2004-06-06 - 12:59 a.m.
So, there I was ...

I cannot believe the stupidity of some people. I was out by the mall today, stopping to pick up a copy of the new edition of Pitch Black (now including additional unrated footage and the superimposed "Chronicles of Riddick" logo to herald this weekend's new release, not to mention a ticket voucher for said movie) when I pulled into the left hand turn lane from Center Street to Lancaster Drive. Those who know the city of which I speak will know the intersection immediately; those who don't, well, it's a major intersection in a major shopping area, hence, heavily traveled. Both roads are five lanes wide, if you include the turn lanes.

Anyway, so I pull into the left hand turn lane, and there's one guy in it ahead of me waiting for our light to turn green. At least, I *thought* he was waiting; before I'd quite finished slowing to a stop behind him, I noticed that the lanes to our right -- the ones that went straight across -- had green lights, as did those of the matching lanes on the other side, though ours was still red. In other words, no joy for us while parallel traffic went back and forth. I eased to a halt, idly noting the presence of a police cruiser in my rear view mirror, when suddenly the twentysomething male driver in front of me hit the gas and made his turn against the light, in front of an oncoming vehicle. Thankfully, it was far enough away yet that it had time to slow.

I glanced up at the turn signal, shocked, thinking I must have missed something -- but no, the light was still red. Well, for about five seconds. *Then* it turned green.

I figured the guy must have been timing the lights; if he'd watched the ones for the oncoming lanes out of the corner of his eye to see when they turned yellow, he'd have known when ours was about to go, though it's tricky guessing turn lane patterns like that. The lights could easily have switched to cross traffic instead, and it wasn't like he was pouring on any great amount of speed, so I can't imagine him having done it because he was in a hurry.

The more likely option, of course, is that the guy was a moron. Remember that cruiser in my rearview? Yeah, I did too. As I began to make the turn, the cop suddenly accelerated and went into the rightmost lane, while I slowed and stayed in the other, watching with an amused smile on my face. Sure enough, the cop crept up on the moron in stealth mode -- he was in the right lane too, by now -- and waited until he was on his bumper to flash the lights and sirens. Ouch! Bad enough that he broke the law, but right in front of a cop?

It reminded me of the time I was out running errands for my afternoon job in high-school and saw a guy turn right on a left-directed one-way right out in front of our small-town police station. An officer had just happened to be leaving the station at that very moment, and was most of the way to his car when it happened. I swear, the cop froze for a second, blinking at the sheer stupidity taking place in front of him; then he jumped in his cruiser, started her up, flashed the lights, and zoomed around the corner after the culprit. Chalk up another addition to my collection of "No shit, there I was" tales.

I wonder if running a turn-lane light carries a stiffer penalty than just running a regular red. I don't even know what the usual fine is for that kind of thing; I've had exactly one traffic ticket in my life, about four years ago now, for going seventeen over the limit on a back road I *thought* was marked 55 but, of course, wasn't. That only cost me seventy-five bucks, since I showed up for the court date. I had a friend in college who got a ticket in the $900 range, but that was also for speeding; he was going ninety or so in the safety corridor on Highway 22 going over the coast range. According to the tale told me by the two female friends riding with him at the time, the cop took one look at them and slapped on the added "reckless endangerment" charge under suspicion of his having been speeding to impress them, or some-such. And that is my entire knowledge of the cost of traffic infractions.

I'm curious now, darn it. Not quite enough to go digging through legal records, though. I'll have to ask Dad when I see him tomorrow and see if he knows. The fam is going out to see "The Day After Tomorrow" -- Mom & Dad have a rather strange fascination with global disaster movies. They'll even watch sci-fi if it falls into that category -- ID4, "Deep Impact", "The Core". *snort* I still LMAO about "unobtanium" every time I think about that last one.

Speaking of SFF movies. Azash and I went by the theater after he got off work yesterday and caught a late showing of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". I think I agree with the critics -- from a standpoint of mood and character work, this movie was a cut above the previous pair, which were more effects-oriented. From a storyline standpoint, however, I was surprised at how much was left out or altered. And it was still nearly two and a half hours long! I do not envy the man who has to chop up the 700+ pages of "Goblet of Fire" for a movie-length script.

*yawn* It's getting late. I'd better pack my albums back up and get to bed. I've just gone through four years' worth of photos -- damn near every one I've taken since I left college -- and finally organized them; I never had the energy or impetus to whilst living in the Millers' attic or my parents' spare bedroom or in the three years with my brother. Looking through them all now was a revelation. All the vacations, weddings, visits -- I never stopped snapping, I just stopped looking at them, and voila, there was four-years-in-the-life all in front of me at once.

From my first college shots eight or so years ago to the ones I took for Hildegaard the 23rd-25th for her wedding, you can definitely tell that my camera technique's improved. I still only get a couple of really excellent shots per roll, but even my off-shots, for the most part, still get ooh's and aah's from family and friends. After looking over Jocasta's, when she brought her developed shots of the wedding for swapping, a couple of days ago, I have a better idea as to why; I couldn't believe how many shots were off-center, or missing the head of the principal subject, or too distant, or ... well, lots of little errors that I suppose I've learned to instinctively correct for over time. The main problems I tend to have, by contrast, are when I'm trying to capture casual moments and people move as I'm pressing the button or blink or have bad hair or something. I wanted exactly two of the photos from Jocasta's two rolls. She wanted probably about half of the five rolls I took. Hmm. I wonder if maybe it's time I took an actual photography class and learned about the next step in bettering my skills.

You can also see when I switched from 400 to 800 film three or four years ago, when the colors and definition get a lot sharper. You can also tell when my old camera got busted -- there's a black smudge at the edge of several of my photos from last spring. But most of them -- if I wasn't doing a landscape shot of some place I was visiting, they're almost entirely candids of people; I abhor staged shots, unless they're necessary, like in a wedding. It's amazing how much emotion you can capture on a little glossy four-by-six inch rectangle of paper.

I've got a few of my Mom that she hates, but which I would gladly blow up and hang on my walls in place of art, and a really stellar beach scene I did in 2000 that I've used as a desktop computer image for years. I found one in a 2003 batch of my father and his father that made me catch my breath; it shows them seated on a couch, bent over a puzzle, unintentionally mirroring each other's posture exactly. Since they already resemble each other a great deal, and there was light coming in the window and the colors in the scene were a good contrast -- it's just amazing. And ... well, I won't go into detail, but let's just say I was in another world for a few hours, there, going through my collection. Ahhh. Yet another hobby I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing.

I have a life again. That's still sinking in. I hate to be so glad about Azash's misfortune, but ... well, he's not exactly suffering, and I'm thriving over here. My own place! I'm still pretty much on Cloud 9.

*yawn* There I go again. All right. I'll sign off for now.

Blessings,
--Shell