Months ago I served on a jury. That’s right, I was on the jury, not in front of it. Honestly.

Most people dread jury duty, but I’d never served on one, so I was kinda interested. Plus, it got me two days away from my day gig, which was a welcome break.

It was a lawsuit trial, to determine the sum of money to be awarded in a drunk-driving case. A wealthy CEO of a fast-food corporation was driving drunk in a large, expensive pick-up truck, and rear-ended a smaller pickup truck at a stoplight.

The victim in the crash sustained a mild back injury which has not impeded his ability to work, nor has it required therapy, or surgery. The victim required no special medications and took advil for the intermittent pain, at a cost of approximately ten dollars a month.

Two months BEFORE the collision, the victim had visited a local clinic complaining of back pain.

This was an epic battle between two very capable attorneys. The victim’s attorney was seeking an award of two million dollars.

That’s right. Two million.

The defendant’s attorney was nothing short of brilliant. As the opposing lawyer demonized the defendant…villifying him thoroughly as a multiple-offender ( which he was) who finally had to face the music…the defending attorney only nodded. I was like…what the hell? You gonna help braid the rope for the hanging of your client, next?

Of course, the defendant was guilty as hell. He’d served jail time with work release priviledges, though he later resigned in order to have more time for counseling and rehab. His wife filed for divorce during the interim.

There was no doubt the victim in this collision could have been killed, but the defendant managed to realize the red light at the last minute and stood on his brakes. Still, the collision was hard and the defendant’s truck sustained 12k in damage. The victim’s truck was hit on the ball hitch of the bumper, and took less damage as a result, but the frame was bent from the force.

But…two million dollars. I had some reservations about that kind of sum for a back injury, one that had reasonable doubt, at that.

When the victims wife took the stand and literally yelled at the defendant for his selfish, reckless behavior, the defendent looked her in the eye and took it. He didn’t look smug, he didn’t look angry. Like his attorney, he only gave a slight nod at various points, admitting his guilt. He’d already been convicted of the criminal charges and had served his time and completed his rehab, at this point….the ordeal in court now, over money, was the final punishment.

But the victim’s wife seemed to really be laying it on thick. What could have happened….ok, but we’re to settle what DID happen. Legally, I had a question on how much we were supposed to award on the basis of supposition, vs. the actual events. Could you really sue for what MIGHT have been? Was a sporadic twinge in the lower back worth two million dollars?

Not in my book.

Now, here is the important part of this story, and I’ve meant to blog this for a long time, because it’s important everyone understands what happened in the end.

The jury was handed a blank check, to determine the amount of the award for damages. For pain and suffering, both experienced to date and likely to be experienced in the future. For the emotional trauma of the victim and his family. For whatever the hell we wanted. The plaintiff’s attorney recommended two million, but we were not bound by that amount. We could award more, or less.

We were sent to the jury room, after two days of hearing expert testimony about how drunk this guy really ways at the time of the crash, and his prior record for drinking, his lifelong habit of alcohol, and basically what a demon lurked beneath that suit. How if we “let him off easy” he would probably just fall off the wagon and maybe next time kill somebody.

We listened as the defendent himself took the stand, quietly recited the events of that day, for what he could remember, and admitted his guilt, and spoke of his journey to sobriety and his current involvements in AA and church.

The victim took the stand and mocked everything the defendent said. He didn’t care! He only wanted to save his fortune. His past history speaks for itself.

I’d never witnessed the legal de-humanizing of a person before. I hate drunk drivers and it’s no joke, what happened. But again, I kept coming back to what really happened vs. the comparison to a “state epidemic” and how ” an example must be made.”

Two million bucks. Or more, if we chose to award it….

The final speech by the defense attorney, surprised us with it’s simplicity.

“You should award the defendant money,” this little, Elmer Fudd kinda lawyer said. “You should award him as much as you feel is justified. I respectfully disagree, however, with the amount he is proposing, and so does my client’s insurance company. This is why you are here today, to make a fair decision, since the plaintiff would not accept our settlement offer. Thank you.”

