I took the northernmost route this time westward, and my first stop after Chicago was at the Oakeshott Institute in Minneapolis, MN  (http://www.oakeshott.org/mission.html). After getting a tour, guided by Craig Johnson of the Arms&Armor workshop (which specializes in creating replicas of weapons from their collection as well as from elsewhere; http://www.armor.com/), I got my hands (yes, literally :-) on the institute's antique swords. At first it seemed that it made no difference whether they handed to me a rapier from the beginning of the 17. century or a bronze sword from 1300 Before Christ--if I only knew one way of sword-fighting (yeah, that would be Fabris :-). 

But then I got my act together :-) (meaning I begun using each sword within the appropriate system).

We concluded the day by "the best on Minneapolis/Minnesotta" party at Craig's house, which involved locally made beer and bratwurst barbecue. For the nights, however, I was staying at the house of Keith Alderson, a fellow University of Chicago Ph.D. Candidate. Given the ratio of weapons--both eastern and western steel as well as antique and modern handguns and rifles--to square footage, Keith's house is the safest one in the whole area. Needless to say Keith found something even for the Indian Wars enthusiast in me...

Additionally, an official invitation was extended to me to join an elite group of western martial artists, the Uppermidwest Hurlbat Society. Below on the left, I am pictured with the founders of said society and THE hurlbat. During another visit, with a dinner featuring in return Czech beer that time, Craig gave me a guided tour of the Oakeshott Institute itself, where they exhibit the armor from their collection, together with further weapons. 

The main mission of the Oakeshott Institute is to help researchers really experience the various original weapons and armor in order to understand, among other things, how the historical development of the arms and armor interacted with the development of the corresponding fighting styles. 

        Given my both historical and more contemporary swords/fencing involvement along the way, I kept the Native American component of my westward journey balanced as well. First of all, I visited several museums with historical artifacts and Native American art. Featured below is a reconstruction of Fort Mandan, the winter post built by the Lewis and Clark expedition, which remained in the vicinity of the the Mandan-Hidatsa Indian villages on the Upper Missouri River in North Dakota in 1804. It was here that Lewis and Clark met Sakakawea, the Indian woman who would be essential to the success of the rest of the expedition.

In addition to the the Upper Missouri River, a tip for tough budget travelers is included below. Remember the system where you drive until the gas runs out, which is when you get gas, use bathroom, and take out of your cooler the food you prepared for your trip? And then you eat this food while driving until the gas runs out again? Since preparing your food in advance is the most economic way of eating while traveling, guess what you do during the night, that is unless you are staying with friends. Well, for the night you just stick your car under a random bush, onto a quiet side road, or among some desolated fields. Since you do this after dark, and you will be woken up by being cold there before sunrise anyway, you will be back on the road before anyone gets a chance to see you. So here comes the tip. Right before the Fort Mandan entrance plaza, on the right, they have a little rest/play/picinc area, which is very nice and quiet, even furnished with bathrooms, where no-one will bother you the whole night. Or perhaps it worked out this way for me because a storm with rain, thunder, and lightning was raging almost the whole night? When it cleared up in the morning, it was hard to say :-). But speaking of tips, during storms with lightning, you do not want to park under trees especially in areas with no buildings like here. But no worries, it is still not necessary to run and pay for a hotel room either. Just move your car to the middle of a large enough area among the trees... 

Concerning the original locations of the Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara Indian villages, then, these can be viewed at the Knife River Indian Villages site (http://www.nps.gov/knri/index.htm), where a reconstruction of an earth-lodge in which the tribes used to live can be visited as well. 

The next state is Montana, where I have friends on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. While I have visited the Fisher family many times on different occasions, a photo report concerning two of my visits, conducted during the largest Northern Cheyenne pow-wow (a dance celebration), can be found at: http://home.uchicago.edu/~advorak/Cheyenne.htm. While it is totally not always a pow-wow time, during which Sara Young wears her traditional Crow dress, scenes with horses peacefully grazing around the reservation houses under the typical hills can be found there at any time. 

