Thoughts about serving on a jury

This is the third time that I have been asked to show up for jury duty in my entire adult life. I don't think that is every 3 years unless I am a lot younger than I thought. They said today that people get asked every 3 years, or maybe they said you cannot be asked for at least another 3 years.

There is a lot of wasted time waiting for the jury selection but hey, they are not paying you for that time. This time, cell phones were allowed in the jury pool room as was food and drink. BIG SIGNS as you enter the court house saying "NO FOOD NO DRINKS NO CELL PHONES" but every time the jury entered the security area the guards waved us through and we could have drink, food, and cell phones. That was a change since the last time I served.

This time the court officer said at about 10am that there would be a jury trial today and that low numbers would probably be chosen. I randomly had been given number 5, so I figured I would be one of the 7 members. We entered the court room at 11am, went through the jury selection and heard the two opening statements until 1pm, broke for lunch until 2pm, heard another hour of witnesses and then off to deliberate. There were a lot of red herrings and smoke screens that we needed to sift through.

This was the fascinating part of the day. In criminal court we were instructed that the defendant was presumed not guilty and the commonwealth had to prove without reasonable doubt that he/she was guilty. We were deciding on two areas and we pretty quickly came up with guilty in one area. The second area was when it felt like "12 Angry Men". I really did not want to go back to deliberate tomorrow and we had to be done by 4:30pm. 5 of us were on one side and the person who had been selected to be the foreman of the jury was not there. I tried to be patient and quiet to see if he/she would come around but no such luck. Then as the clock ticked away I started asking "Is there any reasonable doubt about xxxxxxxxx?" Ladies and gentleman of the jury wanted the policeman to do something different. HELLO, you cannot go back and change that. This is the evidence we have. (I said this on the inside, not out loud)I was pretty patient and let the others convince him/her. For those who know me well, this is newer behavior. I trusted the process and resigned myself to coming back tomorrow. All of a sudden there was a breakthrough. Someone asked the question in a different way, with a different twist. YAHOOOOOO

My observation that you bring 7 strangers together, have them listen to the same information, charge them with a task to work together and come up with a unanimous decision. Yes, this is our civic obligation. We place a lot of trust in a trial with a jury of our peers. The poor alternate juror did not get to deliberate with us, had to hang around and was brought back with us for the punch line.

It was fun today, I learned a bit about myself, I tried to be patient and sat back and let others take over until the deadline loomed and then someone asked the question one more time. People lives are placed in the hands of a jury of their peers. WOW!!!

Loving the Snow - SORRY

When I arrived back from church today in MASSACHUSETTS, it was snowing. Rarely when the white stuff falls from the sky do I have an "OH NO" feeling. Good thing we are going to retire to Vermont, huh?

Sure, people do not drive as well in the snow and you have the clear the stuff in order to get to work but I am just not sure I could live somewhere that it does not snow.

Granted, I have a wonderful husband who snow blows when it gets really deep. I am out there clearing off the cars as he snow blows making it a team effort.

I guess, as long as I can get out in the stuff and we can get it cleared, I am going to always LOVE the snow.

I am sure a part of this is growing up in CO and VT. Snow was just part of the climate and we would always race to get out into it. I have said this before, but I took both my kids out in snow storms, so they could learn to drive in it.

So, yes it is October 18th and this is the second bit of snow we have had so far, but even with all of that I just love the snow.

The cold comes along with the snow and my feeling is you can always put on another layer in the cold. In a hot climate on the other hand you cannot always take off another layer. I suspect that I will visit warm climates but I am not sure I will ever live in them. I could surprise myself.

The Airline Industry - my observations only

So, for a variety of reasons this year has been really busy with airline travel for me, the most recent trip this week to Orem Utah for work. Since I have traveled with a few airlines here are my observations.

Southwest has an excellent boarding process. You know exactly where you stand in the order, people are very civil as they wait and then board and it is fun, if boarding can be fun. They also have bright cheery airplanes.

American Airlines has a wonderful flight attendant on the Boston to London during the day route. Apparently this route is coveted among flight attendants, because it is international and your body clock does not get as disrupted. She has worked for American for 37 years and was cheery, and happy and helpful and it was so clear that she really loves her job. It made such a difference for me to spend 7 hours with her over a grouchy one.

Delta has a variety of temperments among their flight attendants. The flight to SLC on Tuesday night, most of the attendants were pretty happy and pleasant. The flight returing last night they were very grouchy and pretty condescending. Two of them stood right outside the door to the cockpit, and talked in a not so nice way about passengers, and this was the conversation:

Flight Attendant # 1 "Yup, some of these bags will not fit"
Flight Attendant # 2 "Yes, the grey one, that one will never fit"
Flight Attendant # 3 "Yes and the black one on the right, what are they thinking?"

Clearly these were not carry on bags, but would you really just stand and do nothing, and talk about passengers that way?

I heard today that Jet Blue flight attendants actually help passengers put their bags in the overhead. Now, that make lots of sense to me. The Delta attendants clearly had a sense of urgency to get those bags overhead and get us in our seats, as evidenced by the 6 announcements to that effect in 5 minutes. One passenger remarked that if they did not charge $25 per bag to check, maybe there would not be so many carry ons. Tell me honestly, would you help people load the bags rather than make incessant announcements. I would, but that is me.

It got me thinking about what is important in a flight for me. Safety is the obvious one, which is why I always thank all of the crew on my way out of the plane, even if they were grouchy.

I always ask for an aisle seat. I hate to be trapped and not be able to visit the rest rooms. I always hydrate a lot when flying. Only once this year have I been trapped in the middle seat. On my flight this week the Boston Delta agent found me an aisle seat and I profusely thanked him multiple times. I like to reinforce positive behavior, so it reoccurs.

The best time for me to read is on planes. I pop in my ear buds, play some classical music and read a book for most of the flight. I have not done that on some flights recently, since I had work to do, but that is my favorite time to read a book cover to cover.

This is a silly one, but I hate to pay the Airlines for food. I may pay more for food from the terminal, but I remember the days when a meal was included and pretty near refuse to buy food on a plane, EXCEPT LAST NIGHT, when the groucy Delta attendants were selling Pink Lemonade for $2 glass in honor of breast cancer research. They give all of the money to breast cancer research.

No layovers are important to me. If the cost is pretty similar I would rather not take off and land twice and the layover always makes me nervous. Especially if I am flying to the west coast for work, I try to get a non-stop.

So, if there is a choice of domestic airlines and the cost and route is very similar this is the order that I will fly them: TIED FOR FIRST PLACE - Jet Blue and Southwest, Second place - American, Third place - United and dead last unless I am flying to SLC (non-stop) - Delta.

Oh, and did I say that I don't really like small planes unless they are flying from South Hero to Hampton NH to get us to Star Island.