Phone part two

Well, I did get the replacement phone, but in trying to use it I found that it doe not get service. I took it to the phone store and talked to them about it and they tried to change the service card in it, but that did not help. So I have a nice phone that I still cannot make calls on. I guess it is a step in the correct direction. Another replacement has been ordered. It should be here sometime this next week.

Mid - Night Run

The sound of that pager in the middle of the night is so terrible. Once it enters my dream, I start slapping the clock to shut it up. Then when I realize that is not working, I start slpping everything else on the night stand. I think one of the pagers I had before lite up when it went off so it was easier to figure out what the noise was from. Once I find the source of the noise and shut it up, I see what the text says and call back to the data center. After mumbling stuff to them I decide if I can talk the user through the issue or if I have to go in. If I can talk them through it, its great and I do not even have to get out of bed. Usually I end up having to go in. So I find clothes and start to get dressed. I close my eyes for a second and when I open them and look at the clock, oops, it was more than a second. I put the rest of the clothes on and drag myself to the truck. I slowly make my way to the problem, proping myself against the wall of the elevator, etc. The staff there are generally way too awake for my liking, and since I am there to fix their problem they are very happy to see me, even if it was an hour and half since they called or so. I doesn't take long to fix the issue almost every time, and them I make my way back home. I am finally wide awake by the time I make it home, and have to try to get back to sleep. As you can see by the fact that I am typing this at 1:40 am, that sleep may evade me for a little bit. Then in the morning I will have to try to remember what I did to resolve the issue and throw that into the ticket. Oh well, good night.

Service Announcement

My cell phone went for a swim. I will be without it for a little bit. I am oncall this week and next so I will be reachable by pager or the house phone.

Christmas

Here is our tree. When it was given to us it was too big for the room. I had to saw a good amount off of the main pole and leave a row or two off the bottom, and it was still too tall for a star or anything at the top. Lisa said something abbout possibly getting another during the after Chirstmas sales, but we may just stick with this one for a while... Free is good.

Chistmas eve Lisa and I went over to Mom and Dad's and the Christmas we went to Lisa's Grandma's.

For Christmas I got clothes, an MP3 player and a blender. I got Lisa a video camera that also does stills and a book with all of the cronicals of narnia. And we were given a Goerge Forman grill and a sandwich toaster.

The Verdict

It looks like the jury has already submitted their verdict in the United States v. David Cain Jr, Chris Cain and James Soha case. Less than three days for the jury to decide. All three were found guilty on several counts. The main one was found guilty on 17 felony charges.

http://www.wgrz.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=53507&provider=top

Cooking review - Apple pie

This turned out ok.

Cooking review - Slow cook Pot Roast

This turned out great. I have lots of leftovers.
Here is the recipe.

3 to 4 pound beef pot roast
I used baby carrots and potatoes (cut up) I like the red potatoes
2 envelopes dry onion soup mix
3/4 cup water

Brown the roast in a little oil in a frying pan.
Arange the spuds and carrots in the slow cooker, and put the roast on top.
Combine the mix and water and pour over everything in the slow cooker
Cook on low for 9 to 10 hours

Excused

I have been excused from the jury. They only kept two alternates on for the deliberations. I did not keep a good record during the trial. I did included some things I wrote down on a couple of occasions. I have also included a couple of news paper links to the case. I have not gone through the news articals yet, and there may be more. It has been a long drawn out play, with quite an assorted cast. The witnesses ranged from lifetime criminals and family to fire investigators and police officers. All of the witnesses were for the prosecution and their case lasted until last week. The defense’s case only lasted about an hour for all three. They only read in some stipulations. Closing arguments was rather interesting. The Prosecution’s arguments were very structured and they used Power point to present it. The defense got up there and proceeded to attack all the witnesses and to say that none of them could be trusted because they were all criminals and they got a deal from the government for there testimonies. One of the lawyers even said that they do not deny that the events happened, but the testimonies of liars was not enough to tie their clients to the events. During the prosecution’s rebuttal, he got up there and just tore right though the defense’s comments. It was great. Then the judge went through the charge to the jury. That seemed to take forever. It took more than a full day to go through all the indictments, what they meant and what needs to be met to convict on them.


