Tag: trial

This week I had the privilege of serving as a jury member. I took a small notebook with me and recorded my thoughts through both days, as time allowed1. Below you will find a copy of those notes I took to read or ignore as you choose. No real attempt has been made to make the notes any better than they were originally written.

~~~~~~~~~~

Slept poorly, slow to awaken.
Rush to courthouse for jury duty. Hallways packed and warm.
Waited in courtroom in chairs of oak & iron. Old, lovely and totally uncomfortable.
Surrounded by young pups to old farts. By ladies of brown hair to blue.

Ate a granola bar on the drive in, carrying a second one in my pocket.
Drank some tea, but left bottle in the car.
Still we wait…

Hats removed from heads upon request. People go quiet.
A sense of beginning flows over the room. But is lost as the court assistant leaves.
A man, looking grumpy, leaves for second time. A cellphone rings when it should be turned off.
The doors close and the murmuring gets louder. People start to quiet again.
Expectation, boredom, sleepiness & muffled laughter sweep the room.
And still we wait…

I look around the room and wonder what kind of person would have all these people as their peers?
What could they be accused of?
And still we wait…

Housekeeping is done.
To clerk of court must report to get proof of attendance.
Educational video is watched.
The video’s attempts at humor failed.
Brains leaked from ears as video bored us to tears.
Some slackers walked in late.
And still we wait…

The video completed.
A break was announced.
And still we wait…

Break concluded.
Lawyers at their desk.
Perhaps now we will progress.

In truth the break runs long.
And still we wait…

A man with white hair sets a laptop on the judge’s bench.
Is he the decider of fates or an IT flunky like me?
A pool of potential jurors gets taken across the hall.
And still we wait…

The lawyers get called behind closed doors.
Yet a man waits across the fence where they say.
Casually dressed, I like his shirt.
Defendant, plaintiff, which is he?
I know not.
And still we wait…

Pages rustle, laptops beep, people babble.
And still we wait…

More names get called and the herd thins.
But still we wait…

Both lawyers finally return
But still we wait…

A book of haiku
waits at home wishing
it were here.

But still we wait…

Glasses removed for cleaning
Room all a blur
From poor eyesight & action not
And still we wait…

Lawyers conferring
whispers unheard
Doors a closing
And still we wait…

White haired man returns
In robes, a judge he is.
Waiting is done for now.

Into jury box, I go.
Questions are asked and answered.
Recommended Woodchuck Hard Cider I do.
Questions on alcohol use are frequent, as the case deals with OWI2.
Then a break we take.
And still we wait…

Back in we go.
Strike one, strike two…. strike eight.
Into the the final 13 for me.

Opening statements are made.
Prosecutor’s are long and dry.
Defender’s are short and sweet.

Now it’s time to eat!

Quizno’s my lunch did cook.
Then I bought some comic books.

And now we have to wait
Till we return to decide
One man’s fate.

Prosecutor shows videos and questions witness.
Defender tries to discredit both.
State rests and court adjourns.

~~~~~~~~~~

Day 2

Defender calls defendant to the stand.
Claims it’s all lies and the videos were faked.

