And I believe I would’ve been better off just electing to take traffic school. I totally froze up when my turn came and just plead no contest, but didn’t give my story, which this judge was allowing. I should’ve told her that I was unfamiliar with the area and I swear I was driving only about 7 mph over not the 14 that he said he clocked me at. Plus I should’ve realized that the officer didn’t record any of his radar information. But .. I didnt .. and the judge wasn’t happy with my 2 other tickets in the past year (I’m sure that in Broward county the judge wouldn’t care) .. so she didn’t reduce my fine, and when I asked about the points, she told me that she would allow me to take the 8 hour course rather then adding on points. WHAT?!?! 8 HOURS?!?! Ugh … so even with school she didn’t reduce my fee (which I totally forgot to ask about) .. blah. I guess I really need to try harder to drive the speed limit.

In other news, Sean is encouraging me to find a studio to rent. This started yesterday and today was my first real day of looking, and I’m really disappointed. Ideally I’d like a place that has lots of natural light (big windows), is on a 2nd story (for privacy), and is in an area that has other stuff. Meaning if my client wanted to walk down and take pictures on a street or maybe even a park or garden .. that would be really nice to have. Anyways .. I’m not finding much. I found one old building with amazing windows, turns out its on the national register of historic places (so i’m sure its ridic expensive). Then I spotted a place ontop of some shops in little historic downtown melbourne. So I talked to the ladies in the shop below who informed me that the landlord is a jerk and the upstairs place had a fire and is infested with termites and leaks, and he refuses to fix it .. he’s trying to sell the place. But I got his number anyway. Then I spotted another super cute place, 2 stories with a bunch of windows in the back .. and the whole place was empty. There was a sign out front that said ‘lease’ but no contact information anywhere on the building. I looked up the address through google, MLS and the tax records, all I could find was a PO Box for the owner. Blah. Then I went to 2 real estate agents, the first one I thought was a commercial agent, but only offered to show me her unit she had for rent next to her building, the other did alot of hunting for me and found nothing

Here are a couple pictures of the windows from today (in order of above). For all you melbourne / palm bayers .. if you spot anything like this for lease .. or see anything that might make a nice studio (think starving artist studio, or even dance studio) .. let me know.

And here is an osprey with a fish that I stopped to watch for a little while this afternoon.