During the last couple days I was able to finish converting my jury duty writings into a digital format on the laptop. In two weeks of jury duty I was able to scribble out almost 15,000 words. Currently that puts the book at:

Total Words: 86,500
Estimated Words Remaining: 20k-25k

Even when I finish, I have a feeling there will be some heavy editing. It seems silly to pour a year of your life into something like this and then not put some finishing touches on it. I don’t want to finish this, get it printed, and then find a silly mistake I could have fixed. Will it get done before the baby is born? I doubt it, but I’m certainly going to try.

After 3.5 days of deliberating my case finally ended and I went back to work today. I’m so tired of it that I don’t even feel like describing it, but I’ll give you the short version. Guy is going out with girl, but girl’s ex-boyfriend doesn’t like this, so he shoots at new boyfriend. Personally I think there was no reasonable doubt, but my opinion didn’t matter as an alternate. Two out of the 12 disagreed though, and the guy goes free. I’m glad I wasn’t in the deliberation room because I would have gone crazy arguing with the people.

On to the political front. John McCain won Florida by a few percentage points, but I’m still gung-ho for Romney. In less than a week we get our say here in California, and I think it’s time for everyone to make up their mind. It’s come down to Romney and McCain. There are far too many things McCain has done that go against conservative principles, and it’s important that he not be the nominee. To everyone backing Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, your votes will go down the drain. Instead, put them behind Romney, a younger and more conservative nominee than McCain with the energy to defeat Hillary or Obama. McCain will take the Republican party away from the conservative principles of Regan, and moving to the left has never helped the Republican party. I would rather we stick to our conservative principles and lose in November than to abandon them and never find our way again.

Vote Mitt Romney on Tuesday, February 5th.

So after seven days of jury duty…I get to do at least one more. Ugh!

The regular 12 jurors are busy deliberating. They started Thursday, but couldn’t finish on Friday, so I’m going back on Monday. While it’s still good for the book, I’m getting very tired of the court cafeteria food.

I’m busy getting our technological life in order for the baby. The new video camera came and parts for a computer upgrade, so I’m busy installing programs and copying over settings. I moved both bookshelves into our room, now I need to finish earthquake proofing them so we don’t have any smooshed babies over here. It’s hard to believe that all the stuff in the second bedroom, except for the bed, is now in our room.

Stacie is off shopping with her mom and I’m supposed to stay busy here getting things done, so back to work I go! Oh, and in case you were wondering, I’m kicking some major butt in my online baseball league. You can follow the action here.

Hello to all in the blogosphere. I survived day 3 of jury duty, but I’m afraid you must wait to hear the juicy details until the case is over. I didn’t tell the judge about the blarg, but I know it’s such a famous website and all, he probably checks it in his chamber on those little sidebar doobers.

I was able to scribble out over 3000 words during my first three days of jury duty! That brings me up to a momentous 75,000 WORDS! There is something about that number that feels like I’m rounding the final turn in a race around the world. I was telling Stacie that for this last part of the book I think I’ll have to write it almost non-stop.

I went ahead and bought the Canon HV20. I was able to produce some beautiful looking video on the PS3, and that sold me. We’re heading up to Turlock in a month, so I’m excited to take it a long and do some filming of the almond orchard and old house. Many a childhood memories were made there.

In case you haven’t been following the Presidential Primaries, I’m happy to report that Romney won in Nevada after winning in Michigan earlier this month. He leads all candidates in delegates and total votes. It looks like Florida will be a very important race where the four top candidates are all running neck and neck in the polls. I’m hoping Romney gets a similar boost that he saw in Michigan as discussions focus on the economy. You never know, California could actually become a deciding factor come February 5th: Super Tuesday! In case you didn’t notice, I’ve got a little Romney endorsement to the right.

The case could take all of this coming week, so my sub plans are there just in case. I don’t like using my sick days, but I am certainly enjoying the break. I wish I could be writing the entire time, especially since I probably won’t have a vote once the trial is over, but I’m having a good time observing the process. Heck, if I ever need a good court scene in a future novel I’ll have some firsthand experience to draw from.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. day! He is by far my favorite civil rights activist.

Today I didn’t have to show up until 9:30 am, but nothing even happened until 10:30 am. When they finally let us in they spent the next 1.5 hours picking the rest of the jury. At noon they had picked the main 12, but we all had to come back after lunch to pick alternates.

And lucky me gets to be one.

They think it will take until the end of next week, but I guess that’s about as much as I can say right now. It’s a really interesting experience thus far, and while I don’t enjoy using my sick days, I think it’s something everyone should do at some point. I did more writing today, and while I’m sure having to sit through a trial will slow my progress, there is still a lot of down time and I can use it to fill my composition book!

Today was Day 1 of my jury duty service that I’m making up for missing over vacation. This is my first time ever being called to show up, and it’s quite an interesting experience.

