I'm not at federal jury duty today plus ramblings
Last night when I called in to check on the status per the instructions, they had an announcement that all 5 Jury panels that were supposed to show up today are being rescheduled to May, as all trials for today were either cancelled or pled out or whatever.
Of course that means that I'm at work, having not planned on being here, and I honestly haven't accomplished much today.
Last night I had to do several interviews for potential paid fundraising canvassers for the party, and we managed to agree on a couple of candidates out of the three we talked to. Per usual, there were only two committee members there and one of our staffers, so we weren't even close to having a quorum to make the decision as of last night. This has involved several rounds of emails and a couple failed attempts at a conference call today. I think we finally have come to a decision though, and we should have one or both folks starting next Monday.
Due to all that hullabaloo, I didn't get home til about 10 PM, and therefore missed the Heroes episode. I did watch Studio 60 though, while typing up all my notes on the candidates for email to the rest of the committee. I also used my new toy to get the photos off the digital camera memory card and was suprised to find some pics that I wasn't expecting.
My parents hadn't downloaded or cleared about 40 pics from their trip to Thailand last year, and most of those photos were at a zoo they visited while over there. In the middle were a couple of pics from Christmas at my house last year, some pics of their dogs, a couple pics of my cats, and then on to the zoo photos from here in Portland taken on my birthday this summer. So two zoos from around the world are represented on one photo disk.
Depending on when I get home from French Class tonight, I might be able to upload them all to my new Flickr account. Since Flickr is now affiliated with Yahoo, I am using my Yahoo ID for that purpose.
I haven't had lunch yet today, because I spent my lunch hour trekking to Powell's City of Books to located a cookbook that my Mom insisted that I buy. Turns out that the vaunted section on restaurants in Paris consists of two fromageries, a few boulangeries, some bistros and bars, and about 6 restaurants. I propped open the book right on the shelf and copied out the names, street addresses and arondissements for each onto a post-it note. There was just no way I was going to spend $35 for that pitiful of a listing, especially since I'm not hugely into French Cuisine.
So, instead I got a couple more books on Paris: The DK Eyewitness Travel book on Paris, to go with the one for all of France I got a few months ago at Costco. Both of them have restaurant sections. In addition, I another little book called "Eating and Drinking in Paris" which has various listings showing the price range, a comment, location etcetera for each restaurant. It has a little map showing the arondissements and which restaurants are within the borders of each. The real gem in this book is an 80 page section that has english to french and primarily french to english translations of menu items. Yes I do have an understanding of French as a language, and hope I'll do OK speaking it while over there, but I have never focused much on the food/dining words. Since I have a couple of allergies or food issues, this will be a lifesaver! For example, I would have no idea that a salade russe would consist of veggies in mayonnaise! Or that goujon would be related to carp!
To continue my rambling rundown of recent events and coming attractions, tomorrow, our office closes down at 3 PM for the holiday, and I have a hair appointment at 5:30, so I'll have plenty of time to cruise the Hawthorne Strip while I'm killing time. After tomorrow, I will have 3 more work days before the trip to France. Gotta love that!
Of course that means that I'm at work, having not planned on being here, and I honestly haven't accomplished much today.
Last night I had to do several interviews for potential paid fundraising canvassers for the party, and we managed to agree on a couple of candidates out of the three we talked to. Per usual, there were only two committee members there and one of our staffers, so we weren't even close to having a quorum to make the decision as of last night. This has involved several rounds of emails and a couple failed attempts at a conference call today. I think we finally have come to a decision though, and we should have one or both folks starting next Monday.
Due to all that hullabaloo, I didn't get home til about 10 PM, and therefore missed the Heroes episode. I did watch Studio 60 though, while typing up all my notes on the candidates for email to the rest of the committee. I also used my new toy to get the photos off the digital camera memory card and was suprised to find some pics that I wasn't expecting.
My parents hadn't downloaded or cleared about 40 pics from their trip to Thailand last year, and most of those photos were at a zoo they visited while over there. In the middle were a couple of pics from Christmas at my house last year, some pics of their dogs, a couple pics of my cats, and then on to the zoo photos from here in Portland taken on my birthday this summer. So two zoos from around the world are represented on one photo disk.
Depending on when I get home from French Class tonight, I might be able to upload them all to my new Flickr account. Since Flickr is now affiliated with Yahoo, I am using my Yahoo ID for that purpose.
I haven't had lunch yet today, because I spent my lunch hour trekking to Powell's City of Books to located a cookbook that my Mom insisted that I buy. Turns out that the vaunted section on restaurants in Paris consists of two fromageries, a few boulangeries, some bistros and bars, and about 6 restaurants. I propped open the book right on the shelf and copied out the names, street addresses and arondissements for each onto a post-it note. There was just no way I was going to spend $35 for that pitiful of a listing, especially since I'm not hugely into French Cuisine.
So, instead I got a couple more books on Paris: The DK Eyewitness Travel book on Paris, to go with the one for all of France I got a few months ago at Costco. Both of them have restaurant sections. In addition, I another little book called "Eating and Drinking in Paris" which has various listings showing the price range, a comment, location etcetera for each restaurant. It has a little map showing the arondissements and which restaurants are within the borders of each. The real gem in this book is an 80 page section that has english to french and primarily french to english translations of menu items. Yes I do have an understanding of French as a language, and hope I'll do OK speaking it while over there, but I have never focused much on the food/dining words. Since I have a couple of allergies or food issues, this will be a lifesaver! For example, I would have no idea that a salade russe would consist of veggies in mayonnaise! Or that goujon would be related to carp!
To continue my rambling rundown of recent events and coming attractions, tomorrow, our office closes down at 3 PM for the holiday, and I have a hair appointment at 5:30, so I'll have plenty of time to cruise the Hawthorne Strip while I'm killing time. After tomorrow, I will have 3 more work days before the trip to France. Gotta love that!