Mugging Vs. Ticketing

After maintaining a clean driving record for 4 years, I finally did it. 2 AM on a desolate road, and I had the glaring red and blue guide me to pull over. Apparently there was a STOP sign and I had stopped only for 2 seconds instead of 3! It was 2:00 AM!!!

Finally got the 'Courtesy Notice' and have been fined for a whopping $200. (for endangering the fellow invisible nocturnal drivers with my 'rash' driving!). The thoughts that followed after looking at the 'courtesy' notice were out of desperation, out of spite of being violated so. The incident was so similar to getting mugged. Then I thought how is mugging different from being pulled over for a ticket, and which would I rather prefer?!

Similarities:

• One feels robbed at the end of both events.
• Both jump at you at unexpected moments.
• Both the mugger and the Cop hide, sadly, behind a dumpster or a tree, waiting for a prey.
• Talking back/arguing with either never works.
• One ends up losing/ paying up in the end.

Differences:

• If I am being mugged, I know obviously that someone is robbing me. But with a cop, the robber is not so apparent, and hiding behind/as the LAW! Here comes a feeling of being violated. One I can get over, the other not so easily.
• A mugger takes my purse...Cost to me after that? Well I don't carry a lot of cash. So at most I will lose about $20, and then in the next 5 minutes I will be calling my bank and my credit card companies to cancel all my cards. And then another $25 for my Driver license/ ID. That's it. But if I were pulled over and ticketed, it would cost me a minimum $150-200.
• Being mugged has got nothing to do with what I did wrong...Yeah, maybe I should not have come into this alley after-dark. Other than that, I am not guilty of anything. But with a condescending cop talking to you, with a straight face, one feels guilty. One does not find words to even voice that 'there might have been a mistake, for I know I did not speed, officer'. Instead, we shut-up, take the ticket and occasionally ask for a pardon!!!
• At the end of a mugging there is a fat chance the mugger might be arrested. With a pull-over, maybe I will be arrested if I spoke too much. :)
• The pain of being mugged does not last long, the lesson does...Not to go into a dark alley after dark. But the actual impact of it is rather short...Maybe a week. And soon we return back to normal life, with new credit cards and a new driver license with a much better picture (one that I might be so happy with that I would be glad I got mugged!). With a ticket, there's a record that takes years to disappear. Well, for it to disappear quicker, you can ofcourse go to a class, where a customary 8 hours is spent relearning the difference between a STOP sign and a YIELD sign!
• When a mugger jumps at you, there is a possibility of getting hurt, killed even perhaps. With a cop, you are a lot safer, or are you? Seeing some recent news, I think this aspect should rather go into similarities...You can get hurt in both!

So, considering all this I think I would rather be mugged twice in my life than see that red and blue light flashing behind me even one more time.

Snow in the Bay Area

(Panorama view of the Mission Range, Fremont from Mission Peak, 2517 Ft)

Friday March 10: The sight that welcomed me as soon as I entered East bound 237 was breath-taking. There was snow...on Mission Peak! A couple of weeks back when it had snowed in the Bay Area, a few peaks in the Mission Range did have their tops painted white, but not Mission Peak. This time, the most amazing thing had happened.

There it was...The gaping face of the peak...That used to stand so stubbornly not even letting the green grass creep into it's rocky face. But today it was tamed. The ususally brown/black bald face was finally beautified...White.

Ofcourse, I have seen snow before, but somehow, the sight of it in a place where it was the most unlikely, got me into a feverish excitement and I decided right away...I am hiking to the top the next day!

Despite weather.com's forecast (rain all weekend), Saturday was a bright and sunny day. The air was crisp with a fresh smell. A good day for the hike. Hubby was lazy/tired and decided to sleep longer. So I set off on my ~10 miles drive to Stanford avenue, base of the hill. Started the ~3.5 miles hike at 11:35 AM, with my IPod singing sweetly to me.

I was slightly disappointed when I saw the peak on Saturday because it did not have as much snow as the day before, but the surrounding peaks still had a lot of it and I would have killed for the view from the top.

About an hour into my hike, I bumped into Sai. The company was good for the hike. (As usual, I can make use of him to take pictures of me and the background:)) We reached the summit at around 1:15 PM, and WOW!!! Sacrificing a little more sleep on a fine Saturday was really worth it. Felt slight pity of the hubby for he had to miss this.(Later he told me that he would have joined me if only I had asked him one more time...ha...ha...)

Spent about 30 minutes at the summit, most of it spent taking pictures, and then ofourse splitting my only sandwich with Sai. He managed to collect a ball of snow, which stayed intact until we reached the bottom, surprisingly.


A Saturday well spent...pictures and memory worth a life time.

More Pictures Here