I was sum­moned for jury duty at the Fed­er­al Dis­trict Court in Los Ange­les for two weeks of ser­vice com­menc­ing on March 22nd. As direct­ed I called the court hot­line on the 21st and found I was off the hook for that week. Call­ing again on the 28th I was told to report to the jury room at 7:45 the fol­low­ing morning.

So I left home at 5:00 a.m. and zoomed to the court park­ing lot in down­town Los Ange­les arriv­ing at 6:30, per­fect. It was a nice 1/2 mile walk in the awak­en­ing city to my favorite break­fast spot in that area, Phillipe’s (upper left pho­to, 7:05 on the clock there­in) to eat and read all the inter­est­ing his­to­ry on the walls about steam trains and oth­er fas­ci­nat­ing top­ics. After­ward it was back to the car to grab some stuff I want­ed to have with me then over to the cour­t­house (left build­ing in the upper right pho­to — that’s me in the third floor window).

By 11:30 half of us had found out that “our tri­al” had been con­tin­ued but that we need­ed to stay until the jury selec­tion process com­plet­ed for the oth­er half. So back to the car to switch into more com­fort­able clothes and back to Phillipe’s for a lamb sand­wich, baked apple, and glass of lemon­ade. After lunch it was a great walk through Chi­na­town (very nice ban­ner above), Oliv­era Street, the beau­ti­ful Union Sta­tion (image 4), and the Pueblo de Los Ange­les before the return to the cour­t­house where at 1:20 p.m. we were told that the oth­er jury had com­plet­ed selec­tion and our jury ser­vice was fin­ished, finis. By then I was feel­ing pret­ty tired so I hopped in the Vol­vo and bee lined for home, arriv­ing just eight hours after I’d left.

For ver­i­fi­ca­tion, reim­burse­ment, and/or cred­i­bil­i­ty here is my juror badge.

Two weeks ago Jesse men­tioned an annu­al com­mu­ni­ty mass burn­ing of Christ­mas trees in Solvang. Well I just perked right up at the image that brought to my mind and men­tioned it to sev­er­al oth­ers. Car­ol and Vir­ginia were imme­di­ate­ly on board with Lib­by soon after.

Three of us drove over Hwy. 154 dur­ing a beau­ti­ful pink cloud­ed sun­set and met Lib­by at the new “The Cow­boy Way” bar-b-que restau­rant in Solvang for din­ner and a fun chat. Then it was on to the big event, held in the huge open field that adjoins Hwy. 246 and the San­ta Ynez Mis­sion. Hun­dreds of oth­er folks and fam­i­lies had arrived to watch.

After a fire depart­ment demon­stra­tion show­ing us all how quick­ly a dry tree ignites as com­pared to a tree that has been watered the big pile of trees was set aflame. The effect was def­i­nite­ly worth the dri­ve and dur­ing the entire show there was a con­tin­u­ous cycle of pop songs hav­ing lyrics con­tain­ing fire, burn, light, etc. blar­ing out into the night.

To see and hear some of our fire­side fun click on the mon­tage above.