So, in moving traffic violations, you have the option to have what’s called a “Trial by Declaration,” where you write out your case, and the judge decides the case based on the written evidence. In this case, I attempted to show the judge how the officer observed me in a “speed trap,” as defined in the California Vehicle Code.

CVC § 40802:

(a) A “speed trap” is either of the following:
(1) A particular section of a highway measured as to distance and with boundaries marked, designated, or otherwise determined in order that the speed of a vehicle may be calculated by securing the time it takes the vehicle to travel the known distance.
(2) A particular section of a highway with a prima facie speed limit that is provided by this code or by local ordinance under subparagraph (A) of paragraph (2) of subdivision (a) of Section 22352, or established under Section 22354, 22357, 22358, or 22358.3, if that prima facie speed limit is not justified by an engineering and traffic survey conducted within five years prior to the date of the alleged violation, and enforcement of the speed limit involves the use of radar or any other electronic device that measures the speed of moving objects. This paragraph does not apply to a local street, road, or school zone.

So, basically, in order for you to be caught in a “speed trap,” the following must be true:

• The road must have a prima facie speed limit (ie, not above 65mph or 25mph in a school zone)
• The road cannot be a “local road,” defined as:
  • Road not more than 40 feet wide
  • Not more than 1/2 mile of uninterrupted length
  • Not more than one lane in each direction.
• There must be a valid Engineering and Traffic Survey conducted within 5 years that justifies the posted speed limit.

So, what I pointed in my written case was the following:

• The road did have a prima facie speed limit (posted as 45mph)
• The road was not a local road (two lanes in each direction)
• The latest Engineering and Traffic Survey was conducted on April 21, 2004, which is more than 5 years prior to the date I was cited (May 7, 2009)

Now, if you can justify that you were indeed observed in a “speed trap,” there a couple awesome things that the California Vehicle Code states:

CVC § 40801:

No peace officer or other person shall use a speed trap in arresting, or participating or assisting in the arrest of, any person for any alleged violation of this code nor shall any speed trap be used in securing evidence as to the speed of any vehicle for the purpose of an arrest or prosecution under this code.

CVC § 40803:

(a) No evidence as to the speed of a vehicle upon a highway shall be admitted in any court upon the trial of any person in any prosecution under this code upon a charge involving the speed of a vehicle when the evidence is based upon or obtained from or by the maintenance or use of a speedtrap.

CVC § 40803:

(a) In any prosecution under this code upon a charge involving the speed of a vehicle, an officer or other person shall be incompetent as a witness if the testimony is based upon or obtained from or by the maintenance or use of a speed trap.

CVC § 40805:

Every court shall be without jurisdiction to render a judgment of conviction against any person for a violation of this code involving the speed of a vehicle if the court admits any evidence or testimony secured in violation of, or which is inadmissible under this article.

So basically, if the officer cites you in a “speed trap,” it is illegal, he cannot submit radar or laser evidence into court, and he is considered “incompetent as a witness,” and the court does not have “jurisdiction to a judgement of conviction.”  Isn’t the law wonderful? :D

Well, after typing this up and including written evidence justifying how I was indeed observed in a speed trap (according to the out-of-date traffic survey), the judge still found me guilty. Jerk… He ignored the law… Let’s just say I was not happy about this decision.

One thing I forgot to mention about a Trial by Declaration: the CVC states that if the defendant is “dissatisfied with the decision of the court,” he can request a “Trial de Novo,” which is basically a fresh start, a brand new trial. I decided to opt for a Trial de Novo. :)

(to be continued…)

See all posts in this series.

Well, let’s see.  It was a Thursday afternoon, May 5th of 2009 to be specific.  I had a meeting at school at 4 and, of course, I had taken a nap and woken up late.  This was an important meeting too… I jumped in my truck and headed off to school.  Of course, on the one day I am in a hurry, there happens to be an officer of the law on my route.  Not paying attention, I coasted down Fairmont Blvd at (apparently) 60 miles per hour.  Coming down Fairmont Blvd from Bastanchury, I noticed Officer Conner parked right about…

…there with a laser gun in his hand pointed right at, well, …me. >:(  Great, exactly what I needed… A speeding ticket and a reason to be even later… I pulled over to the side of the road, put on my puppy-dog face and then spoke with Officer Conner. He informed me of my speed, and I kinda just took it, whatever, I didn’t care. I drove off after frustrated, but I absolutely made sure to obey all traffic laws for a while.

