Great clouds this morning.

I posted to YouTube a 24x time lapse (50 second duration), also available for download: 17may25.mp4 (6.3MB).

I served on a jury last week and through into today. We decided a civil case about a real estate dispute. It was easy for us to find in favor of the plaintiff but hard to decide dollar values to award for various damages (economic, punitive, ...). We did reach enough of a consensus on damages to render a verdict (only 9 out of 12 jurors have to agree in a civil trial).

The defendant had introduced a document purported to be a signed agreement between her and her (now deceased) aunt. An expert witness said the document was fake and the jury concurred. I was reminded of a case I followed some years ago. My personal opinion: it's really not OK to concoct a document and misrepresent it in legal proceedings.

This was my first time serving on a jury. It was interesting to see the group dynamics of twelve people deciding a case.

Unrelated to the trial I served on, a man and woman came to the courthouse to elope on Friday. They stood before a county official, outdoors on the steps by the front door. I happened to be walking past just as they took their marriage vows.

The 103‑year‑old courthouse is one of the nicest buildings in the valley.

Seymour Cray, talking about having used a circular slide rule early in his career:

I had the 10-inch model. Now that's as big as circular slide rules were made, so I had the very top of the line in computing capability. Now many of you are probably not familiar with slide rules. But I can tell you that if you had a circular one, you had some social problems in college.

Seven years ago I wrote about seeing a jackrabbit stretch the way dogs do. It happened again this week but this time I got pics.

This is this year's resident jackrabbit, the same one whose pic graced this page a week ago. The image changes with mouseover.

Writing fiction doesn't come easily for me. I have a hard time even getting started.

And yet every now and then I have a dream like a short story with colorful characters, foreshadowing, and something of a narrative arc.