The Obligatory Jury Duty Post

They got me again with jury duty. As I've said before, I don't mind a little break in the routine! Only this time, I never got a summons, just a postcard with draconian language about $1,500 fines for a summons I never got. I emailed them and told them as much, and they replied to just use the information on the postcard to sign in to get re-assigned. Of course, the first week was when I had something planned a couple of the days, so I requested to be moved, and they put me on call for last week. I think it was right around when a 3-day weekend was coming up last time I had jury duty, too, and it got to the end of the week calling in and not having to go in, and I was thinking, "surely they won't actually be doing much work right before a 3-day weekend, will they?" I don't think they were, but I was called in anyway. I have been having a terrible year keeping up with the blog, so I thought I'd get this one going while it's still fresh!!! I've got 3 or more that I could put together, but haven't made it yet, so here we go!!!

To start off the Obligatory Jury Duty post, here's your Obligatory Disney Concert Hall pictures!!!

While we were in the area for the Community Day, I had taken a few pictures of a couple of structures across from there, new since last time I've been there. It is done in yellow and gray-silver colors, kind of in what makes me think of a building block style. Never posted any pictures of them here, but in the second shot, you can see them reflected in the biulding across the street!!!

On my way back from my wanderings and jury duty "service", right as I was leaving Grand Park, there was this pretty cool trike parked there!!!

Years back, I'd bought myself a folding box cutter knife with a belt clip. It's pretty handy, and being a box cutter type, it has replaceable blades so you can always have a nice, sharp blade. On my way out, I was thinking to myself, "When you park, grab the phone charger cable from the center console, and leave your knife". I remembered half of that. Before I entered the courthouse, I remembered, and thought that maybe they wouldn't have an issue if I just tossed out the blade. The one guard at the metal detectors asked the other one, and they gave it the no-go, but they checked it and gave me a slip to pick it up on the way out.

And wanderings... I did a little!!! Found a couple of buildings with interesting architecture I hadn't seen before, this one with an overhanging edge with what looks like a hanging panel.

This is my first time on Jury Duty since I've began playing Pokemon GO, so that gives you incintives to do some wandering to areas you might not otherwise!!! While I was in line to check in, there was a one star Rockruff raid within distance that I did solo, since you don't see Rockruffs out in the wild. From the assembly room there were a few stops I was able to spin to keep my bag full, and I even used one of my lures on one since I don't usually sit in one place for that long. Of course, I got distracted on other things once I'd used it and didn't get many results!

So, onto the wanderings!!! When I got out, I saw there was another one star raid, off in a direction I've never walked from there before, towards Little Tokyo. I've been wandering in Little Tokyo before, but never from the courthouse. It was towards Phillippe's, and I apparently haven't been there since 2006, and was ready for breakfast so I considered making that another side trip!!! Another thing I'd seen from the courthouse was the OOMO Cube, a giant Rubik's Cube statue in Little Tokyo. I believe there's a Pokemon GO gym there, and I was thinking of spinning the photo disc to get a gift from there, but I never did. I was looking up on maps "giant Rubik's Cube statue Little Tokyo" and all it came up with was toy stores. Oh well.

Here's another interesting building, with some of the floors on what looks like a 30° angle!!!

On the way back, I saw there was a 5 star raid for Deoxys going on at the City Hall gym. There were already 7 or 8 other players waiting for the raid, so I was keen to join in. I was already on the area directly to the south of City Hall, but still far enough from the gym that it was requiring a remote raid pass. There was about a minute and a half, so I walked closer so I wouldn't have to use that remote pass, and joined. I think there were 13 or 14 of us by then, so it went easy!!! Nice!!!

Got a shot of City Hall from a direction I normally don't approach it, along with the flag.

I've never noticed this thing before, either!!! Looks like all it is is a cover for the escalators going to the train station. I should have inspected it closer, it may have some closeable louvers for if it were to rain!!!

Speaking of weather, we've been in the midst of our September heat wave, and it's over 100°. I probably would have done more wandering if it hadn't been so hot.

As I had suspected, there wasn't a lot going on at the courthouse. In the first couple of hours, they called one batch of prospective jurors. A little later, they called another batch, this one for a special jury. This case was expected to take around 40 days!!! They had filtered based on the summons survey for prospective jurors that would be likely to be able to serve, so I wasn't on their list, since I only get paid for 5 days (per company policy; however, I've always been told, "if it goes longer than 5 days, we'll work with you", but I have no idea what they mean by that). They were looking for prospective jurors who would be asked to return in a month.

