Settled behind closed doors

Quick update: after 3 more hours of waiting on Tuesday afternoon, the courtroom announced that they had in fact settled our case out of court and our jury services weren't needed. We were all free to go home and do not need to come back for at least another year.

Jury Duty - Day #1 of ??

I haven't served jury duty yet, and since I'm in my 12th year of eligibility I suppose it's about time. So, here's what my civic duty looked like today: starting at 8:30 am I sat in a room with about 100 strangers, watched a video about the court system, turned in my pre-filled out paperwork, took a nap (no joke!), read a magazine, listened to my music player, chatted with a few people at my table, listened to the tapping of fingers on laptops, took a 90 minute lunch (enough time to go home and get my computer!), tried to drown out the soap operas on the TV in the background, and eaves-dropped on a few people's cell phone conversations. Nothing juicy.

Finally, the action started at 3:55 pm. I watched about 35 people get called to report to courtroom #4. About 10 mins later they called another 50 of us (my name was called this time) to report to courtroom O. We headed upstairs and waited for the bailiff to greet us and bring us inside. I was surprised to see the defendant in the courtroom. H-e-l-l-a- s-k-e-t-c-h-y looking dude in prison uniform. We were sworn in and then the judge let us know that it's estimated to be about a 7 day trial and since it was so late in the day already they would complete the jury selection tomorrow starting at 1:30 pm.

I wonder if I'll get selected?? One side of me wants to, the other side doesn't. The part that says 'hell no, get me out of here' is the same part that prefers romantic comedies to scary movies any day of the week. The part of me that does want to get selected is the same part of me that my mom sees in me when she tells me I would have made a good judge.

50 things about me (Aaron)

Inspired by Amy's list on her blog, www.dailygnome.com...
(A warning, it's pretty heavy on the pre-college stuff...)

1. I didn't like pizza until I got to middle school. I always made my parents order me spaghetti instead.


2. My cousin and I drove the family car at 2 years old.


3. That same cousin and I painted his younger brother with white house paint a year or two later.


4. I used to canvas the neighborhood looking to wash cars for a few bucks.


5. I learned multiplication from buying 45 cent candy bars at the AM/PM


6. I used to love "suicides", which is when you buy a fountain drink and then mix all the sodas together. Not so much anymore.


7. I was parked in the family car just down the street from our house with my first girlfriend. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that since it was a cul-de-sac, my parents could still see us. My sister and my mom walked right by us, twice, and neither of us noticed. :)


8. My parents have lived in the same house since before I was born.


9. I went to the same private school from first through eighth grade, and of my graduating class of 21 kids, 9 of us had been together that whole time.


10. I used to love watching when my sister played Castle Wolfenstein if she threw grenades. Such a satisfying animation. :)


11. I was in the first graduating class of the Westchester High School Math-Science-Aerospace magnet.


12. I went to basketball camp every summer until high school.


13. I can remember the name of all my elementary school teachers.


14. Since we had cable, if I saw a movie from the 80s, I probably watched it dozens of times.


15. I didn't really appreciate my sister until after she left for college.


16. My sister used to hold a basketball up so I couldn't reach it. My parents warned her that that wouldn't work soon. They were right.


17. I skipped a grade in Math during 2nd grade with Jason Musicer and Ann O'Brien.


18. My team won my third grade gold rush simulation. About a week before it started, my family went to a Chinese restaurant, and I got two fortune cookies that said something like "You will come into a lot of gold soon," so I always think about the gold rush when I go to Panda Express.


19. I enjoy singing.


20. When I was twelve, my friend Dave told I was going to be the drummer in our band and gave me a pair of drum sticks. As anyone can attest, I can rarely go for more than few hours without banging out a beat on whatever surface is available, even if no music is playing.


21. I love hearing my mother sing or whistle old tunes as she tends her garden or waters her grass.


22. I have never worked in retail, but I have worked in tech support.


23. I used to love Big League Chew. It tasted so good that I used to swallow it.


24. I loved getting sodas at the vending machine at the park when growing up because then I got to drink Cactus Cooler.


25. I had major surgery when I was 14 to repair a curved breastbone. I was in the hospital for 5 days.


26. My friends dubbed the scar "Mr Frowny Face"


27. I love playing Boggle with my mom.


28. I'm very proud of my parents for their commitment to civil service. They've been honored by the LA city council, and even have a certificate of commendation signed by the whole council, a few govt officers, and mayor Villaraigosa.


29. My parents volunteered so much at my high school, people used to ask me if they worked there.


30. I don't particularly like my middle name.


31. I have lived in LA for my whole life, except for 367 days when I lived in Austin, TX. I miss it there.


32. The first pop song I remember hearing on the radio and paying any attention to was "Don't You Want Me" by Human League. I was a late bloomer to the radio - even though I was 4 - 14 years old, I didn't know 80's music til later.


33. I was my high school's valedictorian.


34. So was my wife.


35. I used to eschew local establishments and only go to chain restaurants, but my wife has taught me that I enjoy the unique experience of local flavors.


36. People think I'm a stoner sometimes. Definitely not.


37. I do enjoy a drink every now and then, but it's not usually worth the consequences, since I suffer more than the usual sick stomach and headache. It's harder than you think to not drink with other adults.


38. I love it when my wife smiles.


39. I've always wanted to go to Alaska sometime and see the glaciers. Definitely during summer, though.


40. I play sports to have fun. I mainly have fun when I'm playing well. Which hopefully leads to winning.


41. I think people who play rec sports "to win" above good sportsmanship are jerks, like guys who don't call their own nets or touches in volleyball.