19 October 2007

There are three defendants, each with their own lawyers. Two of the defendants are brothers and they sit at the same table with their lawyers, and the other is their cousin and he sits at another table with his lawyer. The brothers seem well educated and appear to have been well coached. They are constantly writing and counsel with their lawyers often. All of them seem to have been coached to not show emotions, and I caught one holding back a laugh after one of the judges jokes.

So far it has been a well structured argument. Each of the lawyers have very different personalities and tactics. The government lawyer seems to want to present his case in a clear, organized way. He brings in a witness and presents everything relating to that witness. The other lawyers very rarely object to anything he says or presents. Two of the defense lawyers just rub me the wrong way. One of them really does. His attitude really gets to me and I think the judge is starting to get annoyed. His way of disproving the witness is to try to discredit them by showing that they are lifetime criminals and therefore are probably lying to us, or that they have something to gain by lying to us. He asks the same question over and over for no apparent reason but to change the flow or drag out the process. He has not been able to trip any one up in their testimony. The Prosecutor has been objecting to his questioning a lot. He has be objecting that the questions have been asked and answered (at one point the judge’s response was that we got the same question five times and it was time to move on), that he has been looking for the witness to give an opinion, and what he was asking was not relevant.

There has been a few time that they have dismissed us so that the judge could talk to the lawyers. Sometimes they had us take a recess and other times they just had us go across the hall into the other courtroom. I am not sure what they had to discuss, but one time it was definitely about the one defense lawyer’s way of questioning.

29 October 2007

Another one of the defense lawyers started to bug me. She talks down to everyone. The way she speaks to people, her tone and the words she chooses really gets me. If she were to speak to me that way she probably would get a reaction out of me. She even asked the witness at one point if he could read (in her high and mighty way). [During closing arguments, she completely changed her manner and she did not talk down at all and put us on an equal level.] There have been a lot of witnesses already. One day they had the recording out of a police car that had one of the fires recorded on it. There was no sound and it was 30 minutes of watching a building burn. [It ended up being a different fire than the one the witness said it was, but was one of the other fires in the case.]

http://buffalo.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel06/extortion050806.pdf - origianal arrest
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113158/rural_racketeering_case_is_a_backwoods_version_of_the_sopranos/index.html?source=r_health
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1127537/witness_details_how_vandalism_ruined_his_business/index.html?source=r_health
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/214567.html - buffalo news 11-25
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/217567.html - buffalo news 11-29
http://buffalonews.typepad.com/inside_the_news/2007/10/the-cain-trial-.html - buffalo news 10-22
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/218299.html - buffalo news 11-30

Cooking review - hotchocolate

This is a very easy recipe and it came out ok.

4 cups milk

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup chocolate syrup

mix it all in the slow cooker and cook on low until hot about 2 hours.

We double the recipe and added extra chocolate for good measure. Mom got ice cream to have in it. Sister beck thought putting Ice cream in a cup of hot chocolate was odd, but liked it.

Cooking Review

I cooked the chops on the grill and made real potatoes. It turned out good.

A4

Jury selection day two went something like this... The judge conitued to ask questions to the group. He did ask if anyone was related to a police officer. Then judge passed around a questionare and we each had to stand and give our answers. Some of the questions were name, age, employer, occupation, reading habits, interests, what would you do with $50 million, and if you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive who would it be. I said I do not know on the last two. After all that they have all of the prospective juriors leave, and the lawers all met. Then the called us all back in and the lawers talked together again and then handed the judge and sheet of paper. He read a bunch of numbers and had those juriors stand and then dismissed them. Then the lawers talked some more and more were dismissed. Then the judge looked at us and said, "I think we have our jury." Ugh. He had us sit in numarical order and then gave us our new numbers. I am alternant 4. oh what fun. I do not know how I will handle ten weeks of this.

Trial day one... cannot say anything about the case, but they had some technical difficulty - they had the monitor on the wrong input - and they did not listen to me, so we only had two monitors until after lunch. I acted like I was reading lips through out the jury selection and now all the lawers cover there mouths when they talk to each other. Everyone works really had at not showing emotions. I was watch them closely while the lawers were giving their opening remarks. None of the defendants showed emotion the entire time. Well except after one of the judges jokes.