When I got home, I put the ticket in my desk and tried to forget about it for a while…

(to be continued…)

See all posts in this series.

For the next few days, maybe week or so, I’m gonna be describing my most recent brush with the law.  Stick around, the story should be pretty interesting.  I’ll even tell you how I was caught going 60 mph in a 45 mph zone and yet, according to a judge, I was not breaking the law. :)

Stick around for more updates!

Updates:

• Part 1: The Afternoon of May 5th
• Part 2: Trial by Declaration

Well, I’m officially 18 now. :) I had a great birthday.

I have lots to share! Australi was AMAZING! I took around 3,700 pictures over the course of 19 days down under.

College is just around the corner… Move in on the 19th, and I can’t wait! I’m excited to move on to a new chapter in my life. :)

I’ll update more in depth later, I have to be awake in 4 hours…

Wow, it’s been a while. I’ve been incredibly busy since summer started, mainly with working. I have to save up as much money as I can for college next year during this summer which means work work work. It sucks, it eats up my day, it makes me tired, but so is life, I guess.

Lets see, what have I done since my last post… Wow, I just looked and it was on May 27th. Jason and April are now officially in Greeley, Colorado, where Jason is working on his teaching credential at the University of Northern Colorado. Just the other day, I was talking to him on Skype, and he showed me around his apartment in Greeley, and it’s freaking HUGE! They’re paying like half of what they paid in Brea, CA, and they have like five times as much space in their apartment. I am truly jealous of the place they are living in, even if their dog is already chewing the doors up. :P

Funny story, when they first got there, they unpacked everything from the uHaul trailer and then they decided to go get some dinner, and they were excited because they could finally put Brea (the dog) in a room and close the door, so they wouldn’t have to worry about her chewing things up in the new place. Well, they were gone for about 45 minutes, only 45 minutes, and the dog proceeded to… gnaw the paint off of the bathroom door! Hahaha… Keep in mind, the apartment had been freshly painted a few days before, so the paint didn’t just come off, it came off in huge flakes, all over the floor, all over the dog, all over EVERYTHING. Well, needless to say, the mess is clean now, but the damage is still there, hah. The bathroom door is brown from the ground to about a foot and a half up, and it will probably stay like that until they have to paint it again when they move out.

In other news, I am now officially blogging on a 2.66 Ghz 15 inch MacBook Pro! :) Ah, 4 Gb of RAM and a dedicated graphics card feels nice underneath my fingertips… Gaming on this beast is amazing!  I went to a LAN party for my friend Matt’s birthday party, and it was really nice to be able to play everything on high settings.  Even though we were playing games like Starcraft, hah, which is officially like 11 years old now, but hey, it’s still pretty fun.

I love my new MacBook Pro, phew.  It’s great.  I blog, I code, I design, I run windows, I skype, I use Logic Studio for audio editing, and the list goes on.  I’m really glad I was fortunate enough to get it as a graduation gift, (even if I did have to pay for more than half of it, haha).  I know it’s gonna last me a long time before I feel the need to invest in a new computer. :)

Other News!! Well, you may be wondering why I entitled this post “10 Days.”  Well, it’s because ten days from now, on July 22, 2009, I will be aboard a plane.  Not just any plane, mind you, but an Airbus A380, headed for… duh duh duhhhh…. P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, SYDNEY!!

Yes!! I am going to Australia!! Oh my gosh, it is going to be a journey of EPIC proportions! :)  I promise I will take billions of pictures, and I may even post some of them online!  (well, to Facebook for sure)

I can’t wait! AHH!!  Although, I don’t know if I’m ready for the 16 hour flights there and back, hahaha.  I plan to sleep like I’ve never slept before, hah.  Even though during the Summer so far, I’ve been sleeping like 12 hours every night… hah.

Well, that pretty much raps it up for now.

