good day, ticket update

What a beautiful morning we had this morning. The birdsong was outdoing the sun, which was outdoing the crisp spring weather, which was outdoing the relative stillness we call home in the pocket of this subdivision which is in a small pocket in the corner of the vast expanse of the otherwise bustling city of Houston. Sure, I was racing off to work, but how nice it is that the morning commute to work is 4-7 minutes and involves only one left turn on busy roads.

The math problem for the day is this, and if you are used to driving in Houston, you might get this one: My commute to work takes 4-7 minutes. My commute home from work is twice the distance, but also takes only 4-7 minutes. Each commute is the shortest legal driving route. Explain.

I taught a conversation class today. I don't teach it every day, so when I do have it, it is a little bit of fresh air for me, and for the students, since we all get to do something we don't usually get to do. They told me how they like when I lead the class. Teachers like to hear that sort of thing. Also I'm seeing my regular students improve. Teachers like to see their students grow.

But I won't kid you. One of the best parts of the day came when I called the Henderson Mayor's Court to discuss my speeding ticket. Yes, slow me got a speeding ticket racing back to our bustling city from Louisiana in January. I was speeding 73 in a 60 on I-10, coming off the bridge, and so I was easy pickings. An old hat in years past at mitigating tickets and cleaning up my driving record, of course I wanted to appear in court and take care of this ticket. But it turns out the court date is a Wednesday, the place is four hours from Houston, and it is the Wednesday that is the day before the day before our final exam for this term, so there's no nice way for me to miss out on that day. Driving there in the wee hours, and driving back in the afternoon is an option, but please note that on either side of that Wednesday, I will also be driving to Louisiana twice. The hours add up, so you might understand why I was interested in checking out the legal services available which might help me in taking care of that ticket.

I found that for a fee of $200, I could retain a lawyer to represent me, even to go so far as to say that he would make sure I don't have a moving violation. Of course, the old hat I am, I was adding up a fine for a non-moving violation with the lawyer fee, and realizing that financially, it wasn't going to make sense unless the speeding ticket was $200 or more. I was pretty sure that the non-moving violation fine would be around $100, and I knew that $300 was more than any penalty I'd see immediately from an insurance standpoint. I also recognize that I'm not the type like I used to be, and that I could probably expect to go another couple or three years without getting pulled over, and I, in my way, considered these things, along with the recognition of my pride for having a nice and clean driving record for the past 35 months. (The 35 months previous to those I had 4 or 5 citations.).

Anyway, before I could retain the lawyer, I realized that I needed to call and get the exact ticket cost in order to finally weigh the pros and cons. Bonnie and I joked about it being $150 because I told her if the ticket were only $100 I would just pay it, and if it were $200 I would just pay the lawyer. So of course, when I called the Henderson Mayor's Court, they explained that the fine was, indeed, $150. But then, of all things, when I inquired more about the non-moving violation, the clerk explained that if I paid before the due-date, they make sure it does not go on my record. Now, it sounds a little fishy, so of course I googled it. It looks like there might be a simple online course ($40) I might have to take--and I'll call and get all the details, but I am pretty stoked that I will pay less than $200 total, and still keep the dang infraction from my record.

Other good things happened today. But unless I get off of here and get on the Wii and check out my body test for the day, I'm not going to be able to put a virtual stamp on the virtual calendar to mark my virtual progress.

Thanks for reading.