This again

Luther M. Siler

Jury duty tomorrow, and I think that this time I might actually make it into the courtroom. I’ve been called … seven times? Eight? Twelveteen? times since I moved back to Indiana, and never-not-once have I even made it as far as jury selection. I’ve had one cancelled as I was getting in the car to leave and another where they reached a deal right before jury selection was supposed to start, but I’ve never made it any further. Summertime is basically as good of a time as it’s going to get for me to be on a jury, and I don’t mind the idea in theory, so we’ll see how this goes. So long as they don’t ask me my opinions on anything I might even make it through voir dire! We’ll see.

In the meantime, there are robots out there who need to be shot with arrows, so that’s the rest of my night sorted.

Well that wasn’t so hard

Luther M. Siler2 Comments

hqdefault.jpgSat in a hot, stuffy, way-too-small room within punching distance of a guy with white power tattoos for an hour and fifteen minutes only to be ushered into the courtroom and told that the defendant in the case we were there for, a “high-level felony” that would likely have required a fairly lengthy trial, had just accepted a plea bargain.  Thanks for your service!  No more jury duty for two years!  Go home!

I’ll admit– with my wife out of town, this was literally-no-exaggeration the worst week of the year for me to get called for jury duty, and navigating getting the boy to and from school and getting her picked up (not to mention a prescheduled major appliance delivery tomorrow) and a few other things was a huge pain in the ass that inconvenienced my parents as well as me, but I’m still a bit disappointed.  Even with all that going on, though, at least the trial would probably have been interesting.  That said, I got out of it the best way possible, without having to stage a rant about the unjust criminal justice system or begging that I just don’t have time to be an American this week or anything like that.  So I’ll call it a dodged bullet for the moment, and maybe if I do get called again in the next two years I won’t actually use my get-out-of-jury-duty-free pass.  We’ll see.

So.  What shall I do with my suddenly free day?  Ah, there you are, Dark Souls III, I’ve been looking for you.

#WeekendCoffeeShare: travel mug edition

Luther M. Siler6 Comments

newcoffee

If we were having coffee, I’d… yeah.  Coffee would probably be good, 1:30 in the afternoon be damned.  I’ve kinda got a headache.  Caffeine may well be helpful.

I slept in an empty house last night for the first time in over four and a half years; since the night after the boy was born, I think.  My wife is in Boston on bidness, and because she left so late last night the boy spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  So once I got home after dropping her off, I was alone in the house.  She’ll be back on Wednesday; this will be the first time I’ve been a single parent for more than a few hours at a time since the boy was born.  I’ve left home a bunch of times, but she doesn’t travel often.  I’m not griping– I’m a grown-ass man and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my son for three whole days while my wife is gone– but it was still weird to be alone in the house last night.  I’ve officially survived the boy’s Spring Break, and have to manage to get him up and off to school on time tomorrow.  Now, that’s usually my job, so it’s not like it’s a new thing, but it’ll be interesting to see how much of a coma he’ll be in when I get him up at “go to school” time and not “Spring Break” time.

I might ask you if you’ve ever had jury duty before.  That’s on the agenda for Tuesday, and who knows how many days after that depending on when the trial is, whether I’m selected, and how long it goes.  I’ve gotten the letter before but I’ve never actually made it into the courtroom.  I’m actually looking forward to the opportunity since I’ve never done it before, but it could have had slightly better timing– in addition to my wife needing to be picked up on Wednesday, we’re having a new washer and dryer delivered, so I’m going to have to do some fancy footwork to schedule everything if I’m going to be in court all day without access to my phone.

Hoping to have some good news on the job front this week too.  I’ve applied for several positions in the last several days that are in the “You have no reason not to call me about this” category, so hopefully at least one or two of them will actually come through.  And that’s not counting the “work for the devil” job that I mentioned earlier this week, which I think I’m going to have to decline for a variety of reasons, some of which are better than others.  Hopefully it won’t turn out to be a mistake.  I’m tired of saying no to jobs; I know I’m not actually being a prima donna about what I do next but I’m starting to feel like one anyway.

But yeah.  More coffee; let’s make this headache go away.  How’re you?