What a week
Well, there's been a lot of activity in the past week, and it's about time that I filled in my friends with the insanity that was the week of May 2. I will split up the various events for your reading convenience.
No Power? Big Problem!
Monday was a strange day indeed. I show up to work at 10 in the morning, and all is well until about noon. For some odd reason, the backup battery at one of the dispatch terminals decides to activate, meaning that there is no power coming from the outlet. Usually, if the power goes out, all the UPS systems will activate and the on-site generator will power on, giving us power so that we can continue to do our duties here. As time passed, we began to progressively lose power in different areas of the station, and the generator wasn't kicking on. After about 45 minutes, we were down to one computer and one phone line... our master radio didn't even have power anymore.
So, because we were pretty much crippled at our station, I was shipped off to a nearby station to answer our calls and 911's there. It was a bit chaotic and foreign to me, but after a few hours, they brought me back to my home station and attempted to resume normal operations here. Apparently, things weren't restored to normal until after 10pm that night.
Jury Duty, or so they call it that
Tuesday, I had the joy of reporting for jury duty in downtown L.A., reporting to the courthouse at the ungodly hour of 7:30 in the morning. Meaning I had to be out of the house at some time around 6 that morning. Every time I've had to report for jury duty, I never got selected for a pool, and eventually went home without setting foot into a courtroom. This time, was very different.
Let me tell you how this all played out. I was the part of the last group that was called to report to a jury panel, at 3:45pm. Jurors are excused at 4:00pm if they are not selected. So, I had to return the next day for the selection process. The next day, 54 of the 55 of us returned on time. ONE person decided to show up 45 minutes late, holding the rest of us back until everyone showed up. Obviously the judge wasn't the happiest of people when he pretty much showed that he had no respect for the court or for the judge when he openly said that he really didn't care that he was late, and made the rest of us wait. Anywho, after everyone was done holding a grudge against this guy, we were only able to get through about 15 people before we were excused for lunch, and had to come back for more.
To cut a long story short, I was number 51 of 55, so I was one of the last people to get called up into the box for questioning. That didn't happen until day 3, because certain people just could not arrive at the courtroom on time in the morning and after breaks. I mean, how hard IS IT to show up on time? You're not only wasting the time of the people in the court, but also everyone else that has to be there, away from work, earning money, blah blah blah. Anyway, to make things final, I was the absolute LAST person that was kicked off the panel. Apparently, the defense didn't like the fact that I worked in law enforcement, and dumped me at the last possible moment, and thankfully so.
I was fairly aggravated though, since it took 3 days to do something that really should have only taken about 4 hours to do. Oh well, I suppose the only plus to all that was that I was away from work for a good three days.
More harm than good?
Annie's physical situation really has not got any better since I last posted last week. We're still trying to figure out how to get her an MRI quickly so that she can be diagnosed properly and get her some much needed relief. Unfortunately, our primary doctor's office is being a TOTAL douche about getting her in to see her PCP before the end of the month, and the medications that the urgent care office and the ER have been giving her aren't really working anymore. As a matter of fact, they may be doing more harm than good. I know that taking too much Vicodin can have a bad effect on some people. Both her and I want a more direct therapy that's going to work, rather than trying to take away the pain from something that is obviously wrong. But because the doctor's office is refusing to accept the referral from the chiropractor, it's just an absolute nightmare trying to get her treatment, rather than just shots and pills that AREN'T working. So, yeah, just keep her in your thoughts as we continue trying to get her the medical treatment she needs for her injuries.
I suppose that's all the crazy stuff that's happened this week! Stay tuned for more action, more drama, and a lot more ME, next time, here, on my journal!
No Power? Big Problem!
Monday was a strange day indeed. I show up to work at 10 in the morning, and all is well until about noon. For some odd reason, the backup battery at one of the dispatch terminals decides to activate, meaning that there is no power coming from the outlet. Usually, if the power goes out, all the UPS systems will activate and the on-site generator will power on, giving us power so that we can continue to do our duties here. As time passed, we began to progressively lose power in different areas of the station, and the generator wasn't kicking on. After about 45 minutes, we were down to one computer and one phone line... our master radio didn't even have power anymore.
So, because we were pretty much crippled at our station, I was shipped off to a nearby station to answer our calls and 911's there. It was a bit chaotic and foreign to me, but after a few hours, they brought me back to my home station and attempted to resume normal operations here. Apparently, things weren't restored to normal until after 10pm that night.
Jury Duty, or so they call it that
Tuesday, I had the joy of reporting for jury duty in downtown L.A., reporting to the courthouse at the ungodly hour of 7:30 in the morning. Meaning I had to be out of the house at some time around 6 that morning. Every time I've had to report for jury duty, I never got selected for a pool, and eventually went home without setting foot into a courtroom. This time, was very different.
Let me tell you how this all played out. I was the part of the last group that was called to report to a jury panel, at 3:45pm. Jurors are excused at 4:00pm if they are not selected. So, I had to return the next day for the selection process. The next day, 54 of the 55 of us returned on time. ONE person decided to show up 45 minutes late, holding the rest of us back until everyone showed up. Obviously the judge wasn't the happiest of people when he pretty much showed that he had no respect for the court or for the judge when he openly said that he really didn't care that he was late, and made the rest of us wait. Anywho, after everyone was done holding a grudge against this guy, we were only able to get through about 15 people before we were excused for lunch, and had to come back for more.
To cut a long story short, I was number 51 of 55, so I was one of the last people to get called up into the box for questioning. That didn't happen until day 3, because certain people just could not arrive at the courtroom on time in the morning and after breaks. I mean, how hard IS IT to show up on time? You're not only wasting the time of the people in the court, but also everyone else that has to be there, away from work, earning money, blah blah blah. Anyway, to make things final, I was the absolute LAST person that was kicked off the panel. Apparently, the defense didn't like the fact that I worked in law enforcement, and dumped me at the last possible moment, and thankfully so.
I was fairly aggravated though, since it took 3 days to do something that really should have only taken about 4 hours to do. Oh well, I suppose the only plus to all that was that I was away from work for a good three days.
More harm than good?
Annie's physical situation really has not got any better since I last posted last week. We're still trying to figure out how to get her an MRI quickly so that she can be diagnosed properly and get her some much needed relief. Unfortunately, our primary doctor's office is being a TOTAL douche about getting her in to see her PCP before the end of the month, and the medications that the urgent care office and the ER have been giving her aren't really working anymore. As a matter of fact, they may be doing more harm than good. I know that taking too much Vicodin can have a bad effect on some people. Both her and I want a more direct therapy that's going to work, rather than trying to take away the pain from something that is obviously wrong. But because the doctor's office is refusing to accept the referral from the chiropractor, it's just an absolute nightmare trying to get her treatment, rather than just shots and pills that AREN'T working. So, yeah, just keep her in your thoughts as we continue trying to get her the medical treatment she needs for her injuries.
I suppose that's all the crazy stuff that's happened this week! Stay tuned for more action, more drama, and a lot more ME, next time, here, on my journal!