I Love Labor Day Weekend

2013 edition is here.

The best thing about Labor Day Weekend isn't that it's a day longer than most. No, it's because of the "Celebrations" section of the Sunday San Diego Union-Tribune. This is where people pay to announce engagements, weddings, anniversaries, new babies, graduations from kindergarten, and the likes.

If you can pay for it, you can celebrate it.

Every year we get to share in the celebration of Ms. Magic Meryle Cohen's birthday! She hasn't aged a day since I first noticed the celebration of her birthday many years ago. The picture and type have gotten smaller (the column is only 3 ½ inches wide this year) but the information is pretty much what I remember.

(click it to read it)

She sounds like a hoot.

(But for all her accomplishments mentioned in the piece the only thing I can find on the Internet about her is her hint for Heloise.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAGIC MERYLE!

Grendel makes peanut butter

We love peanut butter. And we're not talking that Skippy and Jif crap. We want real peanut butter. You know, peanuts and salt. Our Thursday evening pancakes wouldn't be the same without peanut butter.

Grendel, our Blendtec blender, can make peanut butter. I tried it out with peanuts from Trader Joe's. It was good. But a pound bag of peanuts costs more than a pound jar of Trader Joe's peanut butter. That just didn't make a lot of sense somehow.

I took a vacation day yesterday (I've accumulated all the vacation I can so I had to use some lest I lose some that I would have otherwise earned) and spent some of the day shopping at Costco. They had a five pound bag of unsalted peanuts in their shells for $5.49. I decided to try my hand at making peanut butter from peanuts I shell myself.

I started out with two pounds of peanuts in their shells.
Two pounds of peanuts plus an hour and five minutes equals one pound, eight and a half ounces of shelled peanuts. If you do your arithmetic, you'll discover that this comes out to be $1.44/pound of shelled peanuts (don't consider the time it took me to shell them, time is not money!). If this turns out to be good peanut butter this will be a good value!

A pound and a half of peanuts.

I took out six ounces of the peanuts and had Grendel coarsly chop them so I could add chunks to the peanut butter so we could have crunchy peanut butter.


Here is the finished product.This is good peanut butter. We have achieved good peanut butter value! And we don't have jars that we have to recycle. We have the bag the peanuts came in that isn't recyclable. But I think that amount of petrochemicals in the bag might be less than what would be used to make another jar and to transport the jar from place to place. So I think this might be a little better for the environment than store bought stuff.

Here's my latest YouTube masterpiece: Grendel Makes Peanut Butter!



I ended up with almost eight ounces of peanut shells.
Nothing goes to waste, the shells are in the compost bin.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Metal family (with colorful molten metal splashed on their backs) from Karen.

Case Resolved

Yesterday, we were told to report to the courtroom as usual at 9:00 this morning. We were all waiting in the hallway at 9:00. And we were still waiting around 9:30. The bailiff came out and told us that there were things going on and that we could leave the area but to be back at 9:45. Some time after 10:00 we were told to hang in there. We finally got taken into the courtroom after 10:30 (our usual midmorning break time).

After we all got seated, the judge explained that the case had been resolved and that we were being dismissed. We are free to discuss the case now.

Jury Selection
I covered this earlier. After they thoroughly questioned, thanked, and excused dozens of other potential jurors my name was called to fill the empty seat in the jury box. They had had enough of the jury selection process and they didn't ask me any questions. The just wanted to get started after I was seated in the jury box so I was in.

Opening Statements
The Deputy District Attorney ("D.A." for short) told us that the defendant was on trial for a series of robberies. She told us that he and some other people would go to places where day laborers would gather and offer them work. He'd get his victims in the car and he'd take them to an isolated place, threaten them with a knife and demand their money.

In the opening statement, she played us a phone call he made to his girlfriend or sister. (I think it was the "one phone call" you're allowed when you're arrested. Apparently this one phone call is recorded.) In it he said he "did it" and that she shouldn't take any of the blame.

She told us that the trial was going to take a long time because there were 17 counts of robbery and kidnapping that we were going to have to decide. And that the victims would be needing an interpreter since they don't speak English.

The Defense Attorney seemed to say that this was a case of victims wanting somebody, well, anybody, to be punished and that the victims aren't to be believed when they say that it was his client who committed the crimes.

Testimony
Just like the D.A. said, testimony was slow. There were 15 victims of the 17 crimes and each of them needed an interpreter. I'm not sure if we heard from all 15 victims. I think there were a few who hadn't yet testified. But we heard from most of them. The attorneys would ask a question, the interpreter would ask it in Spanish, the witness replied, and the interpreter would reply in English. Most of the times the witness would not understand the question and would give an answer that was what they wanted to say but not a response to the question. So questions were usually asked many times. Sometimes they'd just give up and move on when it was clear that the witness couldn't figure out what was being asked.