Jury Duty

I had to go in for jury duty today. It is for the US District Court. I took the rail downtown. I figured it was a lot better than driving down there, finding the place, finding a place to park and paying to park. The train dropped me off two blocks from the court house so that was nice. When I got to the court house, they took away my phone and pager! No pager or cell all day long. There was 105 of us to start the day and by the end of the day there was about 60. Most of those that were excused, the judge said he will call them back in January or next summer. I thought once you were there that was it. It was a long boring day. the judge said the case will last 10 - 12 weeks. I am really hoping that I will not be on the jury.

Cooking review - Slow cooked Apple Crisp

Apple is my favorite kind of Crisp. As it was cooking it just smelled so wonderful. Then I had my bowlful and it was good. I think I will be making this again soon. I may use more apples next time. For those of you who have been asking for recipies, here you go:

6 cups apples ( peeled and sliced)

6 tbsp butter

3/4 cups oats

1 tablespoon cinnamon

3/4 cups btown sugar

1/2 cup flour

-spray crock pot with non-stick cooking spray

- placed apples in crock pot

- melt butter

- stir in all other ingredients with butter

- sprinkle over apples

- cook on high for about 3 hours

What a way to start back to work

I was driving down Main street on my way to work yesterday, and all the electrical goes out and then the truck stopped. Luckly it was very light traffic because of the holiday and I was able to push my truck across three lanes into a driveway. I gave Dad a call and had him give me a jump. Then he followed me as I headed towards work and it died again, so we decide to head to a shop. The place I usually take my truck to is in North tonawanda, but the one Dad goes to is in Buffalo so we head there. After a couple of jumps, we made it. I tell him what was going on and he says that they probably will not get to look at it that day. Dad drops me off at work and it looks like things have been pilling up and it is a busy day. After work I tried out the Metro Rail. There is a stop right by the hospital and then there is one about a mile from my house. It costs 1.50 one way, so it is not too bad to take it. I will try to start taking it on nice days. I took it back into work this morning. I got a call this Morning from the shop and it was as we though.. a bad alternator. It should be done sometime this afternoon.

Photos from trip

Traveling

We are headed to Utah for Kate's Baptism. I am driving with Mom, Dad, Grandma and Rumples. We have the van and Grandma's car. The first day there was a lot of traffic and construction all the way to Grandma's. We made to Davenport, Iowa on the first day. Then today we made it to North Platte, Nebraska. There have been some nice rest areas alone the way. All the rest areas in Iowa have free wireless internet. The place that we stopped at yesterday, the Access Point by our room was not working properly, DHCP was not working. I was able to change the profile and get a different AP and was able to connect. It is nice that you are able to get internet at most places you stop at. Here are a few of the photos I have taken along the way. I should pull out my digital camera, but it is so much easier just to use my phone.

AOE3: The Asian Dynasties?

Looks like there is another expansion pack coming out for AOE3 soon. 3 new civilizations and what not. I have not seen any dates for the release... all it says is this fall. What do you think are we lucky enough for it to hit the stores in time to play at John's?

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick. You're always willing to lend a helping hand. In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going. "15 seconds to showtime!"

The Muppet Personality Test

Mail drop box

I think this is cool, I drive by this everyday to and from work. I think they should make more themed boxs and get away from the plain ones.

Funeral Home Director?

It is rather amusing to go into work with my suit on, though it usually means I had to leave church early. They just aren't use to seeing me in a suit. I usually get some sort of compliment or they see me working on the equipment and say something like, that's OK doctor, you don't have to try to fix that we have someone coming it to fix it. I can understand those things, but to confuse me for a funeral home director? Why would they even expect a funeral home director on a patient floor at the hospital? Isn't that a job that is usually done by an older person?

Same but bigger

I went over to Childrens Hospital today to help them get ready for a program that is going live in the ER on Sunday. Guess who I ran into. I heard someone say Dr Welliver and so I went and introduced myself. He said I look the same, but Bigger. He said he remembers all of us and and that he did a bunch of test on us. He asked about everyone and said to tell everyone Hi.

Stampede!

When I got into work this morning there was an herd of COWs(computers on wheels) waiting for me in my office. That is just one of the many things that was waiting for me today. I was only out of the office one day. Someone administration was having an issue with a program, yesterday IST security put through a policy that left the ER unable to get into a few computers, I had a delivery of 84 boxes on Monday afternoon that had not been sorted yet, and I had a bad card in the phone system that was affecting patient phones. There are a few more little things. Oh well, back to work.

