Jury Duty

It isn't that I don't like doing my squirrel duty. It's just that they make it awfully difficult.

You see, at first they tried to send me to the airport courthouse. And it was the first time in a long while that I really felt my lack of car. See, a driving commute from my house to that courthouse would have been about twenty minutes (OK, forty in rush hour). But, because our bus system is divided, I would have had to travel nearly two hours in a very roundabout way to get there. And that doesn't include the risk of missing a transfer or otherwise ending up (very) late to serve.

It seems that court assignments for Jury Duty in LA are done in a random(ish) manner. So instead of a courthouse which is convenient to you, most jurors are called to serve at courthouses which are within a twenty mile radius.¹ For those of you who don't realize it, there is a reason that distance in LA is measured in driving minutes, not miles. Twenty miles can be a very long drive.

From a legal standpoint, I suppose I can reason this to a certain extent. After all, you want to avoid a jury of your peers who actually know you. But in Los Angeles, where neighbors rarely know each other, and most people spend more time working in districts or cities which are quite some distance from their homes, it does seem a bit puzzling.

So I filed a request for relocation due to an inability to reasonably reach the appointed courthouse on time. This went back and forth for a little while, with apparently varying opinions over whether or not my lack of automobile constituted a true hardship and justified a change of venue. Finally, after much confusion, and a near-warrant situation, a friendly jury selection employee helped to get my jury duty rescheduled much closer to home.² To a trailer, in fact. But I can walk there!

Although this means that I will have to spend earth day in a courthouse. And that has me a little sad.

So, if you have a chance, go out and plant a tree for me, will you?

¹ Q: Why can’t I be summoned to a courthouse closer to my home?
A: Summoning you to the court location closest to your home is not possible for several reasons. First, you are not summoned based on your place of residence, city, or zip code. All jurors are summoned by a computerized process. The assignment is made taking into consideration the location of the juror and the location of the court which need jurors at the time the juror is summoned. Jurors are summoned from a 20-mile radius of a given court.

² Fellow walkers, a tip: if you do not have an excuse (such as care for a small child or sick person) other than your lack of car, skip trying to write back for rescheduling and go straight to the phones. They'll help you with what language to use, and the difference between an inconvenience and a hardship, for problem-free rescheduling.

Walking Merced

Merced, CA

Most people visit Merced on their way to Yosemite. It’s a place to stop and grab a bus to Yosemite Valley on YARTS (highly recommended), or to fill up on gas and snacks for people just driving through.

But you can also walk through Merced to see a small town with a lot of history. Most of the towns in this area are filled with great little places to stumble upon, since most of them were built during the gold rush era.

Merced even provides you with a helpful walking map of famous and historical buildings, which you can pick up in the California Visitor Center located next to the old Santa Fe rail station.

Highlights included:
- The old Courthouse, built in 1875 (it’s the one with Lady Liberty on top).

- The 1888 cottage built by William McElroy which was also home at one point to “Rusty” Doane, "a reputed underworld boss of Merced's earlier shady days" (it's the picture of house with the flag out front).

- The Greenbrier House, which is not only beautiful, but has served the city well; first as a sanitarium then as a boarding house for bachelors. You can even still tie up your horses out front on one of the handy hitching posts. While it's Merced's pride and joy, there is some doubt about when Greenbrier was built, since the early records refer to properties more than they refer to structures atop them (it's the picture with the green house to the left).

Most recently Merced has become home to one of the newer UC campuses, UC Merced (opened in 2005 alongside Lake Yosemite, it is also one of the prettier UC locations).

If you want to get around Merced (or visit neighboring cities) and you get tired of walking, you can grab The Bus from 7am – 6pm at any corner along any of its routes. Just wave down the driver, and hop on.

These Boots Were Made for Walkin’ (Country Remix)

Clovis, NM

There’s no substitute for a good pair of boots. And if you’re looking for Cowboy, the southwest is the place to be.

In Clovis, I found 16,000 pairs at Joe’s Boot Shop.

You can pick your color and style (Blue Alligator!). Snakeskin, Ostrich, leather, it’s all here. Row by row you can find any type of cowboy boot you can imagine, and even some that are beyond what you'd think anyone would dream up.

In the back of the store, you can buy tack or learn to rope. If you’re there on the right day, you can participate in special contests, from calf roping to the Clovis first chuck wagon cook-off.

They also have 12,000 belts, 10,000 hats, 5,000 candles, and a trailer parked out front.

It happened to be a bit breezy that day (60 mph winds), which meant blue skies and clouds of dust. If you’d rather not walk against the wind, you can always call in and request delivery (the online store is a bit lacking).

Crack is bad, mkay?

In the words of a furby I once encountered:

Ahh. Scared....

(sub)Urban Yard Watching

Walking means that you get to slow down, take the side streets, walk against traffic...

...hang out in strange places.



...meet someone new...



...see something that's not from around here...



...and realize that, even if you don't have to mow the lawn, you still have to rake the leaves.



(Yes, that is all fake grass. Have I mentioned lately that people are weird? They are. Quite.)

Weird things to drink that don't involve alcohol.

My Jamba Juice looks like split pea soup.




I'll skip the less pleasant analogies I could make here.

Port Angeles - Art Outside

Port Angeles, WA

Somewhere between eccentric and magic, there is the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s Art Outside project. Over 75 pieces of art can be seen scattered along the trails through Webster’s Woods.

At first, the pieces seem obvious. Roots lead from the parking lot to the forest. Large floating thought bubbles surround the entrance.

But inside the forest, along the trails, the pieces skew your perspective. Make you look at what is in front of you through a different angle.