And he sat down. That was it.

In that jury room, the arguements of the plaintiff attorney couldn’t hold up against that simple defense strategy…which seemed to be no defense at all. All the vindictive fire, all the sharp logic, all the expert testimony, proved overkill.

We awarded just under one-half million, in the end. Mind you, we had no structure for our math, and could only guess what occassional doctor visits and x-rays and possible surgeries might cost if the condition worsened as the victim aged. And we all questioned what the injury really was, as the guy could stand and walk and carry things, by admission of his own medical specialist. He couldn’t do his golf swing quite right anymore, but that was perhaps the wrong example to give a mostly blue-collar jury, composed of the retired, unemployed, and a couple folks like me who worked hard for our wages.

We were all a bit taken aback, and startled, by being given a blank check to decide the financial fate of these human beings. Do we destory one guy financially, to set up the other for life? Is this justice? How much is enough? When does proper economic punishment become hitting the lottery? Suing somebody for a mint was so freaking easy it scared us all.

When we walked back into the courtroom, hours later, the victim and his wife had already left, but their attorney remained. The defendant and his attorney remained. The judge looked patient and calm, despite the expectant tension in the room.

The speaker for the jury announced the breakdown of the award and then the total. The plaintiff’s attorney looked slightly disappointed but could say nothing against it; we will never know, if our award was better than whatever settlement that the defendant’s insurance offered.

For himself, the defendent closed his eyes at the amount and let out a breath. His attorney seemed pleased; little Elmer Fudd, the mild-mannered, bespeckled attorney, allowed himself a small smile and gave a respectful nod to the jury.

The judge thanked us for our service. We were dismissed.

I overheard the defendant’s attorney as he said something to his client.

“It’s over now, David.”

Here comes a buncha stuff that’s been in my mind for a year, that I haven’t had time to talk about. As I’ve never mastered how to categorize my posts, this should be a royal mess.

I’ve got many goals for 2010. One of them, is to obtain revenge for being soundly defeated in a game of pool by MeadowMufn, years ago.

I can’t win at pool, because I suck at it. Therefore, I challenge MeadowMufn to a game where I’ve clearly got the advantage.

Skee-ball !

Yes, my reknown skills at carnival games are the envy of everyone. Let’s see Mufn beat me at Skee-ball.

You hear me out there? Bring it on! Six balls for a quarter. Whoever gets enough tickets for the stuffed tiger first, wins!

I found the last known cache of Starbuck’s Chocolate Mocha Truffles. I bought everything the store had.

To find these rare, soon-to-be-extinct chocolates, I obtained the product UPC code from Walmart’s website. Even though the product is discontinued, the code was still there. I did a search by zip code in an ever-expanding radius.

To make a long story short, there was only one particular search combination that gave me a “hit” within a few hundred miles. Fortunately, the hit wasn’t all that far away.

I had to brave the Flatlands, on a cold, dark night, traveling on treacherous roads….thanks to Mapquest, and it’s needless “shortcut” across a strip of ice in the middle of a cornfield. If that was a road, you coulda fooled me. But it was worth it.

I grabbed every last box from the store shelf. MINE!! They’re all MINE!! MUAHAHAHA!!

And now, they’re MaryAnne’s.

Sweet victory.

I have a quest.

There is a rare item I must find. With it, I may be able to appease the heartbreak of my cousin.

There are few things MaryAnne adores as much as chocolate. If chocolate were a controlled substance, she’d be on the Most Wanted list. I always knew this.

But lo, to find that a favorite chocolate is no more? And here she is, all unhappy? Can I simply shrug and tell her to accept that these chocolate mocha truffles are extinct and to move on?

No. Because it’s not fair. She didn’t know they were being discontinued, and therefore, had no chance to hoard the diminishing supply.

