A friend sent me some pictures of Katrina coming through Magee and leaving Magee. He also sent a couple of close images of the storm hitting Bay St Louis. The dance with Katrina, part of her beauty as she left destruction on her exit. They are remarkably dramatic.
I can’t believe we’ve already moved in! I haven’t even seen the entire property yet, but I am in awe of what has been accomplished. My little perch at the sound board where I run Media-Shout is awesome. SO much more room and an awesome new set of projectors. HUGE!!! We have 3 cameras, a huge 56 channel sound board and a 112 channel light board.
The guys I work with are great folks. Johnny W. has always run the sound and is still doing a great job. Michael V. is doing a great job with lighting and Cliff “The Man” is doing an awesome job with the cameras as well as producing the service. He manages 3 camera operators and the projection switching device. It’s a lot of fun.
Getting to the new church is no problem as long as you leave early enough and so far leaving from the church has not been that big of a problem traffic-wise. Parking is of course no problem as we seem to have plenty so far. The first service was almost a full house when we normally seat around 700-800 now we can seat I believe 1300. The second service was almost as crowded.
I’m looking forward to getting the others trained in Media-Shout though so I can start sitting with my wife and also return to my Sunday school class. I have truly missed seeing everyone in the morning around the coffee pot.
I like Bro. Greg’s statement on the main page, “God has led us on a long journey. We move in claiming a future that is powered by the love and mercy of God. There’s room for more. There’s room for you!” Come join us!
We’ll the Honda is very much out of commission. The front end is too badly damaged to repair. If I do not sell it for much less than I have in it, we’ll probably move it out of view. Wes is really disappointed too as well am I. It had potential and if we do not sell it we may find a replacement since the transmission, clutch, etc. have all just been replaced. The motor is in good running condition so it would be an easy swap. Just finding a 1994 Civic EX in fair shape with no motor/trans might be hard. Time will tell.
My Buick should be receiving a new (refurb/reconditioned) motor soon. Performance Motorsports of MS already has the old motor out. Can’t wait to get it back.
My friend Marshall is also helping us look for something for Wes. Hope he turns up something Wes can live with.
Today I endured a good friend and co-worker leaving. You hate to see people you work with that do a very good job leave and you hope that their moving on will be the best for them. I wrote in his exit interview that he was a good worker and very knowledgeable. That seemed really lame after reading it. It was lame! I should have put much more thought into it.
Good luck Jake!
Well this week I performed my first ever jury duty service. When I received the summons I thought to myself this is not going to be fun. I was right. The first day was juror selection and that was long and drawn out. It is easy to see why the court system is so slow in completing trials and why they have such a backlog. There was no urgency to the processes and procedures.
It took over two hours before we even started to process the 112 possible jurors. Some showed up late, as late as two hours later. Then it took an additional two hours for those that have excuses to not serve to plead their case before the judge. We were then placed in 8 groups of 14 members and we were told our panel number. Then they indicated which panel members were dismissed for the day and which had to return. Of course I had to return.
We were then dismissed for a lunch break. Upon our return we were directed to a juror waiting room where we were for a very long time it seemed. Then we were sent back into the courtroom to be examined and asked questions from the prosecutor and defense attorney. This took a lot of time. The prosecutor was very thorough and basically asked questions of almost everyone.
The defense attorney then got up and asked his questions but was either hard of hearing or incompetent. He asked several questions over and over again from some jurors either trying to ascertain something about them or again possibly being incompetent. Afterwards we were sent back into the juror waiting room. Several hours later they called everyone back into the courtroom and picked the twelve jurors and two alternates.
I was picked as juror #3. At this time it was nearly 6PM. We were instructed to show up the next morning at 9AM. I showed up well before 9AM and we played the waiting game again. It was nearly 10AM before we went into the courtroom where they actually started the trial. We heard testimony from 3 witnesses. Around 11:30AM the judge declared we would be taking a lunch break and for us to return by 1PM.
Great! Here we go again. We all went to lunch at a local restaurant within walking distance of the courthouse. Upon our return we were sent back into the jury deliberation room and told we were waiting on the judge. An hour went by and we were informed that the lawyers were in the judge’s chambers and for us to be patient. We finally were called into the courtroom around 3PM. When we entered the courtroom I noticed that only the judge and court reporter were present. That is when I knew they had come to a plea agreement and we were being excused. I was right.
Now I enjoyed getting to know the process and procedure for jury duty but it was very boring waiting. There were 13 other people in the room and we all talked and joked around never really discussing the case except for maybe everyone’s agreement that the defense attorney was incompetent. There were people from all walks of life and I enjoyed getting to know them. I believe the process was performed fairly and honestly.
One thing I did notice is that they took our information from the questionnaire they sent out without checking to see if we really were who we said we were. I could have paid someone to serve for me and they would not have known it. I’ll certainly be prepared next time I am asked to serve.