Greetings!

I got a summons in the mail today:

Greetings:
You are summoned to serve as a Juror in the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for Washington County.

REPORT ON FEBRUARY 03, 2006

I haven’t had much experience with juries and jury duty. A bunch of years ago I got called for federal court jury duty. I wasn’t selected and the whole experience lasted maybe three hours. It gave me my first look inside the federal building in downtown. Pretty nice place, the rooms are big enough for the serious purpose they are used for.
A couple of years ago, two or three, I was called for this very same circuit court in Washington County. That time I reported, sat through the juror orientation, got selected for a trial to start in the afternoon. They let us go for the several hours until we would be needed. I walked around wonderful downtown Hillsboro and eventually bought a book of Damon Runyon stories: Little Miss Marker, The Apple Lady, all the characters and stories that were later turned into movies. I went back to the courthouse and started reading. Before too long, the Court Clerk came in to dismiss us, we weren’t needed after all. It seems the defendant was playing a little chicken with the prosecutor. The defendant blinked. He took the deal offered, what ever it was, to avoid the trial. We (the jurors) were no longer needed to dispense justice. The rules of jury duty, for circuit court at least, say that when you show up and have been dismissed by the court clerk, you cannot be called for another two years. Well, it must have been two years for me.
This time, if I do get selected for a jury, I hope I at get to see the inside of a courtroom at least.

In other news of the Northwest: it’s raining. It has been raining for a while, it’s raining now and it’s forecasted to rain for some time to come. All this rain has exceeded the runoff capacity of our back yard.

This is the view out our downstairs patio door a couple of days ago.


Even the birdbath was surrounded. It was like the levee broke or something....
Please note the fence in the background with the nice layer of moss on the bottom. Thats one of the ways you know you're in Oregon.

The water recedes fairly quickly, especially since we took out the swimming pool. All that new dirt soaks up a lot of water. About six or eight years ago we had a period of heavy rain followed by an unusually warm spell that melted most of the snow pack in the hills and mountains. That pushed the rivers over the flood stage. We had our own problems with the lower floor of the house flooding. But, we survived.....