Doing that jury thing

Yesterday I received in my home mail a jury service summons for California state court.

And today I received a questionnaire from Federal court to determine my eligibility for Federal jury service.

Man, oh man.

Now, regarding state court jury service and me: I don't recall if I have written in this blog about it before, but I get summons for it an amazing rate. And I think I've realized why. I'm aware the state courts get names of persons to summon by using both DMV driver license records and voter registration records. My name is slightly different on those records: for the DMV, my middle name is spelled out; not so on my voter registration.

And I have never been put on a state court jury. Every time I'm sent to a court for the voir dire procedure, I'm always dismissed by one side or the other, usually pretty quickly. I can't imagine never being on a state court jury is a factor in how often I get summons, but who knows.

However - I have been on one Federal court jury. This was in the mid-1980s. I was an alternate through the length of the trial, so did not participate in deliberations.

So: regarding the current situation. Please note I have no objection to jury service whatsoever, but, I don't care for the possibility of being summoned to both courts in the same time frame! Looking at the questionnaire from the Federal court, I see nothing that would disqualify me.

But, a valid excuse for getting out of state jury service is that one was a potential juror for at least one day within the past 12 months. I am recalling such may be the case here, but having no memory for dates, will have to check with my employer's Payroll department on Monday.

Comic-Con 2010: Anticipation and Being

Image via Wikipedia

I usually take a full week of vacation around this time every July. (Last year was an exception for reasons I won't get into.)

This is in anticipation of attending San Diego Comic-Con, usually for multiple days. This year I had every intention of buying a 4-day membership. So, in early March I went to the web site for Comic-Con, and proceeded to learn all 4-day memberships for this year had sold out in November of last year, which truly blew my mind.

So, I decided to go for a 1-day membership, for July 22 (tomorrow), and find other ways to fill my time during the week of vacation.

One good innovation Comic-Con is doing this year is offering early distribution of membership badges on July 21at a place away from the San Diego Convention Center (the site of Comic-Con) for those with 4-day memberships and 1-day memberships for July 22. I'm back from going to that. It happened at the Town and Country hotel's convention facility. The announcement of this that was emailed said this distribution would be available starting at 3 PM. I decided to get there about 2 PM and wait in line after parking at Fashion Valley mall, which has free parking and is next door to the Town and Country hotel.

As I was pulling into Fashion Valley property, I saw people walking away from the Town and Country wearing Comic-Con badges. Huh. There must have been a major line of people waiting for the distribution to have been opened early!

So, tomorrow morning it will be very nice to go straight to Comic-Con programming areas without having to get in line first for the badge.

One complication tomorrow is that in the evening I have a meeting of a class I am currently taking at UCSD Extension. Can't afford to miss that, so I'll probably leave Comic-Con somewhat earlier than I would have otherwise.

Impatience

Earlier today I drove to UCSD to do some wandering for photo opportunities. I like going there for that purpose occasionally because it has many variations of architecture and other sources of inspiration.

As I was walking to get a view of the front of one building, a car pulled up to the curb by me. The passenger rolled down her window and asked me if I knew the way to Thurgood Marshall College (which is one of UCSD's several colleges.)

Now, as a frequent student at UCSD Extension, I am aware Thurgood Marshall College is basically a neighbor of Extension's on-campus complex. (Extension also has some off-campus facilities.) So, I had a pretty good idea how to describe getting there from the point we were at, as it wasn't too far a distance. I said "Well", turned myself towards the direction the car needed to go, and before I could say another word the car drove away. Excuse me? Hello?

I could only presume they were too impatient to wait for someone who didn't instantly spit out exact directions. I threw up my hands in disbelief, shook my head, and moved along.

Reception networking

My last post here was about one of my prints being accepted for the photography exhibit at this year's San Diego County Fair.

I have been aware that the organizers of the exhibit hold an artist's reception the evening before the Fair opens each year. (The Fair always starts on a Friday.) I have not gone to these receptions before because I have an ongoing commitment each Thursday evening.

But, this June, that commitment has been shifted to Wednesday evenings (it will go back to Thursdays in July.) So, I decided to go to this year's reception.

And it occurred to me last Saturday this will likely be a big opportunity for photography related networking. I decided to order business cards to point people to my photography site, and, obviously make it a rush delivery. Networking is not something that comes naturally for me, so I'm hoping having the cards to hand out will be a help. The site listed delivery for the order will be tomorrow, Wednesday. Which had better be that case, because the fee for the rush order nearly doubled what I would have been charged if I had gone with regular delivery.

One print in the Fair

I had previously posted (here) regarding submitting five prints to be considered for inclusion in the photography exhibit at this year's San Diego County Fair.

Earlier this week the results of what prints had been accepted for inclusion were released. One of my prints was selected; one of this photo.

Due to a few factors, I am feeling satisfied by this:

• This is an extremely competitive process; every year only (roughly) one-third of all submitted prints are selected for inclusion. And this year about 4000 prints from about 980 photographers were submitted.
• The judges change every year, so one can never make assumptions about what will or will not be found worthy of inclusion.

Next step is awaiting the list of prints that were awarded prizes (including honorable mentions). This is due out morning of the day the Fair opens, June 11.

Regarding one of my photos and Google searches

Evergreen pear tree (pyrus kawakamii) blooming
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

One of the benefits of purchasing a Pro account on Flickr (as I have) is that good statistics are provided. For instance, it shows what referrers result in viewings of specific photos.

So, my statistics show that several days per week I get at least one viewing of this photo via a Google search of any combination of words from the title of the photo ("Evergreen pear tree (pyrus kawakamii) blooming").

This has resulted in it being (so far) overwhelmingly my most viewed photo on Flickr.

Which is great, but I'm curious: Why the frequent searches on Google for those words?

Any thoughts?

Never Again

Yesterday, as I was leaving Balboa Park after a session of taking photos (results of which are here and here) I decided to take what should be the quickest route to northbound highway 163 and the start of the drive home.

I should have known better.

That route starts at this ramp off of Park Boulevard. The problem is the ramp almost immediately becomes one of five lanes that in a very short stretch funnel into one lane which in turn takes you onto northbound 163. An illustration and discussion of the problem is at this link.

As the son of a civil engineer who spent his entire professional career with Caltrans, I find myself somewhat more forgiving of the planning that went into this design than the writer of the blog linked to above, but only somewhat. I can easily imagine at the time this lane design was created, nobody was thinking that traffic volume would increase to the degree seen these days, thus creating the mess now seen there very frequently.

So, yesterday afternoon for some reason I thought the traffic into the the lane funnel wouldn't be bad, and made the turn into it. I couldn't have been more wrong; it was among the worst I've seen to date. (Sigh)

I made the decision there and then to never make that turn again if I can possibly help it. The alternative is to continue on Park Blvd. a relatively short and normally very quick distance and turn right onto this street; taking the next right puts one on a lane that is usually entirely clear and is a clean shot onto northbound 163.