You need to teach me what?

WARNING - This is a post all about how amazing I am. If you don't care, or already know it, please feel free to skip this post if you desire.

For those of you who do not know, I am a prosecuting attorney. I work for a small city, and prosecute misdemeanors. Don't be too impressed....it isn't that exciting, and I spend a lot of my time dealing with traffic tickets. However, I also do a lot of DUI cases.

Today I had a jury trial. It was another DUI. The facts were pretty strait forward, but the suspect and her attorney insisted on a jury trial, and so we went ahead with it.

As I said, these cases are just misdemeanors. However, as far as I am concerned, DUIs are very serious matters. Any time someone gets behind the wheel when they are impaired, they are putting their life at risk, as well as the lives of everyone else on the road. Because of that, I put as much time and effort into preparing my case as I can. I try to take each trial as a learning experience. To be sure, I want to win....but I realize jurors are never predictable and you never know what they are going to do.

However, today's case meant a little something more to me. I don't think I have ever wanted to win so much. Why you ask? The defense attorney got under my skin! In court today he made several (VERY FALSE) accusations about me, as well as the other individuals in my office. I did a fairly good job of keeping my cool. That is, until he asked the judge if he could borrow one of his legal books to show it to me so he could, and I quote: "Help teach [me] how to be a better prosecutor." I resisted the urge to say something back, or hit him, and I decided then and there that I would double my efforts for the rest of the trial.

Apparently it worked. Once the closing arguments were finished, the jury took two minutes to convict. That's right....TWO MINUTES!!! I have never heard of a jury reaching a verdict that quick.

When they read their guilty verdict, I wanted to say to this attorney that I guess he didn't need to teach me anything...looks like I am doing just fine without his mentoring! I didn't say anything of course. I was taught that when you score a touchdown...there is no need to spike the ball.

The look on his face was reward enough.

Disgusted

I recognize it is pretty lame to start a new blog, and then not write anything! This last week has been extremely busy. I had a jury trial this week and it consumed most of my time. I always seem to lose track of everything on weeks of trials, and because of that I was unable to post anything. The jury trial was a success (the jury only took 20 minutes to convict!!) and now that it is out of the way, time for more complaining on my part!

I feel that personal hygiene is very important. I know that we all need to make sure we are bathed, that we smell appropriate, and that we are properly groomed. I was just wondering why it seems that much of this work is now being done in public? People are busy. I get it. But I just don’t see why some people feel it is appropriate to take care of some of these “bathroom needs” in an open setting.

Let me give you an example (and one of my biggest pet peeves!!)

A week or so ago I was sitting in court. The judge had taken the bench, and we were going through a number of cases. The judge was speaking with a defendant, and I was sitting down looking at the file for my next case. It was relatively quiet in the room, and I started to hear something. Click……Click…..Click. I knew what it was the instant I heard it, but I still had to look around to verify my suspicion.

Sure enough….a lady was CLIPPING HER FINGERNAILS right in front of everyone. Click…..Click…..Click!

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps there was some sort of emergency that required her nails to be shortened THAT INSTANT….but I doubt it.

I have seen this occur in many settings. I think the WORST place I have seen is in church! CHURCH!!! Are you so bored that you would chose to clip your nails rather than listen to the sermon?

The other extremely disgusting side-effect of this habit is the fingernail debris that shoots across the room. I have actually been hit by one of these pieces of shrapnel!

Once I saw a guy in the library kick off his sandals and go to town on his toenails.

You don’t see people pull out their dental floss in public and go after that errant piece of meat in their molar. I am pretty sure I have never seen someone wax in public. I HAVE (unfortunately) seen pimples popped, noses picked, wedgies un-wedged, and random ear hairs pulled.

KEEP IT IN THE BATHROOM PEOPLE!!!

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that people do this?

Any personal experiences? (If your personal experience includes a story of when you actually participated in some of these activities, please feel free to share them. Just know that I reserve the right to ridicule!)

Call Me Insensitive...

OK…I will be the first to admit that I can appreciate Michael Jackson’s music. I even own two Michael Jackson CDs. I love the music video for “Thriller” (even more since those prisoners in Singapore performed their own version of it!) I am even a big enough man to admit that, when a song of his comes on the radio, I will turn it up and tap my toe. (Actually, that may not be anything to brag about as I have recently found myself doing the exact same thing any time Neil Diamond comes on the radio!)

However, that is the extent of my feelings towards the man. Is it surprising that a man at the age of 50 would die suddenly…yes. Is it surprising that THIS MAN (who, after so many surgeries, is more machine than man, and apparently had quite the habit for prescription drugs) died at the age of 50…not really! Do I have any feelings of sadness…nope!
I see news stories that show people crying and saying how shocking and devastating it is that he died! I see people leaving flowers and candles at various locations in make-shift memorials to him. I heard on the news that something like 16 (YES…16!!!) fans of his have committed suicide since he died.

The other night the news reported on three separate accidents that happened to three young children. All three were very seriously injured. The story was quickly buried by news of the economy, who the Jazz signed that day, and, oh yea….Michael Jackson may not really be the father of his children, and did you also hear that his records are selling out of stores, and they expect up to one million people to attend a public memorial for him…yada…yada…yada…!!
Call me insensitive, but I do NOT care what happened to Michael Jackson.
Unfortunately, I will have to care for the next few weeks because if I want to watch the news, or read the newspaper….that is all I will see!!!

Let the Coup Begin.

For months now, my wife has told me I need to get connected to the world. I am not on Facebook. I have never been on MySpace. I think "Tweeting" sounds dirty. However, I realized that my family blog has very little to do with me, and in reality is just an excuse for us to show off pictures of our cute kids. I decided that occasionally, I may have something to say. It probably won't be worth reading, but I will feel better getting some things off my chest.

I guess some explanation of the Blog's name is required. "Friday Night Coup" is the name of a band I used to belong to. It consisted of me and three very talented friends. We spent almost three years of our lives together. We wrote several songs, and actually had three separate albums. The only downside to the band....none of us actually played any instruments. We experienced mild success, but never really created much of a following. Much the same way that it grew to epic proportions, the band eventually fizzled out in mid-2006. We still stay in touch, and often reminisce about the glory days. When I thought of a name for the Blog, I actually wanted to use a Star Wars name (Yup...as this blog will soon show, I am a HUGE GEEK!). However, the name I REALLY wanted ("Red5StandingBy") was taken...so, I fell back to the old standby...Friday Night Coup.

Perhaps this blog won't mean anything to anyone but me. I will be surprised if Buffy (my wife) reads it with any regularity. So, sit back, relax and enjoy.

Let the Coup begin!