A few friends and I went biking on the Hwy 101 so that I could see it a little better and explore the beaches. One of us biked in NYC regularly and was considered fairly knowledgable. Within the first five minutes we came to a stop sign and she flew through it, barely slowing. The rest of us followed, uncertain but assuming that the pedestrian/vehicle designation for a bike was fluid. Unfortunately it is not - a bike is most definitely a vehicle and none of us realized it. The police lady pulled us over and took our IDs, visibly disappointed and annoyed at us. She went and sat in the car. Her partner came to talk with us and, from the only person brave enough to talk to the police, learned that they had all just graduated, I was visiting from Washington, most of us didn't bike regularly (or at all), and that she was interviewing for a position in local government the next day. Hearing all of that, he was kind enough to talk to his partner and we were let off with a warning. I suppose she would be pleased at how cautious we were for the rest of the trip. We stopped everywhere we would as a car, didn't bike on the pavement, and walked our bikes across crosswalks. At one point we deliberated for a few minutes about whether the path we were driving on was considered a bike path/trail or pedestrian-only. A man sitting on a bench told us it didn't matter and then laughed when he heard about our close-call with the police. We eventually decided to bike on the road only and stressed about accidentally getting hit by a car (at least I did). Our only stop in the two hour journey was Cardiff beach, where we sat for half an hour and I tried to make my way to the water without being soaked.
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I've been comfortable with airports since I was young, likely due to taking my first international flight before I was even a year old, and then taking flights almost every year after that. I have 20 years of experience flying places. However, my experience at SeaTac this time around was a little odd and I have some things that caught my attention. 1. The water fountain near my gate was extremely aggressive about its job. Anytime anyone used it, it would gurgle like an angry river through a speaker set under it. It could be heard from 10 feet away, even with the noise of people rushing down the hallway while wheeling suitcases. One man filled three blender bottles and had people eyeing him and the fountain every time. 2. An old lady sat at my gate with me for twenty minutes. She was patiently waiting for a wheelchair that she had paid for and reserved multiple months ago. She watched others get taken to gates in their wheelchairs and hoped they would call her name soon. Finally, with ten minutes to boarding, she wobbled over to the staff at the gate and they informed her that her name was not on the list for wheelchairs. Eventually they flagged down one of the electronic carts and she was taken to her gate. 3. As a short person, I take luggage out of the overhead bins at a weird, apparently concerning angle. While I felt that I had the situation under control, one man asked if I needed any help and another put his hand out to block it from falling should I lose my grip. A baby sat across the aisle, playing happily in her dad's lap while he too watched my movements. When I got my (fairly light) suitcase to the ground successfully, the concern hadn't left any of their eyes.
I guess throwing out my back has been a fun experience. And by fun I mean a terrible one that I hope to never repeat. And I'm not even sure how it happened - the entirety of Thursday night is a blur. One moment I was picking up a mattress topper and tiny 1lb fan but the next Charles is dropping a microwave on his knee and there’s shattered glass on the floor. Then he's bleeding on the couch, I bend to sweep up the glass, suddenly feel stabbing pains in my lower back, and have difficulty standing back up. From there it got worse.
After Charles’ lacerated knee had been seen to and the glass swept and vacuumed, I continued to move the fan and topper into the car. My back screamed with every transition from standing to sitting or kneeling. When I lifted the fan again I was barely able to stand back up. Still, I somehow got everything to the car and then fully unloaded the car at his new place. I ignored my back, which slowly ramped up in pain, and, that night, went to bed with the hope that it was something that I was just making up. When I woke up again, I was barely able to make the transition from lying to sitting, and had to brace myself when transitioning from sitting to standing. I learned that the easiest way for me to move was to put as much of my weight as possible on my arms and not to use my core. In the morning I had a blood donation scheduled and had planned to go to Hall Health after completing it and parking my car. However, after walking from W29 to LSB, I didn’t trust myself to survive the trip to Hall Health particularly well. Instead, remembering that LSB had a coffee shop at which I could get a fork for lunch, I sat there to work and minimize my pain as much as possible. Moving became more painful over the course of the day and I had no painkillers or patches at hand. Without food I became even weaker and, when I looked for forks, I found the LSB coffee shop closed for the summer and myself too apathetic and in pain to move anywhere else. Instead I sat there from 10:30AM to 5PM, surviving on coffee I had made the day before, a bag of fruit snacks, and half a bag of cheez-its. A bad decision, but one I couldn't convince myself to change. At night I ate sporadically and picked up IcyHot patches. So began my week of smelling solely of menthol. It overpowered everything else and became the only thing I could smell. Still, it eased the pain and on Saturday the pain was nearly gone in the evening. Unfortunately, it came back on Sunday with a vengeance and standing for multiple hours at Elizabeth Warren’s town hall didn’t help. I