Other short bits of info: I got a haircut yesterday, I sold my free iPod from Apple on Ebay for $177.50, Naomi’s best friend Shelby has been here for about two weeks and is leaving on Tuesday, I was saddened to learn that Chipotle is no longer giving out free student drinks, I’ve been working heavily with Django and Python for web development, and I’m starting to get pretty proficient at it, thanks to help from my buddy Colton Provias.

Until next time,

-B

Wow, it’s been a while now since I last posted.

I’ve just been really busy.  I really hate what my teachers are doing right now.  Every one of them is thinking: “Yay, AP tests are over, now we can do creative projects…”  and I’m just like: NO.  I don’t want to.  I don’t want to do anything.  I want school to be done and overwith already, I want to be free and off into college.  Senioritis has hit an ultimate high in my life.

Well, lets see, what has been going on lately…

We had prom, that was really fun.  It was at Angel’s Stadium in Anaheim. We had dinner at Benihana before and it was amazing.  I had only been there once before when I was a wee tike, but this time was just amazing.  I posted pictures on Facebook, you can get to the album by clicking on the picture to the right.  It was a really fun night, especially after the dance.  We went to our friend’s house and swam until like 2:30 am in her heated pool.  It was heated to like 90 degrees and it felt awesome after a night of dancing, haha.  Then we went inside and played cards and watched a movie.  I think I ended up falling asleep around 5:00 am there. (I spent the night, along with like 4 other guys and 6 girls, don’t worry parental figures, we were in separate rooms, haha)  I eventually left the next morning around 10:30am I think, and drove home and proceeded to plop onto my couch and sleep until like 2:00 pm.  That night (Sunday), I think I went to bed at like 2:00 am because my sleeping schedule was so thrown off.  The next night (Monday, Memorial Day), I went to sleep at like 3:00 am as well, because of a lack of sleepiness, haha, just like right now (it’s 12:04 am).

Well, that was prom.  It was a night I’ll never forget, and I loved every minute of it. :)

Moving on to… college.  Well, if you don’t know by now, I’m officially going to UCSD in the fall. (woo!) I’m really excited, as you can probably tell. :)  I can’t wait to follow in my brother Chris’ footsteps.  Haha, nobody in my family knows this, but I did my “Hero” presentation for AP Gov on him, cuz he’s been a really cool brother to me throughout everything, and I’m gonna be following in his footsteps the next four years or so at UCSD in the Thurgood Marshall college.

Oh, speaking of Chris… He just recently proposed to his girlfriend, Katie, on the beach and (thankfully :P ) she said yes! This will be the second wedding in our family, and I’m excited for it!  I really love Katie, she’s really cool and a fun person and she has just enough weirdness to fit into the Carl family.  After all, Chris’ nickname is “Crazy Carl.”  Plans haven’t been set for sure yet, I don’t think, but who knows, nobody ever tells me anything anyway, haha, I always find out about things a couple days later in my family.

Like, for example, my other brother, Jason, and his new bride, April, are going to be moving to Colorado pretty soon.  This came as a big surprise to me just recently, because, again, I had no idea it was gonna happen, haha.  Jason’s going to be attend the University of Northern Colorado to get his teaching credential.  Right now he’s been working as a full-time sub in the Corona-Norco school district, but he will be starting class in a few weeks I believe.  April is going to stay here in Brea until the end of June I think, and then she will join him in Colorado as well.  I have to say, I have mixed emotions about this.  I mean, on one hand I’m really excited for them and what they’re gonna be diving into, and I’m really excited for Jason to get his teaching credential so he can become a full-time teacher, which I think is something he will be great at doing.  But, on the other hand, I think I’m going to miss all three of them quite a bit (puppy Brea included).  I mean, sure I’ll be headed off to San Diego next fall, but I never thought my brother would be in another state.  I’m gonna miss coming home from school and seeing Jason scavenging through our fridge in order to find food. :)  I’m gonna miss playing with their puppy, little Brea Carl.  I’m gonna miss eating April’s bread that she makes.  I dunno, it’s just gonna be a bit of a change, because since they’ve both graduated from college, I’ve gotten used to them being around, and changing something you’re used to is always a difficult thing to do.