A little later, before we would break for lunch, they started calling up people to one of the windows by groups of 6. The third group had me in it. Got to the window, and they checked my name off their list, gave me my completion paper and thanked me for coming. Not bad!!!

On my way back to the parking under the Disney Concert Hall, I passed by the dry fountain I'd noted in my previous post. It's still dry, but the newly added splash area below it was going for cooling off!!! Now I wish I'd brought my swim trunks!!!

Community day

Here's another "Looking Back" post I've been meaning to do. Back in April they were having a community day meetup for Pokemon GO in the local area!!!

Spark from Team Instinct was there. Don't know if he was just a cosplay superfan or if he is with Niantic (I think the latter) but he had the best costume there!!!

I had Tyranitar as my buddy at the time, so of course I got a few pictures of him there, too.

Of course, there were a lot of other costumes and Pokemon shirts and stuff there, too.

Another shot of Spark. The meet up was at Grand Park in downtown, and this shot has one of the fountains in the background that I'd shot on one of my jury duty trips.

Being in downtown was one of the harder parts, there's no place to park!!! We ended up doing the same as when I do jury duty, too, and parked at the Disney Concert Hall.

It was during Stufful day, and we did catch a lot of Stuffuls. Got two shinies, but I wasn't able to get even one 3 star. I've gotten a couple since.

More costumes, this time a Squirtle on a dog!!!

Since it was a sponsered community day you'd think they would have some sort of give aways or something. By the time we got parked and there, there wasn't.

But just before we left, someone did give us the flyer for Captain Doty!!!

Going Back... INSIDE!!!

After my last post, I remembered something... No, not that I had a day before the month started off, or that I got a day off during that first week back (considered doing another post entitled "Bookends")

No, I remembered that I had Jury duty that week!!! I had done the online registration, and had in my head that they're going to send me a notification... Nope. I was at work, and remembered they'd sent me the summons, I gotta check when that is... so I did when I got home... Aw crap!!! That was this week!!!

This was on Wednesday, and I supposed to be calling in all that week!!! Called in that night, and they tell me I'm up for the next day. Well, I'm always up for Jury duty!!! It was at my favorite court, so that's good. I had thought I'd done a post on the Disney Concert Hall before, but guess I'd never gotten past thinking of doing it. So finally here it is, only this time I was mostly getting pictures of the interior. See that first inside shot??? If you can't tell, it's at the end also, from another angle.

I always love the way it looks from the outside, but the inside is equally impressive, if not more so!!!

They follow the wild shapes from the outside, but with nice materials!!!

As far as jury duty went, it was a bust again, all day without even being put on a panel. Kind of good, I take Fridays as my swap day at work (because I've been on the weekend shift since the beginning of 2016) so if I'd gotten on a jury, I probably would have had to go to in on my day off. My luck, they would have had us in selection or pre-trial all day, then settled at the end or something. Seems like every year I get summoned, but a look through shows the last time I went was 2013, and that was at the wrong courthouse. Also another time I didn't get called up.

The jury pool room was better than the last times I've been there. They've got chargers built into the seats, and tables in the back and a lot of vending machines. I got a lot more pictures, I may do another post...

That first interior shot??? It's a reception desk, made out of sheets of cut glass!!!

Looking Back II: Jury Duty

Back in November I had my annual jury duty summons.

I had rescheduled from when I'd originally gotten my summons. That had fallen on the weeks that I had for vacation. I wasn't paying close attention, and almost missed the week it was. Turned out to be the week of Veteran's day, so of course the courts weren't open on Monday. On my first call in day, I was told not to come in. Same for the next two, and I figured that I'd end up skating since it was a short week. No dice, I had to go in on Friday.

For a change, it was at a different courthouse than I usually get assigned to. I usually look forward to jury duty because there's much photogenic in downtown. Not so at this one!!! The one main thing nearby was this giant chair. I know I've seen it before, but I'm not sure if I've gotten a shot of it before.

There's the courthouse in the background of the third shot...

There was still a bit of good architecture around the area for the photographing...

I'm pretty sure that just a block up from there is where I caught a shot of Fred Flintstone, but it was almost to the time we were told to be back by. I think I spent more time looking for the post with that picture than anything else for this post so far...

From a distance, the Ritz Carlton where we'd had a work Christmas party a few years back.

One nice thing, the parking was on site. Two levels down, there's a pigeon!!! What are you doing down here???

