Thunder of Wade

The living room futon has seen better days and since a local furniture store was having a store closing liquidation – my room-mate and I decided to buy a new sofa. Took us a long time with all the testing – seated, slouching, and nap simulation – before we found one we could both agree on. It should be here Friday.

Worked on my personal website:

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~aws

and made some changes. I think it turned out pretty cool.

Stopped at Dick’s sporting goods got a kickboard, leg float and some new trunks. My left knee is bothering me a bit, I think I need to focus more on the upper body workout for a while.

Did a little “work” work this evening – and made a site in about 25 minutes. It was fairly complex too – and had an impossible deadline. Should be ready for review and launch tomorrow. I was quite pleased with myself – but also a little irked that I keep having to work from home to meet deadlines.

That’s about it for now. later…

Went out to dinner yesterday with a bunch of friends for a birthday party – the restaurant was called Bricco and it was by far the most trendy place I have ever been to. The conversation was great and the food was pretty good. And the dessert? Weapons grade cheesecake. Damn. It was really, really good. The person sitting next to me didn’t finish theirs – and I could not allow such ambrosia to go to waste. Yes, it was really that good.

Yesterday morning I went to my FRM’s son’t basketball game. And for a 5 year old? He’s got skills. On two occasions, he stole the ball and ran it down the court, and then made a basket. He was on fire. The funniest part of the whole game was when he had the ball as the ref started counting down the seconds to the half. At “one”, the little dude turned threw the ball as hard as he could at the basket at the far end of the court. He was looking for the “buzzer-beater” but of course the ball didn’t get much past mid-court. I laughed my ass off – it was really cool.

I was there at the invite of FRM’s mother and former girlfriend – the basketball player’s mom. FRM showed up, but didn’t sit with us as he is still not talking to his mom. Or his other two sons, apparently. Sad – but also a little funny because it’s so ridiculous.

Swam last week – did a mile on Friday. The pool was configured differently so it was 32 laps to the mile – making each lap just a little further than I’m used to. I was tired when done, but it was a good swim.

Work has been crazy busy – busy, busy, busy. And the toughest part is that no one is listening to me. Seriously. People keep coming up with all these plans and the come to me and I politely explain how everything they are doing will make things so much worse. And they just as politely tell me they are doing it their way anyway. Irksome.

I think the super bowl is on now – but I really think I’d rather blog than watch it. It’s just so… ordinary. So much endless hype and so little substance. It’s one think to watch the game in person and feel the excitement of the crowds, but on TV it seems kinda bland.

I’ve been playing a game called Dragon Quest 8 – standard RPG fare. Pretty good though and fun. The dialog is a little silly and so are the monsters, but I’m still enjoying. It’s been a pretty quiet day today – mostly laundry and video games. Guess that’s it for now…

My room-mate decided he wanted to put in some dimmer switches on the dining room and upstairs bathroom lights. He was off yesterday and went to Lowe’s to buy the dimmer switches and was working on the dinning room when I got home. He had trouble removing the old switch and accidentally broke off the wires in the switch – so, we really needed to get the new one installed and were running out of daylight.

I started helping and we read the instructions and tried several combinations. Either the dimmer didn’t work, we got nothing, or the wires in the switch started to heat up and glow. I’m not an expert on this, but I’m pretty sure that’s a problem.

Finally, about to give up, we looked at the packaging and realized that he had bought two different types of switches – and we were using the wrong type for the set up we had. So, we opened up the other switch, installed it according to the directions, and it worked perfectly.

A variety of lessons learned with that task. Mainly that I need to do a little more research on electrical wiring and perhaps review some first-aid training. Just in case…

I tried to get Overlord to play again last night – still no good. I was, however, able to install an old copy of dreamweaver so that I could do some work at home. Now, that’s just wrong. I can’t play games, but I can work? At home? Seems really unfair. I blame Vista.

I used the elliptical last night – first time since it had been fixed. Worked fine, though it seemed a little wobbly. I’ll need to look into that I guess.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Back to work and finally back to the pool today after my jury duty.

later…

With the long weekend upon me – I decided to be a little productive. So, I headed to Lowe’s to get some materials to make a couple of swords. Granted, not the most usual of things to do – but I got a sword rack for Christmas and I don’t have enough swords to fill it. The rack is hanging in the computer room and it really needs something. In two words… more swords.

