www.donaldmarino.com

The cops. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. I’m not really worried about crashing my motorcycle. I can drive it with reasonable skill. I wear a lot of safety gear, etc. I’m a bit fatalistic about it. I’ll drive as safely as I can and if I get squahsed by a latte-drinking SUV driver, well, you gotta go sometime I guess. I’m sure, though, it’s not violent death that’ll get me in the end. It’s the police.

I have had this motorcycle for 6.5 months now. The Record: 4 times pulled over, 2 speeding tickets.

Got my second speeding ticket today for going 72 in a 55 mph zone in Lafayette, CO. In my defense, the limit drops to 55 from 65 right where I was, and I was driving with traffic, not signifcantly faster, if at all. Everyone drives 70 there (ok lame excuse, but its true). The cop scared me for a minute, as they are wont to do sometimes. After he wrote me up, he comes back to me, hands me a ticket and says “Your defiant attitude won’t help things.” OK. This catches me completely off guard. Our encounter up to this point had been entirely professional. I had volunteerd nothing other than the answers to his questions. Sure, I may have been annoyed, but tell me who doesn’t get annoyed while receiving a traffic citation? Other than that, nothing. So I say, “Excuse me, officer, but I’ve said nothing.” He repsonds with “It doesn’t help you to stand there and glare defiantly while I write you up.” Well, I’m wearing a motorcycle hemlet and sunglasses. He couldn’t have seen a 5hit eating grin on my face, much less defiance, glared. So I say “Well, sir, I believe you’re making a judgment that’s not correct.” Long pause as we look at each other. “So, “, he says, “do you have any other questions?”. Uh, had I asked any? “No, sir”. Then he warms right up into old good cop. “So, anyway, I’ve decided to say you were cooperative”, he says “call the number on the back and you’ll only get 1 point”. Sweet. Now I’m to feel he’s doing me favors. He offers to show me the laser. I accept. Hey, might as well get my money’s worth from Lafayette’s finest. So he breaks out his laser range finder. At this point he’s ready to be pals. Oh, did I mention big daddy is also on a motorcycle. A Sweet Fat Police Harley. We were both embarrasingly aware, but politely not mentioning, that it makes his day to ride down a guy on a Japanese bike on that sucker. It’s probably even fun. Heck, I’d like to try it myself. So here we are, two old biker buddies on the side of the road, as he not only shows me the laser rage finder with my speed and range (got me 671 feet, geez, can you really pick me out from the SUVs at the distance?), but proceeds to geek out about all the cool features of the gun. He is effusive at this point and smiling enthusiastically. He clears my speed out and starts gunning down traffic right there in front of me. “See!” he says “65! 212 feet!”. At this point I am trying to conceal my mild amazement. He guns down a dump truck. “43! See!”. Truly weird. This was a Truly Weird(tm) experience. Life is so crazy sometimes. Still, there’s just something about a guy on a motorcycle that follows other bikers around with a laser range finder like that and cites them for speeding. How could you ever be that guy? Really. How? I want to know. I’d be permanently ashamed of myself if that was my job.

Well, I certainly won’t contest my 1 point ticket. I earned it. I’ve actually been pretty lucky. My worst speeding offense, in the Nevada backcountry, resulted in a gentle warning from a friendly officer. My lamest offense, 10 over on the interstate in Laramie going with traffic - full punishment, nasty @**hole cop to go with it. (After all the good press I give Wyoming, too, sheesh). Somehow, I was detained and warned in Longmont when a huge SUV nearly killed me. That cop didn’t actually see what happened. He just saw that SUV swerve and pulled me over. I’m not kidding about the SUVs. They will run you off the road. Even the mini-van drivers are better. Give an SUV a wide, wide berth and never take your eyes off of them. Let’s be safe out there!

I am also quite taken with this flash app I saw on digg.

Gliffy!

I love my girlfriend because she is wonderful.

Love you baby!