Sara's husband, the Northern Cheyenne historian Conrad Fisher, used to work at the cultural center by the Chief Dull Knife College on the reservation. However, currently he studies in a Cultural Heritage program at the University of Montana in Missoula. That is where he gave me a tour of his university and the city, together with sharing a couple of meals, before I hit the road again.   

I did not travel far this time, however, as my next visit was with Preston Miller, the owner of the Four Winds Indian Trading Post (which is the longest continuously operating as well as oldest trading post in Montana (http://www.visitmt.com/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordID=9530&siteid=1). Here, I got my hands (yes, again literally) on Preston's private collection, which is stored in several houses around the post. These houses, which are historical artifacts by themselves, are full of old Native American stuff, and Preston kept opening boxes after boxes for me until the evening.

Pictured below are, first, Cheyenne mocassins from the 1850s from Preston's collection. Second, there is a couple of Lakota + Cheyenne baby cradleboards from the two tribal/private museums I also visited in western Montana. Finally, a scene from the Crow reservation illustrates that if something characterizes Native Americans in general, it is their particular sense of humor :-).   

        In Northern Oregon, then, I visited my senior FMP (Fencing Masters Program--http://home.uchicago.edu/~advorak/FMP.html; http://www.fencingmastersprogram.com/) classmate, Provost at Arms David Cogley, who is building his classical fencing studio just north of Portland. David took me for a trip featuring the beautiful local outdoors, especially places that David used to visit as a child. Featured are Multnomah Falls, the Columbia River Gorge, and Mount Hood. On the Columbia River, there are several power stations, but in order to enable the salmon still travel up the river as they have always been doing, several "fish ladders" are built into the structures. At Bonnevile Dam, one such "fish ladder" has glass walls so that people can watch the fish during their journey there. Concerning Mount Hood, I would not be surprised to learn that its name is related to my impression that even if there are no clouds anywhere else, some always hang right over the mount like a hat :-). 

Of course we also fenced some at David's new studio, the Fenian Academy of Fencing (the following pictures are now historical documents, as they still feature the old concrete floor). And yes, next time I should try actually lunging instead of only "faking" said footwork :-) (else a couple of hundred years from now, there may be this old fencing history book for geeks, and in it the following caption: "Instructor Dvorakova demonstrating how not to fake a lunge, and Provost--by then an Italian Maestro, of course--Cogley performing a passata sotto, or--in the 2nd picture--attempting a parry.)

After we "fooled around" long enough, we actually worked some too. Additionally, I took some pictures of David teaching his students, and coaching their fencing. And how about the photo with the steaks and whiskey? That is David's (or perhaps more generally Irish?) conceptualization of dinner! :-)

I spent the last night of this my long and diverse trip, with the ultimate destination of San Jose, at the house of Maestro Myers. Of course, in the morning, we got out the Montante, the two-handed swords used in Spain and Portugal in the 16th--17th centuries. We worked on some plays from Maestro Myers' (who is alternatively known as Eric :-) translations of historical manuals by two fencing masters of the Montante times--Dom Diogo Gomes de Figueyredo (see http://www.oakeshott.org/Figueiredo_Montante_Translation_Myers_and_Hick.pdf) and Domingo Luis Godinho.  