Speaking of change, there is going to be a lot of change in my life coming up.  In the next two weeks, I’m going to start seeing a lot of “lasts” go by, and it’s gonna be a difficult thing to see.  Sure, I really want to get out of high school and break free and enjoy life, but, like I said, change is always difficult, no matter what it is that’s changing.  One thing my dad told me recently, though, after I was talking about all the “lasts” that I’m gonna be experiencing, was kind of uplifting.  He told me, “you may be experiencing a lot of lasts in your life coming up, but there will also be a whole lot of firsts too.”  And, I don’t know, it really got me thinking, and what he said is absolutely true.  Even though things may be coming to end in high school, and a chapter of my life may be closing, and new chapter is just beginning.  A new plot in the story of my life is just beginning, and it’s kind of comforting knowing that things are going to start afresh and anew, and the world will be my canvas, to paint however I deem appropriate.

Well, I should probably wrap things up for now, but I just wanted to say a couple things.  Even though everything may feel like it’s ending with the end of high school, I know I need to look forward to the beginnings of the rest of my life, and I can’t wait to figure out where I go from here. :)

-B

Ah, the joy of downtime at the Reno Jazz Festival…

Bahaha, I couldn’t resist… =]

Rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search (http://www.flickr.com/).
b. Using ONLY the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. Change rows to 3 and columns to 3 (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php).

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite color?
3. What is your favorite food?
4. Favorite drink?
5. Dream vacation?
6. Favorite hobby?
7. What you want to be when you grow up?
8. What do you love most in life?
9. One word to describe you

It’s official.  The deed is done.  I am officially going to be attending college next year.

A lot of people have been awaiting my decision, giving their opinions about which school I “have to go to” or which school “is the best opportunity for me,” and I appreciate that, I really do.  The only thing I fear is that in making my decision, I may hurt some people’s feelings because I did not (or did, hah) choose their school.  And then there’s the whole issue with the girlfriend, “you’re just going there because she is,” or “you’re not going there because she isn’t.”  Hah, I’ve gotten plenty of that from everybody, and let me just flat out say that… are you ready for this? … I am capable of making important decisions that will affect the rest of my life without being swayed by any one person (girlfriend or not).  I know! It’s shocking, isn’t it?!  A teenager able to make important decisions!? GASP!  Haha, well, in any case, Naomi I love you dearly, but you don’t play a part in which college I am choosing.  Sorry.  =]

And so, I know if you’re reading this, you’re wondering which school I’ve actually decided to go to.  Well, let me try and draw it out as much as I can… You know by now that I will be attending a UC school (sorry Amy), which means no Cal Poly SLO, and haha, I didn’t get accepted to any of my five private schools, so those are out automatically, haha.  I guess that’s all that the title really tells you.  No SLO.  Hmm…

This past spring break was a great experience for me.  I got to visit college campuses, and I got a great sense of what I should expect from each college.  The trips were really eye-opening and told me pretty much exactly what I wanted.  By the end of my spring break week, I had visited UCSD and Berkeley, and I had pretty much made up my mind that Berkeley was not for me (sorry Cameron and Jonathan).  And that left only UCSD, waiting for me to submit my SIR.  But then…

Brandon,

I have just received the word from UCLA Admissions that your appeal through the Bruin Marching Band was accepted. Congratulations!

You should see this indicated on the UCLA Admissions website in the next few days and you will receive an official letter in the next week or so. Since you have already sent in an audition recording, no further audition for the Bruin Marching Band is necessary. The Band’s Recruitment Crew will contact you later this spring with information about the Band’s upcoming fall season. You can see some of the information about this fall on our webite:

http://www.band.ucla.edu

We are all looking forward to seeing you this fall as a member of the UCLA Bruin Marching Band.

Go Bruins!

