So, I’ve been working hard at it, and I’ve finally gotten my photography site off the ground – a few days ago, actually. I’ve just been so busy with it, that I haven’t had a chance to notify all of you dear readers yet.

Anywho, it’s a totally rad, completely awesome, one-of-a-kind, beautiful site, if I may say so myself. Check it out: asburyphoto.com.

So, here’s what I want to know. How does the money work between ACS and the City and County of Denver. Because, when I got my photo taken for speeding (10mph over, btw), the radar van seemed to be raking in the violations. It’s like printing money. Is it legal? Well, in 2002, the Denver County court ruled that it was illegal to have a non-law enforcement officer issue citations which rendered the photo radar vans at odds with the law. This was upheld by the state court. I’m not sure what’s happened between now and then, but I do know the revised Colorado statute 42-4-110.5 seems to now allow this.

ACS was the company the county contracted photo-radar out to before the practice was halted in 2002, and it seems to be the company the county is once again using.

The fines are capped at $40 (for a normal speeding violation, school and construction zones are rightfully higher). How much of that money does ACS keep, and how much does Denver keep? That’s what I want to know. Because as far as I’m concerned, ACS has no interest in my personal safety and my safe driving. Actually, I take that back on the last part. I would hazard to guess they are quite interested in me driving over the speed limit. As is Denver, by all calculations. The ridiculous revenue this scheme must bring would seem irresistible to any government official (especially one who doesn’t have the ability or the political will to pay for a city’s budget through, uh, you know, taxes).

I pulled this off of a no-longer available ACS website (a subpage on the www.cite-web.com domain which is where violators are directed to pay their fine, with a 2.5% administrative fee, of course). The website itself was cached through Google:

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Hey all. Julie and I made it up to Loveland yesterday for our first ski day of the season. The mountain had a decent base of nice crisp snow and my freshly waxed skis were slippery as hell. But, I thought I would change things up a bit and try our snowboarding for the afternoon. With Julie’s help (and extreme patience), I started to get the hang of it, though I never graduated past “threat to all within 25ft radius upon unloading from chair” status. It was a blast, though. She and I are both a wee bit sore today – but if you’re not sore, you weren’t trying hard enough. That’s what I think, at least.

On a semi-separate note, our CP+B gift this year was one of those HD pocket cams. Great little gadget! We took it up to the mountain and snagged some fun shots. Mind you, this was also my first time doing a video, so it’s not the cleanest editing job you’ve ever seen, but it gets the job done.

Hope you enjoyed the little film!

Sorry for the “rhymy” headline. Just wanted to share this photo Julie and I took last night after we’d finished setting up and decorating our first ever Christmas tree. Once we got all the ornaments home, I think we learned a few lessons on color coordination and such. But, by and large, I’d say it’s a fine looking tree. And we’re so happy to have it in our new house. Murphy, on the other hand, is still a bit confused about the whole affair.

In case you hadn’t seen this yet, or just wanted a warm fuzzy feeling in advance of tomorrow’s epic Civil War game, I present you the controversial I Love My Ducks video (controversial as Disney says they never gave permission for the use of Donald in this video – lighten up Disney!).

Go Ducks!

Just saw this – in YouTube’s new 1080p to boot! Thought I’d share the joyous holiday vibes and repost this for your viewing and listening pleasure. Man I miss the Muppets.

Slaon.com offers a helpful condensed summary of Palin’s Going Rogue so you don’t have to endure what is sure to be the pain of reading it. But, since everyone’s talking about the word according to Sarah, it might be useful to have the skinny on what she wrote (or what she told Lynn Vincent to write). Follow this link for all your reading displeasure.

And if you want a real “whoa, what just happened” moment, read Salon’s posting of Lynn Vincent’s supposed leaked diary on meeting Sarah Palin and their interviews for the book. It’s pretty scary. It really reads like a joke, but I haven’t seen anything anywhere admitting that it’s a hoax. Anywho, read with a grain of salt. That link is here.

So, that’s it, we’re done! Julie and I have moved into our brand new house and boy are our arms tired. We closed on Friday night, as the snow began to fall. It was a race to get to the title company in time. With traffic and the impending snowmaggedon, both Julie and I were a bit late, but no worries. Closing happened pretty quick and we were a bit stunned that after about 50 minutes, we were handed an envelope with a ton of keys.

We drove back to our apartment and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine to celebrate (while continuing to pack, of course). That was our last night in Thornton, and it was a busy one. We stuffed as many things as we could in boxes and tried to organise as best we could. But our excitement overcame us and we decided to haul a small load of fragiles down to the house that night to see the place for the first time as owners. Murphy came along and was thoroughly confounded by all the hubbub.

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