Upcoming Great Crane Chase -2008

[Management regrets Ms. Miller has been negligent in updating this blog. Yes, she did have the flu for a week ½, and yes, we know, she has a hoarse voice, but does her voice in any way involve movement of her fingers? Does a flood of flu antibodies in her body somehow disconnect her brain? We think not. Ms. Miller will be entering posts till she catches up with herself, or catches cold - which ever comes first.]

Tomorrow Don joins me for a 2 day birding winter birding spree. This is an annual gig - we call the Great Crane Chase. This all started around ten years ago because Don wanted to visit the Central Valley to see his first ever Sandhill Crane. I told him that would no challenge at all; just leave the crane finding to me.

So Don showed up with his his daughter Rose, who was just a pre-teen then; a cranky one that didn't appreaciate being stuffed in a car to spend an entire stupid day looking at stupid birds. Anyway, Rose and my dog Chiquilla curled up in the back of the stupid car, with looks of extreme disapproval on both their faces. Off we went, up one side of the central valley and down the next, searcing for stupid cranes in the stupid Graylodge Wildlife Refuge, but we had no stupid luck. OK, I got excited over a stupid skunk, marching stupidly drunkenly along the side of the road, but that didn't count (hum... I seem to be channeling Rose here).

Finally, I spotted our target – I pulled the car over and proudly pointed the birds in a field and, as I’m apt to do, I started lecturing on the magnificence and beauty that is the Sandhill Crane. At some point in my pontification, I noticed Don, Rose, and Chiquilla were all staring at me. I took a second look at the Sandhill Cranes… my ‘magnificent cranes’ were plywood cutouts, painted over to deceive nincompoops like yours truly. *sigh*

Not one of the plywood cranes, but you get the general idea

Free Day at the Indian Museum

Saturday was Free Museum Day; Sacramento's 'educate your kids fer free' day. I was at the State Indian Museum helping with crowd control. Although it rained on and off there were still plenty of tourists and locals eager for a free look at the museum's beautiful baskets, dance regalia and such. The museum is looking especially beautiful just now having had a little cosmetic surgery - a spanking new gift shop area and the removal of the 8 year 'temporary' Gold Rush exhibit made the whole Feng Shui of the entryway airy and welcoming.

My job was keeping count of visitors so we wouldn't exceed the Fire Marshall's limit of 66 people in our eensie little building across from Sutter's Fort. The day was so cold and wet that once people got in, they were reluctant to leave, so some people waited as long as a half hour to get in. However many people I could let in the front door was directly dependant on how many people just left through the back door (I recieved the number via a little walkie talkie).

At one point there was a sweet little Russian Family of seven waiting in the foyer. I mustered up what few words of Russian I speak to address them as follows: "Seven people, please?", or rather, "Vo-seam Che-lo-vekki, pa-shal-sta" . I sounded a head waiter. The Russian family was so tickled to hear me speak some Russian, of course they were all smiles. So was I - until they relased a happy bombardment of Russian at me. EEEEK! "Yah nee ga-va-ree-u Pa-roo-ski!", i.e., 'I don't speak Russian!' I must learn to say, 'My vocabulary sucks!'

The Occational Irony of Justice

I woke in the wee dark hours of the night, and could hear bad people clamoring outside my bedroom window. I hunkered down in my bed waiting for the worst to happen. Not too worry, shortly thereafter I really woke up. I'd had the b'jillionith 'anxiety' dream I've had since early December when I became a juror in a criminal trial, a murder trial.

Earlier today I tallied up the votes of 11 jurors and myself and felt my heartbeat surge when we came in anonymous in our agreement of second degree murder. Mind, I'm guessing that all of the jurors believe the defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree, but unfortunately, the trail & its evidence as presented to us was so cold and so full of hearsay, we couldn't say so within a reasonable doubt. Were the vote strictly based on gut feelings I am sure we would have gone with first degree murder.

Later, in the courthouse halls after the verdict was read aloud in court, we all had a long chat and got to hear the REAL story from the District Attorney himself. Finally we got to hear what happened leading up to the trial that ended today. Turned out this was the defendant's second trial; the last one ended in a hung jury. The hung jury resulted from just one juror who refused to find the defendant guilty of any crime at all. My jury thinks that former juror must have had her head up her but for now justice prevails.

A few years ago I was on a civil trial and at that trial's end I hadn't learned the name of even one other juror, but for this heart wrenching criminal trial I learned all eleven names and formed respect for everyone in the group, much the same as if were all survivors of a bus crash. We're hoping to get together for a reunion dinner some time in the future.

I must say, nothing like a jury trial to fill you full of patriotic feelings of justice, fair play and such. As stands, the defendant will receive 17 years to life. Here's the rub; the defendant incited, lied and cajouled 2 others to do a brutal murder for him. Then, because the other two individuals (already tried and sentenced) were honest and truly remourseful, they were given long and brutal sentences. But the lying, unremorseful, unrepentant clown we made judgement of for today? He got the shortest sentence of the three of involved in the murder, even though the murder had been solely his idea. The other two were just ignorant, drug addled fools - abeit violent fools - going along with someone else's plan. That so totally sucks.

And of course, the real victims in this are the family and friends of an 18 year old man-child who died in a pool of blood in a city park rest room because he had the bad luck to piss off a very clever and very bad man.