My quest has begun. I’ve got a couple of leads. It could be false hope, as the product is truly discontinued. But I will try.

Because damn it all, I understand. I was a big fan of “Pepsi Throwback” which was an unfortunate name for a great soda. Pepsi made with real sugar, not corn syrup. It was out for awhile this last summer. I knew it was “for a limited time only.” And I hoarded it. Yeah, soon it’ll be gone forever, when I drink the last can, but I had time to prepare for this loss emotionally and mentally, and in the meantime, I’ve got a few more 12-packs left to comfort myself with.

MaryAnne deserves to have time to say goodbye to her favorite chocolate candy.

I won’t use ebay, as concern for food purity is everything here, this is going to my kin.

Fortunately, I’m a fairly clever cuss when it comes to quests.

Not that this one is easy.

Will MaryAnne’s Christmas be merry and Starbuck’s chocolate mocha truffled?

Or will I have to offer some meek substitute and hope she likes it?

We got about 2 weeks to find out. I’d better get a move on.

Namely, more scatterbrained prattle that has no categorization. I know you’ve missed it.

Lots of things happened when I decided I was too busy and too tired to write anymore.

First of all, I didn’t gain any more personal time, nor energy, nor sleep.

Then, I found myself sliding into mind-numbing stupors. Yes, this happens when I’m writing, too, and the evidence is found in the prior entries of this blog.

Finally, I found myself with more cases of the blues. With nowhere to go, the creative juice within became a toxin.

The moral of this story, is….don’t give up everything of your own, for obligations elsewhere. You won’t feel happier, more productive, more responsible, or more rested.

Naturally, I built this little epiphany up into something much more overblown. But it triggered the thought process. There are a lot of decisions to be made in life, every single day. Doughnut, or bran muffin? Go through the intersection on a yellow light, or hit the brakes? Tell the boss what you’re really thinking, or nod along mutely like any other office toady?

Your time is like that too. The sand that drains from the hourglass will never slow down. If you really think, when all is said and done, that “someday” you’ll have time to do the things you want….

…you’d better talk to the hourglass, because it doesn’t give a shit. It could cheerfully spill out all that remains of the sands of time in a sudden gush. You’d be standing there, astonished, going….”Wait! What about all that time I put off doing my personal things, because I was working, or taking care of my responsibilities at home? It’s not fair for time to run out on me!”

Tough noogies. Time, once spent, is irreplacable coin.

DAMN! That’s a good line. I oughta be a writer.

I’m working on that, actually.

And the meaning of life, lost somewhere here in my sleep-deprived ramble?

1) Help as many people as you can

2) Have some fun

There’s no one-size fits all to the meaning in life, so ponder your place in the cosmos and come up with a little ditty to sum it all up.

I’m a longtime subscriber to the City of Atlanta’s tourism newsletter. For the most part it’s boring and packed with the same kind of crap that any city can boast. Sports. Restaurants. Shopping. YAAWWN!

Atlanta has taken great pains to avoid any connotation with the rest of the South, lest it offend somebody. Months ago I went pouring through the online tourism guide in an effort to find historical interests pertaining to the Civil War. You just might think there’s something connected to Atlanta with that period. I might as well been looking for Atlanta’s history in outer space exploration; I would have had better results.

I was annoyed enough, after Atlanta seemed embarassed at hosting the last Dukes of Hazzard “DukesFest” gathering, that I emailed the “ATL” gang and said, politely, WTF? Last time I checked, Atlanta was in the South. Is this awkward for you?

I never got an answer, of course. Maybe one look at a Google search under Ye Olde Brian Coltrane was enough to convince them they were right in disclaiming any association with Dixie.

But wait! Just recently, I discovered a small, somewhat hidden list of Civil War related points of interest on the ATL visitor’s guide. I only had to page around for about 10 minutes.

