7/25/2004
This guy is one of my idols. I haven't ridden a bike in 20 years and probably won't ever again, but I still wanna be like Lance. He personifies two of my favorite expressions: "Shut up and quit whining!" and "Life sucks, get a f*#%ing helmet!" Oh, yeah, and he's dating Sheryl Crow.
"You know, once I was thinking of quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit." - Lance Armstrong, from Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
7/20/2004
Setting aside the myriad other things I love about being a court reporter, the cast of characters I've met along the way has gotta be right at the top. I've traveled Australia and New Zealand with fellow STAR members, made friends around the world through my website, and -- as the blunt object being jabbed into my spleen is currently reminding me -- I met my charming and talented wife at a court reporting seminar some years ago.
And say what you will about attorneys, but some of them even make the A-list. Take, for instance, Austin attorney Mark Mueller, who had his annual party this past weekend. This year's entertainment: Del Castillo opening for Los Lonely Boys on the night the three brothers from San Angelo went platinum. The high point of the evening came when the two bands combined to rip through a half-hour set which included a blazing rendition of Santana's Oye Como Va.
I know my Austin years are becoming tinier by the day in my rearview mirror and the current extent of my live music exposure is the third grade production of the 12 Days of Christmas, but I was dumbstruck by the mindblowing talent on that stage.
Thanks, Mark, for yet another stellar evening.
"Hell is full of musical amateurs." - George Bernard Shaw
7/19/2004
Was reading this article on my news feed and had the immediate realization that under tort reform in Texas, even if his wife did sue, this guy's mangled junk is worth $250,000, unless he could prove his dingus had some inherent wage-earning capacity...
Surgeon Cuts Off Patient's Penis In Fit Of Madness
A Romanian surgeon, in what is being described as a fit of madness, cut off a patient's penis during a procedure that was supposed to rectify a testicular malformation. The surgeon, Dr. Naum Ciomu proceeded to cut the penis of the 34-year-old man in several pieces, hospital officials confirmed on Friday. The surgeon lost his temper after making a mistake during the routine testicular malformation procedure , which led to the fit of madness, it has been reported.
"We are shocked by what has happened. It is the first time we have had such a case," said Sorin Oprescu, head of Bucharest's emergency hospital, where the man was rushed for emergency reconstructive surgery.
Dr. Ciomu is banned from performing any further surgical procedures pending an investigation by the Romanian medical council. The wife of the patient may take legal action against Dr Ciomu.
7/15/2004
Heard an ugly rumor of late, that some entity (whether it's the CRCB or TCRA is unclear) is picking every tenth court reporting agency in the state to audit their compliance with everyone's favorite bastard stepchild of specious small-minded reasoning and anticompetitive do-gooderness, the Texas Uniform Format Manual.
Now, part of me applauds this effort. It has always seemed Texas firms and reporters were free to choose to which rules they would abide, without a second thought as to the consequences, since the likelihood of someone actually filing a grievance is roughly equivalent to the probability that medical malpractice carriers will actually lower premiums post Prop 12. Complying with the format had a feel of driving from San Antonio to El Paso at 65 when you had an iron-clad guarantee that the DPS had the day off.
But the other, less knee-jerky fraction of my being is incredulous that the Stenonazis have chosen now, in the shadow of 10-pitchgate, to hold our feet to the fire. Do we all now get to pull an Anne Frank, waiting pensively in our respective attics for the Gestapo to kick in our door with a tape measure so they might bust our chops over a character per inch?
If anyone's been stung by the Secret Police, lemme know. Dying to find out if this one's true.
7/3/2004
I don't loathe interpreted depos with quite the fervor I once did. Gimmie a qualified translator who can simultaneously listen to English while spouting some foreign tongue out the other side of their face and I actually have a better day than usual, since I've got a guaranteed couple seconds during the interpretation to fix the realtime. Most days I'm ready for proofin' once I get home.
All bets are off, though, when I hear those dreaded words, "Well, let's let him answer in English, and if he needs help, then he can ask the translator." Such was the case on day one of four of my Brazilian bankers this week. Luckily the interpreter was highly qualified and spoke right up, informing counsel that if he's under oath to translate, he's gonna do it all or none. I could've kissed him. Problem solved for now.
I only got to ride that high for a few minutes before realizing I was screwed in a way the translator couldn't possibly fix. The witness spoke excellent English but still wanted the questions translated, and counsel had a working knowledge of Portuguese, so they'd kinda go off into their own little world sometimes, leaving everyone else on the sidelines. During rapid-fire questioning, the witness would answer in a mixture of English and Portuguese before the question was half translated, and the attorney would understand the response and move on to his next query.
After a few of these unintelligible exchanges which I so rudely interrupted came this little gem: Counsel wanted me to get what I could of any English the witness may blurt out and then the interpreted answer, if any. My response was that I was absolutely not certified to decide what was or wasn't English coming out of the witness' pie hole, that as long as there's a translator in the room, for purposes of the English language record, the translator is the witness, testifying as to his knowledge what is being said in Portuguese. If it doesn't come outta the interpreter's mouth, it doesn't make it onto my record.
Believe it or not, this actually worked. From that point forward, if counsel darted forward in his questioning before I got a discernible answer, I poked him in the arm and he graciously waited for the translation to catch up.
Monday at lunchtime I was certain I would come back Tuesday morning with a Kalashnikov and make the CNN Headline News crawl by 10:00 a.m., but we were all fast friends by the end of the week. The moral of the story here is stand up for yourself. If someone is impeding your ability to get your record, straighten them out pronto. To hell with the "I am a chair" mantra they taught us in school!
"The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights." - J. Paul Getty
7/2/2004
Haven't had time here lately to talk to myself, much less pen a blog entry. Thanks to Gail in Dallas, I don't have to. Couldn't make one up any better than this...
From TheSmokingGun.com, "Pumping it Up" on the Bench
JUNE 24 - While seated on the bench, an Oklahoma judge used a male enhancement pump, shaved and oiled his nether region, and pleasured himself, state officials charged yesterday in a petition to remove the jurist. According to the below complaint filed by the Oklahoma Attorney General, Donald D. Thompson, 57, was caught in the act by a clerk, trial witnesses, and his longtime court reporter.
Visitors to Thompson's Creek County courtroom reported hearing a "swooshing" sound coming from the bench, a noise the court reporter said "sounded like a blood pressure cuff being pumped up." Thompson, the complaint charges, even pumped himself up during an August 2003 murder trial. The AG's petition quotes Thompson as admitting that the pump was "under the bench" during the murder case (and at other times), but he denied using the item, which was supposedly a "gag gift from a friend."
"Dammit, Beavis, what the hell are you doing? You're not supposed to have your penis out while you're cooking!" - Butt-head
