Day 2888

I got another jury summons today. When I tried to postpone the summons again, I was informed that I'd used up all my postponements and would have to serve. I've noticed that every time I postponed the summons I would receive a lower juror number the next time. Unless I get kicked out during the Voir Dire Process, I'm almost certain to sit on a jury. Oh, well. This is probably the last time I'll ever get called. As soon as I turn seventy, I'm going to request a permanent exemption.

The whole judicial system seems weird to me. If you've ever been questioned during Voir Dire, it quickly becomes obvious that the lawyers from both sides are trying their best to pack the jury with people who are sympathetic to their case. Jury selection seems to be a lot more about winning than about fairness. Even if you're selected to sit on a jury, there's a good chance that the lawyers will reach a plea deal before you ever enter the courtroom. Judges love plea deals because it saves them a lot of time.

I've heard that in China they are already experimenting with robot judges. People tend to like the robots because they seem to be more lenient than human judges. If robot judges work, maybe we ought to try robot juries too. When I'm out and about and take a good look at who my peers actually are, I think I'd trust a robot more.

My new doctor want me to go in for a Calcium Score Screening to check for plaque in my arteries. Even though this test is very effective, it is seldom covered by insurance. As a result, numerous services have sprung up that offer low cost CAT scans. My scan will cost $79. Sounds fair to me. You just pay cash and the test isn't billed to your insurance plan at all. $79 is a small fraction of what imaging labs usually charge for a CAT scan or MRI. When I've had scans before, my insurance was billed between $500 and $4000 dollars. This is why health care is so expensive. It's not the doctors or the government that makes health care expensive. It's the insurance companies. A lot of times I wish health care was more like taking care of your dog. You pay cash for everything at the vet, but prices are much more reasonable. Dot and Dash have both gone through some very complex surgeries. The surgeons were excellent and the facilities were as up-to-date as anything you'd find in a human hospital. The only difference was the price. The prices for veterinary medicine are fair because the customer actually pays the bill. When insurance companies get involved, prices go through the roof.

My package is still lost. It was supposed to arrive today, but of course it didn't. This might be the last time I order online and and select the option to pick up my order at the store. When you order this way, the store doesn't need to provide tracking. Your order just gets put on the truck with all the other inventory being shipped to the store. There doesn't seem to be any particular hurry. I'm sure I'll get my order eventually, but nobody seems to know when. It's just "in the system" somewhere.

I have my first meeting on the new website project tomorrow. I'll try to keep an open mind. I did a little research on the Wordpress template I'm supposed to use and discovered that it's basically just like every other Wordpress template. I still don't understand why people like Wordpress. It's not rocket science, so I guess I can live with the situation. Anyone who can hand code a site can definitely fill in the blanks on a Wordpress template.

I talked to people today and made decisions. I think I prefer the days when nothing happens.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2723

I got a jury summons today. I've been hoping that they'd forget about me for one more year so I could finally be exempt from this chore forever. No such luck. I've sat in the jury pool many times, but have never been selected for a jury. I don't think I fit the profile that lawyers are typically looking for. I doubt that I'll be picked this time either, so it all seems like a giant waste of time. Maybe I'm not suited for jury duty because whenever I go to the courthouse, everyone seems guilty. People in the elevator seem guilty. Other jurors seem guilty. The lawyers always seem guilty of something. I've always been convinced that the defendant was guilty before anybody even opened their mouth. Instead of "innocent until proven guilty," I seem to think that people are guilty until proven innocent.

It's hard to avoid a jury summons. You can postpone things, but they'll keep bugging you again and again until you finally give up and go to the courthouse. The only good thing is that this is probably the last time I'll have to do this. They seldom call anyone more than once a year.

I don't think the pressure washer and I are going to be friends. It became apparent that Janet bought the pressure washer because she wants me to clean the exterior of the entire house. I got started today, because the sooner I start on this project, the sooner I'll finish. This is a messy job. Most of the wasp and mud dauber nests, spider webs, and dirt are located above my head. When I use the pressure wand to dislodge things, the debris falls on me. I definitely should have waited until after I used the pressure washer to take a shower today.

I cleaned the front porch and carport this afternoon. That was enough. I'll have to admit that the entrance does look a lot nicer. It will take a lot of time to clean the entire house, but I've got nothing but time these days. I'm hoping that I'll get some new website or writing projects soon. Legitimate paying jobs are always a good excuse to avoid doing things around the house.

I've got three different traps in the atrium now and the rat is ignoring all of them. I'm really kicking myself for not removing the rat immediately as soon as I noticed I had it trapped. Sure, it was raining at the time, but getting wet would have been a small price to pay for getting rid of the rat before it got wise to traps. I'm not sure what to do now. The rat is still there, but it appears to be smarter now. It could easily jump in the house if I open the sliding glass door. All I can say is that rats are almost as irritating as jury duty.

2017 appears to be a year of transition. I started the year with two dogs and will end it with one. I started the year believing I still had a viable business and will probably end it by finally acknowledging that I have retired. The world is always changing, but I'm not comfortable with these changes yet. I guess that is the challenge. Like it or not, I've got to keep moving forward.

