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Apr. 19th, 2006
the city of Santa Cruz
Apr. 19th, 2006 06:06 pmI have a feeling that it is my native city. I mean, my native city in America. The land of my soul. That's where we are from, although not "originally". We came there right from the airport, and were amazed by everything; we were even proud to become members of Safeway club. Even the fact that I got parking ticket 15 hours after arriving to US (yes, I told this to the woman who attached a ticket to my rental car, when I parked on a free place near Steamer's lane on our first morning in America - we went to see the Ocean, and returned 10 minutes later to discover that ticket. The woman did not seem to care; it was red curb (and do you think anywhere in the world people are aware that curbs can be painted not for fun but for money?)
Anyway; we lived there and enjoyed our life. People of Santa Cruz! We missed them when we moved to San Mateo. Only in Santa Cruz total strangers will say 'hi' to you if you are just filling your tank on a gas station. In San Mateo they don't notice you (and you don't notice them). When I was commuting along hwy 1, I picked up very funny hitch-hikers that had an urge to get to Gray Hound Beach, I've no clue why. When we moved, we returned probably every other weekend, to linger on a beach, to stroll along Pacific Avenue (I even wrote a wikipedia article about Pacific Avenue); on Halloween it was a natural place to go walk around, dressed as Howard Stern dressed as a fat woman.
The only bad thing there were cops on highway 17. I worked at Borland, and commuted every day from San Jose. The cops, looking all like Timothy McVeigh clones, would stop me and tell me tales. Like I drove too fast, etc. Was it because of my two bumber stickers in what the white people call "hispanic language"? One was "Estereo Sol (puro Mexico)", the other one was "Viva la vida Linux". Once I went to the court and fought the ticket, and won. The other time I did not go, and paid. Once, around lunch time, i was driving to visit my dentist; I was on cruise control, in the right lane, my speed wsa 54-55 mph. A cop stopped me and told me that I cut off a white Honda. Slowly and loudly I asked him: "which Honda? Where is it now? Did it pass us while we were talking or just disappeared?" The cop changed the topic, and discovered that in their database my driver's license had a wrong address (although my car registration was at the right address). How could I know? Anyway, I owed the System $10, and he was satisfied.
Once I had to make a short visit to USCS, to check some stuff. So, during my lunch time, I drove from Scotts Valley to the USCS campus, and my first question was - where to park. The campus was deserted, but all the parking lots were reserved (and empty). Eventually I found a "30 minutes" parking place; parked there and went to look for someone who could point me to the right parking lot. I found a library, and a librarian, and she had explained to me where I should go to park. When I returned to my car (5 or 6 minutes passed), I had a ticket on my windshield. Well, in this case I had witnesses: my colleagues that saw me in Scotts Valley at 11:50 and 12:30, when I joined them for lunch. So I wrote to the USCS Parking Authorities, and, luckily, was convincing enough. But hey. Do you think I started loving the laid-back atmosphere of USCS after this?
Dear Santacruzans! Have you ever visited your traffic court? Do you know how racist your cops are? About 90 percents of the wrongdoers in the court are Spanish-speaking people. Do you think it reflects the percentage of Spanish-speaking population in Santa Cruz? Do you think Spanish speakers drive faster than white people? At all ages? I doubt it. The problem is, their language is not good enough to talk to a cop. To talk to a Timothy.
Last weekend we took to Santa Cruz our friend that came from Russia. We went to Natural Bridges, we saw Steamers Lane, we went to the warf, then we parked on Church and went to 99, then strolled along Pacific. When we returned, we had a parking ticket. What did we do wrong?
It turned out that, after we changed the car plate, our DMV forgot to give us a new "Month Sticker" - we had only a "Year Sticker". Again, clueless. That was the cause of a ticket. Yes, I owed $10 to the city of Santa Cruz. Yes, it took about 10 minutes of my time to go to our blessed DMV on Santa Teresa, to get the sticker, to get a signature. And I had to go to a post office to buy a stamp, to send it all to the city of Santa Cruz.
