Ponderings and Musings

The date stamp on this photo is 15 years ago, but I suspect the photo was taken a few days earlier when we were in Dublin, Ireland. I think this photo was taken in a pub in Temple Bar.

I do enjoy my Guinness.

A year or so before I began my personal aviation journey, I was in the habit of watching airplanes and driving by small airports in the region. I browsed through Apple Photos to see what I was up to a year ago, and this is what I found: a photo of a runway.

I wish I could say I’m excited about the impending holiday season. I don’t even really get excited about Halloween anymore. Perhaps I’m becoming a cranky old man.

While the holiday experience is enjoyable, there’s a certain magic in the air that seems to be missing, at least for me. The coziness of the holidays has been replaced by Black Friday Sales, Online Tuesday Sales, 24 hour shopping experiences on Thanksgiving day, electronics, electronics, electronics, and trying to figure out what to buy people who don’t want to tell you what they want so you have to guess.

I’m not that perceptive in that area.

Halloween is in full swing. I doubt our carved pumpkins will survive the desert heat to make it to Halloween, but we went through the motions and I’m filling up on roasted pumpkin seeds.

Fiber makes the holidays better.

As I mentioned in last night’s blog entry, I finished the latest round of jury duty yesterday afternoon. After all was said and done, the judge reminded us we could talk about the case so here we are.

The case was a criminal case involving three charges: reckless driving, driving with the slightest impairment, and a blood alcohol level exceeding .08. Unfortunately for the prosecution, there were a lot of gaps or loop holes in the police procedures. For the reckless driving, it was demonstrated the defendant maintained proper lane changing, turn signals, etc. for the entire time. The police maintained the defendant was speeding but at no time was RADAR, LIDAR, or other speed measuring devices used.

For the impairment charge, the police conducted the usual tests for these sorts of things, heel to toe walking, the one leg standing test, and eye acuity tests. The officer conducting the tests reported his body cam was broken and he had not received a replacement, so we watched video taken from a body cam on another officer across the parking lot from the tests. From what we could see, the defendant did well but not perfectly on the tests. There were no reports of stumbling or staggering or slurring. Why the officer conducting the tests didn’t ask for a peer to come over with his body cam is beyond me, but he didn’t. What we could see on the video was that the defendant was not turned away from the flashing lights nor were the flashing lights turned off, which would seem to negate the accuracy of the visual test.

When it came to the blood alcohol levels, there were some “blips” in the data. A third party expert purported this could be alcohol from a previous run in the machine, the technician said it could be electrical noise.

The defendant selected a great lawyer and she was relentless. If I’m ever in a similar situation I will be calling her. The prosecuting attorney was calm and rational.

Deliberations last about 70 minutes. The jury decided not guilty on all three charges, all because of reasonable doubt. There were just too many variables to make a concrete decision and in America, innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and we had reasonable doubt.

It was an interesting case and of course the experience made me do a complete 180 on my feelings about doing jury duty again. Of course I got selected as jury foreman, and everyone on the jury was pleasant to work with.

All in all a rewarding experience. I’m off the hook for two years for doing it again.

I’m sitting in the Jury Assembly Room. I’m checked in, we’ve watched the mandatory video and now we’re waiting for the judge.

I’m not as cranky about my civic duty as I was yesterday when my number came up. Might as well be interested in our judicial process. Not everyone in the world has this right.

The folks here seem less cynical than the folks in the same situation based when I was summoned in New York in 2010. The video was much better, too.

A couple of weeks ago I received a summons for jury duty in the mail. “Check the website after 3:30 PM the day before to see if your number comes up!”

Today is the day, my group number came up, and I am not pleased.

First of all, the letter’s composition, design, and general aesthetic makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong. I haven’t done anything wrong and I’m certainly not ready to be herded through some public building with a bunch of people I don’t know at the tail end of a worldwide pandemic. Especially in these uncertain times where people like blowing up public buildings and the like.

Second of all, with all the crap going on in the world, I really don’t want to hear a bunch of bloviating from lawyers as to why person X is guilty or not guilty. I don’t need any more bad news, I certainly don’t need to hear about something criminal, and I’m really doing my best to be a good member of society by not getting involved with the law. Why are you dragging me in?

I know, the American court system is amazing because of juries of my peers that can dole out of a fair sentence and I should feel honored to do my civic duty. Blah blah blah.

Honestly, I’d rather be drafted. At least then I’d get to shoot at something.

The folks at work occasionally share motivational tidbits to keep the workforce, erm, motivated. I found this mental health calendar interesting and I’ve decided to take a glance at it every day in the month of October. Perhaps it’ll keep the whirlwind going on in my brain a bit more shiny and a little less chaotic.

Unfortunately the links in the document were not shared. I’ll have to scout around for the original source material.