Sweat Pants?

I sat outside the court room this week waiting for a clerk to finish up some work for me. As I sat there I engaged in some people watching. What I noticed was disturbing. As the sheriff came to the court room door and called individuals and families to go in to the court room I studied what they were wearing. This day was a family day at the court house. This means that the cases heard dealt with custody, access, and visitation of children as well as child support, spousal support and the division of property. Now you might think that people appearing at the court in front of a judge would you know dress for the occasion. They. Did. Not. Scruffy jeans, tank tops, t-shirts, baseball caps, sweat pants, yes sweat pants. The judge today decides if you are going to have regular access to your children and you are wearing sweat pants?!?

Obviously these people care about the outcome of their court appearance or they would not be here in the first place. So why are they not dressed in a manner that says, "I am taking this seriously"? It is a puzzle to me. There lawyers are wearing suits (the men) and pant suits (the women), the judge is wearing robes, so is the clerk. For most of these people this is not there first time here. I even recognized a couple from previous trips to the court house (hello guy who had a drunk and disorderly and was asking the clerk about his assault charge).

So as a public service to anyone who reads this blog if you are going to court dress up, in fact funeral dress up. If you do not own a suit or a skirt or a pant suit, go down to your local thrift shop and buy one. There are usually like twenty of them on the rack that you can buy for less than fifteen dollars. Make sure it is clean and does not smell weird and buy it. While you are at it buy a nice shirt or blouse these can also be purchased at your local thrift shop for a nominal price. Of course if you want to splurge and go to Mens Wearhouse that is your business but for goodness sake look good. This matters. If you are at court it is becuase something has gone drastically wrong. If you look like a person who the judge would not mind having over for dinner it can only help. If you look like someone the judge would not let mow his lawn you are probably going to have a very long day.

Nerdvana

I loved university. The exchange of ideas, being exposed to new ways of looking at the world, absolutely loved it. Since I left I have missed university a good deal. But I have found the solution!!!! (yes that many exclamation points!) It is called Open Course Ware. A number of universities including, MIT, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, Michigan State University and several others have put course materials along with downloadable notes, exam questions, quizes, and youtube videos of lectures for a number of their classes. When I heard about this I was almost giddy. Could it be real? Was this another one of those cruel internet hoaxes?(unlikely) Then I went to the site.

I read in the book Cryptonomicon that the word nirvana could more accurately be pronounced Nerdvana. That is what this is. Nirvana for nerds. Any class or topic that you can imagine. Everything there are classes on Anthropology, Economics, Biological Engineering, Foreign Languages and everything in between. For the past two days I have just been sampling going from one course to another looking at at the online information, reviewing the course notes, checking out the 0nline lectures. It. Is. Amazing. Whoever thought of this should get a Nobel Prize or at least a really nice lapel pin.