And lo! (and some other things)….

We lost Dolly Parton yesterday. Google it if you want the details. I’m not really into counrty music, but she deserves to be lauded for her philanthropy. There are times when you just have to be nice…. She will be remembered.

Had a birthday last week. Went out with my sister and did my Target run and Applebee’s. Bother gave me 3 various and sundry Seattle sports team jerseys. And of course there were all the wishes on my Facebook wall.

Got myself a new external hard drive mount a couple of weeks ago. The previous one I was using started having issues trying to turn it off. And on occasion, I do use an external back-up…..

Here we go again….

Yet another weekend. Pulled out my laptop. The one that I hadn’t turned on since November 2025. It still booted Windows 10, But after having not even been powered on for 9+ months, it was slower than molasses because everything had to update, all at once. And I’ve been wanting to toy around with Linux again. So I nuked it for OpenSuSE Tumbleweed. Who knows how long it’ll last before I decide to go back to Windows 10?. But then again, I can mess with Linux, and still leave my main tower intact…..

So I did jury duty last week…..

A few week ago, I got a blue postcard in the mail. It has instructions to go to a website and answer some questions. I am a US Citizen. I live in Pierce County, WA. I am not convicted of a felony. So I was eligible. They made it formal a week and a half later with the proper jury summons. I was due in the courthouse at 7:30 am, when I’m normally off work at 7:00. Boss told me to call out for jury duty the night before, and I would be paid for it (per company policy)….

So, the day comes and I show up. There were 3 trials scheduled: 2 district court and 1 superior court. I was selected for the pool for the superior court trial. Then we went to the court room for voir dire. I actually made it to the jury box, but ultimately I wasn’t selected for the jury. I’m not commenting on the case as I wasn’t on the jury, and I didn’t hear the evidence…. Anway, I was sent home for the day after that. I was ‘on call’ for the rest of the week. But I wasn’t needed.

Now this is where it went south: I printed out an attendance report on the day when I  had to report, and I gave to my (new) boss (pervious boss had retired between me receiving my summons and me reporting to court).During last week, I noticed that the jury duty pay hadn’t showed up when I thought it should, so I reminded my boss again. And then finally, I put a request in for 8 hours of my vacation time to cover the shift I missed. And then Sunday night I checked my attendance and my absence was unexcused. And I was about to be fired for it. Another conversation with a different manager cleared things up.

Now suppose I got fired over this. The company’s own policy for jury duty said my absence would be paid and excused. And I did everything on my end by the book. Maybe I should’ve let them fire me. Something the courts take a very dim view of. Like managers get arrested over. Especially when the company’s written policies explicitly say otherwise. I’ll be wondering which manager would’ve been arrested over this forever….