Lacey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2256

I'm still feeling under the weather, but things are improving. Yesterday was horrible. Today was just kind of yucky. One benefit of feeling extremely tired is that you apparently sleep better. For the first time that I can remember, my activity tracker said that I had an entire night of deep sleep. This wasn't entirely good news though. The tracker also said that I woke up at 4:30 AM. If you're wondering what could wake me from a deep sleep, Dot pooped in her bed and Dash had to go outside to throw up simultaneously. This was actually the second time that Dash had to go outside last night. Janet said I slept through the first commotion. I briefly wondered if Dash and I were suffering from the same ailment, since I threw up yesterday too. I don't think so. Dash eats horse poop and disgusting dead things he finds in the yard. I don't.

Although I still spent a considerable amount of time napping with the dogs today, I did manage to get a few things done. I did some bookkeeping, paid a few bills, and got started on a new article. This is only a fraction of what I would do in an ordinary day, but at least I could hold my food down today and am starting to feel better. It's surprising how much the dogs seem to enjoy me taking naps with them. They seem visibly calmer and less restless. Since they both spend half their life sleeping anyway, my extended naps probably just make me seem more like a dog to them.

I'm getting so sick of political advertising. Every day our mailbox is stuffed with fliers from local politicians who want my vote. I've never heard of any of them. Don't they realize that these fliers are junk mail. 90% of the people who receive them just throw these postcards and fliers away without reading them. Cable news is even worse. It doesn't matter whether you are listening to MSNBC or Fox, the reporters love politics. Probably the only thing they'd love more than an election is another OJ Simpson trial. It's not surprising that outsiders like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have attracted so much attention. I think a lot of people are starting to realize that it really doesn't matter who you vote for. The political establishment has become so entrenched that it probably would take a genuine revolution to change things.

I kind of think politicians should be selected the same way as we select juries. I'm convinced that ordinary citizens could do just as good a job as the folks we've got now. If we had a system where anyone could be selected for political service, just like they are for jury duty, many of today's problems would go away. If you were selected, you would receive a decent salary for your service, but you could not run for reelection. Sure, you might end up with a few idiots in congress, but we've already got more than a few idiots in congress. I think political experience is overrated. People with long political careers usually just wind up with a more comprehensive knowledge of which lobbyists and special interests will take care of them.

I don't know if my stomach is ready for a spicy breakfast at my favorite restaurant yet. The jury is still out. I didn't throw up today, but I didn't eat much either. Here's hoping that I wake up feeling good as new tomorrow. I'm hungry and I've got a lot of work to catch up on.

Bailey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1673

The wheels of justice turn exceedingly slow. I arrived at the courthouse around 8 AM this morning for jury duty. By 9:30 AM, everyone sitting in the central jury pool had been administered the oath and assigned to a court. The rest of the day was spent in a lengthy and often tedious Voir dire process. I'm sure the attorneys eliminated some people as soon as they opened their mouth, but nobody was excused until well after 5 PM. This came as a shock to many prospective jurors who expected to be back at work by lunchtime.

This was a murder trial and the proceedings took forever as lawyers for both sides tried to find jurors who would be sympathetic to their case.  I don't think anyone wanted to be selected for this case. It appeared that a gang member had murdered another gang member and the defendant, who was in the courtroom, looked somewhat menacing. The defense lawyers asked prospective jurors if they could still be fair and impartial if they knew the testimony was coming from someone who had already been convicted of another crime. They asked us if we thought a uniformed police officer automatically has more credibility than someone with gang tattoos. Both sides asked us so many questions about what we thought constituted self defense that a lot of people, including myself, began to worry that this might turn into another Trayvon Martin trial. Nobody wanted to be on that type of jury. I was sitting on the front row during the selection process, so the judge said we would automatically be on the jury unless the prosecution or defense lawyers used one of their ten allotted strikes to eliminate me. As the day progressed, I became worried that I would be seated on the jury, since I really didn't have any good reasons why I couldn't serve. Luckily, one of the lawyers didn't think I would help his case and I was eliminated at the last minute. I was relieved. I wouldn't have wanted to be on this jury.

The dogs were relieved as well when I finally arrived at the vet around 6:30 PM to take them home again. I had to board them for the day, because I knew I'd be away too long to leave them alone. Nobody, including Dot and Dash, though I'd be down at the courthouse this long though. It was a very long day. Both dogs were indignant when I picked them up after their normal dinner time, but all was forgiven when I fed them as soon as we got home,

Since the judge admonished us several times not to say anything to anybody about the case if we were selected as jurors, I began to worry about the blog. What was I going to write about? Sometimes murder trials can go on for a long time. I even told the bailiff that I was a blogger and had posted something every day over five years without missing a single day. I wanted to know the specific ground rules, because as I told him, I had to write something every day. I wasn't going to let a murder trial stop me. If I couldn't write about the trial, could I write about the judge, or the other jurors? Maybe this is what eliminated me. Or maybe they didn't like that I had a hard time believing everyone truly enters the courtroom on an equal basis. Who knows? Maybe they though it was strange that in over a dozen visits to this courthouse, I had never been selected to sit on a jury. I'm still a jury virgin. Whatever the reason, I was glad to be able to go home at the end of the day and return to my normal life. They asked me to answer their questions honestly and I did. I'm glad they didn't ask if I thought the defendant was guilty, because he sure looked guilty to me.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day