D

I just walked outside to replace the bulb in the streetlamp in my driveway, which has been out for some time now. The city of Longmont, CO provides the electricity for residents of Longmont and they do a pretty cool thing, which is to install a small streetlight at each address, attached to the power meter. Longmont pays for the juice, you supply the lightbulbs. Very cool. But I digress.. as I reached the street, I took a look down across the way and notice a police vehicle parked there. Odd. Then I notice the officer across the street from his car when he pops on his Mag-Lite. I watch this officer approach the house unannounced, open the gate, walk right around back and start snooping around with his flashlight, etc. I saw him point that light into the windows of this house at least once. No one appears to be home. I change the lightbulb keeping one eye on old officer peeps-a-lot down the street. I go back for a step-stool get everything done, maybe takes five minutes. As I wrap it up, the cop appears from the yard, goes to his cruiser, opens the trunk and places some object inside. He hops in the car and off he goes.

So, I can’t help but think what the hell is that cop doing? Now, of course he may have some legitimate reason for all that snooping around, but It sure looked shady to me observing from down the street. I was left to imagine what I would do if I saw someone dressed in dark clothing snooping around uninvited in my back yard with a Mag-Lite at 10:41pm on Monday. That person would certainly find themselves challenged by me to state their name and business. I would be wielding a weapon at this point in the game. Cops don’t like that. Sometimes they shoot you. But what, exactly, would I have been doing wrong?

America is about freedom. But what many flag-waving rednecks don’t understand is that the kind of freedom that is important in America is the freedom from police entering your house without probable cause and a warrant. The freedom from being convicted without facing your accuser and seeing the evidence presented against you. Yes, the freedom from having your bank accounts spied on by the government and your telephone call records surveilled by the government. The freedom to practice, or not to observe, any religion without persecution. That’s what freedom in America is about. If you’re a true patriot of the American ideal, then you could never support any leaders that erode those types of freedom in America. Unfortunately, it’s now the case in this red-scare worthy terrorist (um, how exactly does one wage war on terrorism? It’s a tactic, not an enemy) war these types of freedoms are being taken from us by shortsighted, weak politicians in the very name of protecting freedom. You and I know this is wrong, but apparently we are powerless to stop it anymore.

So, next time you hear a politician blathering on about ’spreading freedom’, think about how much of your freedom you have lost in the last few years. But you’re still free to help yourselves to more superficial kinds of freedom, like driving your big, American, SUV anywhere you want. If that’s your only idea of freedom, you probably deserve a trip to Guantanamo. It may remind you which kind of freedoms matter and which don’t.

Well, um, sort of. Anyway here’s today’s jam and an older jam.

It’s called lust.

I suppose I was going to have to blog about this eventually.

Ben Roethlisberger of the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers wrecked his motorcycle, badly, and is injured. That’s for those of you who utterly ignore sports news or other news sources because it’s the topic du jour of the newsmedia at the moment. He’s got two broken jaws, a broken nose, several face fractures, two lost teeth, etc, etc. Pardon my language but holy shit that’s terrible. I feel so bad for Ben right now he’s in a morphine nightmare world somewhere.

The accident appears to have been a ‘classic lefty’ as they say. This is by far and away the most common two-vehicle motorcycle wreck that occurs. An oncoming car fails to see the approaching motorcycle and takes a left turn at the last minute, giving the bike no chance to stop or react. Another variant is when the car starts to turn, sees you, panics and then stops dead in your lane for you to t-bone. Nice. Either way, you’re lucky if you can clear the car and tumble around in the street. Ben hit the car and went right over the bars into the front passenger windshield and A-pillar of a Buick. Head first. No F$#&(g helmet on his precious little head. No PA motorcycle operator’s permit in his big,big wallet.
Now, as always, there are some diffent angles on this stuff:

A- Ben wasn’t wearing a helmet, so it’s all his fault.

B- Ben was riding a Hayabusa Death Rocket with no helmet, so it’s all his fault.

C- The lady almost killed him with her car and he did nothing wrong.