spent Sunday night in pain and unable to sleep. I called Hall Health's nurse line that night and, on Monday, started taking Advil and wearing icyhot menthol patches day and night. My back started improving. Wednesday morning was the first day I could get out of bed without pain. By Wednesday night the pain calmed down enough that I could do push-ups. On Friday I was able to boulder. Usually one-week injuries aren't awful. I've limped for a week before, annoyed but accepting. This was worse and I never want to do it again. My jury summons arrived during Spring Quarter. I didn't know about them until the summer. I didn't really do anything about them until early July and, even then, my exemption request was declined. This is likely because my exemption request only covered my nine-week-internship at Fred Hutch which, at that time, was not likely to be extended. Jury duty would severely cut into the time I could spend working at Fred Hutch. On Monday, July 29th, I spent half and hour agonizing over my outfit for jury duty. While dress code is not the most important thing about this civic duty of ours, it is somewhat vague and official governmental programs always seem somewhat stickler about them. The Washington State Courts website says to "dress comfortably" but is not specific about the level of formality required. While a suit and tie are not required, too much informality is not allowed. Furthermore, other sources mention that being underdressed may lead to my dismissal and a date reassignment. As today was the most convenient for me I first hunted for my slacks (fruitlessly) and then decided on a somewhat formal, floral dress in muted colors. When I showed up at 7:30AM, fashionably an hour early due to my fear of being late, I found myself overdressed instead of underdressed. There was a girl seated next to me in a crop top, blue Adidas sweats, and a baseball cap. As uncomfortable as I was in the dress, I was able to relax a little and be certain I wouldn't get kicked out for my outfit.
So began another hour of waiting until the instructional videos were played and then another half hour before I was assigned to a jury panel of 50. After questions about hardship exemptions, that number was cut in about half. Unsurprisingly, the majority of those who received an exemption for hardship were hourly workers who would be unable to make rent or other bills if impaneled (financial hardship). As a result of this, most of the jurors remaining were those of higher socioeconomic status - either a salaried wage or a more steady source of income from a spouse. I note that this makes the jury panel skewed in terms of viewpoints represented. Unfortunately, unless the compensation from jury duty is increased, or it becomes mandatory to pay workers even during jury duty, this socioeconomic baseline is unlikely to change. As a lucky individual who is a student and living with my parents for the summer, I had no financial or welfare hardship which would exempt me from jury duty. I was also interested in learning what jury duty would entail and resigned to being at the Courthouse from 8AM-4:30PM and then heading to Fred Hutch and working until 7 or 8PM for however long a trial lasted. It was at this time that we received some information about the trial we would possibly panel. In my opinion, the defendant's lawyers were better than the plaintiff's. The lawyers were more polite, more organized, and seemed to make more efficient use of their time during voir dire. Somewhat creepily, they also seemed to have more information about the jurors than was presented in the introductions. The plaintiff's lawyer, on the other hand, was somewhat snarky and seemed to waste his time repeating questions and ruffling through his papers. From what I recall: some years ago an accident occurred near the location I-405 and I-5 meet in the north. The defendant alleged that a hit-and-run driver hit her, pushing her into traffic and causing her to hit (at least) one other car, which belonged to the plaintiff. The plaintiff she hit that day was suing her for damages. Leading questions from the lawyers implied hip injuries, surgery, and chiropractors on the part of the plaintiff. It was at this time I also learned about the "preponderance of the evidence." The jury makes its decision based on whether there is enough evidence to prove one way or the other. Even a 51%/49% split in terms of weight of evidence should be enough to decide the case. And it was at this notion I got stuck and, eventually, dismissed from the jury. Some jurors dismissed other than myself: One lady would not lay blame on one person for any medical costs and instead believed in should be a burden of the state. A dude who had late shifts at work until midnight and had been awake for 19 hours - he would not have been alert enough to serve on a jury. A Microsoft employee who was unable to draw a line at 51% and 49% (like myself). And another student who had been traumatically hit by an inebriated driver on the highway a few years ago. All of these jurors were dismissed earlier than myself. I was dismissed at around 3PM. At this time, after much deliberation, I realized that I would not be able to give judgement in the manner required by the Court. A "preponderance" of evidence, to me, means significantly more, not just 1%. Furthermore, I am always skeptical when large sums of money are being transferred, especially for medical bills. Like Juror #20, I do not believe that people should ever need to pay for medicals bills more than what they actually make, possibly in a year or a lifetime. The addition of monetary compensation into the trial, especially in the high amounts attributed to medical costs, would make me resistant to ruling in favor of the plaintiff unless the evidence was extremely clear. This necessity of mine for the evidence to be obvious does not follow the Court's idea of a "preponderance" and, for that, I raised my card and excused myself. |
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