August 14, 2006
By the way, the Angry Young Man, referred to in yesterday's post is in the upper right corner of the sketches. He had his sunglasses titled up on his head. Notice the angry muscles in his neck tightened beyond good health. He also twitched a lot.

Also, The Know-It-All (he sat to my right and I couldn't sketch him without turning sideways and blowing my cover) claimed they have 120 days to serve you, or the radar ticket expires (two people I'm related to have received photo radar tickets and, so far, have successfully avoided paying them). He has been ducking these tickets for months (remember, he said he had enough tickets to start a photo radar photo album) when he got served at 90 days on his last one. He claimed they finally started cracking down and hired more process servers. I'm not sure what happened to all the other tickets when that happens (I know if I tried it I would be thrown in jail, but that's my Lutheran guilt talking), but he sure knew a bunch about tickets and how to avoid them.

Of course everyone wants to wait until the class gets going good, then duck out, but they have had years to perfect all the usual high school escape plots. Roll is called at the beginning of the class, after each break (half hour lunch) and at the very end of the class, then they give you your graduation paper, and unless you have that you don't get credit. So everyone painfully waits until the the last chapter is covered (there are 5) and the last video plays (ditto) and the instructor pronounces us cured.

For what it's worth I drove home slower. I was popped for the ticket on Scottsdale Road, just north of the 101, heading south to meet Deena and Kathy for a movie at the Cine Capri. I was late and doing 57 in a 45. It was a roving van with photo radar that they move around the city and park at trouble spots. Most Phoenicians know where the permanent sites are on the 101 and you will too because of all the brake lights going on. It ends up being like a yellow flag at a NASCAR race, with cars slowing permanently and then gunning towards the straightaway at full throttle. Cars have been clocked at 115 and several infamous residents have amassed 60 and 70 tickets, some caught playing trumpets, brushing their teeth and reading! I'm not making this up. They had a photo of the guy playing the trumpet, going through a red light today in the paper.

By my math, we each paid $124 (the ticket was $147) and there were 60 of us in class, and we had some ten classes to pick from, and Mr. Know-It-All claimed the instructor got $125 for the session, so I'd say the city of Scottsdale has a money maker.

Well, I'm late and need to speed into the office.

"Today everything is done by machinery, except gestures, which are still being made by hand."
—Old Vaquero Saying