Everybody in the courtroom except for the jurors had heard many of the questions and answers before. There was a preliminary hearing earlier in the year where all of them had given testimony about the case. The trial seemed to be a replay of that. (There were probably more questions at the trial since the preliminary hearing establishes that there probably is a case to be made against the defendant and doesn't have to have the whole case argued.) At times it literally was a replay of that hearing. When a witness gave an answer in the trial that wasn't quite the same as what came out in the preliminary hearing, the defense attorney would read from the transcript of the hearing and ask the witness if what he said back then was the truth or to ask about the discrepancy. These exchanges made my head swirl since there were interpreters and transcribers involved both times. He'd read a question asked in the preliminary hearing that was translated into Spanish, the reply was translated into English and all this was taken down by the court reporter. In the trial he'd read the question from the transcript, that would be translated by the interpreter of the day who would then translate the reply. Somewhere in these four interpretations (five if you count the court reporter) there must be something whose meaning changes. These rehashings of the preliminary hearing usually seemed to be splitting some very fine hairs.

One of the victims apparently was pretty good with English but gave his testimony through the interpreter. The D.A. started out by reminding him that even though he might understand what she's saying that he needs to wait for the question to be translated and to answer the translated question. That didn't always happen. She'd be asking a question and he'd jump in before she had finished asking (and long before the interpreter had a chance to finish asking the question since the question wasn't finished). He had to be reminded over and over again that he's to wait for the interpreter's version of the question.

It takes a fantastic memory to be an interpreter. There were times that the witness would go on and on and never pause so the interpreter had to store up the long response before giving it to us in English. She'd take a few notes along the way in some sort of shorthand, it looked like. She'd include pauses and shrugs. I'm sure that they told the witnesses how the interpreting worked but it got very confusing for them sometimes when the attorney would ask something like "what color is my hair?" and the interpreter would ask that question. The witness would usually answer as if the interpreter had asked the question.

The question "what color is my hair?" was asked of many of the victims. The D.A. has dark brown hair (and we were told that it is her natural color). The answer sometimes was "blond" (once they got it through to the witness that it was the D.A.'s hair, not the interpreter's, that was being asked about). Apparently the women who were with the defendant during the robberies were described as having blond hair. This apparently was to establish that some people from these foreign cultures say any hair lighter than black is blond.

We got to hear testimony from Deputy Sheriffs who had investigated some of the robberies. We heard from a deputy who had found some of the victims by going to the "stops" where they wait for people to come to offer work. We heard from a Spanish-speaking deputy who was assisting the first one. And we started hearing the testimony of the detective who was in charge of these cases. The D.A. had finished her questioning of him yesterday when we got our evening recess. We had expected to hear the cross examination this morning.

But there was a problem with the testimony of one of the victims yesterday afternoon. He had said that the robber was wearing a jacket with long sleeves. Later he said that the robber had a tattoo on his arm and pointed to his forearm just below the fold of the elbow. The defense attorney was all over him about how he could see tattoos when they would have been covered by long sleeves. The defendant does have tattoos where this witness said they were but couldn't have known that without hearing about it from someone else.

The People's case apparently broke an axle running into this pothole. If one witness could give testimony that obviously was not his own, how many of the others were similarly not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Resolution
So The People decided to settle for guilty pleas for the three counts they basically had a recording where he confesses to the crimes and to drop the rest.

The creep is going to jail for 15 years. I forget whether we were told he has to serve 10 or 12 years of that since he's had prior a conviction. One of the counts (kidnapping) he pleaded guilty to could have resulted in a life sentence so he's getting off easy.

His girlfriend and the other woman pleaded guilty to some sorts of charges in this case. There was another man involved that we hadn't yet heard much about.

Here are some news reports about this case through the preliminary hearing (nobody was ever in the audience part of the courtroom so I doubt that this resolution will make it to the papers):

• Trio arrested on suspicion of robbing migrant workers
• Man accused of robbing day laborers faces trial
• Arrests Made In Connection With Day Laborer Assaults (this one, being a television station's site, has a video segment interviewing some of the victims)
  

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Stained glass by Fran Stovall from Bobbie.


(The link above sometimes has other pieces by Ms. Stovall as the first results. Sometimes nothing related to her appears. Good luck, Fran.)

Juror #10

Yesterday I said my chances of being seated on the jury were small. That was true. It's also true that chances are small if you have 10 pairs of socks in a dryer and not having a matching pair until you've found your 11th sock.

Because the chances of an event happening are small doesn't mean it won't happen.

The jury selection process is interesting. Well, dull, mostly. This is going to be a long trial so they collected a large pool of prospective jurors.

They put 12 people in the jury box and six on uncomfortable chairs in front of the jury box. They then asked all the people in the 18 seats many probing questions to try to find out whether either side thought anyone might not be a good juror for their side. They then executed their peremptory challenges, thanking and excusing potential jurors from the jury box. When someone was dismissed, the leftmost person in the row in front of the jury box took the excused person's place. When all of the front row people had been moved to the jury box and another person was thanked and excused, seven more people were called to fill the empty seats.

