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15
Aug 10

Letter from summer camp

This summer our two daughters, ages 10 and 12, went to summer camp somewhere in the East Coast. It’s the second consecutive year that they go to this camp. The camp has a strict “no immediate contact” policy, to prevent kids from extreme homesickness and parents from freaking out and aborting the full, three week, camp experience.  So, no phone calls, no emails, no cell phones. The only mechanism of communication allowed is physical letters. The kids have off time during the day when they’re encouraged to write home. Letters are mailed using normal postage and take about 5 days to get to us on the other side of the continent. As soon as the kids leave we start mailing letters from home, so that they start receiving them during the first week and we space them evenly to keep them in good spirits. They typically start writing after a couple of days which means it takes a while to start getting news from them. (The camp posts pictures on their website, which also take a few days to appear).

The first few letters from Clara, our 10 year old were pretty normal. She wanted mail from us. She told us about her activities and also that she had been sick during the first couple of days of camp, which we knew because camp staff had communicated with us about it. Then, somewhere around the end of week 2 on our end, we got this gem:

The most memorable letter

So, how is a parent thousands of miles away to react to an obvious cry for help (or stuffed animals) such as this one? In this age of immediate communication we are really no longer used to the time travel effect of physical mail. Obviously she was in some distress when she wrote this, but when was that? And how would she be feeling in the present? After taking a couple of deep breaths we carefully weighed the evidence:

  • the repeated requests for stuffed animals did call into question how dire the situation really was
  • we did not receive any communication from camp staff about any problems (they do use email)
  • we did see several pictures of our kids seemingly enjoying themselves at camp
  • at this point there were only a few days left of camp, so there was not much that could be done anyway

So, we emailed the staff to verify that everything was OK and they responded quickly indicating that Clara was obviously having a great time, enjoying activities, seemed to be in good spirits, etc. So, we relaxed a bit. And soon enough we started getting more letters from her, of a totally different nature.

The girls flew back from the East Coast on their own and as we drove home they just talked excitedly about all the nice things they did at camp. And while Clara says she does not necessarily want to go again next year, on her first phone call to one of her friends she told her of this great summer camp that both of them should go to… when they’re a bit older. (not stupid)

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6
Jun 10

World Cup Fever? Not here.

Almost everywhere you go in the world the World Cup is an overwhelming presence. Nobody can talk about anything else. No TV program can avoid focusing on it. It’s impossible to walk around cities without seeing soccer jerseys, news about the Cup plastered everywhere and a rising level or nervousness that drives people to ask incessantly: when, oh when does it finally start?!

But not in the US. And more specifically not even in the San Francisco Bay Area where there’s a large population of foreigners. The only hint I got that the World Cup was upon us was a pamphlet from DirecTV MAS (the Spanish language package) containing the schedule of games and information about the participating teams.

Of course, I did not need the reminder. I’m among the many that define life as “a succession of those 4 years that seem to fill the void between World Cups”.

As the Cup approaches, the level of intensity rises and I find myself constantly distracted and with an irrepressible urge to consult World Cup related news every five minutes. Who else got injured in the latest friendly? What new colorful news item comes out of Maradona’s rule as head the Argentinian squad.

The lack of prominence of the World Cup in the US results in an unexpected benefit: it is possible to record games and get back home at night without knowing the results, something that would be unthinkable in any soccer country. Of course you can always make matters worse for yourself by wearing a team’s jersey or any other World Cup related article of clothing, in which case chances are someone will approach you and talk to you about games you have not yet watched. But even if you keep a low profile, you still have to deal with your well intentioned co-workers. After all, the only reason to record games is that you still need to go to work, right? Here in Pacific time, the last game of the day takes place at 11:30AM, a rather inconvenient time to step out of the office.

So, I’ve emailed the following message to my whole company, in the hope that they’ll comply and I’ll be able to continue going to work during the Cup: Continue reading →

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23
May 09

The Best Online Traffic School?

After paying my red light ticket, the epic story described in a previous post, the San Mateo County Southern Branch Court provided me with a list of about 80 approved online schools. Which one to choose? I expected the Internet in all its collective wisdom to provide the answer with a comprehensive site of traffic school reviews including all sorts of evaluation criteria (price, time to complete, use of animations, etc) and user rankings. To my disappointment, no such site seems to exist. I was faced with scanning a large list of URLs to pick a traffic school.