...And a shot on the wing!!!

One of my favorite shots, the train in the rear view!!!

The rest of the shots are from the drive home. Another nice thing, the weather was pretty good for taking pictures!!!

Love the downtown architecture!!!

First time, I didn't get called for a jury. Usually I end up on a panel, then getting kicked off because the prosecutor doesn't like me!!!

Pink wedding gown, anyone???

Hey, there's a cat on the roof over there!!!

Finally, a decent shot of the dragon gateway going into Chinatown!!!

Justice Takes A Vacation

Jury duty is finished for this year. All week I've been calling in to see if I'll be required to show up, and Thursday night I hit the jackpot!!! This is a departure from the way things went the time before last, instead of everybody showing up for a cattle call on Monday, they just have you call in every night for a week. A MUCH better system, and it made for a much easier time getting through the security on the way in.



The title to this post doesn't specifically refer to anything of my actual experience (well, it was actually something of a vacation for me, one day off work, a shorter, quicker commute, plenty of time to read my paper, lots of photo ops, etc) but rather the first shot here. When I saw it, I immediately thought that would be the title of that shot.



Shot number two is of an old metal lunch box, fully tagged out. It was on the very corner of a vacant lot with a huge hole in it, next to a traffic cone. Behind an eight foot chain link fence with barbed wire. If any panhandlers rolled up on me, I was going to give them the location of this box, and tell them if they retrieved it for me, there would be a five in it (well, not IN it, but in it.... aw, crap, that clarified nothing... here's hoping you're able to figure it out on your own) for them, make that ten if there's something extremely interesting within it!!! I'd have done it, I swear I woulda.



When I got called to be on a case, I started out as juror (alternate) #15. After the preliminary questioning by the judge and both counselors, they started picking who they liked for dismissal. #1 & #6 were removed, and replaced by alt 19 and 20 (because of seating arrangement, I think). Then they got the juror #9. Dismissed, and #13 takes her place. No sooner than he sits down than he's removed and replaced by #14. #14 doesn't even get seated before he's dismissed. I'm called to replace him. I got up, gathered my bag and bottle and waited to see if I was going to be dismissed at this point. Everyone laughs a little as this is going on. I make my way to the #9 seat and sit down. I'd say around 45 seconds later I was dismissed. Everyone laughs even more at this. Seat #9 was a tough fill today!!!



I had to return to the jury assembly room to await more call ups or or the all clear for the day. If you can make it through the day without getting permanently placed on a trial, you are done for the year. Not long after returning, they started calling for more. They announced the room, and it was the one I had come back from. I knew they were going to run out of alternates!!!



The free WiFi at the courthouse was cool, but the filter on it sucked and didn't make much sense. No access to Runescape where I could have entertained myself for hours or Twitter where I could make a little comment in 140 characters or less, but I could access Blogger where I could put ALL kinds of content, and YouTube where I could actually clandestinely shoot and post a video!!! Oh well, I wasn't there that much longer, and I won't be back for a year!!!



Oh, and another sweet deal, jurors get free admission to MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. Of course, by the time I made my way there, taking shots all the while, there was less than 15 minutes left that they were open!!! I rather enjoyed some of what I saw, and thought that I could do as well or better than some. I'd love to go back when I have more time. They gave me a little sticker that says "MOCA member". I stuck it on my John's Incredible Pizza card for maximum juxtaposition.

Oh, I finally located where Angel's Flight is!!! They have a notice that it should be open in the first part of this year. I've been hearing that for years.

SWOON!!!

On both Thursday and Friday, the paper had pictures and a little bit of story about this production. Australia's Strange Fruit performing "Swoon", the most notable thing about it being that it is performed atop 4 meter tall fiberglass poles!!!



It was being shown at no charge in downtown Los Angeles from Thursday to Saturday. One of those things that, after hearing of, I just had to see!!!



It was quite a spectacle, well performed, along the lines of a mime show, but much more acrobatic!!!



In addition, I got to explore some previously uncharted areas of my city and take a great deal of photos!!! Seriously, I ended up with over 200 shots in my camera by the time I made it home. I also videoed the performance, and may upload that at some point.

The Westin Bonaventure

There's many a taller building and many a flashier building in downtown, but my all time favorite will always be the Westin Bonaventure.



Four cylinders surrounding a central cylinder



with cool glass elevators down in the groove where they meet.



I think the window washer saw me taking his picture!!!