HP Personal Systems Group Client Technology Days

I went to this meeting with my Manager, a team lead and another tech. This was held in Rochester, so I had to get up early to meet them and drive up there together. It was ok. It was free breakfast and lunch while a few presenters show us what HP was working on and the new products coming in the next year. Basicly they were trying to sell us on the new products. It was interesting to hear what is coming out and they keep repeating that they have to disclosed some of this to the public yet and that we were not allow to disclose details to any one. Dom, my manager won a laptop.

Cooking Review - Meatloaf

I made meatloaf in the slow cooker today, and Mom and Dad brought over potato salad and green beens. It turned out ok. It was a tiny bit dry but not too bad. I did not get the camera out until I was going for seconds.

dryer problems

I have a problem with my dryer. It will spin and blow, but it does not heat up. Dad came over to look at it with me, and as it turns out I also have a bad multimeter. Dad was able to use a circuit tester, that I had, to follow the power down to a bad fuse. He bypassed the fuse and tested the dryer and it worked, so tomorrow I will try to find a replacement fuse.

Cooking review - Cherry Cobbler

I made cherry cobbler today. It turned out good. It was not hard to make either. This worked out well in the smaller crock pot that I have. Crockpots are great.

Blog stats - Aug

168 visits of those:

65% were with IE

City Visits

Buffalo 77
Albany 49
Salt Lake City 9
New York 8
(not set) 7
Glassboro 6
Rockville 4
Indianapolis 3
Beaufort 1
Charleston 1
Atlanta 1
Mililani 1
Phoenix 1


I am guessing thaat the 7 not set is Adam... When I view it by country, I get 6 in United Arab Emirates and one not set. It seems like there were a lot more hits this month then previous months. I am thinking that posting food has something to do with that. Everyone loves food...

Project Playlist

You may have noticed a new link on the blog(music). Click on the link and it plays a bunch of music that i have selected. This Started by a short lived post on Kay's blog. I looked at her code and tried to make sense of it, and sent her some more code to play with. Then I took a look at the site that was referenced, and it is kind of cool, and I started making a playlist of my own. I am about up to an hour and an half of music right now.

One Payne, any Payne

I got an email from my manager today looking to get something looked at. So I started looking at it, and them when I asked for more detail to get it working right, Dom realized he email the wrong Payne. Since I was already working on it he gave me the info and had me finish up. I guess they do not care who takes care of things as long as they get done.

Hat racks

My hat racks came today. I put one up in my bedroom and the other in the mud room.

Puzzle's done

This on took longer than normal. I was only working on it during breakfast. Then I got bored with it and finished it one evening last week.

Cooking Review - Peach Cobbler

It turned out good. The recipe would have worked out better in a smaller slow cooker. It did not last very long. One trip to Mom and Dad's house and it was gone.

YSA FHE

The young single adults had Family home evening over at my house today. They wanted dinner and a movie. They were planning to have hamburgers and chips and what not. I decided to make the sloppy Joe and bake bread again. They did not bring much meat so it was a good idea to have the stuff I made. The sloppy joe turned out better this time, but the bread came out a little bit darker. It was still good though.

Opps

So, when I went to the new blogger, I did not update the template to send info to google anaytics. When I looked at the report for July, it was empty. I realized right away what had happened and it is now resovled.

Bad dog or just spoiled?

Cooking Review - Slow cooker

I broke in the slow cooker today. I made sloppy joes. I did not follow the recipe too well. I put in have the peppers and onions that was called for. It turned out good.

This is how I made it:

Brown 2 pounds ground beef with 2 medium onions cut into slivers. Then I put that in the slow cooker with 2 medium red peppers sliced up, 1 medium green pepper sliced, 1 cup ketchup, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Mixed it all up and cooked on low for 8 hours.

Cooking review - Cookies

So tonight I baked cookies. They turned out good. None burned and like usual my first batch was the best. Nothing fancy just chocolate chip cookies, but I was able to confirm what I had guessed before I made the Bread... my oven runs about 25 degrees higher than it says. I baked both at the lower temp with good results. Too many cookies and I have chocolate milk....

Cooking review

I made some white bread on Saturday. It turned out good. I will have to see how well the next batch turns out. I took half a loaf to Mom's and putting more than half a loaf in the freezer. It is different cooking for one. Not many recipies are designed for just one. I end up throwing stuff in the fridge or freezer, and having leftovers another time.