But here ties in another prominent feature of my trip. How shall I introduce the story...well...I think I am finally *assimilating* :-). I used to be such a "church girl" that I never used any curse-word publicly (well, if at all) for most of my life. (Except after our high school graduation party, when a drunk guy bothered a girl. Even his friends were not able to wrestle the girl out of his hands, or talk him out of bothering her. Ultimately one of them turned to me, asking me to do something. I will never know how he came up with this idea, as I spent the 4 years of my high school time being quietly invisible, timid, very polite, and I in fact never even interacted with this guy, who was over-confident, dashing, and rowdy. I had no clue what I was doing, but as the situation clearly required, I jumped all over the guy, cursing him in such a manner that his jaw dropped, his eyes popped, and he let the girl go immediately! But then I remained silent concerning cursing for another decade...) However, during this my drive, a curse-word just popped up in "hearty" American (language). And during my subsequent driving along the same route (from San Jose to Chicago and back), my usage of the word just solidified. (When doing something, I am doing it properly, thus this is a really "good" one too :-). I used to think this word was vulgar, but a friend explained that Americans just use it to indicate the intensity of their feelings about an issue...

In any case, I have so far been able to keep the usage of said word to myself. A story proves this. At the time when I was telling Eric I would arrive at his house later than expected, an SUV almost run into me in a narrow corridor in a construction zone just in order to overtake me while avoiding running into a slow-moving construction truck, which this guy was following (I still do not get it what this driver was trying to accomplish; the only explanation I can imagine is that he perhaps did not realize how slow the truck was moving before it was too late). In any case, I bet Eric still does not know this was as close as I ever got to having an accident, as I had to abruptly brake and steer towards the construction barrier in order not to collide with the reckless driver's SUV. Luckily, I never hit a thing, so I continued my sentence almost without skipping a beat. And upon arriving at Eric's house later that night, I simply mentioned there were people on the road who thought they did not need to know how to drive, or even be polite, just because they had large cars. However, in case you happen to hear something you cannot believe I would ever say, it may be just me becoming a "real American" :-)! (No, I do not mean my by now "good old" "Bože," which in Czech means "Oh, my god!" even as it sounds much like "Oh, $h!T!")

Anyway, while one of my trips ended at Eric's house, another one commenced there. And then it continued to the house of Scott Aldinger in Nevada. Guess whether or not we fenced some with Scott (in his health club) as well... :-). 

But in the morning, it turned out there was a need for an ice scraper. I got at first really worried I got so excited about the California weather that I was no longer a good Chicago-raised driver, who never takes her ice-scraper out of her car. But since this tool was going to be even more needed in Wyoming and beyond (than in Nevada), I dug harder...and found it! What a relief! I was indeed ready to head east...

None of the above seems hard-core enough for you :-)? Further adventures to make your lonely/lengthy drive "sane" are available. I participated in these during the second trip of mine mentioned above. First, there was my visit at the place of Jay Red Hawk, who is a Lakota (a member of a Native American tribe belonging to the "Sioux" family), who researches the history and practice of plains horseback archery.

Obviously, we explored said topic practically :-). But before someone asks, no, we did not in fact hunt buffalo :-)! Although Jay has done that previously; he has in fact been even featured in the National Geographic (May 2004, around page 29) taking down a buffalo off horseback with a plains bow and stone-pointed arrows. But during my visit with him, only some "target practice" was involved (although they were quite small targets!).

It needs to be mentioned that we practiced under conditions due to which any archery competition would be simply cancelled. It would be considered impossible to shoot in such high winds, which were gusting up to 50 mph! (Which is why especially shooting from the other side of the horse, which is difficult enough for many rather "competitive," as opposed to more "real life" archers to forfeit, was wiser to do from a slower moving horse.) Although we braved the weather as long as possible, we eventually had to go in earlier than planned. And since I still had a good number of hours to drive that evening, I had to forfeit my dinner invitation as well. However, given the stories Jay told me about winters in his "neighborhood," during that season I would probably accept his invitation to stay at his house as long as necessary to wait out the same winds combined with the South Dakota winter storms...

Speaking of snow/ice storms, I learned about those soon enough too. When I got back into my car still in Iowa (while heading from Chicago to San Jose), my GPS says--very matter-of-factly :-): "Go straight on I-80 (towards Omaha) for 1,650 (one thousand sixty hundred and fifty) miles." Now, this could be really boring, but the weather was promising to provide in fact more "entertainment" to on this stretch of the road than desired. 

