Year: 2004

Student: How did my garage get so messy?

Master: You horde instead of share.

Student: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Master: Bad things happen to all people. Good things also happen to all people.

Sarah has a lock-in at the school. I went to pick her up at midnight and noted a police officer speed trapping (a practice I feel is a waste of tax payer’s money–follow anyone long enough and they are going to do something wrong). I pick up Sarah and we are having great father/daughter chat, laughs and good quality time. Turn on the blue lights to ruin the mood. Oh. Sarah is in the front seat which is a no-no at her age and she says, “Should I move?” to which I said, “no” of course. Officer comes to the car and explains that I ran a 4-way stop. It’s after midnight and the stop sign he is referring to is on a two lane road. No other cars around. He says I slowed but did not stop which I may have did a rolling stop but I put no one in harms way because there were no cars on the road! I am a victom of some young punk cop trying to fill a quota. I wouldn’t be so upset about it if I didn’t feel completely victomized.

Here’s the rub. It’s only a $15 ticket. BUT there are $83.50 pre-court charges so the total comes to $98.50. That’s the hundred dollars I needed to fix the dryer. I don’t exactly have money to be pissing away on some cop trying to make big numbers. It gets worse. TN has a point system. If you lose 12 points off your license then your license can be revoked. This fool stop sign is worth 4 points! If I am going to lose a third of the points off my license I want to be racing to some meeting that I’m late to and blatantly run some red light at a major intersection!

I am a good driver. I’m alert and have great reflexes. I drive a little fast but mostly obey all other laws (Sarah in the front seat is where I fudge). I pull over for emergency vehicles while watching others just stop in the road. I see moronic behavior go up punished on the road while I am reamed for a traffic violation at a time of night when all the rules should change anyway.

I was in such a good mood. Sarah and I were having such good talk. Cathy and I were planning on lounging in bed and sharing laughs. This moron that didn’t have the decency to let me off with a warning (which is what post-midnight at that intersection should have been) had nothing but negative effects on me. He did not make me a better or more cautious driver as I spent most of my day lead footing it in anger. I drove distracted as I kept fretting over and over the situation. My productivity today was killed because I had no energy and lost all cares and couldn’t get my mind off of how to handle this. I decided no longer to freely volunteer any time to Knoxville. That means no more free juggling shows no matter how good the cause. There was no positive to come from this but to pad the KPDs budget.

So, what do I do? On Monday do I requistion the squard car’s video tape to see how badly I did or did not run the sign? Or does that preserve evidence that otherwise would be discarded? Do I just pay the fine and watch my insurance rates go through the roof? Do I go to court and if I do what do I plead? Guilty? Not Guilty? No content? The sick thing here is even if I was innocent it still would cost me $200 or more to prove it. The police could randomly hand out false tickets and make a profit.

Why wasn’t this twit out making our city safer instead of harassing good people?

Amy just came up to me asking for a “Hambone.” Took me a minute. She wanted a hairbow. Hair bows are pretty serious. It means that Amy is very happy. She takes them out when she is not happy. The picking of the hair bow is critical. Although her drawer contains more than a dozen she gets it in her mind that a particular bow is the one to wear and she will dig and dig and search and search until she finds just the right one. It is really a fun activity.

two dryers, Jeep exhaust system (could be manifold, muffler and/or catalytic converter), car tie rods (possibly cv joints), car tire, garage door, air conditioner, Sarah’s scooter, Tommy’s scooter, yard, dog’s bladder, kitchen cabinets, driveway, Noah’s ant farm, all computers, drywall, downstairs bathroom, upstairs bathroom flooring, upstairs bathroom caulk, Tommy’s bed, wood floors, Tommy’s bicycle, Sarah’s bicycle, Noah’s bicycle, DVD player, my office, fire extinguisher

My spirit.

Yesterday I was high on life. Everything looked like it was going well and going to come together. Today I hate where I live, how I live and why I live.

I have a charitable event that I do on Friday Oct 8th. That ends my community support for this shit town. I understand why everyone hates Knoxville after 2 decades. I came here for college and tried to help my friends that grew up here understand that this is a great community but inevitably after 2 decades everyone gets fed up and leaves. Once retired, people come back. It’s a good place to retire because then you probably have less than 2 decades in you and can put up with the crap until you die.

I’ve had my two decades of this place. I give up!

I feel so beat down that I don’t have words. How many kicks does this dog have to take?

Not being able to blog while I work except by cell phone is cramping my style!

Today was a huge deadline. Got a week extension so my stressed dropped hugely. I’m real focused right now.

Noah had a great soccer practice. I really like this new league we are in. Amy rolled in a pile of sand as if she was at the beach. Tommy joined her. They are frequently at the same mentality.

Time to catch my breath and eat something.

I’ve seen some of you talk about how wonderful your spouses are and I bet they are pretty good but mine is the best!

A decade ago or more I had 3 bank accounts. One at a traditional large full service bank which held my main checking account. One at a credit union which had a savings account and my car loan. The final at a local bank which kept my money in a passbook savings account meaning that the only way I could get the money was to walk into the bank during their limited hours.

It was a effective money management scheme when I hard a regular check that was directly deposited. The strategy was that the credit union had the amount of the car payment plus a little extra automatically deposited from my paycheck. The credit union would then automatically pay the card payment leaving the extra in the account. This extra built up quickly and became an occasion extra car payment or emergency money. As a savings account it also earned some interest.

Next, $25 per paycheck was automatically put into the passbook savings (things could go in but I had to visit the bank to get it out). Sometimes I’d put extra. This added up incredibly fast since I never looked at it and it earned a decent rate of interest which was fun to watch grow. This became mad money or emergency money.

Finally, the remainder would go into my checking account (also interest bearing) which was set up to autodraft all the utility bills and some others. This was bill paying money and what remained was used for living expenses and some luxury.

Well, a few years ago the credit union sent a check for $8.75 saying “Due to inactivity your account is closed.” That was fine. One less thing on my mind.

I’ve been wanting to recover the passbook account but can’t find the book. I think about it every few weeks and have for the past 2 years or so. Today I finally stepped into a branch and asked if the account was still alive. They said after 3 years of inactivity they start billing $2 per month until the money goes away. I think I like the credit union’s approach better. Certainly puts a damper on these movies (like Futurama) that base a character’s wealth on some loose change that earns interest over several hundred or thousand years.

It is comforting to know it is gone. I have simplified. I can quit looking for that passbook. And I have one less reason to schedule a stop in my day.