jury service day 9

okay, morning #9 of driving to 25 miles to LA for jury service that starts each morning at 10:30 (means we are there at that time and the courtroom 114 comes out for us when it suits them.  This morning it's raining, traffic is backed up, I just show up on time to the courthouse after catching the B Dash bus for the 4 long blocks from the Disney Music Center rather than jogging downhill the stairs through the garden park.  At 10:40 the clerk comes out and says a couple of jurors are running late and so without them we have to wait. At 11:10 she comes back out and calls the 11 jurors into the a line, and then proceeds to tell us that the court judge is dismissing us 11 only until 1:30 so they can continue to pick jurors using the entire jury box to interview.. I must admit that by this time I was pissed a bit, since we weren't even for sure part of the jury and could still be eliminated..

WHAT THE HELL.. it's a lot of time to do NOTHING, but she suggests we can get bus passes, free tickets to see museums.. but it's only 2 hours, who wants to truck around freaking mysterious downtown to do that..  so there is a major Catholic Cathedral that I've heard does tours, and they have a good grill for lunch.. So I trudge UPHILL to Temple and Grand, and sit outside because it's not raining and the chairs are dry... at 12:10 Mass was starting and so I sat through as much of that as I had time.. It's actually not a Cathedral of extravagence that I was expecting.. We went to a wedding in a downtown Catholic Cathedral in Sacramento several years ago and that was wow over the top in old architecture and decor in the main part..

Got back to the courthouse, we started at 12:50, and after a few people excused the lawyers have exhausted there challenges. The jury was set and while I had been in chair #8 since day one they asked us 12 to stand and be sworn in... the 4 alternates are yet to be agreed on and they dismissed us the jury so as to use the entire jury box to interview and move the process along.. so twenty minutes today in the courtroom is all after being there in the courthouse for 4 hours..  I foresee the trial opening statements to start next Tuesday (rather than this last Tuesday) and that will be four days of trial time, and then a two week break for vacation of Judge and then trials for the lawyers..  so this is a frustrating waiting game to just get it going, completed and move on..

If I can get the comp time, it would be nice to head to CO to see Brian if we could leave Tuesday afternoon and come back Saturday..  We will see if that is a possibility yet, since I'm actually out of vacation time, I know hard to believe but I even got an extra week carried over from 2011.. but I do have individual days off to use..

Well, it's Alpha night and so I need to take a look in the mirror as I spent a little time out in the rain today..