Archive for November, 2002
refinance the house

We went to the bank yesterday to sign all the papers to refinance the house. Looks like we’ll be paying less per month and paying the thing off a few years earlier than with the old plan. The thing that kind of bothers me though is that everyone at the bank is about 15 years old. the little girl handling our deal was so nervous and knew so little about everything that I kept thinking that it was all a big scam and they would fold up the building and run to Mexico as soon as we left.
The other weird thing is that at this bank “the tellers have no cash”. Apparently all the dollars are dispensed by machine even if the transaction is handled by a human. Now, a teller having no cash is odd enough, but the thing that even makes one notice this is that the teller’s stations are little bar-height desks sitting out in the big-middle of the room. So a customer could just walk up to a teller’s station and play with the computer, check out the drawers or whatever. Those people are thinking outside the box. They also have a play area for the children. The best thing about this bank, though, is that it’s right next to Jamba Juice!
But anyway as I was signing those hundreds of papers we came to the one where I swear that there are no liens or actions against the property and I read it carefully, making sure that Art hadn’t screwed the deal for me, and I started thinking that my mortgage lender does have some interest in my property, so I asked the girl if I would be allowed to give away part of my property if I wanted to. The girl went, once again, to check with the man behind the curtain and returned with the answer I expected: “Hell no.”
If you haven’t been keeping up with the fence deal, I’ll just sum it up by saying that the city wants me to give them my driveway. So here I’m stymied, once again, in my quest to acquiesce to the local government.

My lovely daughter turns four

My lovely daughter turns four today. Mrs. Mick got her a big-girl bed so I wouldn’t notice how big she is, but it didn’t work. Anyway I expect to have the whole family over for a big shindig later. Stop by.

I made a little thing that displays the archives of this site in a cal(1) format. Not really any more useful than any other format, but it does give a depressing display of just what a slacker I am. I can also vgrep it for distressing patterns of inactivity.
I also added a couple of entries to the “Elsewhere” box on the right, and since I’m on the subject I should say that the “Elsewhere” box just contains links to the web sites of people I know, or kind of know, or passed in the street one time (I don’t even know Linus, I just like his site). I’d like to have links to the sites of everyone I know that has a site of some sort. If I’m missing you please tell me.

Update: I changed the aforementioned calendar view thingy to display the months in reverse order. Makes more sense to me that way. I think.

I also was thinking that tomorrow Baby will be eligible to ride in the car without her approved safety seat. I can’t really decide about that thing, it never has really given me a warm feeling. I like the anti-submarine belt, and I like the extra layer of side protection; but the way it attaches doesn’t engender confidence. I suppose without it she wouldn’t be able to see out the window though and that seems a little cruel. I wonder if Schroth makes a pint-sized five-point for back seat fitment.