The first is going to be carved out of wood and will mimic the sword used by the Darkstalker hunter Donovan Baine – a sword called: Dhylec. It’s got a strangely curved end and an open mouth in the side of the blade – with teeth. Should be fun to do.

The second is going to be made of Plexiglas – several sheets layered together and shaped like a lighting bolt. I’ve made more progress on this one up to this point – the wooden one had some knot-flaws at a critical area. So, I looked around for my wood filler and couldn’t find it – prompting my second trip of the day to the day.

A previous purchase of a washer and dryer netted me a couple of gift cards for Lowe’s and I used part of one for my lumber purchase. I intended to use it again to get the wood filler, but ran into a problem.

At the checkout – the card wouldn’t scan. And the clerk had trouble punching in the numbers. A lot of trouble. She tried several times and kept getting it wrong. The line behind me kept getting longer and she kept getting more frustrated. So, I bailed her out and offered to pay cash. She was apologetic, but I think grateful as well.

In other news… I finished up a Clive Barker book – Mister B. Gone. It didn’t get good reviews as his previous works have done, but I think a large part of that was the first-person style in which it was told. Kind of a strange book, but I liked it – especially the end where the tone shifted a bit to his more fundamentally odd style.

I’ve also been listening to some music – Sara Barellis, Rilo Kiley, and a little Mary J. Blige. The first two are really excellent – though a little short – but the third is a little difficult to listen to. Not because I don’t like MJB – because I do – but because of the occasional bit of rap music added in there. I’m not a fan of rap music, but I can usually tune it out and it doesn’t ruin the song. After the jury duty – where some amateur violent gangster rap was introduced as evidence – I’m having more trouble tuning it out. I guess I’m a bit more sensitized to it and I find I like it less and less. I suspect that will fade and it will go back to being just ‘music I don’t like’ – but for now, I’ve got the remote in hand and I’m skipping some songs.

I’ve got a bit of work to do today – still trying to get caught up. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it, but it should be done.

Finally, since I’m off today, the repairman for the elliptical trainer is coming today. I’m hoping it’s and easy fix and we can get that up and running. With me not having access to the pool last week or today – and the elliptical being down – I haven’t got a lot of exercise recently.

That’s about it for now. I think I’ll play a bit of portal and then work on the sword until the repair dude arrives.

later…

I don’t usually use names in my blog to protect the guilty and the innocent in my adventures – so, this post will be a little confusing since it involves a lot of people.

My former room-mate’s (FRM) mom called me up last week and invited me to her grandson’s basketball game. This is the 3rd child of my FRM – a 5-6 year old boy who takes after his dad in basketball and his mom – (the FRM’s former girlfriend that I knew from that time and got along with pretty well) in everything else.

FRM’s mom and I became pretty good friends while her son and I were living together and despite the falling out I had with him, she and I are still pretty close. So, it sounded like fun to me and I agreed to go.

This morning, I got to the location early – early enough that I was sitting by myself and starting to get the “creepy old man” vibes going. Then, I saw my FRM’s second oldest child (from a long ago marriage that ended badly) arrive – and almost didn’t recognise him. It had been along time since I’d seen him and he was now in college and slightly taller than me. Which felt damn odd.

I got a big hug from him and we sat down to wait and talked a little about what we were doing and about his dad and the falling out they had. In a few minutes, FRM arrived with his pregnant wife and the little basketball player. FRM came up to talk to me and said hello to his son – but it was little forced.

Just before the game was going to start, FRM’s mom and grandmother arrived – along with his former girlfriend (the basketball player’s mom), her mom, and her brother. The only people missing in this tableau were FRM’s first wife (who had no connection to the basketball player) and FRM’s oldest son (who generally doesn’t get up before noon on the weekends unless he has to work).

So, the basketball player had a big cheering section and gave us a lot to cheer about – the little dude was on fire and made several baskets. He was good on defense too and could really move the ball down the court. Really a lot of fun to watch them all.

After the game, I got invited to next week’s game as I said goodbye to FRM’s mom. I talked briefly to FRM and his wife – and gave him my new phone number before I headed out.