Granted, some of them are absurd. The prospect of being able to create art which will sit in a forest seems to bring out the Blair Witch in everyone.

But sometimes you can see into the art.



And feel tiny.



You can also see into a few backyards. The Art Center is hidden in the middle of the suburbia surrounding Port Angeles. But that only makes it seem more magical to encounter mathematical gates hiding behind trees with stones hanging like fruit from their branches.

Sequim - These boots were made for walkin'

In Sequim you can still pick blackberries on the side of the road.

Lots and lots of blackberries.

So many that your hands turn purple, and you itch from the tiny thorn-scratches.

But blackberries are good on just about everything.

And free and fresh beats $2.50 and paper or plastic.

Just look where you are going, and where everyone else is going. Sometimes there aren't any curbs to walk on - just blackberries and roadside ditches.

Nature runs alongside civilization here. Sometimes it even runs right down the middle.

Like it does in Carrie Blake Park.

Sculpted and wild at the same time, the Japanese Garden in Carrie Blake park provides a tranquil entrance.

It is sponsored and maintained by the Sequim Rotary Club as part of their sister city program with Sisco City in Japan.

Ducks swim around the lantern at the center of the pond. Trees, bridges, and even Squirrel Houses fill the area with the perfect touch of nature. Roads running around the park are visible but feel unobtrusive, separated in space and time through landscaping and the ever-present trickle of streams.

In one direction, these streams lead to your traditional grassy park-swing set-visitor center and parking lot combination. Where children and dogs jump from cars, and try to take off running before Parents can catch them.

In the other direction there are flowers and white oak trees growing, even as we head into Autumn.

The fields next to these trickling steams are furrowed by gophers and fire breaks.

Cross the fields to join the boaters at the pond on Fridays. They run along the bank, racing their ships, sails straining against the wind.

They are sailing, of course, model ships with remote controls.

When they aren't present, kids 14 and under can go fishing in the pond.

The park is an amazing network of nature and civilization. A park that, while not quite on the scale of Central Park or San Francisco Gate, would make any city proud.

Just be certain you pay attention to the signs posted throughout the park.

Don't drink the water.

Carrie Blake Park is a reuse demonstration park, consisting of a meandering network of streams, marshes and ponds working toward water reclamation for Sequim.

But you wouldn't know it to walk through there.

Hurricane Ridge

There's no hurricanes here.

Just Glaciers.

Well, far-away glaciers.

Very far away.

It's still Summer. And there's that whole Global Warming thing to consider.

But the snow does reach here every once in a while.

At least, that's what the Olympic Ski Patrol would have us think.

(This cabin is called "Ice Station Zebra". If I were going after a black and white animal to name an Ice Station after, I'd pick one with a little more experience. Ice Station Penguin or Orca might conjure more inspiring images of sure-footed snowy navigation.)

I think maybe it's just that they like their little cabin out in the wilderness, next to the trees which grow slanting and stunted due to the winds that this ridge is named for.

Apparently they're Hurricane-strength.

But today the breeze wasn't even strong enough to disturb the last of the bluebells.

Port Gamble, WA

They told us once or twice to quit playin' cards and shootin' dice.

My first stop in Washington was one of the little port towns (not to be mistaken with Port Wines) called Port Gamble.

Now, in this northernmost edge of the United States, they have a lot of ports. And a lot of towns. And all of these towns are descriptively named.

Appropriately enough, I took my own gambles with their humbly titled Sea Shell museum, which can be found atop the general store/ice cream parlor, next door to the Port Gamble Museum.

And, of course, I spotted a few gambling sea shells. I believe they're playing poker.

Since it was Port Gamble, they had a few of the more dangerous specimens of shells as well.

Such as the Killer Clam.

Which is a bit of false advertising, as far as names go.

Seriously. Read the fine print.

While a three foot clam is a bit freaky, it wouldn't have me swimming for the hills.

These things might though.

Horseshoe crabs. Living fossils which have been around somewhere in the range of 200 million years. One of those animals with a descriptive misnomer which modern scientists enjoy poking holes in with their evolution/microscopes/dna.

The Horseshoe "crab" is more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to crabs.

It was also the closest thing in a Shell Museum that I could find to a killer sting ray.

I really wasn't looking for a killer sting ray, but I'd hate to own the only blog existing that hasn't mentioned the "Freak Accident™" the Crocodile Hunter encountered while filming at the Great Barrier Reef.

Because I'd never do anything that stupid.

Home is a little slice of heaven

Welcome to my slice of the pie. It is a short runway strip of grass created by the unruly nature of Santa Monica Blvd, which is one of those rare streets which refuses to conform to the straight lines of city planning grids.

It was probably created because no one knew what else to do with a spare triangle of curb, since there's already a Starbucks across the street.

It is also nicely gated, and locked at all times, to keep pesky humans out.

Sometimes I miss the standard park fixtures - little old ladies who pass out peanuts, grubby kids who drop their sandwiches - but not enough to give up having the whole place to myself. Most squirrels I know don't get that kind of luxury.

The only human disturbance I see at home is from the city's gardeners who trim the grass, rake the leaves, and keep the whole place looking Mr. Clean (which I bet is a lot easier to do in a park with no people; even the bums forgo their native park bench habitat to sleep across the street on the lawns and alleys of apartments-turned-condos, on account of this fabulous fence).

The bars do tend to give the place a touch of Alcatraz, which I is pretty trendy at the moment. Personally, I would prefer something a little less black. Perhaps I can convince the city to paint them. Does anyone know how to write an urban beautification project work order? And how long do you suppose it would take to fulfill?