Category: Life with Pratts

Jury rigged

Tomorrow, I have jury duty.

I’ve been called for jury duty four times before, and I’ve served on two juries. First, a drunk driving case (guilty), and a few years later an assault and battery charge (not guilty).

At the second trial, when I was led into the courtroom to impanel the jury I was surprised to see that one of the prospective jurors was a neighbor of mine. We served on the same trial, which ran into a second day. We didn’t discuss the case with our spouses, but when we drove in together the next morning we talked about it, and nothing we heard during the remaining testimony changed our minds that the charge was bogus.

Not my week

Work has been totally clobbered this week by a major outbreak of the Conficker-A worm. It got hold of some valid Windows Domain credentials and wreaked havoc. I was at the office until nine tonight, and we’re nowhere near the end of dealing with this mess. The XP desktops were relatively easy to take care of — get rid of server service, run the removal tool, then enable Automatic Updates. The Windows 2003 servers were much tougher to clean up, because DHCP client and RPC were clobbered. I’m sure you’re fascinated by this. But I had to leave the fun tonight because I promised Bismo I’d meet him at a bar, where a couple of other guys from work were playing in a band with a buddy of theirs.

Speaking of getting clobbered, Bismo and I found ourselves as reluctant participants in a bar brawl! By the time the pile of lunkhead steroid users plowed into us, the two guys who were actually throwing punches were being held down by others, so for me it was only a matter of pushing back, which was surprisingly easy to do. But there was no avoiding becoming involved. The fight broke up, but only temporarily, when the two antagonists started going at it again, apparently at the urging of some woman who either looks older than she is, or is trying to look younger than she is. Once things heated up again, the cops were called, and before they arrived the troublemakers cleared out.

Take us out to the ballgame

Eric and I are doing something we haven’t done in a long time. We’re going to Fenway Park to watch a Red Sox game. I think the last time we went the seats were about $75, but now they’re $125. We’ll be back there on August 5 with Carol to see Paul McCartney. Those seats are $100, but fees bring the total up to about $115. The field seats for the show — which don’t exist for a baseball game, of course — are $200.

Well, the Sox lost to the Orioles, 6-2, but mercifully it was a short game, especially because we got sunburned. I’d like to point out two photos that I took. First, in the background of this one is the Prudential Building, commonly called “The Pru,” making it a must for Prue Bury if she ever visits Boston…

The Pru

… and the big Budweiser sign makes me want to point out that the King of Beers now belongs to a company in tiny Belgium. The present King of Belgians is Albert II.

Budweiser sign at Fenway Park

The tyranny of technology

Doing my part to help move the economy along, and move myself along, I bought a Garmin 305 GPS for running. J&R had it for a fantastic price on one of their typically tempting close-out deals.

Garmin 305

The damn thing works! Too well. It revealed that my 8-mile running route is actually 7.63 miles, and my 6-mile run is in fact a mere 5.5 miles. Therefore, my pace is slower than I previously believed.

You know what that means. I need to do more running and less blogging!

Door Bore

I’m sure you’re dying to see the front door that has caused me so much anxiety. I’ve applied the first coat of tung oil to the threshold. The rest of the wood trim will be primed and painted white. Not sure yet if I’m going to gel stain the fiberglass door or paint it. I’m using an old tablecloth for a dropcloth. Hey, not all of the items I post can be exciting and entertaining!

New front door