The seven new people were then asked questions. Fewer questions than before. Seven people were thanked and excused and they did it over and over again. Each cycle had fewer questions asked than before.

Just before lunch the second day of this long process my name was called as the person to fill the empty seat in the jury box and six others got called for the front row. The defense attorney asked my group simply whether we'd like a person like ourselves on a jury should we ever be on trial. The Deputy D.A. asked simply if anybody had anything to volunteer. They were as tired of the process as the rest of us. Or each side was satisfied with the other 11 people and that they'd take their chances with me.

I was sworn in.

After lunch they selected the alternate jurors and testimony began.

I guess that's all the jury experience you're going to hear about from me for three or four weeks.

Jury Duty

I spent two hours in the jury lounge and the rest of the day in a courtroom watching the voir dire process. They plan to have a jury seated by lunchtime tomorrow. They have a large pool of potential jurors since it's going to be a fairly long trial (probably going to last till September 5). My chances of getting on the jury are rather small.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A kite brought back from Poss and the girls' 2007 trip to China.


Thanks, Xian, for finding it and lugging it back!

Sexism

Let's dig a little deeper into my storehouse of grudges.

When I was going through elementary school we had an annual citywide track meet where the fastest, or otherwise most athletic, kids would represent their classrooms in various track and field events. With any luck our classroom's entrants would bring home a ribbon.

One year, the fifth grade, I think, I got to run in the 50 yard dash. I think I was eliminated in the first heat. But I was the fastest boy in my classroom in short distance running! I had no expectation that I'd get a ribbon.

Boys and girls didn't compete against each other. Except for a few events, they don't compete against each other in the Olympics. But I had a little problem with that notion back then.

There was a boys-only event and a girls-only event. The boys had the Football Throw. Big whoop! Throwing footballs was something I had never considered being a worthwhile use of my time.

The girls got to compete in the Jump Rope. The competition was simply who could skip the rope the greatest number of times in something like 30 seconds.

I was the champion rope jumper in my fifth grade classroom. I wasn't a girl so I couldn't compete in that event of the track meet.

No fair!

I'm sore to this day.

I really wasn't a champion rope jumper. I could turn my own rope and jump very fast. But I never could do the Double Dutch. I never figured out how to get started. I would always snag one of the ropes.

I really wanted to jump Double Dutch. That is what really is gnawing at me after all these years.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Some netsukes from Peggy.

Copper Canyon

I've been bewildered about the trip we took to Chihuahua, Mexico, all those years ago to take the train through the Copper Canyon. Once we got to Chihuahua it was decided that we'd rather just take in the history and scenery of Chihuahua and not bother with the train trip.

I've been wondering all these years why we didn't do what was supposed to be the whole point of the trip. Was it money? Did we kids rack up too many demerits on the way down? Were there terrorist threats to blow up the train?

I suppose I do have memories from that trip that few people have:

• Touring Pancho Villa's house, shown by his actual widow!, including his Death Car.
• Seeing "Aeropuerto" in English with Spanish subtitles. What I found most interesting about that experience was that the reactions of the people reading the subtitles happened at different times than the for the people listening to the English soundtrack.
• Eating on a ghastly 50-pound bag of cacahuates. We lugged that huge burlap sack of burnt peanuts all the way home and I kept eating them for a while (they were peanuts, after all!).
• Touring some hacienda. I don't remember whose it was.
• Not getting Montezuma's Revenge (ah, the advantages of not eating indigenous foods).

But those memories really don't make up for not seeing what I understood was some spectacular scenery. And a train trip, even it didn't have much scenery, would have had a lot of appeal to a 15 year old.

Somehow I don't see myself going down there and taking the train. I'll never know what I missed.

Intuition, Take 2

As promised a few days ago, here are some pictures of Destiny Allison's "Intuition" taken with sharper light. I suppose the flat lighting from the other day works, too, but shadows help a sculpture.

Here's the view from the living room.

And a closer view. I used the flash to fill in the top part that was still in the eaves' shadow. The shadow of the house is coming in at the bottom. I guess I'll have to wait till winter to get the top and bottom fully sunlit at the same time.

And a closer view, this time with no flash. Now the shadow of the backyard ash tree is starting to show up.

With people stealing metals to take to unscrupulous recyclers I didn't want to leave this metal secured only by two easily removed bolts and nuts. (People have stolen bronze grave markers and recyclers have taken them!) So I drilled a hole through the mounting bracket and the part of the sculpture that is mounted to it and put a gnarly padlock on it. I hope I didn't ruin the piece! There are already two holes drilled through these pieces for the bolts. The lock isn't terribly intrusive even when looking from the side. It blends in with the brackets pretty well.

Mom asked for a closer view of the piece by Jason Mernick. It's stainless steel cut with a torch and colored with powder coating. The streaks are ground into the steel and are reflecting the sun. It changes as you move around it and as the sun moves.