Greetings fellow mammals,
I've shared with you that my experiences with the human authority figures have been overwhelmingly positive since I've been in this lifestyle. The majority of the officers have displayed a balanced social responsibility to serve the greater good of society while maturely addressing individual needs. For example, to take down a horde of rampaging Amazonian pygmies rather than screw with me. All of my experiences in that context have been positive except for a couple.
As you know, I sleep at the same place several nights of the week, arriving late at night when everyone is gone and leaving before business personnel arrive in the morning. I am known at that place, never to leave trash around, do not start bonfires or conduct human sacrifice rituals. The last is always so cumbersome - the chanting, the calling forth of the lap dogs of Satan and...well, the securing of a virgin these days can be quite daunting and time consuming.
Well, my last negative police encounter was on December 9 of last year around 3:30 AM and it wasn't a shining example of public service by the Dallas finest. I was awakened by a few taps of BT's window by two officers. One was a younger dark hair guy who clearly didn't want any part of this event and the other was an old, grey-haired guy (OGG) that seemed liked he really, really wanted to prove who runs the streets.
To make it short, OGG was really not suited, professionally or personally, to participate in public relations. I was given a citation 'for sleeping in public' and OGG said that 'I was not welcome here anymore'. He also said that he would drive by in an hour and he didn't want to see me there. Keep in mind, I have the permission of the property manager and the blessing of the business owners. Well, after he left, I thought for a few moments and went back to sleep. I thought that if this is the price I have to pay to sleep here, so be it. The next day, I checked online about the citation fine which is $150 and immediately thought this ain't good considering my monthly net is $800. On the back of the ticket I checked the box 'trial by judge' thinking I could plead my case and mailed it in several days later.
A couple of weeks later,I received a notice to appear in court in downtown Dallas in late December. I was hoping that the citation would dismissed outright. I was sleeping inside the vehicle, not 'sleeping in public' as the citation was written. I could understand the reason for the citation if I was sleeping in the truck bed with disco music playing. On the appointed court date, I drove downtown in the early morning before the organized chaos that they call the commute got under way. Did I mention that the downtown scares me? Signs, signs, everywhere signs. I checked the location online and that helped a lot. I found a parking lot across the street from the courthouse ($6 daily) and counted my blessings.
I went in and walked around, noticing a few people paying their fines, toured the place since my experience with such an institution is somewhat limited, located the courtroom where I needed to be at the scheduled time and located a bench nearby where I sat and read a book that I brought with me, Hey, I had a little over an hour to kill.
The court date was during one of the coldest weeks in a Dallas winter - cold enough to put frost on the testicles of a cat. We'll get to that in a later entry; the winter, not a cat's testicles. I wore my best jeans, being the only ones I have and a thick pullover sweatshirt with a hood. Of course, I had a couple of layers underneath. My hair was in a ponytail with a black baseball cap that had a logo of some premium vodka. I know, not exactly the best attire for a court appearance but my team of lawyers had a schedule conflict, leaving me to take care of this thing.
We'll finish up next time,
David
Monday, February 1, 2010
Homeless - 72
Hello again, troopers,
To continue...
Ah yes, the Project - the series of books that I envision. That effort is progressing but not at the pace that I originally thought. Though I have all the chapters of the first book in various levels of development, I'm still honing my skills and continually revising.the drafts. Thoughts come out of nowhere about how to reword something better, to make a larger impact...which is why I have a digital voice recorder.
Over the past few months, I have been participating in a writer's workshop. I have received valuable feedback that I'm employing in my work. I came to the conclusion that here is never a 'done' label that can be applied to a piece of writing but that it is in a continual 'draft' status. I've been applying that feedback to improve my writing over the past months. I also read books on the 'how-to' of writing - many things I'm doing right and there are many things I need to correct. I have read other authors, best selling ones, and found some of them ignore the rules. Oh well...
Do understand that I'm unable to work on the Project on a persistent basis due to environmental and lifestyle constraints - too hot, too cold, not enough light - that force the work into the mental arena. There are times that I think that if I had a permanent residence, I could have the first installment already completed.But, alas, the gods do screw with me and want it done in this fashion. In the meantime, I work on it at every chance, in one form or another.
I've taken some time away from the Project to construct the specifications for a website regarding this saga. There have been times when I paused at one of my...pausing spots and thought of the marketing for the first book. Since I am oriented at this point in time toward the non-traditional route of publishing, I won't be able to use the marketing infrastructure that the publishers have in place. At that pausing spot, there is a billboard that sparked the idea of renting that puppy out. No, I don't how much it would cost and, no, I don't know where the money would come from. Then it came to me on a starry night to establish a website that would reach more people than the ones driving, talking, eating, drinking, doing bong hits or having their breakfast martinis. Hey, I never said I was the sharpest tool in the shed. So I allocated a website name and initiated site specifications for the interface. One of the guys of the pool group is a web guru and said he would put it on his server for free. He also has a friend who helps him with the graphics on his own website who is willing to construct the graphics for mine - front and back covers. He mailed me some examples of his work and I liked what I saw. So hopefully within the next 4 - 6 weeks, the website should be accessible. It will have the front and back cover of the first book and a synopsis (book flap contents) and an advisory that the book will be available at year's end or the spring of the 2011.
Life goes on...
David
To continue...
Ah yes, the Project - the series of books that I envision. That effort is progressing but not at the pace that I originally thought. Though I have all the chapters of the first book in various levels of development, I'm still honing my skills and continually revising.the drafts. Thoughts come out of nowhere about how to reword something better, to make a larger impact...which is why I have a digital voice recorder.
Over the past few months, I have been participating in a writer's workshop. I have received valuable feedback that I'm employing in my work. I came to the conclusion that here is never a 'done' label that can be applied to a piece of writing but that it is in a continual 'draft' status. I've been applying that feedback to improve my writing over the past months. I also read books on the 'how-to' of writing - many things I'm doing right and there are many things I need to correct. I have read other authors, best selling ones, and found some of them ignore the rules. Oh well...
Do understand that I'm unable to work on the Project on a persistent basis due to environmental and lifestyle constraints - too hot, too cold, not enough light - that force the work into the mental arena. There are times that I think that if I had a permanent residence, I could have the first installment already completed.But, alas, the gods do screw with me and want it done in this fashion. In the meantime, I work on it at every chance, in one form or another.
I've taken some time away from the Project to construct the specifications for a website regarding this saga. There have been times when I paused at one of my...pausing spots and thought of the marketing for the first book. Since I am oriented at this point in time toward the non-traditional route of publishing, I won't be able to use the marketing infrastructure that the publishers have in place. At that pausing spot, there is a billboard that sparked the idea of renting that puppy out. No, I don't how much it would cost and, no, I don't know where the money would come from. Then it came to me on a starry night to establish a website that would reach more people than the ones driving, talking, eating, drinking, doing bong hits or having their breakfast martinis. Hey, I never said I was the sharpest tool in the shed. So I allocated a website name and initiated site specifications for the interface. One of the guys of the pool group is a web guru and said he would put it on his server for free. He also has a friend who helps him with the graphics on his own website who is willing to construct the graphics for mine - front and back covers. He mailed me some examples of his work and I liked what I saw. So hopefully within the next 4 - 6 weeks, the website should be accessible. It will have the front and back cover of the first book and a synopsis (book flap contents) and an advisory that the book will be available at year's end or the spring of the 2011.
Life goes on...
David
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