Jury Duty

Back in the first part of the year, I got a note in the mail telling me I had been selected for a jury pool. Months passed, and I didn't hear any thing more, so I started to think maybe it had passed me by, but last month, a letter came with the dates of service, and today was the first of them.

Now, of course, it is traditional to moan and groan about jury duty, but I was at least a little intrigued. Of course, I've always had a legal interest, at least the fictionalized versions seen on Law & Order and Perry Mason and read about in John Grisham novels. So this was a chance to see just how close to real life that stuff was.

I was supposed to be there at 8:45 this morning. I left work a little after 8:30 and drove over to the courthouse, which is just a couple minutes away. I didn't expect that the parking lot would be packed, and by time I found a spot a couple of blocks away, it was 8:42. I hurried in and went up to the third floor, which is where I was supposed to be.

Of course, with anything governmental, there really was little reason to hurry. The hallway was filled with people waiting for notification. We stood around until about 9:15, when they had us all go into the courtroom.

I knew that the attorneys would have to go through the process of voir dire, but I wasn't sure how they were going to examine all 60+ people. The judge came forward to where we all were sitting, lined out how things were going to go, told a couple of humorous stories, then asked some basic questions to the group. ("Do you still live in the county?" "Have you been convicted of a felony?") No one was dismissed after these questions.

Then the lawyers introduced themselves and listed off the witnesses they would be calling. Then the judge asked if anyone knew any of those people. One guy had gone to school with one of the witnesses, so he was excused.

After that, it was the random drawing of 18 people to be questioned further. I really figured I'd get called, probably "rivered" by being the last one chosen. However, I wasn't selected, so those that weren't sat in case more people were needed while they interrogated the chosen ones.

One woman was excused due to illness, so another name was drawn. Again, I figured it'd be me if my poker luck extended to real life, but it wasn't.

Turns out the case was about a car accident that happened in February of 2004. The plantiff already had a pre-existing condition that he was apparently claiming was aggrevated in the accident. After listening to the lawyers' questions to the panel, I'm pretty sure that if I'd been selected for the 18, I wouldn't have made the final 12 after I told them we had clients that were liability insurance companies.

So the whole thing took about two hours. I have four other days in December I have to show up for, so odds are I'll be on a jury on one of those days.

Softball tonight. I've not played in two weeks, so this could be interesting. Just having one game a week is kinda rough, especially if you miss that one.

The kids are doing well. Benjamin is starting to get the hang of potty-training. He still won't volunteer that he needs to go and, especially when he has diapers on, is bad about taking the lazy way out, but he will often agree to it if prompted and can usually keep underwear dry, if we are risking that. He also worked more on his vacation scrapbook this weekend with his momma. Sometime we'll get those scanned in for you to see.

We took him to the fair last weekend and he had a great time seeing the animals and riding the kiddie rides. When we went to see the chickens and bunnies, they were moving some chickens into a crate from their pen. One chicken got loose and flew off to the corner of the building. Benjamin still will say, "Remember, the chicken got loose? You said 'wooo!' That was funny." Amazing what they hold on to.

Sarah is almost four months now and has a well-baby visit next week (complete with shots). She is happier a little more often now and even gets along with her dad from time to time. But if she gets worked up, just get out of the way. That kid can scream longer and harder than Benjamin ever thought about! She started cereal this week and took to it like that's what she'd been wanting for years. And one night after eating she slept until 4 in the morning, so hopefully the cereal will keep working its magic!

I've gone ahead and taken the Feedburner suggestion from the comments in my last post. As you can see now, there's a box to get this delivered to you via e-mail. I don't know if pictures, etc. go with it or not, but at least you'll know when the blog has changed. Let me know how this works out!