Rosa Parks

Fence Update: For those new to the story, the background is here. About three weeks ago we heard through the grapevine that the city council had voted to pursue stealing my driveway through legal means. Until today I hadn’t heard anything else about it, but our secret mole came by this morning and said that the city was now planning on offering to buy it. Then, this afternoon the city’s attorney called me. The city’s attorney, I’ll call him “Art” (’cause that’s his name), informed me that the council had voted and charged him with appropriating my driveway by any means necessary. Art said he was just calling to give me another chance to resolve this matter without litigation. I inquired as to his proposition and Art just said I should dedicate it to the city and figure out how to work it out with the county myself. Maybe if I show them the dedication they’ll take it off my taxes.
I didn’t immediately jump at this amazing offer, but told him I would consider it. I didn’t say much else because I know this about myself: I can keep my temper pretty well if I keep my mouth shut. Art then informed me that if he doesn’t hear from me by Friday afternoon he’ll “file a petition” to have my driveway opened to the public. Okay, in all fairness he called it “the road”, but I knew what he was talking about. Art said that he had someone “ready to serve me” (sounds ominous, huh?), and it was just a matter of filing the petition. Art then changed the ultimatum to Friday noon. High noon.
Let me pause here to lay out my situation as succinctly as I can. My house is bordered on the West by the church parking lot and on the East by my driveway (this is “the road” in question). To the North is Loop 332 and to the south is a smaller road called Church Hill Lane. My driveway is one of four passages from 332 to Church Hill Lane. Church Hill Lane is about 200 yards long. Except that my driveway is no longer a passage to Church Hill Lane, because I put a fence at each end.
“Why”, you may ask, “did I put a fence at each end?” Well, for a few reasons. One is that almost no one ever used this when it was open so I figured the impact would be negligible (It’s not like I’m causing a giant grid-lock situation in downtown Liberty Hill). Second, my insurance man says that I’m covered if someone runs over a kid or gets hit by a meteor or whatever on this attractive nuisance I have out there. But, of course, only up to a certain point where some litigant will get my house, cars and children. The other thing is that I plan to build a garage in that area and I’d like for people to get used to the idea of not driving 100 miles per hour there before I have a concrete crew pouring a slab.
So, this is the thing I really want to say: Am I missing something here? I’ve read what I believe to be the right cases and I don’t see how they have a complaint. Art said that he felt that the city had an “easement by prescription”, but the only cases I’ve seen that make that argument are when some guy can’t get to his house because the Barron that owns all the land around the guy gets mad and denies him access. I only inquired at the county before I closed my driveway because I thought the county might have paved it and may have had some claim to its use somehow. I can only assume that the previous owner paid to have this driveway paved because I know our fine County Commissioner wouldn’t pave a driveway for someone as a favor even if that person owned a newspaper. But I do know that there is no one at the county that will admit to paving it, or even that it exists.
Now, here’s my other question: If the city thinks that my driveway is a public road because people have been driving on it for some number of years then I would submit that my driveway is only a road on Sunday morning and Wednesday night. Counting in my estimate only those people traveling between Loop 332 and Church Hill Lane and passing directly next to my house I would say that, before I closed my driveway, the church parking lot was chosen by drivers maybe 100 times more often than my driveway. Does this mean that the city is going to start towing cars for blocking the roadway during services?
This little slice of my yard isn’t worth much, but I’m afraid I’m letting it bother me that the local yellow rag runs me through the mud every week (never taken the time to ask me a question by the way, just slinging the mud (and no, I’m not talking about the Independent, those are fine Americans)) or that my neighbor goes to city council meetings and beseeches them to sue me because he thinks my driveway being closed is hurting his property value (I’d recommend an Introductio
n to Liberty
, but I figure a guy who lives in America should already know how odious that is). I’m sure it would be easier and cheaper to give them my driveway, (and I’m pretty sure I’m about the only person inconvenienced by not being able to drive on it) but I guess it would’ve been easier for Rosa Parks to just get another seat. (Yes, I’m comparing myself to Rosa Parks, and no I don’t care for your opinion on it right now)
I’m always open to free legal advice or a clue as to what I’m missing or soothing talk of capitulation. No Rosa Parks discussions, you know what I meant.

RFC: Family Violence

RFC: Family Violence.
Here’s the situation: I go to a family disturbance the other day and I first come in contact with the victim, I’ll call her “Vickie”, who had run to a friend’s house down the street after the alleged incident. Vickie states that “Suspect Stu”, her common-law husband, had assaulted her.
Vickie says that she had played this trick where she got a friend to pull some sort of prank phone call on her neighbor-lady to find out if Stu was …Let’s us the term “having sexual relations with” -said neighbor-lady. Apparently, how ever the phone call trick worked (I never figured this out), Vickie thought it indicated that Stu was, indeed, having some sort of affair with the neighbor lady.
So anyway; Vickie calls the neighbor-lady from her (Vickie’s) home phone and, in the presence of Stu, confronts the neighbor-lady with the “proof”. Stu gets mad and assaults Vickie to get the phone from her.
Vickie complains of pain and tells me: “Look at my back, it’s all red.”
Now, Vickie’s back is indeed red, but Vickie’s entire body is red. She’s just a very red person. I thought it was a little funny that she said it was red. She might as well have said that it was all covered in skin. But the meat of this part is that I see no visible injury. None, nada.
BTW: A “complaint of pain” is quite enough to make the injury element for assault.
So anyway, I go to the residence and talk to Stu. Stu tells approximately the same story (with reasonable allowances for POV), except that it ends with him taking the phone and Vickie running out the door.
I used my maddest interview and interrogation skillz to try to get some indication that Stu had, in fact; pushed, poked, prodded, slapped, towel-popped, kidney-punched, folded, spindled or otherwise assaulted Vickie. Stu held firm to his story, and I saw no indication that he was lying.
Stu did, however, have a couple of class ‘C’ warrants so I sacked him up and stored him in the back of the car while I went to talk to Vickie again.
I had Vickie fill out and sign an Assault Victim’s Statement, gave her the State-mandated forms. A couple of motor officers had shown up to back me up and I had one of them come in and look at Vickie’s back with me. Neither of us saw any visible injury. I gave Vickie a number to call to have a Victim’s Services worker come out and photograph her injuries if anything appeared.
I mentioned my plan to book Stu in for the warrants and write up the assault to the motor guys and they said that I would surely end up in prison if I did that. “You have to arrest in a family violence case.” they said in unison.
Now, I know you can’t take advice on police work from motor cops, but since I haven’t done any real police work in a long-long time I called my sergeant to inquire as to whether the Constitution had been suspended in cases of Family Violence. Sarge said that I didn’t have to arrest, but I needed to explain very carefully in my report why I didn’t.
So I duly explained in my report that I had no particular reason to believe one of them over the other and, in fact, the preponderance of the evidence (being a lack of evidence) had to go to Stu. I turned in all the paperwork and went on with my life.
This morning Sarge gives me a print out of an email he got from some dude in Internal Affairs telling him that he needs to counsel me on my behavior and saying how lucky I am that he didn’t assault her again. The email wasn’t rude or anything, the writer said I had probably made an “honest mistake”. I go over the whole deal with Sarge again and he doesn’t see the problem. Later today (when people are awake) I call the Family Violence Unit Sergeant and inquire about the case. Interestingly enough he’s familiar with it. Sergeant(FV) says that a complaint of pain constitutes an assault and since it was Family Violence I should have arrested the dude. I replied that I was familiar with the elements of assault, but I didn’t feel that I had probable cause to make a warrant-less arrest. Sergeant(FV) explained to me that the victim signs the statement and so “it’s on her, not us”.

