By my standards, the last several weeks have been reasonably eventful.\u00a0 April and May are festival season and I attended every day of both French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest.\u00a0 I never got around to really writing about this year\u2019s French Quarter Festival and I gave no thought attempting to document Jazz Fest in prose.\u00a0\u00a0 Suffice it to say, it was one of the best Jazz Fests ever.\u00a0 Supposedly, it was the first one in 12 years without rain.\u00a0 The weather was also unseasonably cool and pleasant which made for a much better experience.\u00a0 Coca Cola was back after two sad years with Pepsi.\u00a0 The food and music were excellent as always.\u00a0 I spent the bulk of my time in the tents this year and avoided sunburn.\u00a0\u00a0 This year I was a little more adventurous in choosing who to see, passing up old standbys I got to see in the French Quarter for an opportunity to see new bands.\u00a0 One of the highlights was the last act on the last day in the jazz tent, Sonny Rollins.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry to say I didn\u2019t know who he was until a couple hours before he performed, but I\u2019m very glad I was around for his set.\u00a0 I had never seen the normally subdued jazz tent crowd that excited.<\/p>\n
Recently, I earned a small promotion at work.\u00a0 I am now working as the news writer \/ production assistant for Fox 8\u2019s brand new noon newscast.\u00a0 There is not a great deal of writing involved and I am still have PA duties but the hours are so much better.\u00a0 I come in at nine in the morning and am done at three.\u00a0 It\u2019s taking time to adjust to getting up like normal people but I hope it will promote a healthier lifestyle.\u00a0 If nothing else I should save money, not having to eat out for dinner.<\/p>\n
I was somewhat surprised to get the position, partially because I don\u2019t think highly of my writing ability.\u00a0 A week into the new job, I think it\u2019s going well overall.\u00a0 I\u2019m already familiar with all my duties although I\u2019ve had to run graphics for the first couple weeks\u2026 the one thing I didn\u2019t know how to do.\u00a0 I am hoping my writing skills will improve rapidly in the coming months.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have ample opportunity to practice.<\/p>\n
I took a three day weekend last week.\u00a0 My friend Krystle was in town for a few days.\u00a0 She\u2019s had a rough month and needed a break.\u00a0 I spent a lot of time walking around the French Quarter, shopping and eating out.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have much luck taking her mind off her troubles so it wasn\u2019t as pleasant a visit as it could have been.<\/p>\n
The Wednesday after Krystle went home, I started a month of jury service at Orleans Parish Criminal District Court.\u00a0 I was summoned back in March for a term in either April or May.\u00a0 That\u2019s festival season so I asked for it to be deferred until June.\u00a0 Jury service at criminal court requires ten days of service, two days each week for a month.\u00a0 I am in \u201cGroup A\u201d which reports to the jury pool Monday and Wednesday mornings.\u00a0 You need a pretty good reason to get out of it, which I don\u2019t have as an able-bodied person with no dependents.<\/p>\n
On the first day, I was among the first group picked for the first trial in need of jurors.\u00a0\u00a0 I quickly learned that it\u2019s best to be in the first of two groups questioned during voir dire, in which the attorneys pose questions and try to select the most \u2018impartial\u2019 jurors.\u00a0 \u00a0The case apparently involved an OPP inmate who was involved with a fight involving some sort of weapon, probably a shiv. \u00a0He was charged with possession of a weapon while in prison.\u00a0 The prosecution spent a lot of their time establishing what possession means and questioning the potential jurors about various legal angles that would be involved in the case.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take very long compared to defense council.\u00a0 He questioned the first group for about two hours.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t have any desire to sit on a jury so I was hoping for a question I could answer to effectively disqualify myself.\u00a0 It came during the questioning by the defense when he asked if anyone would be impacted by the defendant not taking the stand in his own defense.\u00a0 I said it wouldn\u2019t be the deciding factor, but it would create doubt as I know I would be dying to testify were I wrongly accused of a crime.\u00a0 Shortly after the defense attorney finished his questions, both attorneys and the judge went to chambers while they made their selections.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get picked.\u00a0 Those of us who weren\u2019t selected were sent back to the lounge where we were excused for the day.\u00a0 I considered myself lucky, but that would run out next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By my standards, the last several weeks have been reasonably eventful.\u00a0 April and May are festival season and I attended every day of both French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest.\u00a0 I never got around to really writing about this year\u2019s French Quarter Festival and I gave no thought attempting to document Jazz Fest in prose.\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1546,"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions\/1546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbsdomain.com\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}