I’m sharing the link right here so the rest of ya’ll can see what’s listed without subscribing to this piece of spam for two years like I did.

http://www.atlanta.net/Visitors/seedo/civilWar2.html

Visit Atlanta! Before some other Yankee wrecks the place.

Legend. MVP. All-Star. Disgraced Hero. Nutcase. Egomaniac. Warrior.

He’ll always be a Packer. Except for that year with the Jets. And maybe next, he’ll be a Minnesota Viking.

It’s one thing to want to play football. To want another shot at the Super Bowl. To want to extend quarterback records that will go long unbroken in the NFL.

To play for the love of the game was the motivation of Brett Favre throughout his career.

Now, if the sports-news pimps of ESPN have it right, Favre has a new reason for pretending to retire from the Jets. You can take all of the rational reasons aforementioned and simply strike a line through them. This time, Brett wants revenge against the Green Bay Packers, and no one is pretending it’s anything else.

The NFL, far from censoring Favre’s manipulative antics, will be certain to endorse them. Favre promises drama both on and off the field. Finally, the NFL can compete with professional wrestling. It wouldn’t surprise me if Brett Favre picked up a folding chair and smacked a referee in the head.

I’m a fan of Brett Favre, and have been since he began his career with the Green Bay Packers. When the Packers management didn’t welcome him back with open arms after a “retirement” announcement that was obviously premature – I took Brett’s side. Surely, a living legend who had brought so much glory to an independent, small-town NFL team, deserved leeway.

Now, I consider the plight of the New York Jets and their fans. Surely, a rebuilding team that gave so much opportunity to Brett Favre, deserved better than this. One year. A token marriage, never meant to last, a ceremony perfromed as a stepping stone. In short…a sham.

I still believe that this bitter, and unfortunate closing chapter of Favre’s career could have been avoided. Yet, the question of Favre’s retirement had loomed over Packerdom for years before it actually happened. Favre himself was the author of the annual ritual, casting comments into the media as carelessly as a hurled football on third-and-long.

Favre’s courtship with the Minnesota Vikings is not the act of a rational mind. The Vikings, should they accept this wounded warhorse into their ranks, won’t be going easy on him. They will demand not just the Brett Favre who had a few good games with the Jets; but the Brett Favre who was a three-time MVP. The Vikings are not a desperate team in need of a shot in the arm. If they choose to work with Favre, their expectations will be high.

High enough, that Favre is likely to further injure himself in the effort of living up to it all.

The AFC went relatively easy on Favre. I doubt the NFC central division – particularily the Bears and the now-inflamed Packers – will be so charitable. The war of words has now escalated into a tab that may be too high for Favre’s body to pay.

Furthermore, Karma does not smile on revenge. If this is Favre’s primary reason for staying in the game, he’s disgracing his own sportsmanship, and perhaps, nearing 40, he’s tempting fate.

But Favre cannot simply retire. He cannot willingly leave that field behind. I’m wondering if he really wants one more Super Bowl win, or if he wants to play football until he’s carried off the field in a stretcher. Only in the latter case, could he retire without self-debate. The decision, under such circumstances, would be out of his hands.

If Favre becomes a Minnesota Viking, he may have the chance to rub the Packer’s nose in it – twice – before he retires for good. But retirement will still come. What is one year, two at most, with Minnesota, and one year with the Jets, against a career spent with the Packers?

Revenge is expensive, Brett. Even if you’re willing to pay the price for it, should it be the last chapter in your storied career?

Once upon a time, in the frozen tundra of Green Bay, a wild, reckless kid from the bayou put on a green-and-gold uniform….

This is a follow up to an earlier post, called “The Next Move.” I wanted a share a few things that helped me attain some goals over the years. None of this is meant to imply that I’m any big screaming deal. I’m not. I’m just hoping the thought process helps somebody.

If you read “The Next Move” post, you might recall how I mentioned a few other interests, like music and stock car driving. Let’s start with music as a quick example of what I did to get where I wanted to be with it, at the time.