I drove down to Compton this morning at about 7 am. I found the parking structure, made my way inside, and found a seat in the big jury waiting room. For the first two hours pretty much nothing happened. The guy in charge went over all the information we needed to know and oriented people. They called for their first jury around 11 am, but it was going to be a long one (over 20 days) so they only called people whose work would pay for it. While we all sat there with nothing to do they put on Pirates 3 for us to watch, haha. Then from 12-1:30 was lunch and I had a cheeseburger in the cafeteria. I kind of felt like I was in jail.

After lunch they started showing the Simpsons movie, but about 30 minutes into it I got called for jury selection. We went upstairs and waited for about an hour, and eventually they brought us into the courtroom. By the end of the day they were still questioning jurors from yesterday’s group, and since they’re not done, we all have to show up tomorrow. If I get chosen, which I think is unlikely since there are so many of us, it would last until next Friday. Otherwise it will end tomorrow!

Luckily I took my notepad and a pen and was able to scribble out several pages of writing while I waited. Something I found interesting upon entering the court building was the “what not to bring inside” list. It had the usual items like guns and drugs, but there were two items inparticular that seemed redundant. Somewhere after guns they listed “knives,” which I would agree is a no-no inside the courtroom. But immediately following “knives” was the word “daggers.” I don’t even know the difference, but I was unaware daggers still existed. I’ve never heard someone say “yo slim, stick a dagger in his arse!” Maybe if there were gangs back in the middle-ages they would have said this, but I don’t think the word “dagger” has been used since Elven times. Would the word “knives” all by itself confuse people?

Gang Banger: Man, I’s gots to go to court t’day. (Looks at sign) Oh shiz, it says no knives. Hmm, does that word also refer to the dagger I am carrying in my overly baggy pants? Perhaps the court considers some styles of sharp metal objects okay and they would not mind if I brought my dagger inside.

Tonight we learned all about breast feeding! It was actually pretty interesting. So far I haven’t been too into the whole reading and learning aspect of being pregnant, I think mainly because there is a ton of info out there that I don’t need to know. But how breast feeding works and the benefits seem very real and useful to me, so I was interested. Tomorrow we start the birthing type classes, so we’ll see how that goes.

Over the weekend our big goal was to ascertain baby furniture, and we succeeded! Unfortunately it won’t be here for 10-12 weeks, haha. The baby will be in a basinet for a couple months though, so everything should work out. We also met and interviewed a daycare lady on Friday, and it looks like the baby will be set in the Fall!

Something I’ve been researching for months is a high-def camcorder, and I’m pretty much set on which one I want. I’d been watching the Canon HV20 for a while, but they just announced a new version (HV30) which has a few notable improvements. For the techno geeks, it has a newer LCD, and it also has a 30p mode. I hate working with interlaced footage, and being able to film 30p out of the box should be a nice improvement over the 24p of the HV20 (not to mention the HV30 has 24p also). My only concern is that it won’t be out until February (or Amazon is saying March 1st) and that is cutting it a little close. Hopefully I can get one right away and start learning the ropes in time for the baby.

I’m on call for jury duty this week because I was a dufus and didn’t call during vacation. Luckily though I didn’t have to go today and I don’t have to go tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I’ll luck out and not have to go all week!

Hope everyone is well. Visit Paul’s site and Luna’s site for some cool videos.

Vacation is terrible for the blog, but great for my sanity! One week or so of vacation is over, and only one left. It’s really tough being a teacher.

We’ve started working on turning the 2nd bedroom into the baby room. My dad came over and helped me move the arcade downstairs. I ran network cable to the second bedroom so I’ll have a wired network connection once I move the computer desk. As we plan where to put a crib and changing table and bassinet, we’ve come to realize that having children makes you run out of room really fast. Originally I’d hoped we could stay in this house through two children, but we’ll have to see how that goes now.

I started recording the Amazing Race two months ago, and now that the writer’s strike is still continuing, I’m glad we did. We’ve watched 5 episodes so far, so by the time vacation is over we’ll be all caught up. If there is a lack of new shows we can always watch some movies instead, or heck, even talk to each other!

The book isn’t getting as much attention this break as I’d hoped. I’m waking up in the morning, putting on a pot of coffee, and getting to work. I hit 70,000 words the other night, so it always feels good to hit a milestone. I’m predicting somewhere in the low hundred thousands, so the end is at least in sight. I can’t believe I thought this project would take a couple months, but if I’d known it would take a whole year, I probably wouldn’t have started to begin with.

Hope everyone is enjoying vacation, or if you have to go back to work, enjoy the weekend! Ah frick, I have to call in for jury duty on Sunday night. Please, please, please judicial system, don’t screw with my vacation. In case I have to go, can I take a laptop with me to work on the book?