Court Innings

Some thoughts generated by the verdicts in the Casey Anthony and O J Simpson trials: Marathon presentations of arguments, evidence and courtroom frictions do not sit well with sequestered juries. They must sit through long days, weeks and months of this with no opportunity to discuss the merits until the drama is ended.

By that time they are so emotionally beaten-up that there is no desire to do prolong the proceedings further and so they end it preemptively and return to their families. Few other areas of human endeavor are so primitive and failure prone.

Changes are needed. There need to be timing restrictions and opportunities to evaluate the evidence and potential verdict much before the end. Every other contest has a scoring protocol that allows the participants and spectators to know who is winning and who is losing.

The baseball innings model might work. Limit each side's daily direct, cross, and arguments to three hours. Give the jury one hour daily to evaluate the presented evidence/arguments and one hour to present their convictions and leanings to the judge. Then, assuming no unanimity, the judge, conferring with the attorneys decides whether to go another day or inning. And so it goes until there is either a unanimous or blocked decision. Seems like it reduces the chance of the big surprise gotcha and keeps the jury involved and committed. It can also keep the jury on track and focused on the evidence. I'm jes sayin'.

Columbus Doo-Dah Parade

Self explanatory (or ask as needed).

Columbus Red White and Boom Fireworks

Some movies of the Red White and Boom show.

Felly

Yellfler

Perametron

The Drawing Winner

The battle of the iPad drawing and painting programs pretty much ended this weekend with the update of Procreate. The introductory pricing is only 99 cents. Even at $8 this is a no-brainer for anyone interested in painting and drawing on the iPad. Check it out and get it before the price goes back up. Highly recommended.

Hospital Pills

For the horror story aficionados, go on to whatever is next. I just received an itemized list of my hospital charges and found a golden nugget. The charge for an acetaminophen tablet was not $50. Not $5. Not even $.50. But an amazing $.05!!!

That's right. I got a pill for a nickel in the hospital. Now there is an under-reported story. For reference purposes this was Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Highly recommended.

Flex Wall

The flexing program is hitting the wall at 60 percent. This week, I should be moving up to 75 percent, but am hitting pain and physical limts at last week's 60 percent. Bummer.

Case for Protection

The iPad needs a little protection from daily handling and traveling. Here is what worked very well for moi.

Knee Bending

The knee rehab now moves into 4 weeks of incremental flexing. 45 degrees for the first week, and 15 degrees of increment for each of the following three weeks. Much fussing with the brace to set the limits of flex. At this point though, 45 degrees is also my limit. So much fun. Glad to have some new toys to alleviate the boredom.

iPad 2

Now that I've loaded and explored the new iPad2 I have to say it is absolutely amazing. It is fast and competent, and eminently holdable. The range of apps available is simply amazing. I am especially happy with the painting apps. Got a conductive brush to work with it and he combination is better than I ever expected. So far I have 6 screens full of apps, but have used only 3 of the 16 available gigs of storage. So I would recommend against larger memory unless you are sure of your needs. Especially neat downloading free copies of periodicals we already subscribe to like the daily paoer and the New Yorker -- both much earlier than otherwise available. Another Highly Recommended.