Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Security Makes Me Feel Secure

Jury duty this week. Most people groan at the news, but I happen to enjoy it. It makes me feel like one of the special cows (or steers, more accurately) in the herd. And with the online system the L.A. Superior Courts have, it's very easy to take the orientation online (no showing up until 9:30) and checking in to see whether you're being called the next day is simple.

The last jury duty I had was at the Superior Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, which is less of a herd and more of a zoo, especially if there's a celebrity trial going on. If that's the case, don't even try to get through the front doors of the building, as it will be packed with press, photographers and those demonstrating for and against the celebrit(y/ies) involved.

When I was called to that courthouse, I was living in Hollywood, so it was easy to take the subway Red Line down and avoid the hassle of getting into downtown and parking. This time around, I'm assigned to the Pasadena Superior Courthouse, which is much nicer. There's lots of seating in the jury waiting room, and even plenty of tables for those of us who have laptops. I can't take any photographs, of course, so there won't be any visuals in this entry.

They also have free WiFi, to which I was looking forward. I couldn't be posting this entry, in fact, without it. It does have a funky filtering system. I tried to get onto Jigzone.com, a favorite of mine because it has online jigsaw puzzles (hence the name), but it is blocked. I sent a request to the administrator to unblock the site, but I don't expect to hear anything soon. I'm assuming that they block it so the public employees in the building don't spend all day playing online.

When working for an employer, jury duty was almost fun, because it was like time off from work. Being self-employed now, it's a little bit of a convenience, as it's impossible to schedule any appointments or meetings this week (or perhaps next, if I'm empaneled).

Martha, the publisher at the American Society of Cinematographers, has decided to turn the entire Cinematographer's Handbook over to me to finalize for publication. She was planning to drive over here to Pasadena today to hand off an external hard drive that has all of the files on it, but I got called in for service.

Also, we're supposed to have our first meeting on the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce Directory design sometime this week, though it hasn't been scheduled. So, that's on hold. And I just got a request from a local attorney to get together and discuss designing a website for her firm and, again, had to postpone scheduling something until after the jury thing is over.

Things are slow at Steve's job, and he actually got yesterday off (without pay, of course), but I think he was needing a three-day weekend. He was only going to go in for a few hours today to do payroll, but they called yesterday evening and asked him to come in for the full day. For the first time in a while, the cats are by themselves at home. God knows what's going to happen while I'm gone.

So that's about it. Looking forward to the holidays, we're not planning anything for Halloween, and I'm thinking of dry brining a turkey again this year (a little bigger, since we had almost no leftovers last year). We're going to Eureka for the Christmas week, so we've decided to forgo putting up the Christmas decorations or the tree: Saves time, effort and frustration. We may buy a live wreath to hang over the television (the closest thing to over the fireplace if you have no fireplace).

Well, they'll be calling the first panel in about three minutes, so I'd better sign off here. Looking at the number of folks here today, I think most of us will be going somewhere soon. I'll keep you updated (or add to this posting) if I actually end up on a jury: Wish me luck (or not).