First off, I needed to get all pissed off before elevating my own skills to the next level. Ya see, I was a good drummer, and I was content to be good. Boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom. Then, I met some egomaniac in high school that was the best freaking drummer anyone had seen in thier lives.

I hated him and admired him instantly. He wasn’t just good. He was blindingly fast, technically proficient. To describe him as a rock star was inadequate.

Man, was I pissed off. There’s nothing like thinking you’re hot stuff and then finding out you suck, compared to somebody with real talent.

I rolled up my sleeves and practiced harder. I studied drummers and styles from Buddy Rich to Neil Peart and everything in between. And I studied Steve’s style, the guy who was pissing me off.

For two years in high school I closed the gap. We ended up in the same state-level competitive circles. We were both in every music program the school had to offer. Marching band, jazz band, pep band, symphonic band…hell, I took him on for the swing choir rythym section, just to give him headaches. I’ll admit plainly he was the better drummer, but I wasn’t having any trouble landing gigs.

Still, I was the pissed off drummer. I needed a breakout performance. I played with technical proficiency, speed, and catchy rythyms, just like he did. But when it came to drum set solos, Steve sat back, put on the cruise control, and hammered out something so damn fast and strong you felt shell-shocked. When I had the solos, I teased the audience with a simple beat, then built it up, added a layer or two…and then suddenly I’d blow it open. It was like watching 4th-of-july bottle rockets become artillery blasts. I knew I’d accomplished something, when after one auditorium solo, I stopped drumming abruptly – as planned – but the echoes of the last few seconds of play reverberated around the auditorium and hung there. The sound went deep. A friend in the audience told me that the sound seemed to go through his body, through his chair, and then he could hear it down the hall behind him. The crowd, as they say, went wild.

I’d finally won Steve’s respect. No easy task. Later that same year, we did a dueling drum solo. He was still better than me, but my own style was nothing to sneeze at. I remember Steve trying to duplicate the push-through echo…and not getting it. It was simple, he was drumming so damn fast and loud that there was no real distinction in tone at those decibles. It sounded like a dozen machine guns going off in an oil drum. Impressive, but it wasn’t the same impact as a solo that the audience could follow along and go, “yeah…yeah…YEAH!! Those were my solos. I took people with me.

But if it hadn’t been for Steve, I would have never developed the kind of style and sheer passion for drumming that I did. I needed a rival to goad me to the next level. I needed a REASON to improve.
I owe everything I accomplished musically to that jerk, and yes, we became friends. As fate would have it, he went off to a Big 10 college on a musical scholarship, studied engineering, got a job, and last I’d heard, hadn’t picked up the sticks ever since. That’s life, eh?

On to the next example. Stock car driving. Oh yeah, I wanted to do this. I was lucky enough to grow up in a rural area were race tracks were still common. There were three of them in a 10 mile radius plus a NASCAR track about 30 minutes north. I had a cousin who did fill-in driving for a buddy on the local dirt oval, and yeah, he could line up a chance for me to drive.

But I had to study. Ok, kewl. The first opportunity to race was going to be in a winged sprint. Or, super-modified, they were called. Basically it’s an oversized go-kart with big aluminum wings. It’s like driving a beer can strapped to a cruise missle.

I’ll never forget my cousin telling me this piece of advice. “When you lose control , and everybody driving these eventually loses control….remember to shut your eyes as hard as you can. Squeeze them shut. Otherwise your eyeballs can pop right out of your skull from the velocity at impact. The roll cage should keep you alive if your neck doesn’t break, so make sure the seat belt is tight. You need a good helmet too, because the best fire suit is only good for 13 seconds, and if you’re unconcious you won’t be able to release the harness and get out.”

