Jury Duty and a Crash!

Hi All!

Some of you may have noticed that it has been a couple of days since my last post. That is due to two things . . . first - jury duty. Second - a major computer crash!

I was called to appear for jury duty this past Tuesday. I sat in the holding room with over 200 other people and watched an educational film about jury duty (rather nicely done with clips from famous movies involving juries!). Then the calling of names began. I wasn't in the first list. Whew! I wasn't in the second list. Yeah! The third list went by with no mention of my name. Then . . . the fourth list was called. I was the very first name called. Lucky me!

Now, the jury selection for the trial my list of people were assigned to didn't start until Wednesday morning so we all left the building to reconvene the next day. I headed back to work since I was going to have to miss another day on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning, the twenty of us called gathered and were questioned by the lawyers. I was positive I wouldn't be selected because none of the lawyers could figure out my last name. Why have that in your jury, right? Wrong! I was the first person selected to be on the jury. Then, the fun began.

My jury of six was assigned to an assault case. We heard all of the evidence between being asked to leave the courtroom so the lawyers could argue without us hearing. That happened a LOT! Then we were asked to decide on a verdit. But, first, a "presiding juror" needed to be selected. This is what the "foreman of the jury" is now called, apparently. Anyway - take a wild shot in the dark about who was selected to be "presiding juror!"

That is right! Me! My luck just keeps getting better! Anyway - we came up with a verdict in what seemed like 6 minutes but was actually a bit longer. Then we got to go in and out of the courtroom a few more times before being presented with sentencing information. Then it was back to the jury room to decide on a sentence. This took a bit longer because we wanted to make sure we knew all the facts presented to us for this phase of the process.

The whole thing took all day. We did get a lunch break in the middle somewhere and we were dismissed at about 5:00 P.M.

I then got in my car and drove to class which is from 6 until 10 P.M. It took me an hour and a half to get to school and find a parking spot (in east boofoo, by the way!). When I got into class I was a bit frazzled as you can well imagine.

There will be no more mention of class for the time being on my blog. I am a bit upset with the whole situation and think it best to process more before saying something that I might regret.

So - class was over and I headed home. I got home at about 10:45 to find Hubby upset. Apparently, our computer had crashed - big time - while I was at class. How fun is that?

The crash does not let us get onto the computer to try to fix anything - joy, of joys!

So - I am writing this blog from my podcasting computer upstairs. It doesn't have all the "bells and whistles" as the other computer nor does it have my picture files.

All in all - it has been a stressful week! Here is to hoping that next week will run smoothly!

Trisha

Voice Update: Ush! My voice is showing the after effects of my stressful week by acting up. I have more breaks that a dropped box of pasta! Inhale exercises and massage seem to be destined to take much of my time this weekend. After I have a support group meeting. Yeah!