November 2005 Archives

Jury duty

Today I did what may be considered to be the most dreaded service as a citizen…jury duty. It was a long day of waiting. I arrived at the county courthouse at 8 AM this morning, filled out a questionaire and waited. There were many people who were present for jury duty, over 200. There was a video that we had to watch that described the process of being a juror. No, I did not fall asleep during the video.

After the video there was more waiting. I waited until 11:15 AM and was told to go to lunch. Returned at 11:45 and waited some more. I was finally called to go to a courtroom with 28 others.

I was one of the first 14 to be questioned by the lawyers. Each lawyer had 30 minutes to question the jury to make sure that nobody had any issues serving as a juror. After my group, the second group was questioned. More waiting.

At 3 PM I found out that I was selected as a juror. I was told that I would be sitting as a juror until Wednesday. All the selected jurors were sent to the jury deliberation room. Guess what we all did. We waited! This lasted until 5 PM, then the judge came in to tell us that we are free to go and we will not need to serve as jurors. The case was settled out of court.

If you ever get called for jury duty I have some advice. Bring a book and be patient! It was a waiting game which I did a lot of reading and even listened to my iPod. It was an long day and was the first time that I had been selected for jury duty. I was relieved that I did not have to be a juror, but on the other hand I knew it would have been an interesting experience.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours. There are many things I am thankful for. April and I have paid off another loan. We have only our two car loans and school loans. We are doing better than we originally thought in our journey to becoming debt free. That is just one thing we are thankful for.

So what are you thankful for?

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ApplePickers Web Feedback

Well, I finally received some constructive feedback for the ApplePickers website. When I say feedback, I mean lots of it. Nothing bad, but rather suggestions for improving the simplicity of the website. There were many changes that were made to make the site more user-friendly.

Of course, I welcome feedback on all my websites. This helps me to grow as a web developer. I know that color plays a big part of a website, but did not realize that the main links on the ApplePickers site would be overlooked because of the color. The links used to be gray and hovering would make them black. Because of the feedback, I changed the links to match the rest of the site so they stick out when scanning the page.

ApplePickers had their holiday party and it had a good turnout. We had buffalo wings, chips, cookies and drinks. Also all members who attended received at least one gift. I received an ApplePickers t-shirt and a USB 4-port hub.

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Pictures of cabin

I have placed pictures of our cabin online. We stayed in a studio cabin. We really enjoyed our time in the cabin. We did not have too many complaints other than the bed not being very comfortable. The jacuzzi was used frequently.

Unfortunately, I am not sure when other pictures will be placed online. I have been pondering a new way to share pictures. Until then I will still continue to add photos to this site, but not as fast as I would like. My goal is to minimize the time it takes to add photos.

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Back from Gatlinburg

April and I spent four days and three nights in a cozy cabin in the mountains. Our time was very relaxing and enjoyable. Monday we got to the cabin in the early evening and went into Gatlinburg to have dinner and to ride the Sky Lift. We saw a great view at the top.

Early Tuesday we went horseback riding, which was one of the highlights of the trip. During our horseback riding, we saw a black bear. It was not too close and the bear actually ran away once we saw it. Next, we went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We drove through the mountains and made several stops to take pictures. We also went on a small trail.

Wednesday we spent most of the day in Gatlinburg. We rode the Ober Gatlinburg tram and saw a black bear habitat. Not much to look at since the bears were sleeping. We did some shopping and ate at some great restaurants. Another exciting adventure was when we went to Ripley’s Aquarium. We saw lots of fish and there was an underwater tunnel where you had fish all around you. There is one area where a shark attacked the glass, which left some markings.

Our two year anniversary will not be forgotten. Unfortunately, we were unable to get pictures of both April and I. Stay tuned for updated pictures of our trip in the gallery.

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