I tried to make a long story short, but it just wasn't happening. It was my friend's boat, and he took over payments from one of his friends when they left the country for work. After the boat was paid off, my friend had no contact with the original owner and couldn't easily get the boat title switched to his name. He spent about a year corresponding with the county about registration, but they were just completely incompetent it seemed. He finally got what he thought were the right forms and sent them in with additional required documents. He sent everything in, including all the correspondence during the previous year, and several weeks later they emailed him and told him they would be sending the title by certified mail. He never received it, but just said fvck it because he was sick of dealing with those bozos. All of that happened several years prior to my incident.

Since it was my friend's boat, and he's a great guy, he took full responsibility for everything involved with the ticket. The mirror part was cheap (and he can afford it anyway), but he was going to have to figure out the registration stuff. He called the county only to find out they never switched the boat into his name. It took 6 months after sending them all of the same materials he had sent years earlier for them to respond that it was done and they would be mailing him the title. Meanwhile, I had requested an extension on my court date, which they granted after my explanation of the situation, and gave me a new date about one year from the original ticket. The court told me to send in everything as soon as we heard back from the county, because they can verify the registration internally. This allowed me not to have to wait for the registration to come in the mail and make a copy to send to the court. After we thought the registration was taken care of, I sent a huge envelope of documents to the court, paying the ticket, and providing all of the evidence and correspondence related to that boat ticket. This was probably in February or March at this point after the ticket was given the previous summer.

Fast forward another six months to September, and my parents receive a notice there is a warrant out for my arrest (my ID had their address still, but I wasn't living there). I got a very concerned phone call from my mother, which was entertaining, and I immediately called the court to ask what happened. Basically, the county fvcked us by jerking off at their office instead of doing their jobs. I raised hell and talked to anyone who would listen. The court finally confirmed the registration was taken care of, and I didn't even have to see the court in person. But at the end of the day, in addition to the original fees paid, plus the registration costs, they slapped me with a $200 warrant fee and a fvcking completely bull$hit $500 court cost fee even though I never even stepped foot in a courtroom (probably because I was an pain in their a$$ for the two weeks it took them to straighten everything out - at one point they wouldn't answer the direct line and I called 15 times in a row before an assistant answered very sheepishly that they did not yet have an answer for me like they promised). Thankfully, my friend makes very good money, and he just went ahead and paid the fees to be done with it. I would have fought that court cost fee just out of principle, but since I wasn't paying it, I didn't have the incentive. At the time, I was also just relieved to be done with the whole mess. The worst part of that lake day wasn't even the ticket...

So the day starts with the ticket right before we get out to the lake. During the day, a friend takes a tumble on Sea-Doo and toughs it out though he is in obvious pain - we find out later he actually fractured several ribs. Then on drive home, I was taking a left hand turn through a stop light (I was stopped at it first) and about 3/4 through the turn, the steering jerks suddenly. I struggle briefly to maintain control and immediately pull over as much as I can being there is no shoulder and a drainage ditch on the side of the road. As I'm pulling off the road, I see something fly past me on the passenger side - it was tire from the trailer :eek: Everything was fine and we got the trailer towed to the boat place to store the boat and have the trailer repaired. Talk about an adventurous day :tup:

Here's my friend and his boat and his trailer sans one wheel (all five bolts sheered). I was preoccupied with the terrible taste of the Monster energy drink someone gave me :icon17:
http://i45.tinypic.com/10ngtuh.jpg