I may be overlooking something important, I may not understand the concept of “probable cause” as well as I think I do, I may be just plain stupid. Maybe I’ll understand it in the morning, but I really, deep in my heart, still think I’m right. Perhaps someone will enlighten me.

Yay tacos!

Went to Nuclear Taco Night at the cowhouse last night, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was a celebration of the human spirit, really. And, of course, of really hot tacos. Nuclear Taco Night is a gathering of some folks from d.net, the Austin LUG and who knows where else who get together for camaraderie, face time and really hot tacos. My friends; you know I like the hot stuff, you know I’m the guy who sneaks Tabasco into Mexican restaurants. Those tacos were really hot. It was almost as much fun watching other people eat them as it was to consume them myself. My eyes are still a little watery. I think the event is kind of like Burning Man, but without the debauchery, illegal drugs and big burning man.
P.S. As I write this nucleartacos.com was registered about 30 seconds ago, so I wouldn’t really expect dns resolution for a while, much less taco pictures or recipes. 🙂
P.P.S. Nugget setup postnuke on one of his boxes, so our dream of nucleartacos.com is already a reality. Yay tacos!

Spear-chucker

Spear-chucker is headed off to Vegas to marry a girl much nicer than he deserves, but who am I to talk?
I was thinking about what I would tell a person looking to have a wonderful, happy marriage like mine. I decided the answer is to marry someone exactly not like you. Sometimes Mrs. Bumper and I are amazed that we ever were in the same place to meet in the first place.
Anyway, Spearster and The Future Mrs. Spear-chucker: We salute you and wish you all the best. And get some pictures!

Just to bring my reverie to a screeching halt I found out that Nugget’s S54 let go on him yesterday. Apparently BMW of Austin isn’t going to give him any flack about replacing it. Good thing, it only costs about $17k. Nugget’s / / /M Roadster looks to have suffered the fate of so many E46 / / /M3s built in late ’01. (Nugget’s car has an early ’02 build date, but the roadsters are built here with engines made there, so allowing some time for shipping..)

Permalinks are here!

Permalinks are here! You might notice that the date for each of these little installments are now links to… Well, links to themselves. But links to the permanent home of the article in question. So one day when I write something terribly pithy that you want to share with all your friends you can just click on the date and send the resulting link. Cool, huh?
This must be a common feature, but I never thought of it until I noticed the “permalink” links on esr’s blogspot site. Duh. And yes, I realize that linking the date with no explanation is non-intuitive, but I figure the chances of anyone but me using this feature are pretty slim.

not studying anymore

Oh, I forgot to say that I’m not studying anymore. And it feels great! We had the test a couple of days ago (I won by the way) and I’ve been slacking with grim determination to try to make up for lost time.

No word lately on the city’s plans to steal my property.

Buy Nugget’s fridge! The more cash Nugget has sitting around the more likely he is to spend it on a new stereo for his car. That would leave a nice low-milage CD-43 head unit without a home, and brother, I need one.

I’m even doing a little gaming today. I’m recommending perennial favorite lbreakout2, which has gotten even better since I last played it, and a new one to me; Kobo Deluxe. Get ’em, productivity is overrated.