Gordon Henderson
Director
ULA Bruin Marching Band

Curveball?  I’d say so…  And so, I was sitting in a movie theater in Mountain View, CA (by Google!), waiting to watch State of Play (great movie, btw) with my Dad, and I popped out ye ol’ iPhone and fired up Mail to find this email in my inbox.  At first I was like: “psh, haha, yeah right” because, get this: I never finished sending in my appeal information!  So I kinda dismissed it, and sent an e-mail back to Gordon (Band director at UCLA) saying pretty much: “what’s this?”  Then, after several hours of trading e-mails deep into the night  (he was in Italy at the time), I finally found out what had happened:

1. Upon receiving my admissions decision from UCLA, I sent an e-mail to Gordon requesting information about appealing through the marching band.
2. He received my e-mail, and sent me back forms to fill out and send back to him.
3. He also submitted my name to the admissions office as an “Incomplete Appeal,” meaning he was waiting for more info from me (the forms)
4. I slacked off, gave up on UCLA, and decided not to submit the materials, and just accepted my rejection like a man.
5. The admissions office decided to do something they never do and they reviewed my appeal anyway.
6. They accepted me.

And so, after investing time and money into visiting UCSD and Berkeley, and being set on UCSD, I now had a third player in the game: UCLA.

This truly stumped me.  I didn’t know what to do.  I had crossed out Berkeley, and now I had to make another choice between two great schools, and that just sucks, haha.

UCSD or UCLA?

Who knows… Maybe I haven’t made my choice yet?  Oh crap, no, I have, considering it’s already May 1st, haha.  Well, I will enlighten you readers more at a later time.

See yuh.

Ah yes, it’s been a while since I’ve sent out a new story.  I’ve been up to many things lately, from upgrading my computer to visiting colleges.  I have many new things to share, but alas I haven’t the time to explain them all right now.

My spring break is officially over now. =[  It’s a very sad evening.  Tomorrow I must crawl out of bed in the wee hours of the morning and make my trek to school, only to waste another day of my life on a pointless day at school.  School has become nothing more than a huge waste of time for me, and for everyone.  Every day I go in, sit down, learn nothing, and then walk out.  Six periods a day, learn nothing, do nothing, care about NOTHING.  Sure, AP Tests are coming up, but who cares? I sure don’t.  Government and economics are the four easiest tests in the world.  Physics I’ll probably do fine on, and Literature, I don’t care a single bit.  I’ll probably end up with a 2 or a 1, I don’t care.  That class is pointless, it’s a waste of space, and no offense to Mrs. Owens, that information is just plain useless for me, or for anyone for that matter.  Who cares if Shakespeare meant this, or John Dunne meant that, I DON’T CARE.  When will I ever use that in life?  Maybe if I become a journalist… but I doubt that will every happen.

The best I can suffice is a poorly put together blog about myself, which is kind of funny when I think about it, because I used to have huge dreams of creating my own software, developing the next myspace or facebook, or phpbb or vbulletin.  I was going to create a masterpiece that I could sell for huge profits, but then reality kicked in, and I realized that it just wasn’t worth the effort.  I once created a script that would parse myspace’s musician and comedian pages and output the performer’s upcoming showtimes and dates.  I had it working very well, and I even had a prospective buyer, but that huge project fell through, and the client never got back to me regarding it, and it ended up being a waste of time.  That’s all, just a huge waste of time.

It seems like everything is just a waste of time these days.  School, band, work, web design;  Pointless, mildly exciting, necessary for an income, and fun yet sometimes frustrating.  That is all my life is made up of these days.  School I absolutely hate, I already have over the allowed number of absences in the majority of my classes.  Band is fine, jazz is fun, but Wind Ensemble sucks, and now that our new director is waving his iron fist, it’s no longer interesting for me.  It’s such a shame that Garcia had to leave, but it wasn’t under anyone’s control, I understand that.

And then there’s work.  The good ol’ UPS Store.  Old Faithful.  It’s kind of sad though, I haven’t been working all week because of college visits, and next week I will only be able to work one day because of jazz rehearsals and then our trip to Reno. Oh yeah, Reno is going to be fun. :)  I’ll tell you about that later.  But yeah, my next paycheck is gonna total a whopping $20…

Well, I think I’m going to have to leave the rest for a later time.  Funny enough, there was just a small earthquake that I felt.  Either that, or a truck just hit the side of my house, (maybe I should go check, hah).

Further elaboration is on its way, specifically about: Berkeley, UCSD, UCLA, Reno, Life, Web Design, Work, Consulting, Computers, Shiny Things, and a whole lot more…

-B :)