I Don’t Need An Opticon
The distance between where I am currently staying and where I am
working is about 18 miles. Los Feliz is a lovely area to wake up on a
weekend. I am near Griffith Park and the zoo, the artsy Silverlake district, Skylight Books, the House of Pies, the Vista movie house, and a lovely coffee shop, the Coffee Table. Trader Joe’s is within walking distance - which is a real asset, since every single Trader Joe’s in the country fails to provide sufficient parking. There is a talented and honest auto mechanic a short distance away, and while you wait for your car to be lubed and rotated, you can cut a rug at the Derby - the cathedral of L.A.’s swing dance scene.
The drawback is, it is 18 miles away from where I am working. Mapquest doesn’t regard this as a problem; it estimates that the commute should take 24 minutes. This can make you laugh if you can take the traffic lightly; that is, however, a jhana I have yet to attain even after all these years of meditation.
In Colorado, a man named Jacob Niccum was recently ticketed for using a device that changes traffic signals. It’s called an Opticon. He bought it on E-Bay for a hundred bucks. At the push of a button, the device sends an infrared signals that changes the signal light. Firefighters use similar gadgets for genuine emergencies; chronic lateness doesn’t count as an emergency in the eyes of law, so Mr.
Niccum was fined $50.
Sitting on the 10 with Renee Montagne and Steve Innskeep updating me
on the news, an Opticon won’t help me get to the office on time. For
that, I would need a car that could sprout propellers and lift me up
over the the Santa Monica Freeway.
