I've missed checking out people's blogs lately because I've been having problems with my laptop, or 'labtop,' as Blair used to call them. I know, I'm so rude to make fun of him, but that is seriously funny--who says that? Anyway, you can't tell from reading this, but it is taking me an unnaturally long time to type because my arms and fingers are frozen. Aimee and I just got back from a short 30 minute run, and it was a little colder than I thought on my appendages. But I know how much you all depend on me, so I'm going to tough it out and keep typing even though it took me 5 minutes to type this paragraph.
I've got to say, I love being able to find friends from high school and college that I haven't talked to forever through the blogging world. It's so fun to see what people have been up to and where their lives are at now. Speaking of that, I'll just make a quick mention since Aimee, Nicole, and Brenda have already posted pictures and stuff of Jonah, Dylan and Darci's new baby boy. They had him on Friday, and they are all doing well. I was telling Blair on Saturday that if someone had told me ten years ago that Dylan would be a parent before I would, I would not have believed them. It's funny the way things happen. He is such a cute dad already. It's so fun to see my brothers growing up and becoming adults. I mean, it's also fun to see my sisters growing up and becoming adults, but let's be honest, it's not as big of a change since we're all already so 'mature,' according to Dylan.
On another note, I don't know if everyone gets sick of my rants about court, but I just can't believe the things that go on sometimes. Regarding the title of this post, I decided that I'm going to start documenting the really dumb reasons that people get arrested for felony theft charges and give some type of prize to the person who does the stupidest thing. Just for a little background, in Utah (and probably a lot of other states), if you are convicted of theft twice, then your third time is charged as a felony, regardless of the dollar amount (that was a lot of commas--sorry about that). As it turns out, there are a lot of people who just can't figure it out and stop stealing things. Here are the top three that I have seen so far, just in the last 6 months of working at the court.
Number 3 is probably the guy from a couple weeks ago that got arrested on felony shoplift charges because he really needed to quench his thirst while shopping in Albertson's. So he went ahead and took a beer off the shelf, went into the bathroom, and drank half of it--felony! I mean, seriously, how much does one beer cost, like $2 bucks? So yeah, this guy was charged with a third degree felony, which is punishable by zero to 5 in the state prison, for drinking half a beer in the Albertson's bathroom. Really?? Wow. Runner up is the guy from a couple months ago who got charged with aggravated robbery because he used a knife to rob a guy who was sitting in his truck in a Wal-Mart parking lot. He took a duffle bag from the back seat of the guy's truck, hoping to find some good stuff, I guess. Turns out, it had 'memorabilia' from the guy's relationship with his ex girlfriend--things like pictures, ticket stubs from concerts they had attended together, old pregnancy tests...and I'm not even kidding about that. When the guy said that I almost laughed out loud in court. Dude is sitting in jail on agg robbery charges for stealing some pictures and an old, nasty used pregnancy test. Ew.
But the best has got to be the guy from last week who got sent back to prison (yep, not kidding) for 'forgetting' to pay at IHOP. His excuse was that when he got out of prison, his wife divorced him and he just didn't know what to do. So one day he got really drunk and went to get a meal at IHOP and just totally forgot to pay. Left the waiter a $3 tip, but forgot to pay his tab. Whoops. Theft of services--felony. When he offered up this gem of an excuse to the judge, the judge said, "No, you didn't [forget to pay]. It's not that simple." Then the judge proceeded to read off the guy's criminal history--theft, theft, theft, robbery, theft, theft. "You have left me with no choice but to send you back to prison." And I'm sitting there completely dumbfounded, thinking, "Dude! You're going back to prison for zero to 5 for $20 worth of food! How dumb can you be?" Apparently pretty dumb. So far, my kleptorific award goes to him. But you never know--he'll probably have some pretty stiff competition during our felony calendar tomorrow.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Happy V-Day!
Ok, so I know that I say this all the time, but Blair is seriously the best! He got me two bouquets of flowers last week "just because," and then he got me two bouquets of flowers today for Valentine's Day. What a guy! And he has a fun day trip planned for us for Saturday, so I'm really excited to hang out with him.
In other news, I've mostly lost my ability to do push-ups, in case you were wondering. After I ran tonight, I thought I would see if I could still do any, and I could barely do 5. Weak sauce! I decided last year after I reached the life-changing goal of being able to do 15 push-ups that I would never again fall to the level of a non-push-uper. I mean, seriously, I was starting to get some pretty good definition in the old arms, and now they're just back to normal. So I need to get to work on that. And I also decided that 2009 will be the year of running. Aimee and I decided that last year, but it didn't really come to fruition, so this year is the one. I just started running in the last couple years, so doing two 10ks last years was a big step for me. We're going to try to do some halfs and 10-milers this summer, though, so it will be another huge running milestone for me if I can do it.
Work is going fine, but if people could not get divorced or at least act grown up when they do, I would really appreciate it. I have a case that I have been working on almost non-stop for the past 2 or 3 weeks that is a guy asking the court to eliminate his alimony payment because he voluntarily ditched his $100k+ per year job for a job that pays $50k per year, supposedly. And I think he did it just to get out of his alimony obligation. So now I'm left going through the financial documents of the husband and the wife to determine what their reasonable monthly expenses are, if she can support herself, and if he can continue to pay. It makes me want to poke myself in the eye. I mean, seriously, can we all just act like adults here? Obviously that is a rhetorical question because, as I realize almost every day at court, we most decidedly cannot act like adults, and that's why we have courts. I mean, most of the time, I like my job quite a bit. But if you see me walking around in the next little while with a glass eye, you can assume that I've had enough of the ridiculousness of the cases I'm working on.
In other news, I've mostly lost my ability to do push-ups, in case you were wondering. After I ran tonight, I thought I would see if I could still do any, and I could barely do 5. Weak sauce! I decided last year after I reached the life-changing goal of being able to do 15 push-ups that I would never again fall to the level of a non-push-uper. I mean, seriously, I was starting to get some pretty good definition in the old arms, and now they're just back to normal. So I need to get to work on that. And I also decided that 2009 will be the year of running. Aimee and I decided that last year, but it didn't really come to fruition, so this year is the one. I just started running in the last couple years, so doing two 10ks last years was a big step for me. We're going to try to do some halfs and 10-milers this summer, though, so it will be another huge running milestone for me if I can do it.
Work is going fine, but if people could not get divorced or at least act grown up when they do, I would really appreciate it. I have a case that I have been working on almost non-stop for the past 2 or 3 weeks that is a guy asking the court to eliminate his alimony payment because he voluntarily ditched his $100k+ per year job for a job that pays $50k per year, supposedly. And I think he did it just to get out of his alimony obligation. So now I'm left going through the financial documents of the husband and the wife to determine what their reasonable monthly expenses are, if she can support herself, and if he can continue to pay. It makes me want to poke myself in the eye. I mean, seriously, can we all just act like adults here? Obviously that is a rhetorical question because, as I realize almost every day at court, we most decidedly cannot act like adults, and that's why we have courts. I mean, most of the time, I like my job quite a bit. But if you see me walking around in the next little while with a glass eye, you can assume that I've had enough of the ridiculousness of the cases I'm working on.
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