Luke ‘n’ Bill

So you may or may not have seen on Ross’s blog a while back, he got tricked by the good ol’ SFPD and more specifically  whatever company it is that they sold their soul to.

He was making a right hand turn on one of the few roads in Sioux Falls where a right on red is illegal, but instead of the usual position of the sign (on the vertical light pole above or below the signal you are watching), this sign directing you “No right on red” is placed on the horizontal beam towards the center of the street.  Not so convenient to see.  This is all done of course to improve the amount of tickets and there for revenue created by these lights for both the company that installed them and the SFPD.

Heck, even after knowing about the lights they were still able to trick me.

About a week after Ross had his run in with the traffic light, I was heading back to my hotel from a Blend gathering and for some unkown reason I decided to take a route which brought me past the afore mentioned light.  Bad choice.  I was also going to take a right and even took the time to track down the sign that Ross has complained about and noticed that it was awkwardly positioned.   However, I knew the trap was set on this light so I patiently waited as no one drove by (it was around 11:30 or so at night).  Right then I noticed a drunkerd stumbling down the sidewalk and eyeing the crosswalk signal he started across as the light turned green and the crosswalk signal read “Walk”.  So I waited for him to scurry across the sidewalk and then I proceeded to take a right turn once the crosswalk was clear.

Just as I started to roll forward I saw a bright white flash.  I knew there wasn’t any traffic coming, so I ruled out the possibility of being struck by a semi and getting a direct shot into heaven.  That and I was raised Catholic…so I have to make a pit stop in pergatory first.  So I assumed it was the traffic light and slammed on the breaks.

At this time I would like to take a short break to give kudos to all of the engineering, R&D, production line members, test team and salesmen at the company who makes the breaks for Nissan’s Altima.  You saved me a ticket.

Now back to the story.  So I hold on my breaks, look up at the right arrow and at that instant it flips to green.  I had forgot that the turn arrows stay red for another 5 seconds or so after the light turns green.  After it turns green, I continued on and recieved the next 2 flashes which of course “Busted” me going through a green light!

So for now, I haven’t recieved a ticket yet and this occured a little under a month ago.  So I’ll keep my fingers crossed that they aren’t sending anything out.

Oh and what reminded me of all of this was a picture in the daily WTF of a van being busted for speeding (while getting towed).

So I was reminded of a great practical joke the other day when we were driving over to Lake Shetek, MN to go camping.

So imagine yourself an average tourist driving across the country and halfway across Minnesota you see a sign for Wall Drug. You may scratch your head a bit and figure, whatever. You keep driving and as soon as you hit SD you start seeing these signs everywhere. Granted, you’re driving across South Dakota, so there really isn’t much to see in the first place, but the amount of signs are getting annoying at best. So naturally you’re thinking, dang…there might actually be something worth seeing in this state (beyond four dead heads on a hill). So you start wondering what this monstrosity may be….and then when you’re almost all the way across the second most boring drive in the lower 48 (taking I-29 from Sioux Falls to the Canadian border is the worst) you come to your newly found destination.

A crappy souvenir shop in a town of 800. (queue sad trombone)

Well this weekend Lisa and I went on what we decided was our first official family vacation to Valley Fair.  Lisa makes it a yearly summer trip and but this was the first time I had been since my confirmation class went back when I was a sophomore or so.  So it was definitely nice to have my very own professional tour guide for the park.  We went on all the good rides including….. Steel Venom (twice)which was freakin sweet, especially in the front seat!  Wild Thing, (twice) which is much better in the back seat, especially for the first plunge.  Power Tower again a great time and plenty of other wild water rides and roller coasters that were entirely too much fun.

Possibly the best part of the whole place is that it’s only and hour and a half away now, so going there is just a day activity instead of some big ordeal like it used to be.

I have to file this under both work….and travel. Recently I was graced with the opportunity to travel to Chicago, which might not seem like a huge deal to most, but for me it was! Blend Interactive, the company I work for, sent me on my first “work trip”. Which is sort of a big deal, due to the fact we are still a very small company and we don’t have that kind of money to be just throwing around for what may or may not be a good reason. Well a month or so ago, the decided it was a good reason for myself and Joe to attend an eZ Publish Partner meeting in Chicago which is a very small deal as far as the rest of the world is concerned, but is a big deal with the North American eZ Publish community. Basically the major players and the eager starters in the North American market were there to half get the new happenings of eZ Publish in this very fast growing time period and also submit opinions on what will help this system grow in the US. So that was the business side of things.

The travel/personal side of things was the fact that I got to go there a day ahead of time to see the city in it’s full glory. Now I’ve been to the Twin Cities, SLC, San Francisco, Denver, Charlotte and a few other “big cities” previously, but I have never seen the “down town” atmosphere like there is Chicago. This place has the quintessential big city feel to it. It’s great to see the rising skyscrapers and the grand view out of the corner office in the UBS building in down town. (thanks to the guys at Duo Consulting) Then to cap it all off, we had some cocktails and a small dinner at the John Hancock Center (the second tallest building)…where the quote of the day came from Joe. “The problem with the Sears Tower is, you can’t see the Sears Tower from the Sears Tower!” Touche my friend, touche.