The first approach was to start entering URLs in the browser and try to deduce, from the home page, whether the traffic school would be right. Here’s the list of schools approved by San Mateo County:

http://www.ctsi-courtnetwork.org/home_studies/san_mateo_county/index.html

An ideal traffic school for me would be:

  • Responsive. Pages load fast. No stupid artificial delays like I experienced many years ago when I tried an online traffic school.
  • Efficient. Don’t bug me with graphics, animations, games. Show me the information and let me take the test.
  • Not sneaky. Tell me how much it’s going to be and avoid hidden charges.
  • Try before you buy. Let me see what the content is like before I have to commit.

The third URL I tried look good, much like a few others, the price was competitive ($19.95) but what clinched the deal for me was that I could take the whole course and pay at the end. No risk for me: try the course and stop at anytime if I get annoyed with it.

The winner had the most appealing name: Easy, Fast, Cheap, Online, Traffic school. Here’s my short review of my traffic school experience. Continue reading →

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4
May 09

My red light ticket story

Where I recount my true experience with a red light ticket and the San Mateo Country traffic court system…

The Infraction

About a month ago I received in the mail a notice of a red light violation. The notice included four photographs: one of me from the front, one of my license plate and two from the back showing the traffic light (already in Red) and my car about to enter the intersection and then half way across the intersection. The pictures  contain timing information highly relevant to the case. The first picture:

  • Location: El Camino Real and Glenwood Ave., Menlo Park, CA
  • Date: Friday, 13th March 2009
  • Speed Limit: 35MPH
  • Lane: 2
  • Vehicle Speed: 36MPH
  • Elapsed time: 0.00

The next picture shows my car half way into the intersection, and the data shows:

  • RED: 0.86
  • Elapsed Time: 0.75

The notice does not explain any of this, but we can interpret it as follows: when the light went red I had not entered the intersection yet. This is clearly shown in picture 1. The second picture shows that 0.75 seconds after the light went red I’m crossing the intersection. The notice is hard to read and it’s not clear what you should do next. With some work you can find a line telling you that this is just the photographic evidence and that you’ll receive a citation from the court. There’s also a link to a site with a video of the incident. The video is fun, but tiny and it’s hard to see exactly when the light goes red and when I start crossing the intersection.

I did not even remember missing a red light, but it obviously happened. I would never run a red light on purpose, so I was mildly annoyed. Time to wait for the citation from the court, pay the fine online and be done with this sad episode…

Whoa!!! How much was that?!

The citation did show up in the mail, a few weeks later. Again, a rather confusing piece of paper that needed some parsing. It took me a while to find out the fine to be paid. They don’t call it a fine, they call it BAIL, in ALL CAPS, like much of the content. The bail amount: $436! To that, you need to add a $57 non refundable administration fee for the privilege of doing traffic school. The total is close to five hundred dollars, for a split second infraction. We’re not talking here about a red light with cars crossing the intersection and you close your eyes and plunge ahead recklessly. This was just a split second decision, with the car already at 35 MPH, where you need to decide to slam on the brakes or keep going hoping the yellow is long enough… That split second mistake costs close to $500 dollars. Amazing, and rather unfair, I thought.

I know these photo enforced intersections need to be clearly labeled as such. In this case there’s a sign half a block before the intersection with a picture of traffic light and the words “photo enforced”. I wished it had said something more like

WARNING: minimum red light fine: $500!

That would have caught my attention much more than the friendly traffic light icon and would have constituted fairer warning, in my opinion. Remember #4, crunchy frog? Warning: lark’s vomit!!!

So, what were the options then? Fighting the ticket seemed pointless as the evidence clearly shows I run the red light. But still, it felt wrong to me to pay this outrageous amount just like that. The citation certainly is eager to get me to pay the amount and be done: you can tear the bottom section and send payment or “you may pay your citation online at www.sanmateocourt.org”. Another option mentioned in the citation is to go to court. I decided to at least go to court and see if I could get some sort of discount on the fine… Continue reading →

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24
Feb 08

The first entry

This is the very first entry. This blog is nothing more than a semi random, stream of consciousness set of notes as ideas, rants, comments, or crazy opinions occur to me during the course of living this exciting life… or not.

Why put out all this stuff? Why not? There’s a possibility that some of this might be useful to someone, somewhere. Who knows… It certainly will be useful to me to be able to rant about issues that outrage me, like the level of funding for public schools in California, for example. More on this later.

And it’s raining, and I’m bored. The dog needs to be walked, but who wants to go out on a day like this? I wanted to write a note about the California Use Tax, but I could not even start without an initial entry in this blog. So there. Now I can write about something interesting.