It was good to see everyone – but a little odd since most of them weren’t speaking to each other.

that’s it for now… later…

Friday morning we started at 9:30 and got into the court-room at 10:00. The judge read to us the laws that applied to the case and gave us notes along with the verdict forms. He then dismissed our #13 alternate juror and we headed back to the jury room and started our debate by choosing a foreman. One interesting note was the we had an ace in the hole. Despite not having any crime scene photos or even a good map – we still had a clear view of things since one of the jurors had lived in that area and knew a lot about gangs. He was an engineer and world traveler, but had his start in that same rough area of town. Very helpful to fill in some gaps.

First count – aggravated robbery. This was our most difficult one since the rest of the case pretty much hinged on this point. The defense tried to make us focus on the defendant having passed the gun to the actual robber and how suspect that action was, but we focused on the law and the complicity of his actions. I tried to demonstrate how the victim could have known about the passing of the gun without actually seeing it based on body language and movement, but ultimately it wasn’t our focus. We voted the first time on this one and came up with 7 guilty, 2 not guilty and 3 undecided. After more discussion and focus on the law, the rest were convinced and we were unanimous on the second vote. There was a gun stipulation that was also a sticking point – we weren’t sure if he actually had the gun to start with since there was only one witness. The law stated though that he merely needed close access to it. Which he had since he was in the same car and in the front seat – even if the victim hadn’t seen the defendant with the gun it was pretty clear. Also, the defense hadn’t ever tried to disprove his client having a gun – instead trying to focus on the “2-gun” theory.

We broke for lunch in there at some point and I headed back to campus for sweet and sour chicken again and got another fortune cookie.

“Soon you will be sitting on top of the world”

I stopped by work and talked to several people, the got back to the jury room with 15 minutes to spare. One of the jurors was late getting back and we speculated on what would happen since our alternate was gone. He showed up out of breath and apologized – and we got back into it.

The second count was for possession of a gun with disability – meaning that he had a conviction with a gun charge from before and wasn’t allowed to have a gun again. The same gun rules applied from before and this time we did a hands up vote. There was some discussion on this again before the vote for clarity, but I thought it was pretty clear.

The final count was criminal gang activity. The prosecution really laid this out for us. They showed gang existence, activity, and membership in the gang – along with a direct tie to the defendant. It was the one area we were all very clear on even before we started the discussion – this guy was still in and an active member of a gang. The rest was his involvement in a criminal act – which we’d already covered.

So, we did out final vote and filled out and signed the verdict forms. We called for the bailiff and she checked on us and gave us some final instructions before she brought the court back together. After a bit, we headed back into the court room and gave the forms to the bailiff and then the judge to be read aloud. I didn’t look at the defendant – thinking it would be a little too aggressive and rude – I also didn’t want to be singled out for some kind of gang retribution. The judge thanked us and we headed out. On the way out, one of the other jurors said he looked at the defendant and saw an “oh well” eye-roll when the verdict was read. Which made me feel a little better. This guy had been in and out of jail and was guilty here and resigned to it. Even the defense didn’t seem very surprised.

So, that was the jury experience. It was a tiring experience and stressful since we were deciding a person’s fate. Everyone in the jury was cool – including a couple that initially disagree with the decision and brought a fresh perspective to things. The judge was pretty cool – and not as formal as I would have thought. The bailiff was awesome – really well organized and really sharp. She had a good sense of humor and really liked the origami jury I made while I was waiting.

The defense guy did as good of a job as he could – but it was clear from his body language and his approach to the case that he believed his client was guilty and tried to confuse the issue. The prosecution was really sharp and covered all the bases.

Next week I’ll be back to work and excused from jury duty for the next 12 months. I’m glad I did my “civic duty” but also glad that I’m done with it for a while.

On Thursday morning, we walked into the jury room and there were doughnuts on the table. There were from the judge. 🙂 So, that was kinda cool. We started with a witness for the prosecution – the “gang expert” – with maps and video clips of gang events/parties. They had some technical problems with the video that I think three of us in the jury could have fixed had we been asked. The officer had extensive knowledge about the defendant and his various past crimes. We broke for lunch and the defense cross examined him afterwards. There was another witness for the prosecution – then we were sent out of the room.