D- The lady basically tried to kill him, but he’s still a dumbass.

I am in the “D” camp on this one. Although option is “C” is pretty close to the truth. Let me say I am glad Ben will be OK, but man is he ever dumb about motorcycles. He doesn’t wear a helmet, which even on a bicycle lots of people do. He’s also proud of not wearing helmets and talks publicly about how it’s so much better. Bad. One wonders if would like to play Quarterback without a helmet on. Or perhaps he already has done that too many times already. But still, this, by any standard is just not smart. Wear a freakin hemlet folks, how hard is that? I bet the Suzuki dealer who reportledly gave him the bike for free would give him a free helmet too. Shoot, paint it up with the Steeler logo and people would go ape-shit buying them up. At a late season cold-weather game in
Pittsburgh, the fans could all show up wearing thier motorcycle helmets!

There’s nothing inherently wrong with driving a Hayabusa. One of my friends says it has very nice characteristics, aside from being fassst. Yes, it’s so fast that it’s hard to describe how fast it is. Yes, it can be made to do 200 mph. Still, lots of motorcycles are fast. Hell, really, they’re all so fast it’s silly. Even big heavy chrome cruisers are fast. I’d say if he was on a big Harley, he might’ve gotten worse off. It’s probably easier to get off a Hayabusa than a dressed up Road King. A ‘Busa gets a bad rep because so many dumbasses just have to buy the fastest bike made. Which isn’t a great idea if you’re a new rider. We call it ass-jewelery.

The 62 year old lady driving the Buick likely never saw him. She just wheeled that baby on left across the road. Bam! This type of accident can happen to any rider, regardless of skill or experience. It’s the randomizer. Check out the Hurt Report Summary. (esp. #6 & #10) Having said that, it doesn’t sound like Ben had a good attitude about riding, much riding experience, or any formal training. We know he doesn’t have a license. This is the kind of stuff that makes it harder for the rest of the responsible motorcylists out there. Any idiot can buy a $10000 Sport Bike and point it down the road. This is America. It needs to be that way. But, still, we have to combat the negative perceptions of motorcycing everywhere that these small percentage of riders cause. Ben has dealt a huge blow in that regard, because everyone everywhere knows who he is. This is a big deal to people, we’re talking about the Super Bowl Champs. Hopefully more people will wear their helmets as a result. I’m not sure that laws are the way to do that, but hopefully common sense will dictate to more folks. If Ben had been wearing a helmet, he might not have two broken jaws and a few missing teeth. He might just have a bad concussion and few cuts & bruises. That is exactly what the damned thing is for.

I have been having trouble concentrating on work the last day or so. A friend of mine’s father was killed in an accident this week, and for some reason it really bothered me, I can’t stop thinking about it.

So, anyway, with this reminder about life firmly in place, I should get back on with it all.

Rest in Peace WT, even if I never met you.

-Doubt72 let me know if there’s anything at all I can do or if you just want to hang or pair-program or just whatever…. D

Well, here are the only four books that have been on my desk for a long time now.

Ruby - In A Nutshell by Yukihiro Matsumoto. 2002, O’Reilly

Agile Web Development With Rails by Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson, others. 2005, Pragmatic Bookshelf

PostgreSQL Essential Reference by Barry Stinson. 2001, New Riders Publishing

Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmers’ Guide (2nd Ed.). by Dave Thomas, Chad Fowler, Andy Hunt. 2005 Pragmatic Bookshelf

Not too exciting I guess. Unless you consider that I’m looking across at my bookshelf where I have no less than 18 Java oriented books. A couple years ago, I’d have had no less than eight or ten of those Java books on my desk in a stack at all times. So, use Ruby because you’ll have 6 less books on your desk

A very well-written and well-documented assessment by one of America’s top history professors.

The worst President in History.

Can’t wait to see what he’ll do in his last two years. Invade/Bomb Iran anyone?

World War III - “The Middle East”, brought to you by Halliburton!