Nice day, but a little icy. Hard to expect much better in the northeast. Not a ton of trails open (it was opening day at Smugglers Notch), but we had a good time and got a bunch of drinking taken care of.

Trout River Stout = 9% alcohol

If I could have got out of bed at a reasonable time and thrown together a Santa suit, I could have skied for free at Bolton. Big fail on that front. Woke up at 9:30, listened to some blues on the radio, had a beer, and here I sit at 3pm at the shop trying to do some last minute christmas gift work with the waterjet before I head on down the road.

 

Hey stranger, hello to you. Sorry to hear about driving related legal woes. Working at a new place, eh? Miss the TT, except the $ required to repair it and not so required to mod it :-D Happy holidays, dude.

 

achTTung is currently out on bail after his successful PBS telethon's "free *****" campaign.

 

My ***** has always been free. Who said otherwise?

AND.. a random post from random!?

Still around? Keep driving past your condo, wondering if it was still your condo. Sad to hear the TT is gone. So is Hooters though, so... no chance for the "nice TTs" pic with the Hooters girls.

Well, possible.. I still have contact with a bunch of them on facebook. But no TT for you still.

What are you driving?

 

Are we getting old members back?

acTTung - That's cool they do the whole Santa deal. How much is it usually for a lift ticket where you're at?

 

Half day at Smuggs was $48.

Bolton is a smaller place, more of a 'family mountain', and is cheaper because of it. Not really challenging though. I'll break out the snowblades for that place and go screw around in the woods or the terrain park.

 

we don't have any old members.
but, we DO have members who have belonged to the forums for many many years.

 

lol...good to know.

 

well, 2.5hrs until Im scheduled for court.

That dillhole lawyer I was assigned won't even be there, so if things aren't going my way, I may have to cut things short and ask for a continuation. Nothing like making ANOTHER 4.5hr drive for a matter that should only take 20 minutes to wrap up.

 

update:

My lousy lawyer wasn't there, but apparently talked with the Judge the evening before, and had my court date rescheduled. Nobody ever notified me, and I made that 4.5hr drive back to NY anyway.

So I told the judge that my lawyer was an idiot, and I wanted to continue without him.

I'll jump ahead and quote the judge and cops at the end of the night "well, you certainly made tonight interesting".

I explained that I was just trying to get the car back to VT to register it, and fix the exhaust, the judge seemed to understand that I was trying to sneak out of NY under cover of night with an unregistered uninspected vehicle.

Was surprised to find that I had 4 tickets, not 1 as the court had records of. Turns out thats because the tickets were issued in the village of New Berlin or something, and that court system doesn't exist anymore. Town of New Berlin handled it.

The cop wasn't there, my supporting depositions were never issued, my lawyer wasn't there, my tickets weren't even there. It was getting interesting.

After some talking with the judge about all this stuff we finally get to the point were I start pleading guilty or not. First up, loud/no muffler. Not guilty. Ok, I'll write that one off, we have no proof its too loud. Next up, expired registration. Guilty. Expired inspection. Guilty. Aggravated unlicensed operation? Uhh... well, Im not sure.. Ok, he says, we'll come back to that. When we work back around to it, he's sitting there rubbing his temples thinking. Explains that he really should be talking with the DA about this (the DA wasn't there either), but finally tells me that he'll set it up so the charge (a misdemeanor) will be dropped if my license stays clean for 6 months.

AUO - no fines
loud exhaust - no fines
unregistered - no fines, $85 court surcharge
uninspected - no fines, $55 court surcharge

Well, Im thinking I'm doing pretty good and we're wrapping things up but when the court clerk goes to print off some form for the AUO stuff, she finds an old file. In 2006 I was ticketed for no seatbelt, I sent in personal check, they returned it (they don't take personal checks). Apparently I never did anything with it after that, and that was still open. If things went as they should within the state, I should have had my license suspended for not paying that, and would owe the $105 fine, and a scofflaw fee to get my license back.
They never took my license, or charged me the scofflaw, so while I was there, I paid up on that 3.5 year old fine.

The judge was blown away once he started looking thru my drivers abstract.

Speeding tickets, no seatbelt ticket, failure to keep right, cell phone while driving, suspension for not paying a 'no front plate' ticket.

Im lucky we got all the current stuff situated before he started looking into my history.

Local highschool govt class was there to take notes for class. They got a lot of notes, had to ask the judge some questions about things. Didn't know what the scofflaw was, didn't know what the drivers responsibility assessment was (the reason my license was suspended this time- I missed a payment).. Actually, I explained that one, the judge wasn't sure off the top of his head what caused it or what the fine was.
I went to school with their teacher, his sister is my sisters best friend. We'll see if I get any ribbing from him when he hears about this court case and my name gets connected.

So, license is clear now, the court told me I can go file to get it replaced. I explained (for the third time) that I didn't need or want it, I live in VT, with a VT license.
Car is registered in VT now.
Will be getting an inspection sticker soon.

Might be fixing the exhaust today/tomorrow before I drive back to VT.