The weather was indeed "entertaining" me the whole following day. The final highlight was a night, police assisted accident scene under a hill covered with cars. First, several small cars were standing in the middle of the road there (some might have been in fact a bit sliding backward) and then there were large trucks stopped in weird directions almost across the road, which was covered with ice and snow. I suppose the small cars were too light to have enough traction, and the trucks were too heavy to get up the hill, as when things finally moved, small 4-wheel-drive trucks were able to go around the stranded cars and keep driving, albeit at walking speed.

And my LittleRed (car) continued as well. How come? For one, being my perfect match, she too follows the "you do what you have to do when you have to do it" principle (which results in some things being possible just through sheer willpower :-). For two, while she certainly has no 4-wheel-drive, and while she is normally as light as a little car gets, during this trip she was seriously loaded with all kinds of stuff, including some arms and armor. So after a while, my LittleRed in fact says: "Put the camera down already, and let us actually drive for a change! It is still long ways to San Jose, and we have no time to lose." So we meandered around the slow-moving cars, and plunged into the snowstorm ahead of everyone... That day, we made it from the very beginning of Nebraska to the very end of Wyoming, which my GPS estimates at over 14 hours (over 850 miles). Since time must be added for any desired stops for gas, food, and Walmart shopping :-), now you know why my "no stopping unless the gas runs out" principle is important...

The next morning (yes, the two following photos were taken during "bright daylight"), I found out why my LittleRed (car) was working so desperately on getting me out of that traffic jam location described above. That night, there were seven dead in car accidents on route I-80 around the same location. Thus, my LittleRed had a reason, even more serious one than my freezing there overnight, for not seeing as an alternative our waiting on the side of the road there till the morning (as other cars could have slid into us there). Although above I made my LittleRed sound funny about pulling ahead of everyone through the snowstorm, that too was for the sake of safety. She knew that in conditions where snow is falling on an ice-covered road, one does not want to be locked behind cars that keep stopping (instead, one wants to use her brakes very sparingly, and that even if said brakes actually work :-). Should one have to stop uphill (of which there are plenty in the Rocky Mountains), one may not ever be able to begin moving again (which has happened to those cars described above, and it is possible that those I saw stranded in the middle of the road were some of the victims of the subsequent accidents). Should one be able to keep moving through changing lanes onto a clear road, instead of stopping and staying in the crowd where everyone is in the constant danger of collision, my LittleRed reckoned that needed to be done, even if that meant our going faster than the rest of the crowd... (And what I meant by "even if one's brakes actually work"? Recently, I tried out a totally new car, which was just a cheap Korean one, but it had one really cool feature. When I pressed the brake pedal, the car actually begin stopping immediately! My LittleRed does not do that...)   

But now back onto safer road-trip adventures.

 Upon running out of meat, one can go to a supermarket (or even--gasp!--a restaurant), thus implicitly insisting that someone else deals with all the necessary steps towards supplying one's meat. Or, one can "do it oneself" :-). And since the following was the last piece of sausage left in the house when I visited Keith Alderson, a fellow University of Chicago Ph.D. Candidate and martial artist, it was time to head into the woods and take action...

"Button bucks" (about 1 and 1/2 year male deer) make for a particularly good meat supply, as they are much more tender/tasty (than older deer; in addition to being specifically targeted by game management plans). But this is not a bragging story of me being a tough hunter. In fact, I followed a young doe in my scope as she walked slowly past me, even stopping now and then, as close as at 20 yards, but I let go her as well as other does/fawns. Instead, this is a bragging story documenting to what pains Keith, together with his uncle Fred and aunt Camy, went with their arrangements for not even a "gentleman" but outright a "lady hunt" for me on their land located a few hours north of Minneapolis, Minnesota. To begin with, Keith let me use his Browning Lever-action Rifle, .308 Winchester Caliber (while the revolver is his S&W 57 "Mountain Gun," .41 Remington Magnum Caliber). The background of the last picture below then documents that we were indeed hunting in the "land of lakes."

