How would you like to be always punctual in the morning? How would you like to have an alarm system that guarantees you jump out of bed the moment it goes off, landing you straight in the shower?
I slept by some shrubbery beside the AV Fire Department last night. I chose that spot primarily because it was the closest to the library. There are volumes and volumes of legal briefs that had to be produced in the next few days. So the destination for the day was the Neighborhood Cup that opens at 6AM. It has become my virtual office for months now and is conveniently located across the street from the AV Fire Department.
There were clusters of low growth flora beside the Fire Station that I was able to re-arrange so I can bed there with little visibility from the street. It looked like a hurried up version of a "sniper's nest". After my unwelcome encounter with sprinklers the other evening, I was pleased to find a place that I could sleep without getting into a fetal position. I slept there the other evening without a sprinkler incident.
5AM and I was already thinking of getting up but was still very sleepy because it was still dark. As it turns out, someone had set an alarm system for me and it was set to wake me up at 5AM. Consider an alarm clock that you cannot negotiate with – that guarantees that you wake up instantly. It has neither a snooze button nor a stop button. Imagine waking up to the watery and mind jarring wake-up call of a sprinkler system.
It went like this: A courtesy wake up call for VIP Guest Robert staying in the Green Suite was set for 5AM by the Front Desk at the Fire Station. 5AM rolls around and the valves open and water pushes through the pipes finally arriving at the sprinkler/wake-up system above Robert’s head. Robert gets the wake up call and jumps out of the bushes straight in a cold shower. An OC Sheriff’s Deputy named Deputy Wagoner is rolling by in his squad car on his way to get his morning donut and sees someone jump out of the bushes. He delays his donut run, backs up his squad car and stops to investigate. What happens next is a source of controversy.
Upon seeing me, Deputy Wagoner yelled, “Ben para aqui!”, thinking I was a Mexican. “I speak English”, I yelled back. After I got out of the shrubbery, he asked me to sit by the curb and called dispatch. Then, he asked me to stand up and patted me down for weapons. I had my wallet in my right pocket, which he pulled out and placed it on top of the squad car. Do you have any identification on you? It’s in my wallet. He took out my ID and called my information to dispatch. After realizing everything checked out, he gave me back my ID and sent me away. The only problem was he didn’t give me back my wallet and it had enough money to buy more than a dozen donuts. That was all the money I had – about $15.00 and documents that are difficult to replace without considerable cost and effort.
I called dispatch and spoke to a “Brian” who took my number and told me he was going to get a hold of the deputy. Within minutes, he called me back and said, “The deputy advised me that he returned your wallet”. It’s a classic confrontation that happens in court all the time. It is the defendant’s word against the officer’s.
I’m going to have to subpoena the squad car tapes to prove that the officer drove off with my wallet on his hood because he was in such a hurry to get to the donut shop.
VIEW THE SNIPER'S NEST
I slept by some shrubbery beside the AV Fire Department last night. I chose that spot primarily because it was the closest to the library. There are volumes and volumes of legal briefs that had to be produced in the next few days. So the destination for the day was the Neighborhood Cup that opens at 6AM. It has become my virtual office for months now and is conveniently located across the street from the AV Fire Department.
There were clusters of low growth flora beside the Fire Station that I was able to re-arrange so I can bed there with little visibility from the street. It looked like a hurried up version of a "sniper's nest". After my unwelcome encounter with sprinklers the other evening, I was pleased to find a place that I could sleep without getting into a fetal position. I slept there the other evening without a sprinkler incident.
5AM and I was already thinking of getting up but was still very sleepy because it was still dark. As it turns out, someone had set an alarm system for me and it was set to wake me up at 5AM. Consider an alarm clock that you cannot negotiate with – that guarantees that you wake up instantly. It has neither a snooze button nor a stop button. Imagine waking up to the watery and mind jarring wake-up call of a sprinkler system.
It went like this: A courtesy wake up call for VIP Guest Robert staying in the Green Suite was set for 5AM by the Front Desk at the Fire Station. 5AM rolls around and the valves open and water pushes through the pipes finally arriving at the sprinkler/wake-up system above Robert’s head. Robert gets the wake up call and jumps out of the bushes straight in a cold shower. An OC Sheriff’s Deputy named Deputy Wagoner is rolling by in his squad car on his way to get his morning donut and sees someone jump out of the bushes. He delays his donut run, backs up his squad car and stops to investigate. What happens next is a source of controversy.
Upon seeing me, Deputy Wagoner yelled, “Ben para aqui!”, thinking I was a Mexican. “I speak English”, I yelled back. After I got out of the shrubbery, he asked me to sit by the curb and called dispatch. Then, he asked me to stand up and patted me down for weapons. I had my wallet in my right pocket, which he pulled out and placed it on top of the squad car. Do you have any identification on you? It’s in my wallet. He took out my ID and called my information to dispatch. After realizing everything checked out, he gave me back my ID and sent me away. The only problem was he didn’t give me back my wallet and it had enough money to buy more than a dozen donuts. That was all the money I had – about $15.00 and documents that are difficult to replace without considerable cost and effort.
I called dispatch and spoke to a “Brian” who took my number and told me he was going to get a hold of the deputy. Within minutes, he called me back and said, “The deputy advised me that he returned your wallet”. It’s a classic confrontation that happens in court all the time. It is the defendant’s word against the officer’s.
I’m going to have to subpoena the squad car tapes to prove that the officer drove off with my wallet on his hood because he was in such a hurry to get to the donut shop.
VIEW THE SNIPER'S NEST
