{"id":396,"date":"2007-08-09T11:53:04","date_gmt":"2007-08-09T16:53:04","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-08-09T11:53:04","modified_gmt":"2007-08-09T16:53:04","slug":"relax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/?p=396","title":{"rendered":"relax"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if Mother Nature was trying to tell me there are bigger things to worry about than my current troubles – I finally actually felt an earthquake for the first time last night. According to the earthquake report<\/a> it was a 4.5. It was a bizarre experience as I woke up in the middle of it hearing various objects fall from their perch. No apparent damage though, so all is well.<\/p>\n

Now, I suppose I should mention all that isn\u2019t well. Last weekend I noticed my left headlight was burnt out. That was a minor problem to fix. The larger stress inducing event happened Monday night. After going to the gym I checked my mail (as I do EVERY SINGLE DAY) to find a collections notice in the amount of $681. I called the company immediately and they said I had a traffic citation (\u201cred-light citation\u201d) on March 15th \u2013 and an ensuing court date on April 26th that I \u201cfailed to appear\u201d for. Hard to show up for court when you never get the citation notice, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Obviously the collections agency didn\u2019t care about my plight and informed me that if I didn\u2019t pay before hanging up the phone I could have my license suspended or worse. Now, mind you \u2013 the letter I received contained no official documentation from the DMV or any other government office \u2013and the agency is located in Texas. The first thing I thought was \u201cscam!\u201d and I hung up the phone and decided to take this matter up with the DMV instead. I called the automated DMV information line and ascertained that, yes, I did have a citation on March 15th, and it had been turned over to collections.<\/p>\n

The next day I called the DMV every five minutes for six hours before finally getting in a que at number 78. When I finally reached the clerk she told me I had to have the collections agency set up a time for an arraignment to go before a judge again. She also said that the California DMV was not legally allowed to take away my license for a \u201cnon-signature camera citation\u201d and that the collection agency had been breaking the law by threatening me (surprise surprise).<\/p>\n

My first call to \u201cGC Services\u201d resulted in a \u201cmanager\u201d saying he would call me back (for what reason he couldn\u2019t answer my questions immediately I have no idea) after I spent much time on hold. He never called. So, I called again. This time I ended up being transferred to someone \u201cnice\u201d (I\u2019m fairly certain they tagged my file in some way that I wasn\u2019t a moron that was just going to get out my checkbook after their basic intimidation techniques). The woman I was transferred to said that the best course of action would be to go to the actual courthouse and get a copy of the citation first and then set up an arraignment. She also let slip that the majority of calls she takes about these camera-citations are from unsuspecting motorists who never received the original citation. She said she had worked there for four years and the majority of her California calls resemble mine. <\/p>\n

I had intended to go to the Van Nuys Superior courthouse when they opened this morning \u2013 but a helpful former private investigator friend of mine informed me that the morning is the busiest time for that court and that I should attempt to conduct my business later in the afternoon. So \u2013 wish me luck\u2026.<\/p>\n

By the way \u2013 March 15th is the day I picked up my mother from the airport on her last visit. Call me crazy, but I would probably drive better with my mother in the car than normal \u2013 so it will be interesting to find out what this ticket is for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if Mother Nature was trying to tell me there are bigger things to worry about than my current troubles – I finally actually felt an earthquake for the first time last night. According to the earthquake report it was a 4.5. It was a bizarre experience as I woke up in the middle of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewlorenzlong.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}