I remember doing the math on the frequency and severity of the accidents I’d seen at this bullring of a race track. I was no coward, but I was no longer sure if I wanted to experience the flip side, pardon the expression, of sprint car driving. I told my cousin I’d look at getting the fire suit and helmet and all that. Well, those weren’t cheap, I’ll tell ya. Mercifully, I was broke enough that I was able to back down using the financial excuse without showing the fresh streak of yellow down my back.

That didn’t stop me, though, from taking the Impala out on a couple of race tracks, on basically what amounted to Amateur Night, “Run What Ya Brung.” When the Impala got an electrical fire in the pit area on the last occassion, the smoke poured out of the dashboard so thick and fast, that I barely had time to register what the hell was going on. Had that happened five minutes later on the track, I would have lost all visibility and I would have hit the wall, at the least. Sans fire suit, since this was Redneck Idiot night and all you needed to drive on the track, was a signed waiver of liability and they’d loan you a helmet.

So another part of examining your dreams close up, is being keenly aware of any downsides. And making sure you’re prepared, in case you encounter them.

They put out the electrical fire in the Impala pretty quick, by the way. Ya know, I’d gotten out of the car so fast, I didn’t even conciously know how I did it. It’s like one minute I was in the car and there was smoke all over the place, the next moment I was a safe distance away. I’d moved so fast, for a second I wondered if I’d left my body in the car.

Awright, this was supposted to be informative and I just sat here and told ya stories. I’ll try and put some actual useful information on my next post. Or maybe I’ll revisit other favorite blog topics, like sex and money. Never know, do ya!

If there’s a grilled cheese sandwich in hell, it’s made with this. Let me introduce ya’ll to the next product voted Most Likely to Sicken Innocent Consumers.

There is an unregulated ingredient called Milk Protien Concentrate that appears in Kraft Singles, Velveeta, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and host of other like-kind food products. Basically, MPC is the gunk that’s left over from dairy processing.

MPC’s most appropriate use is for glue.

Kraft may not be the only company that hauls in this dairy waste product by the tons from unregulated sources overseas, but it is the most notorious. Ya see, using lots of MPC means less real milk, less real cheese. In short, it’s cheap.

Milk Protien Concentrate is NOT an approved food ingredient in the United States. It has not even been defined as what it is, exactly, by the FDA. ( how do you describe “gunk” scientifically?) Therefore, no standards for purity or nutritional value exist for MPC. Yet somehow, giant food agri-businesses companies like Kraft are positioning themselves to get away with murder. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but we’re talking the same kind of “protiens” China uses in it’s food products, and we know how well that’s turned out for their baby formulas, pet foods, and the like.

MPC is a dairy waste product. Not a food product. Because it’s not a food product, it’s snuck into the United States under cheaper tariffs. And then used for food. Ain’t that smart?

And because the source of the MPC in your slice of Kraft singles can be literally from a dozen countries, a contamination would be impossible to trace back to the point of orgin.

In the Fair Reporting sense that I honor, I’ll note here that not all Kraft products contain MPC’s. But because many of them do, you must read the ingredient label to know what you’ve got. Milk Protien Concentrate means you’re eating something that isn’t fit for human consumption.

The risk of mass food contamination is nothing new and it’s growing worse. The problem stems from outdated FDA regulations, lax or non-existent food inspections both home and abroad, economic pressures to be ever-cheaper for those Walmart shelves, and free trade agreements that resulted in corporate access to international garbage that can be re-packaged and disguised as food.

What’s more, big agri-companies like Kraft want the FDA to re-define what milk is, exactly, and what ice cream is, and what yogurt is, so that they can use more MPC in their products.

Don’t be surprised that Kraft doesn’t care about consumer health and product quality. After all, they’re owned by Philip Morris, a proud maker of cigarettes. They’re not easily daunted by things like serious illnesses brought on by the use of their product. Or lawsuits.

MPC hurts American dairy farmers who are already suffering from low milk prices. The mass importing of MPC as a substitute for real, honest food also puts the public at needless risk.