Linkstew

For better or for worse, the pre-recorded messages informed me that I didn't have to report for jury duty today, which makes the 6th time I haven't had to report for one reason or another.

Last month I received a letter from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters letting me know that the Democratic Party would allow me to vote in their primary election despite the fact that I had registered to vote as undeclared. This was happy news, so I sent in the form saying "yes, I'd like to vote in the Democrat's primary election."

I got my absentee ballot for the primary today.

I also got a Jury Summons for March 2nd -- the same day as the Primary.

Why am I left wondering if I didn't read the fine print on that letter?

I got yet another Jury Summons today, after getting off scott free with the Kern Summons from June (I wasn't called).

Actually, it's worse than that:

I got a summons to serve in Oakland on December 4th, and a second summons to serve in Hayward on December 2nd. Literally two envelopes, containing two separate Alameda County Jury Summons. How ridiculous is it that I got my fifth and sixth jury summons in two and a half years (between two different counties) on the same day?

Man, Hayward! Hayward is sufficiently far away from Berkeley that I had to look it up on a map to see exactly where it was! It's like 20 miles from my apartment!

I'm trying to figure out how I can use each one to get out of the other, because after 10 weeks of perfect attendance, I'll be damned if I'm going to let jury duty sabotage that one day (or three days, depending on which summons I listen to) before my last day of classes at Berkeley.

And to top it off, I also found a notice that my rent is going up $30 next month taped to my door today. Bah.

Hopefully your Friday was better than mine.

It's Jury Summons season again, and this time, I got one, my mom got one, and Kevin got one.

I had a great plan for how I'd handle it if I did get called to serve, but I called last night and they said "call back wednesday night." But by Wednesday night I plan to be back in Berkeley, so if I get called in I'll have to call them and say "I'm in Berkeley working... It'll take me 6 hours to get there and 6 hours to get back, and I would have had to have left last night, but if you really want me to come in, I can be there... Tomorrow morning?"

But I did have a great plan:

• Step 1: Have long hair in a conservative (for california) city.
• Step 2: Wear all black in June in a place that gets crazy hot.
• Step 3: Bring a Game Boy along to play, just in case they're not already looking at me suspiciously.

After I got my Jury Summons, I got out of it by claiming not to be a resident of Alameda county.

A few weeks later, my ex-roommate Keith got a Jury Summons, but he had moved out and was living in Poway, and now that I think about it, I'm not sure that I told him about that. Hehe, hi Keith! I've been busy this last month, sorry!

Anyway, today my other ex-roommate Mike (who is not the same as my current roommate Michael) got a Jury Summons, and he is also going to get out of it by not living in Alameda county anymore.

I wonder when they're going to figure out that sending Jury Summons to this address is futile?

Today I got an official jury summons... For August 2nd. What a terrible choice of days. On that day, two of my new programmers are supposed to show up and I'm supposed to start training them. So uh, I'll just... Improvise, or something.

I'm going to go in, pray they don't like me, and then get out. Otherwise things are going to get rather complicated, and I'll probably go insane.

I couldn't think of a worse day in the next month for this to fall on.

Oh, wait, yeah I can. August 20th would definitely be worse.