Additionally, a few weeks before I visited, Keith helped his uncle Fred build a brand new stand (nicknamed "deer condo"), although Keith himself used to just hunt from the ground. The "deer condo" was even furnished with, in addition to a brand new bench, a "booster seat" that Fred installed after ascertaining my height. (And was it a nice warm seat! Which actually proved to be very important. :-) The day before I came, uncle Fred even raked the whole path from our deer camp to the stand--just so that we can walk out quietly without the rustling of dry leaves under our feet.

But our "deer camp," that was really a whole lodge (which uncle Fred built himself when he originally moved onto his land), complete with kitchen and everything. The last picture, then, shows my very own room.

In one sense, this was a "cultural exchange" event, as documented in the first picture, where Keith and Fred are drinking two different brands of Czech beer while I am having a local one. And there was even a little "cultural interlude" featuring uncle Fred as a Viking :-). And then everything was already ready for the morning. Both our rifles were topped with Leupold 2 x 7 VX-II scopes, they had traditional match slings, and the ammunition was Federal Premium 165 grain soft-point rounds (the also pictured Federal 210 grain Hi-shock hollow-point round goes into the revolver). 

The sunrise found us having been in our stand already for some time. And Fred and Camy were not even expecting us to stay there the whole day. They were continuously preparing food, and when we eventually came in, a feast, complete with homemade bread and pie, ensued.

And so what about the promised meat? Well, after I had let go the does, which Keith magnanimously left to me (already because I was always the first one to spot them), it was then almost time for us to go back to Minneapolis. Since we had originally decided to let does with fawns go and wait for a buck, I pretty much let that first young and naive one go before I decided to give preference to our sausage needs over wildlife viewing. Another doe got away through " cleverly" running on the side with the highway, parked cars, and houses. Thus, Keith and his relatives were in fact very happy about my self-control and concern for safety. However, as time progressed, things became less about me and more about our return to that house, which was so desperately out of sausage! Thus, we decided we would both shoot the next time around, and Fred took to the highway to circle behind the woods and push out whatever was hiding there. Keith thus naturally concentrated towards the side from which Fred was coming. But I nudged him suddenly, as a deer came running right on the opposite side! He was hightailing (running/jumping as fast as he could), and then quartering away among the multiple trees between him and us. Although we were both following him, I found this to be such a difficult shot that I worried I would only wound the buck, letting him still run away and subsequently die somewhere after a great deal of suffering (leaving us without our sausage anyway :-). Thus, it was ultimately left up to Keith to save the situation by moving first. Shooting off-hand at over 50 yards, his first shot broke the buck's hind leg in the middle of one of his leaps. When Keith subsequently approached, the deer tried to get up and run, but Keith's second shot took him through the neck. 

When it came to picture-taking, Keith generously persuaded me to get in the picture with him, as he called the two of us a "hunting team," and he insisted he would have never gotten the shot had I not spotted the buck behind him. (Although the photo may be confusing because Keith would not bring into it his rifle, the Winchester 70 "Featherweight"; .308 Winchester Caliber). In any case, our sausage situation was solved, thus we celebrated a bit--appropriately with Jägermeister. And needless to say I lived on venison not only during my subsequent stay in Chicago but also along my whole return journey to California. Still, a question remained. Can *I* hit a barn (when I see it :-)? To address this question, I have to tell another story.