The city got $10 richer... now, let's calculate how much has it lost. I really feel like it's enough. We'll find other places to go to. HMB, Pescadero, Monterey, whatever. So, the city loses about $700 a year. I mean, add up, say, a thousand of visitors that the city of Santa Cruz treats the way they treated me. I'll leave you guys alone. Smoke your pot, surf your boards, enjoy your lives. We'll go somewhere else. Good bye, and thanks for all the fish.
Anyway; we lived there and enjoyed our life. People of Santa Cruz! We missed them when we moved to San Mateo. Only in Santa Cruz total strangers will say 'hi' to you if you are just filling your tank on a gas station. In San Mateo they don't notice you (and you don't notice them). When I was commuting along hwy 1, I picked up very funny hitch-hikers that had an urge to get to Gray Hound Beach, I've no clue why. When we moved, we returned probably every other weekend, to linger on a beach, to stroll along Pacific Avenue (I even wrote a wikipedia article about Pacific Avenue); on Halloween it was a natural place to go walk around, dressed as Howard Stern dressed as a fat woman.
The only bad thing there were cops on highway 17. I worked at Borland, and commuted every day from San Jose. The cops, looking all like Timothy McVeigh clones, would stop me and tell me tales. Like I drove too fast, etc. Was it because of my two bumber stickers in what the white people call "hispanic language"? One was "Estereo Sol (puro Mexico)", the other one was "Viva la vida Linux". Once I went to the court and fought the ticket, and won. The other time I did not go, and paid. Once, around lunch time, i was driving to visit my dentist; I was on cruise control, in the right lane, my speed wsa 54-55 mph. A cop stopped me and told me that I cut off a white Honda. Slowly and loudly I asked him: "which Honda? Where is it now? Did it pass us while we were talking or just disappeared?" The cop changed the topic, and discovered that in their database my driver's license had a wrong address (although my car registration was at the right address). How could I know? Anyway, I owed the System $10, and he was satisfied.
Once I had to make a short visit to USCS, to check some stuff. So, during my lunch time, I drove from Scotts Valley to the USCS campus, and my first question was - where to park. The campus was deserted, but all the parking lots were reserved (and empty). Eventually I found a "30 minutes" parking place; parked there and went to look for someone who could point me to the right parking lot. I found a library, and a librarian, and she had explained to me where I should go to park. When I returned to my car (5 or 6 minutes passed), I had a ticket on my windshield. Well, in this case I had witnesses: my colleagues that saw me in Scotts Valley at 11:50 and 12:30, when I joined them for lunch. So I wrote to the USCS Parking Authorities, and, luckily, was convincing enough. But hey. Do you think I started loving the laid-back atmosphere of USCS after this?
Dear Santacruzans! Have you ever visited your traffic court? Do you know how racist your cops are? About 90 percents of the wrongdoers in the court are Spanish-speaking people. Do you think it reflects the percentage of Spanish-speaking population in Santa Cruz? Do you think Spanish speakers drive faster than white people? At all ages? I doubt it. The problem is, their language is not good enough to talk to a cop. To talk to a Timothy.
Last weekend we took to Santa Cruz our friend that came from Russia. We went to Natural Bridges, we saw Steamers Lane, we went to the warf, then we parked on Church and went to 99, then strolled along Pacific. When we returned, we had a parking ticket. What did we do wrong?
It turned out that, after we changed the car plate, our DMV forgot to give us a new "Month Sticker" - we had only a "Year Sticker". Again, clueless. That was the cause of a ticket. Yes, I owed $10 to the city of Santa Cruz. Yes, it took about 10 minutes of my time to go to our blessed DMV on Santa Teresa, to get the sticker, to get a signature. And I had to go to a post office to buy a stamp, to send it all to the city of Santa Cruz.
The city got $10 richer... now, let's calculate how much has it lost. I really feel like it's enough. We'll find other places to go to. HMB, Pescadero, Monterey, whatever. So, the city loses about $700 a year. I mean, add up, say, a thousand of visitors that the city of Santa Cruz treats the way they treated me. I'll leave you guys alone. Smoke your pot, surf your boards, enjoy your lives. We'll go somewhere else. Good bye, and thanks for all the fish.