Prosecutor calls the actor from the videos to the stand.
Voices were not a match, though their builds were vaguely similar.
Both sides done presenting.
Now with the judge they are blathering.
And we wait…

~~~~~~~~~~

There was more to tell, but that’s all I recorded in my notebook. In the end, well… that’s all a matter of public record. Go look it up. I will only admit to the follow:

  • I got a nice lunch on the court’s dime the second day
  • Now I don’t have to serve at the county courthouse for a couple of years.
  • It was nice to be out my office.

1 I used the official notepad for taking notes on the case, which the court kept to be destroyed after my service was completed.
2 As in operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.

Yunnan Jig Tea from Adagio Tea

As mentioned previously, I signed up with Adagio Teas for their Link Reward offer. Over the weekend I received an email from one of their reps, thanking me for the link and saying that my reward was on the way. Privately, I was having doubts as my track record with freebies, trial offers and rebates is extremely poor.

Then today after a pretty average day at the office, I got home to find that my doormat was hiding something. The first thought in my head was “I wonder what eBay auction Ariesna won this time?” Much to my delight, my first thought was wrong and instead I was holding a package from Adagio! I hurried inside, tossed the groceries into the fridge and cracked open the box. I was most pleased to find that an 8oz tin of yunnan jig tea and one of Adagio’s IngenuiTEA teapots. After taking the IngenuiTEA out of the box and plastic wrapping, I could feel that the plastic it’s made of has a solid feel to it; so I don’t think I’ll be accidentally breaking it any time soon. Still, if I were going to purchase one of these things, I think I would prefer the main body be made of a heavy-duty glass. *shrug* I don’t know that glass would really work any better but it would give the IngenuiTEA a better heft and feeling of quality. Still, it looks to be a quality product and it’s definitely a very clever idea. You toss your loose tea leaves into the IngenuiTEA, fill it with hot water, wait for it to brew and then set it on top your cup. The IngenuiTEA will then drain your fresh cup of tea into the cup for you; while automatically straining out the leaves. If you’re still confused; go watch the flash video on their website and it’ll all make sense.

Adagio has this to say about their yunnan jig tea:

Black tea from the Yunnan region of China. Yunnan tea is easily identified by its luscious soft leaves, and a unique peppery taste. It is a very forgiving tea; will not taste bitter when over-steeped. Yunnan tea is arguably the most underrated of Chinese varieties. If you have yet to try it, we would recommend it highly. Our ‘Yunnan Jig’ would make a great introduction.

I found it slid smoothly across the palate. When it initially hits the tongue there’s an earthy flavor to it, but swirling it around in my mouth for a bit that flavor settles down to be more smoky than earthy. After swallowing the tea, there’s a slight but distinct hint of black pepper. The first cup I made was too hot, so I threw a bit of ice in it but the tea tasted… off once it was cold. It wasn’t just being watered down; it just didn’t taste right. On the 2nd cup, I was more careful on how hot I let the water get and this time drank the tea without ice. That worked considerably better and I’d definitely recommend this to anybody who enjoys drinking black tea.

So the final verdict? Adagio seems to be a very cool company with tasty tea and a nifty gadget for brewing the tea up. Does this mean CoffeeBear.net will become TeaBear.net? No, but I’ve no doubt I’ll be buying more tea from them once this sample runs out (some of those green teas and the flavored teas sounds really good.). 🙂

The virus that have infected you will be show here along with thier cures, if known.

Viruses you suffer from:

Pokemon
Pikachu! Use your hyper-electric-get-a-life move now!

Linux
Install the latest version of Microsoft Windows. Learn to love it.

USA
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves! [repeat]

Junkfood
Eat some real food. Something which you can identify the source of every ingredient, not the point of manufacture.

Sci-fi
Stop wearing the stick-on ears.

Free BSD
The GPL isn’t that bad really. Adopt a penguin at the zoo.

Religion
Read “God’s Debris” by Scott Adams (yes, the Dilbert guy)

Japan
Big is good. Small is bad. Giant robots would not make a good last line of defence for Earth.

UNIX
Anything this old must be obselete. Go and install a nice modern operating system. I hear MSDOS has come a long way lately.

Discordia
Buy a suit. Invest your money. Eat hotdog buns on a friday.

Windows
Try MacOS X. It’s based on UNIX, it has a smoother UI than Windows and it doesn’t suck.
As an extra feature the boxes look nice.

Politics
Stop caring!

Brand Names
Having a well-known name doesn’t make it good.

Hippyism
Free love is passe and potentially dangerous, and patchouli smells like cat piss.

Computer Games
Stop staring at the screen and get some fresh air. You should see a doctor about the RSI in your thumbs.

Conspiracy Theory
Face it, the elected government is in control. Actually that’s quite scary.

Ultima
If you find one tell us.

Environmentalism
Consume more stuff! It’s easier to buy new stuff than to recycle.

Macintosh
Use a mouse with more than one button.

Viruses you might suffer from:

Gaming (70%)
Life is not a game. Roll 3D6. On a 4 or more go out and do something with your life.

Industrial (70%)
Everyone likes folk. No, really. Maybe you should listen to the Incredible String Band.

8-Bit (90%)
Polygons, all the polygons you can get are not enough.

X11 (60%)
I hear Mac OS 10 Aqua is nice at this time of year.

Prog Rock (60%)
Long hair looks dumb with a bald spot. Listen to CD’s they don’t crackle.

Football (75%)
Do something unhealthy and indoors, away from the Bears.

Click here to scan yourself

AOL hasn’t tried darkening my mailbox in quite some time but when I checked the mail today; there it was another “free trial offer”. Normally, I would have just tossed it directly into the trash since they no longer send their software out on floppies. However as I walked back up to my apartment, the packaging the CD was in reminded me of something I’d seen previously online.

In short, it looked rather much like Jewelboxing’s Kings, Movie-Sized Cases. I tore the case apart to remove all of AOL’s crappy marketing and to examine the case for manufacturing marks. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything on the case that positively identified it as a one of Jewelboxing’s cases. Is it the real thing? A cheap knock-off? Heck if I know!

What I do know is that I just got a nice DVD size case for free that goes for $49 per pack of 20 ($2.45 each). This will work great for storing some DVDs I’ve burned of fan-subbed anime. *keen*