My brother used to be an officer in the army. He was the type that likes to sticks with technology instead of commanding people, but he is known for being quite good at shooting. At a shooting range close to where we live in the Czech Republic, there is a shooting club that includes many army officers, policemen, security guards, etc., and they keep inviting my brother to their competitions. My brother never goes, however, as he is not very social, and he does not care for being challenged. The other time, however, my brother received one of the pertinent invitations just when I was visiting home (after not having shot a gun for several years), so he registered me for the competition instead of himself. I, of course, was happy to get to shoot for free, so I was all for it (whether it was a competition or not). When my brother drove me to the shooting range, we showed up pretty late, but just in time for me to still participate in the competition. I used my S&W 65-3" .357 Magnum, which my brother bought for me (as a part of his traditional, even as obviously evolving, obligation to protect his younger sister). The organizers of the competition took the target with my first 10 rounds (or however many were counted; I cannot remember now), and we continued shooting just for fun. When they tallied up the scores, however, it turned out I ended up second (overall; there was no gender division). So I got a prize, and my brother was just standing there as if he was saying: "See, this is how the *women* shoot in our family!"

But since deer proved to be a case quite different from even the moving targets at a shooting range :-), what is the concluding "morale" of this story? Well, obviously, I need more practice!!! :-) :-) :-)

In the meantime, does anyone have a nagging feeling they have not yet seen enough armor on this website? The Art Institute of Chicago can help :-). Admittedly, I conducted my trip to Chicago in order to meet my Ph.D. dissertation adviser, borrow further literature to be used in my dissertation writing, donate my furniture to Salvation Army (in order to unburden the nice people who let me keep it at their house for free), deal with my car insurance, and take care of other (rather boring :-) issues. However, the trip had perfect timing also because I arrived at Chicago right after the Art Institute of Chicago opened their new arms and armor exhibit. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a suit of armor, which is very similar to that worn by the German Emperor Maximilian I in his equestrian portrait by Hans Burgkmair the Elder from 1508. On the left, then, is a German suit of armor for field and tourney from the third half of the 16th century. 

Further featured are an Italian (Milanese) half armor with a targe from the beginning of the 17th century, a couple of German/Swiss two-handed swords, a half armor for a Polish hussar from the end of the 17th c., and a half armor for an English pikemen officer from the first quarter of the 17th c.

Since the Art Institute obviously concentrates on other forms of art as well, they have also many paintings and drawings that illustrate the way of life pertinent to the periods when the exhibited arms and armor were in use. Below are just a couple of examples--a painting of a horseback tourney by Jan van Scorel from 1520, and a Guardhouse painting by David Teniers the Younger from 1645. 

Examples concerning the objects in use during the period in question include French globes--a celestial and terrestrial one from the second half of the 16th century, and some Bohemian (= from today Czech Republic! :-) beakers with polychrome enamel decorations from the end of the 16th century. 

It may seem that my LittleRed (car) and I never stop and rest, as she and I are indeed a perfect match--we are both old and banged up, short and fat/small, non-impressive at first sight/with no fancy features (even my car windows have to be rolled down manually), but only a fool would waste time trying to stop us when we are "on a mission."(Well, we are both a kind of patched up as well. When my LittleRed begun rusting due to cracks in her outside paint finish, caused by those who were trying to break into her in Chicago, and those who must have hit my LittleRed while she was parked in front of a church, I solved the issue with a $1.99 can of paint from WalMart--hey, who said cars were supposed to be shiny anyway? Well, this treatment corresponds to what I do when I need a dental surgery--eat a bunch of antibiotics instead, hoping that things would calm down for a while.) Anyway, there are in fact times when we do have to stop, whether just because we cannot continue across the water when we hit one or the other ocean yet again, or because it is time to fix a LittleRed's tire (I kept trying to drive on it long enough, while periodically adding some air using the little compressor I found in my landlord's garage, but things like this do not escape the sharp eye of Maestro Sahm, who never fails to point them out :-). 

