol in it.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Toy trains (the beginning of a hobby that I still love).
7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yes, I started out by buying the Fontanini Jesus/Mary/Joseph set, my wife added the manger, angels, animals, wise men, etc when we were dating.
8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't recall ever getting a BAD Christmas gift, there were years I didn't get ANY at all though (after my parents died, when I was single and unattached).
9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail (thanks to my wife, if it were up to me they'd probably never get sent)
10. Favorite Christmas movie? I've seen surprisingly few of the classic Christmas movies (It's a Wonderful Life, Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, etc, I don't think I've seen any of those all the way thru). Have to remedy that someday. I always loved the Peanuts Christmas Special, and I also like A Christmas Carol (I especially like George C. Scott as Scrooge).
11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually sometime after Thanksgiving, but seldom on Black Friday. I only buy for my wife so....
12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Chocolate Chip Cookies. On a related note, there's one cookie my Mom made that I really miss, she called them "Ice Box Cookies", they were slightly almond flavored. They were WONDERFUL when they were warm from the oven and excellent when fresh. After a few days they turned hard enough to use for hockey pucks (I'd say skeet targets, but I doubt they'd have broken) but still tasted good dunked in milk (me) or coffee (my parents). I also like Yule Kake (Norwegian for Christmas Cake), I pretty much managed to duplicate my Mom's recipe for this (she made it much less sweet than the traditional recipe). It's basically a sweet soda-bread with raisins.
13. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Either one, but colored lights should be kept inside the tree to make a colored glow and neither type should blink, flash, chase or otherwise give the impression of a carnival barker shouting "Hurry hurry hurry! Step right up and see the Baby Jesus! Thrill to the Virgin Birth!"
14. Favorite Christmas song? There are so many! Just a few of my favorites: "Carol of the Bells" (preferably played on handbells), "Do You Hear What I Hear?", "I Saw Three Ships", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". If I can be permitted another aside (and since this is my blog I can!), that last one appealed to me as a child. My father's name was Harold, and I thought that my Dad had the same name as an angel. Anyone who knew my Dad would be rolling on the floor laughing at THAT.
Now I'm supposed to tag someone else. One of these days I have get a meme BEFORE MorningGlory so I can tag her! Maybe I can get my wife to answer in comments.
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