When we got back, the defense brought a witness out of order. So, this guy said he was the brother-in-law of the victim (the family relationship was more complex than that). His testimony conflicted with the victim – but matched up pretty well with the conflicting testimony of the booking officer. Suspiciously so. The Prosecution suggested that he had been brought in by a court spectator to corroborate that conflicting evidence and she pretty much ripped him apart. It was also clear he was working off of secondhand lies – he got his “facts” way wrong.

(there was a suggestion by the defense that two guns were present, instead of the defendant passing his gun to the actual robber. The witness suggested that he heard the victim say that the robber used two guns himself – which is clearly nonsense. How would you hold the “loot”? “Here, hold this gun while I take your wallet.”)

After that, we were back to more damning evidence of past crimes. Arrest reports, information on graffiti and gang signs, etc. – it was exhaustive. There were a few extremely heated sidebars from both sides and lots of objections for various and sometimes unclear reasons. The prosecution finally rested – and the defense called no one and had no witnesses or evidence. Granted, the burden of proof was on the prosecution – but it was still telling that the defendant didn’t take the stand on his own behalf. If I was claiming to be framed – you can believe I’d be testifying. As I said – it was very one-sided.

As a side note – I was expecting the bible and “so help me god” as part of the swearing in. Instead, no bible and ‘under pains and penalty of perjury”. Interesting.

With both sides rested, we came to closing arguments. The prosecution summed up their case, the defense did his, then the prosecution did a rebuttal. She was pissed off and nearly dumbfounded at the attempts of the defense to plant doubt.

And with that – we broke for the day. I had expected things to go longer, but the defense didn’t really present anything so we were sort of done. Kind of a weird stopping point, but that was it.

Wednesday morning I was there early again and sat on the bench outside – striking up a conversation with another juror about traffic and weather. We were all fairly early and were escorted into the jury room again to wait for the start. I think there was the very real fear of contempt of court to get us motivated in a timely fashion.

The case was essentially this:

The accused was charged in a robbery. There was also possession of a gun and of gang activity.

The defense claimed that the prosecution didn’t have a case. The prosecution said they did. It was interesting – the defense was very focused on “innocent until proven guilty” and “burden of proof” through the whole trial. He had tried to teach us the law related to the case in his opening statement – which was the basis for many objections since that was the judge’s job at the end of the case.

First witness for the prosecution was the victim – who placed the accused at the scene and was certain that he passed a gun to the actual robber. His story was this:

He was at a club with some friends and dropped them off at the front of a BP station on the way home. He tried to find a place to park and found a spot at the car wash behind the BP station. He parked, got out and started to walk to the entrance of the station. He came up diagonally behind and to the side of a car where the defendant was standing with an open door – and a gun. The defendant asked the victim who he was and the victim didn’t say but just said he was looking for this friends. The defendant got into the car, passed the gun to the person in the driver’s seat – who then promptly got out of the car and robbed the victim at gun point. He got away unhurt, filed a police report, and eventually got his stuff back.

It was kinda strange – like we were missing a big chunk of the trial. The actual robber was charged separately and wasn’t part of this trial. So we had this other guy who may have done something wrong, but all we had was a potentially unreliable witness. The victim had convictions in his past but seemed to have put that behind him and was working long shifts to support his three children.

The prosecution called several police officers – and the defense objected to most of them since they generally testified on previous offenses that the accused had committed. Not really relevant to this case – but more for character – or, as it turned out, a connection to gang activity.

We broke for lunch and I headed to campus to grab some sweet & sour chicken – since the cafeteria seemed a little low end at the court house. I got a fortune cookie with the meal and it said:

“you will reach high levels of intelligence”

Not sure if that’s a promise or a standard I have to live up to – and I’m not sure the time frame. In any case, I shared the fortune with my fellow jurors and we had a laugh about it.

Anyway, back in the court room and more witnesses. The first one – the victim – really got badgered since most of the case rested on his testimony, but the rest were officers and they weren’t really as relevant to the actual incident. The victim has some discrepancies between his story and the original police report – but they seemed pretty minor to me. The defense tried to get him to break – but he didn’t and maintained a viable and consistent story. This was something the prosecutor really focused on in her closing argument later – the strength of character for the victim and his story.

Another break and this time we were in the room past when it was time for us to go back – at least according to the time frame the judge gave us. So, we just lined up to get ready. We heard the judge say from the court room -since he could see us – “well, I guess the jury is ready.”

