{"id":2334,"date":"2018-02-01T03:13:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T03:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=2334"},"modified":"2018-02-01T03:13:58","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T03:13:58","slug":"duty-distance-geek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/01\/duty-distance-geek\/","title":{"rendered":"duty, distance, geek"},"content":{"rendered":"

I almost – but not quite – had jury duty last week. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was at the courthouse early on Monday morning and got through security and checked in at the jury selection room early – armed with a Sudoku book and plenty of paper for the wait. \u00a0To my surprise, people kept coming in well after the appointed time – a few folks were as much as a half hour late. \u00a0Really? \u00a0This is not like missing your reservation at Applebee\u2019s, people.<\/span><\/p>\n

And quite a few people couldn\u2019t figure out if they were supposed to even be there. There\u2019s a group number, a color code, and a phone number. \u00a0Not exactly rocket science.<\/span><\/p>\n

The staff had us watch a video and we settled in to wait to see if we would be called. \u00a0Around 10, a judge came in and explained what was going on. \u00a0He was retired and from another county, but had been called in by the Feds to hear a case that had been pending since September – a case where the defendant had just<\/em> changed his plea to guilty.<\/span><\/p>\n

The judge went on and thanked us at length for being there – if there wasn\u2019t a jury ready to be seated, the case couldn\u2019t have moved forward and things would not have come to a head. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, we were essential – but we could leave.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though we didn\u2019t get into the courtroom, there was still a certain amount of satisfaction to having been a part in the justice system. \u00a0It was a deeply… American thing. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

————<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been trying to get back into swimming regularly and it\u2019s sort of working – though the pool has been less regular than me. \u00a0It\u2019s swim team season and the pool is usually mostly full with only one or two lanes open. \u00a0I\u2019m not a fast swimmer and can\u2019t really keep up with the circle swimming so it only really works if I can split a lane. \u00a0When I\u2019ve got plenty of room, though, I can swim forever. \u00a0Did a couple miles in the pool one day last week after work. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday was a rough day in the office and there was only one lane open when I got to the pool – and it already had two people in it. \u00a0I had been so looking forward to a swim and the idea of having to navigate around 2 other people was too disheartening. \u00a0I just headed back to the locker room, got dressed and went home – grumbling all the way. \u00a0Then ate dinner and went to bed early. \u00a0I was done with the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if I can swim, well, I\u2019m a different person. \u00a0I got my laps in today and I was calm and collected on the drive home. \u00a0Read Alice in Wonderland while eating a mostly sensible dinner. \u00a0And even the hordes of shrieking children at Target couldn\u2019t set me on edge. \u00a0And I do literally mean hordes and literally shrieking. \u00a0I get that kids sometimes act up, but\u2026 wow. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I gotta figure a way to hang onto that vibe. \u00a0Or maybe even swim in the morning before work to improve my\u2026 no, that\u2019s so stupid I can\u2019t even consider that. \u00a0There\u2019s no earthly way I could train myself to get up and swim before work. \u00a0D-U-M dumb.<\/span><\/p>\n

——————<\/span><\/p>\n

I usually cruise at 85 to 90% geek, but this past weekend I was at full, 100% geek. \u00a0My folks had bought a new laptop and asked for my help in getting it set up and transferring files from their old laptop over. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We went from the \u201cunboxing\u201d to installing anti-virus, setting passwords, setting up a wireless printer (which was only slightly less terrible than my own wireless printer), and then transferring files. \u00a0Of which there were a lot. \u00a0And they were huge. \u00a0It took a while to get them onto the flash drive, but then from there it wasn\u2019t too bad to get them to the new machine.<\/span><\/p>\n

We took a break in there for lunch, then worked some more on the set up and did a Windows 10 tutorial. \u00a0Then a trip to the bookstore and an early dinner. <\/span><\/p>\n

I was glad to be able to help and while they could have handled this themselves I think they appreciated having a geek cover all the bases. \u00a0And it was nice to just sit and visit as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Later that evening, I helped Jim get Office set up on his laptop. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Cause that\u2019s how this geek rolls. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I almost – but not quite – had jury duty last week. \u00a0 I was at the courthouse early on Monday morning and got through security and checked in at the jury selection room early – armed with a Sudoku book and plenty of paper for the wait. \u00a0To my surprise, people kept coming in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2335,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2334\/revisions\/2335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}