I recently served as a juror on a month-long criminal trial in Sacramento County. The defendant was charged with committing 3 home-invasion robberies in the Sacramento suburbs. Being a juror is fascinating. A wise co-worker once said that “a month at work will be easily forgotten, but a month in jury duty is something you’ll always remember.” There are a few lessons I took away from jury duty worth sharing (in no particular order):

1. 3 out of 12 jurors are complete morons.
2. Robbing a house full of people at gunpoint for $40 isn’t worth it.
3. Make sure your accomplices aren’t going to accept a plea bargain for 13 years in prison to testify against you in court. You’ll probably get 50 years in prison.
4. Getting paid salary to serve on a jury is rad! I highly recommend it over work if you can finagle it.

We found the defendant guilty for 13 out of 20 counts, and mistrialed on the other 7 (see first bullet point above).

If you’re reading this it means you’ve either added shawnlavoie.com to some kind of rss reader or you never lost hope that I would someday post again. Good for you! I’m back. Actually, Wayne recently informed me that my site was f-ed, so I had to come (do the bare minimum) and set the theme back to default. While I’m here, check out these things online that I like: Pandora, W00t, S&C, HousingMaps. That’s all for now.

I spotted these three Priuses lined up outside the synagogue last Saturday and felt it necessary to capture the all-American memory. It appears three separate parties happened to park in ’flag’ formation and it wasn’t some Toyota gimmick. Sorry for the poor quality of my camera phone. You get the general idea.

Wow.

Recovering from a spectacular weekend in Kyoto and Osaka, I’m back in Shonandai (Lisa’s hometown) to rest up for tonight’s Mt. Fuji ascent a quiet night at home due to a Typhoon on Mt. Fuji . A few teasers to whet your appetite.

New photos of Micah’s Birthday! Express shirt depicted was subsequently retired.

My friend/co-worker Arjan is responsible for this glorious creation. Bless his soul. Then buy books through the site.

Yay! And since I’m being political, watch this awesome video about the scandalous attorney firings, pointed out to me by Lauren.

Went to the REI flagship store in Seattle over the weekend, which happened to be during their anniversary sale. The place has a waterfall, bike and hiking demo trails and a huge rockclimbing wall. It was glorious. I bought the Solomon Techamphibian water shoes in camo using my $40 gift card, given to me when signing up for the REI Visa card. That, combined with the 20% anniversary sale discount and another 10% or so back in dividends made them way affordable. And I’ll look like a badass hiking Mt Fuji.

I made the somewhat spontaneous decision today to buy a ticket to Japan. I’ll be there for two weeks in July. My friend Lisa is teaching English for a year in Fujisawa (Kanagawa prefecture), so I’ll have a place to squat.

I haven’t been out of the U.S. (with the exception of trips to Tijuana and Vancouver) since I graduated from high school in 2002 and journeyed with Adam and Lisa to Western Europe.

I’ll blog later on actual plans during my visit. For now, I’m off to Seattle for mother’s day where I’ll see mother, sister and brother-in-law.