Apparently, we were the first jury to line ourselves up – much to the amazement and delight of the judge and the bailiff. There was a bit more testimony on the prosecution’s side and they were about to call their “gang expert” – but we ran out of time for the day. In the jury room before we left for the day, I said that I thought the judge should spring for doughnuts and we all laughed. We broke for the day at about 4:00 and I went on home. No stop into work for me – I was beat.

I got a jury notice in the mail – but it was somewhat delayed since it was sent to my old address. I read it, noted the date and set it aside. The Saturday before I was on call – I got another notice since I hadn’t filled out the form and returned it properly. I was a little worried about that, but figured I’d wing it. Sunday evening I called and checked the website for jury duty – and my group wasn’t needed. The recording was a little too strident for my tastes and talked down to us a little bit, but at least it was clear.

Monday evening was a different story – my group was on call and I was to report to the courthouse on Tuesday morning. I tried to get things ready for my co-workers as much as I could for my absence and found out later that I prevented some problems with my preparedness. Which was cool – and a little ironic since I was really not prepared for jury duty. I got to the courthouse very early and though I was a little worried about my paperwork, there was no problem. I did a little folding while I waited and watched the room fill up. After a bit, the woman in charge of the area gave a little speech (she was the same one that did the voice recording) and has us watch part of a video – but only part since a bailiff came in and called a large group to go with her. A little more video and then another group was called for selection with a different bailiff – and I was #18. They were very insistent that we remember our number – but of course someone forgot it when it was needed later.

We went up several flights of stairs (some took the elevator if they couldn’t handle the stairs) and waited for a bit in the jury room. We were then lined up by number and brought into the court room. 12 people went in the jury box and the rest of us sat towards the back.

Both sides asked a bunch of general questions, then based on those, they asked a few specific questions of people. One guy had an answer for pretty much every question – it was almost a given that he would be removed. Run ins with the law, medical and childcare, and relation to another judge. A few more got removed for other reasons – usually child care – but a few got removed and we later wondered why. They started to winnow down the jury and they pulled people out and then replaced them in order of the extras. I was #18 and I watched as they cleared out enough people to need me – reassigned to #9. Once the removals were done they had an extra person in reserve and that was it. We were a jury.

But a jury that didn’t get to do anything right away. There was a scheduling conflict and we broke for the day at 12:00. We did get to hear the opening statements – and the comments by the defense prompted the prosecutor’s office to object a couple times, so, that was kinda cool. They even did a sidebar – it was like a real court!

I stopped into work for a bit, then went home. I still did some work from home so I wouldn’t get too far behind – but there were some things that I just couldn’t do unless I was at work.

So, that was day one and I was hoping it would go quickly from there on out.

It was my birthday yesterday – 35 years old. So, on Saturday, my parents, my sister, and my brother-in-law came for a visit. We had lunch, then went to the akron art museum and the mall – then to dinner that evening at Macaroni Grill before cake and presents. They went back home that evening so it was kind of a whirlwind. I think everyone had a nice time and it was good seeing them.

The museum was good – though pricier ($10.00) than last time I was there (free). They were doing a Norman Rockwell thing and the line was massive to get into that section. So, we found an entrance to the main galleries (which I announced to the rest of the group as “Look! There’s art in here!” and checked those out first. And then made our way into the Norman Rockwell area through another entrance. Which was pretty cool. I bought a book on fictional outhouses in the giftshop and we headed out.

One of my presents was the game Overlord for the computer – and it won’t run on my brand new computer. I blame Vista – and to make it worse – the “error” message has no information. It just fails and that’s it – with no way to diagnose. I guess I have to do some research on my own – or wait for an upgrade and hope it helps. Oh, well, at least I can still play Portal.

Watched the third Bourne movie yesterday – pretty good and fast paced. I had a little trouble with keeping the plot together since we got interrupted a few times with phone calls. I liked it and it had some really clever moments.

Well, no jury duty today. I checked the website and then called as well last evening. The voice recording on the phone was… less than stellar. The degree in which they spelled out the instructions was a little insulting and a little scary. If you need detailed instructions on determining your group number and the color of the paper you are holding, well, should you really be on a jury and deciding someone else’s fate?

That’s it for now – back to work…