Summer finally arrived yesterday. After the longest day of the year had a high in the 60s and everyone turning on their lights at about 5:30 because of the rain, and Sunday offering pretty much the same, yesterday and today have been absolutely gorgeous. Tonight I will make up for not getting my niece a present for her birthday by showing up at her house with a gift and a card and my swimming trunks because my sister has a really nice pool.

Today the office is closed because they are doing streetwork and the water is shut off. I still had to come in to work more than half a day because of a court appearance but it feels like vacation anyway.

And my appearance went well. I had started a trial a couple of weeks ago. Today was the finish of the other side's case. The first day they had really banged my client very hard, and I was really wondering if I had made a mistake by not settling. But for some reason my opponent finished his case by putting on all my witnesses for me. It was wonderful.

For those of you who don't understand how this works, when you put a witness on the stand, unless you can show that he or she is a hostile witness you can not ask that person questions that suggest a certain answer. However, if you are the second person to go, you get to ask your questions whatever way you want. It makes things quite a bit easier. Let me demonstrate:

Question for witness on direct: So can you tell us what happened that evening? (Response from very stupid witness even after extensive preparation- Duh. I don't remember.)

Question for witness on cross: You didn't see Mr. Colonel Mustard shoot Dr. Lucky that night did you? (Response from very stupid witness - No.)
Follow up question: In fact, you saw Mr. Green shoot Dr. Lucky, didn't you? (Response from very stupid witness - Yes.)

Much easier. Sure, there's a slight tradeoff in credibilty, but canned answers are much better than just sitting there looking stupid.

We'll have to see how it works out. I felt much better about the whole case. Not sure I'll win, but at least I felt like I wasn't a fool for insisting on a trial.

I'm off to enjoy a beautiful summer day.