Does this look like me?

This week I fought City Hall and won! I only won on a technicality however and not for the reason I should have won. I got "flashed" by a van right by Mesa High during the summer going 49 in a 45 mph speed zone. The sign said 35 mph on school days, I knew it wasn't a school day, so I went at a prudent & reasonable speed, and within what I thought was the speed limit. I was shocked when it took my picture. I wanted to fight it, so when it came I even had Chuck return it with knowing me as the driver (I know lots of friends have said how unwise that was) Anyway I got this great attny/judge friend of mine who helped me make my case. I had all sorts of questions to ask the officer in court. Funny, I watched 4 other cases and no one questioned the officer. I felt like a real lawyer doing my cross examination. Of course the officer had proof that summer school was in session, but I just fired question after question about why were there not any indicators to those of us driving by! I had my proof of when the last day of school was, along with pictures of the speed limit signs and blinking lights at Brimhall (which he said they did not have!) So I'm giving my statement and pulling all of these facts together and the dear, sweet judge interupts me and says "Mrs. Brown, how much longer are you going to be? We only had 15 min for your case, and I've got to let some other cases go now. Please sit at the back of the courtroom and we'll hear the rest of your case in a little bit". Man! Talk about anti-climatic! I sat back there and thought of how she was going to forget all my info, and how many cases she still found the defendant "responsible", so I really got nervous. However when I finally got back up and apologized for taking so long, she was so gracious and said "no apologies necessary, I want you to have all the time you need". So I wrapped it up real quick, the officer gave his one more schpeel, then the judge said "after hearing all of the evidence I'm not even going to judge on whether you were speeding or not. This (as she held up the photo above) is a terrible picture, and you cannot identify anyone from it. Defendant is not responsible". !!! It was pretty fun, but nerve wracking, to say the least. I just sure hope that the city will put up blinking lights around Mesa High now WHEN school is in!

What brings home the bacon

I realized I've never written about our company. The other love of my hubby's life. We've had our company, C.B. Contracting, Inc. for over 13 years now, and started a sister company called K-12 Defense Consultants. I put that logo on cuz it looks cooler than C.B.'s logo. I know it sounds like something education related, but it is the highest crash rating system for a barrier which is pretty much what we do now; install barriers at different government facilities. We have done work at military bases, federal reserve buildings, FBI, court houses, dams, police stations, car rental places, etc. It's amazing to think of how our business has grown and changed, from cutting concrete, to doing curbs & gutters in the 80's & 90's and now to anti-terrorist security. From our office being in our laundry room, then bedroom, then home office, to a real away from home office. We have really been blessed by God with work to keep us busy, great employees who work hard, and talented office staff. Stephanie at the office is working right now on our website, which you can link to at the right top corner links. I'll have to post some pictures of our staff on here too. Just over a year ago it was only Danny, Josie and I in the office, while Chuck and the other guys were working abroad (Japan, Guam, England, etc.) We were so crazy busy and understaffed I thought I'd loose my mind. I've been doing the bookkeeping for a long time now, and we've just grown to where I needed some serious help. Along came Stephanie, and "she completes me", or at least lets me focus more on the accounting (which BTW Paul is studying in school & which I hope he'll take over for me someday)
We also get to share the office with Curt, Chuck's brother and his company. They've got a great bunch of people too. Sometimes we all re-enact scenes from "The Office" and have great laughs. Josie plays jokes on Brenda (she's Jim), Stephanie has wadded paper she throws at Danny, and Danny has hidden my cell phone in the past. I didn't punch a hole in the wall though. At times we all watch Chuck when he falls asleep in his chair, and laugh when he starts snoring! No he really works hard, and we appreciate him so much. He was really inspired to get into something more specialized. He's a genius when it comes to thinking up how to do things. I just love his engineering mind! Chuck has been pretty excited lately because they are working on changing the operations of the barriers in a way that will save money in maintenance on the systems as well as be more environmentally safe (GREEN is in!) Hopefully it will make us some GREEN, and keep us in operations through this tough economy.

Birthday Cake!

Okay, this is from here on out the Birthday Cake of choice at our house! It is soooo easy and soooo yummy! We got the idea from the Lara's in our ward, so we made it for Jenny's birthday. The boys always wanted ice cream cakes and I'd spend a fortune on them, when I could have been doing this all along! It's just layers of ice cream sandwiches, whip cream, crushed Butterfinger candy bars, chocolate and carmel syrup!