But the first of the above-mentioned trips was not without a more readily apparent incident either. The first night of my 10 day long travel, I lost my passenger side mirror (because one of those orange/white cask-sized "cones" was all of a sudden inside of my lane, which was narrow enough already in this construction zone, through which I was going at night). I thus had to order a replacement for the mirror. It was good that I did so right away--by calling a San Jose Dodge dealer. Otherwise, by the time I actually arrived at San Jose 10 days later, I would go like: "Who needs side mirrors anyway!?" After paying $87 for the spare part in a box, they would install it for another $70 for me. So guess what? My "whatever I can do myself, I do myself" (instead of paying often ridiculous amounts) kicked in. The first picture below documents how I saved not only money but also time (they mechanics wanted to take a whole 1/2 hour for this installation! :-). So should you ever need a minor part exchanged on your car, turn with confidence to a short fat girl! And, since my LittleRed by now truly desired some attention, I saved big also on detailing and car wash...

But since we are talking technical types now, here is something further for these--see how long trains get in America? (Well, yeah, of course--when "everything is bigger in America," right? :-). While you cannot even see the train engine in the upper photo, as it is out of view around the curve, you can safely bet the train has at least two of these... (well, given the fact that even passenger trains run these tracks only about 2-3 times a week, no-one wants to sit around having to wait for a new engine to arrive should one's only engine break down).   

But my trip report would not be complete without the ultimate happy end narrative...

On my way to Chicago, I got a speeding ticket from a California Highway Patrol officer (although the ticket was in fact issued already in Nevada). I went somewhat fast only in the moment of passing a truck. The truck went about 10 miles below the posted speed limit of 55 mph, which I thus I did not need to exceed. However, the officer claimed he "clocked me" (using radar) at 71 mph, which, as opposed to 70 mph, qualified for the much higher fine amount. Two friends with a radar detector, who were driving in my immediate vicinity, said no radar ever went off, however. Additionally, they made the very same pass of the slow truck, pulled over as well, and waited with me. My friends had actually at first thought the officer was stopping them, but he indicated he wanted me. We suspect I was chosen due to my Illinois license plate. When I asked the officer about the court date/location on my ticket, he indeed said that was just the date by which I needed to send in my money.

A couple of weeks later, along my way back from Chicago, I thus went to the pertinent court (which is located all the way atop the Sierras) and requested my court appearance date. Then I did some research and composed my discovery request (which is a legal document to share my evidence while requesting to see the prosecuting attorney/CHP's evidence in exchange). I even used the formal procedure of having a friend "serve" my discovery onto the pertinent attorney, the superior court, and the CHP office. A week and a half later, I received a letter from the court, of which the most important portion appears below (see section 4 and the checked "other").

          

I wish things would improve also for all the other short ladies in little red cars, who have foreign accents, and who are heading to their out-of-state places, thus they are not able to come back to fight! And I feel very special for having my friends around, especially my two witnesses who were ready to support me in the court, the friend who "served" my letters, and all who encouraged me in my determination to fight when everyone else said to give up and just pay the fine and/or beg to be allowed to take the traffic school to avoid the rise of my insurance rate instead of fighting (even legal advisers said I should expect to be ignored, and found guilty, regardless of what I do or argue).
Still, the officer deserves one credit. After he requested my weight information, he insisted my truthful answer was way too much. I had no better answer, but he persisted and ultimately filled out a number that made me "lose" 30 pounds! :-)

On an even more humorous note, I figured out how my ridiculous/heroic (select one :-) determination to fight my speeding ticket, which I had in spite of the fact that pretty much everyone was assuring me I would lose at the court, can be used to improve my fencing. Maestro Sahm keeps teasing me that my biggest problem as a fencer is that I am "a chicken." Indeed, I am prone to doubting myself and getting distracted instead of proceeding with a relentlessly aggressive attitude during my fencing. It seems to me that the decisive difference lies in the fact that with respect to the speeding ticket, I felt that I was attacked unjustly, and that, even more importantly, I was fighting also on behalf of all the other people, who may be singled out as easy prey in situations similar to mine in the future. Thus, it seems that as soon as we figure out how to transfer this my "outside world" fighting attitude into my fencing, Maestro Sahm will be scrambling not to get run over! :-) :-) :-)