From the beginning: June 2007

Civic Duty

Civic duty for 2007- check! Today was the third day I spent in a court of law as a juror. I couldn't believe that my jury summons went this way. First, I checked the computer to see if I was called to court on Monday, nope. I thought yes, one day down, 4 to go. Then on Monday night I got called to the Hall of Justice in San Jose. While not to far away, a plus, it is criminal court. I freaked. I instantely thought I would be put on a murder or child molestation trial which I knew would change me forever. I arrived Tuesday morning at 9 am, went through the metal detector and off to the jury room where you wait. My group was called to a court room 30 minutes later. The rest of the day I spent sitting in court listening to others in the jury box answer questions. At 4 pm they had finished excusing jurors and had a full panel, so I figured I am almost home free. Then the alternate came. My name was called and both sides wanted me. What? I am on the jury.

I arrived Wednesday at 8:30 am and waited for the trial to start. It was actually a relatively minor set of issues. The witness list was short, the testimonies were short, and by the end of the day they were ready for closing arguments.

Today we started with the closing arguments and then the jury went to deliberate. Being the alternate I was excused to go to work, but am on call in case a juror drops out or can't continue. So, now I sit here waiting for the phone to ring for me to return or to be informed that a verdict was reached.

Honestly I have to say that this process, while challenging in that it took me away from my work which piled up, it was interesting. The prosecutor put it perfectly, a real trial is nothing like what television makes it out to be.

Civic Duty

Triple threat beer making buddies

A good activity for the guys to get together and do is -- make beer. It is a good opportunity to play with fire, chemistry, transport phenomena, and think a little about the reaction kinetics of the mash process. Oh yeah, laugh a lot, drink beer, and throw some meet on the bbq. Here are Jeff, Zach, and myself having some fun. As you can see at the end, the magic ingredient is -- love.

What kind of beer may you ask? Well it is a Belgian inspired Trapist Triple -- Taberale style if you please! Initial specific gravity of a whopping 1.09 g /cm3. Target alcohol by volume after fermentation and bottling -- ~9% !! This stuff will be practically wine but have the slightly lighter texture and less body compared to a barley wine or a traditional "strong" ale. Should be yummy. I will post an update later about how it turned out -- after ~ 12 weeks, this batch is gonna take some time.