42. There's another Aaron Schneider who won an oscar last year, and I started getting phone calls after the award was announced.


43. There's another Aaron Schneider who went to U of Nebraska. He got the domain name. Dammit.


44. There are a lot of people named "Aaron Schneider" on LinkedIn


45. I follow the NBA very closely.


46. I love me some regular M&Ms.


47. I'm not very organized. My wife complements me well in this regard.


48. I enjoy my work. Most of the time.


49. I like a good deal. Even if it's a deal for something I don't really need.


50. My wife loves making lists.

English Country Dancing in Pasadena

For the second time in the past few months, Aaron and I went with a few friends to an English Country Dancing event (aka: Jane Austin Ball). I recognize that this might make me a complete and total nerd, but I really enjoyed it!

I considered for a short time that maybe it's the anglophile in me, but then this really doesn't relate at all to the experience I had in London. My love of England is for the modern England. The nightlife, the tube, the pubs, the parks, the people, the high streets, the fact that no matter how many times you walk down the same streets there is still something surprising, the fact that people walk... I could go on.


Really I think the reason I had such a good time speaks more to the same interest I have in marching bands. There is something poetic about so many bodies (and minds) organized, working together, and moving in the same space. Yes, every so often we would bump into the set near us, but all in all it works and makes for a very enjoyable evening.

Visitors from down under

This past week my very good friend Alanna and her boyfriend Neil stayed with us. They are in LA on their way back to Australia from Spain. It was so nice to spend time catching up and hearing about their adventures. Not sure how I managed to not take a single photo of their visit. You'll just have to picture us sitting in our living room, enjoying a glass of wine, the boys playing Rock Band.

Editing Photos - Picasa!!!

Alrighty, we all have a zillion photos from our shiny new digital cameras. I would like to share with you my methodology for processing and sharing those photos. As many of you know, Picasa3 (www.picasa.com) is my favorite photo editing and management program, and I bug you all to use it. Whenever I get a new batch of photos to edit, I run through 9 very quick and easy steps:

1) Import: Import the photos into your "My Photos" directory, or wherever you save your pics. Picasa has an import tool, but I prefer to do this manually.

2) Correct: Click on the new folder so that all of the pics are selected. In the menu, click "Picture", then "Batch Edit", then "I'm feeling lucky". This auto-corrects white balance and colors. Pictures ALWAYS look better after running this. Give it a moment to update your thumbnails.

3) Describe: Give your folder a very descriptive name, and type in a little blurb about the event(s) in your folder.

4) Remove duplicates: Time to go through the photos. Double click on the first photo. For duplicates, pick the best one and delete the others. If you keep more than one, make sure that there's a compelling reason.

5) Crop, crop, crop! For me, 99% of these photos will only be seen on a computer screen. They will look better if you simply crop out all of the unnecessary stuff so that the things you want to see will be BIGGER. Focus on the faces. Don't be afraid to crop into other aspect ratios, but I would recommend nothing taller and skinnier than a typical 4x6 portrait. That means that you should shoot for 4x6/3x5 aspects, square, or something panoramic.

Picasa3 has face detection technology, so when you click the crop button, it gives you 3 suggestions of different cropping around the face in your pic. The suggestions also tend to automatically exclude the boring stuff, like the monochromatic elements at the edges around your subjects. The suggestions are not perfect, but they make editting easier and faster.

6) Finish: Apply other finishing effects to the photos. There's one click stuff for other effects like sepia or b&w, red eye reduction, and even simple retouching. Not strictly necessary, but can be great to mix it up a little.

7) More describing: Add captions for as many photos as you can. Photos tell a story, but they don't always say everything that needs to be said.

8) Feel lucky, again: Select all the photos again (your cropped, captioned, tagged, de-duped photos, hopefully!), and re-run the "I'm feeling lucky" edit from step 2. Whenever you crop or apply effects to a picture, that can change how the white or color balance looks, so if you re-run this, the pictures will probably look just a little bit better.

9) Upload! Click "Sync to Web" to share the photos. It may ask you to set up a google account for this if you don't have one. Once it finishes uploading the pictures, click the "Web Albums" button and send the link to your fam and friends or put it in your blog. Because of the "sync" feature, if you make changes to the picture (changing captions, retouch, crop, etc...", it will automatically update the web album too!

Voila! You are done! I hope that helps you save your memories.

---

One last step that I like to do is click the "save" button (to commit your updates to the pic). Don't worry - ALL edits are undo-able, even saving. Normally, picasa effects are "applied" to the original photos each time you view it, so when you view in Windows or Photoshop, you wouldn't see you changes. This last step will make every app show your nice pics the same way that Picasa does, and will make them ready to archive.

See this page for more tips, including tagging, geotagging, gift CDs, Flickr, and keyboard shortcuts.

One last thing, it just came out for mac, and it plays nice with iPhoto. Check it out!

Mammoth for New Years

We spent New Years in Mammoth this year (as in some years past) with a few friends and had a great time! The first day out on the mountain was *awesome* - perfect conditions. The second day was windy with many of our favorite lifts closed so we took the day to hang out in the condo, play lots of Scrabble, and check out Tamarack Lodge (build in 1924). I was back on the slopes again on the third day with some fresh powder, but Aaron wasn't feeling well so he headed back to the condo pretty early. We didn't snowboard on Sunday so we took our time getting back to LA and stopped at the Manzanar Relocation Camp. It is an interesting piece of war history and had a much nicer (quality, not content) exhibit than any of us were expecting. For many, many photos from the trip click here.