Comfort Minus

So the flight back home was in two parts.

From the Bahamas to Atlanta it was rather perfect and enjoyable with no issues.

However, from Atlanta back to Detroit was a whole different story.

I was flying Comfort Plus, as I bought that upgrade for a decent price from Main Cabin, mainly because I wanted to be sure to secure overhead bin space for my carry-on bag as it had expensive dive gear and a camera case in it, along with lithium batteries, and I didn't want it being banged around in checked luggage.

It was not to be.  Tons of passengers decided that they would put both their carrying on and their personal items (some of those "personal items" suspiciously looked like carry on size that would never fit under a seat) into the bins, taking up space including the space by my seat.  So my bag got placed rather a distance away from me and away from the exit, which meant I would pretty much be one of the last people off the plane as I could not reach my bag and could not swim upstream to get to it until everyone else got off. Not a huge deal, but annoying.

The Comfort Minus part came with my fellow passengers in my row.  I had the aisle seat.

Unfortunately, one of the largest women extant had the middle seat, and she spilled over both my side and into the passenger's space on the window seat side and she sure as heck required a seat-belt extender.  Forget about getting the interior armrests down, that wasn't going to happen.

So, I spent most of the flight sitting halfway on my seat and partially in the aisle, which got rather uncomfortable especially when the service carts came through. Meanwhile, the window passenger got really smushed against the hull of the aircraft for the flight.

Not particularly pleasant. At all.

If you need a seatbelt extender and your body goes into other people's seats, you should quite simply be required to purchase a second seat as you're taking up  more than one seat worth of space.

It is true that you may be grossly overweight due to no fault of your own due to a medical reason, or childhood trauma, or an overeating disorder, all of which can be sympathized with. But, you only paid for your seat space, not mine and the other passenger's space nor are you entitled to it, and you darn well knew at the time you wouldn't fit just in your seat.

That the airlines allow this out of fear of push-back from fat people "rights" groups is kinda ridiculous. If you take up more than one seat you should be required to pay for the additional seat, not get it at other passenger's expense.

Oh, and for the icing on the cake of that flight, my checked bag did not make the connection from the Bahamas flight to the Detroit flight, even with an hour layover, which caused me to hang around the Detroit airport for a couple hours for the next flight to bring it, so I got home the next day as I finally left the airport at 1 am.

Well That Just Sucks

Having a rough time based on an life event that occurred last Thursday, and it is hitting me rather hard.

Not sure how much I want to discuss it at this point, but it's hitting me like a ton of bricks and worse than I had anticipated.  Didn't want this particular event to happen, but nothing to be done it happened and that's the reality.

Well, falling down seven times but getting up eight times is a secret to success, so they say.  

After all, that kind of persistence leads to success for everything except a DUI roadside stop, so time to work on picking myself up and carrying on in the new reality.

Well That Delay Sucks, AKA When Judges Don't Want To Hear A Case

Had a pretrial in a case in a local district court today.

This case has been going on for a heckuva long time.

Plaintiff filed it in 2019 (on his own without a lawyer, which was his first mistake) as a breach of contract when Defendant, an unlicensed contractor, royally screwed up the renovation of his home after a fire had occurred and botched it and then never completed it.  Defendant also did not have a lawyer and it bounced on through the process, with some major goofs along the way due to neither side having an attorney.

Plaintiff retained me to handle the trial set to be held in May 2020 as he realized he needed an attorney.  

It is now April 2021.

We've already had 4 adjournments:

The first was on June 2020, when Defendant, not being a complete fool, stated he didn't want to do a trial by Zoom when the judge gave him an option to do so.

The Court then reset the trial date for another Zoom hearing for September 2020.

The second delay was when he again refused to do a Zoom trial.  Most judges would have said too bad, but this judge was all for delaying.

The court then set a live in-person hearing for October 2020.

For a third delay, Defendant got out of that at the door to the courthouse by claiming he had been exposed to someone with Covid in the last 14 days.  Trial adjourned yet again.

Date was then set for a live trial on February 24, 2021.

As you might have guessed there was another delay.  The Court then on that day, of its own accord,  delayed it when Defendant got an attorney and instead of having the trial go as scheduled turned it into a pre-trial and then set today for yet  another pre-trial, denying my request to set a new trial date then and there for today.

I'll note we had to spend time preparing before each of these dates, getting the couple witnesses ready to go, and all for nought each time.

So today we show up for pre-trial and the Judge is like 

"Did you settle it?"  I said that we had made a settlement offer but they never responded to it, so can we get a trial date now?

Judge is, yes you can get a trial date - in March 2022.  He suggests we settle the case.  Kinda hard when the defense doesn't respond to settlement offers.

Judge claims the court is all backed up with criminal cases and that's the earliest he will do.

My client hit the roof at that point and justifiably so.   The delays are great for the defendant but justice delayed is sure as heck being justice denied.

Most other judges would have proceeded with the trial back in June 2020 and held it via Zoom and not let it get this delayed out. We're getting close to a year past that and it will be over 3 years since the case was filed before it gets to trial - and this is a simple half-day to at most a 1 day trial.

For whatever reason, he's bending over backwards for the defendant and really refusing to hear this case.

After Stating She Won't, Whitmer Goes Ahead And Shuts The State Down

Up until today, Michigan's Governor stated she wasn't going to put the state into a shelter in place lock down.

That changed this morning: The Detroit News: Whitmer issues stay-at-home order through April 13; 15 deaths, 1,300 cases

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued Monday a "Stay Home, Stay Safe" executive order requiring Michigan businesses to suspend in-person operations from 12:01 a.m. Tuesday through April 13 to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

3 more weeks of this? There's not going to be much of a state economy left.

The Governor in giving this kind of order is panicking and that's not good, especially as both treatments and actual statistics are coming on line that this is not much beyond a flu in terms of a death rate and not worth destroying our economy over it.

It's Been One Of Those Days . . . .

This kinda sums up the day I've been having:

Let's put it this way: When it comes to firearms law (or any other law for that matter), an attorney cannot counsel the client based on what he or the client would like the law to be.

Instead, we have to counsel you on what the law is now.

You may not like it (heck, I may not like it), but that's the reality you have to deal with, not your ideal fantasy-world misunderstanding of what you would want the law to be.