Here's a conversation between my 5-years old nephew and his dad on Christmas morning ....

Matthew: Dad, why are all the gifts from Santa made in China?
Joey: Why? Where should they come from?
Matthew: North Pole

Merry Christmas!

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Maligayang Pasko! (Pilipino)
Merry Christmas! (English)
Feliz Navidad! (Spanish)
Buon Natale! (Italian)

The past 4 days, I have served as Juror No. 11. I have completed my civic duty and I could blog about my experience. Common impression I hear is that Jury Duty is like a plague that one avoids. I thought it was a very interesting experience. It was fun from the point of view that my co-jurors were fun to be with outside of the courtroom (we weren't allowed to discuss the case outside of the deliberation room). It was hard because one is asked to be impartial and to consider only the facts, the evidence and the instruction of the judge. We must be devoid of all biases, past experiences, sympathy for the defendant, and any appearance of injustice.

The case was about a 22 year old man accused of First Degree Burglary (California Penal Code Section 460 (a)) and California Penal Code Section 647 (h) - Peeping Into Windows or Doors Without Lawful Business. Given our judge’s instructions, we must find the defendant guilty if we find him breaking and entering an inhabited home with the intent or mental state to commit a rape or indecent exposure, even if the defendant did not mean to willfully hurt anyone. According to the judge’s instructions, it is indecent exposure even if the genitalia were not seen by the victim. If we did not find the defendant guilty of first degree burglary, we must decide whether he was guilty of trespassing.

The defense has presented his case that the accused had some mental deficiency. That he entered the room of the complainant with the firm belief that he was going to have sex. In his mentally deficient brain, he thought that the woman “hitted on him”. He alleged to have knocked on the door and on the window. When no one answered, he climbed through the window thinking that he was going to surprise the woman. He did not touch the woman but he undressed. When the victim awoke and saw the young man in her room, she grabbed him on the neck and asked him what he was doing there. The defendant then replied that he was horny. The victim then asked him to get out and the defendant, not touching the woman just kept saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The victim called the police but did not find the defendant. A few hours later, he came back, lingering at the victim’s back yard looking in. The victim came out and swung a bat at him. During police interrogation, he was asked why he came back, the defendant said he wanted to say he was sorry.

The defense attorney was not polished like the prosecutor. He seems to have some speech impairment that he was not eloquent. The prosecutor on the other hand was very professional. She had visual aids during closing. She was very sensitive to the juror reactions. One of my co-jurors felt that the defense was not represented properly. I tend to agree with him.

My heart went to the young man who was the accused. He certainly was a troubled soul with some mental deficiencies. I felt that if he were rich and can afford a non-court appointed defense lawyer that maybe his case would have been stronger. Maybe a stronger police investigation would have been conducted or some of the circumstantial evidence would not have been admitted in court. Maybe if he had a stronger defense his confession would not have been admitted given that he had mental deficiencies. But at the end of the day, we had to be impartial. We had to work only with what we have and not what we think should have been. The confession of the accused was in. He admitted to going in through the bedroom window with the intent to have sex. We had to believe beyond reasonable doubt that given the legal definition the crime, the instructions of the judge and the evidence admitted and presented before us that a crime was committed. The jury did not have to decide whether it was rape or indecent exposure but that one of those was committed.

We had one holdout. It could have been a hung jury. My co-juror, Harvey, felt the injustice of the system. But at the end, he agreed with the rest of us and we gave the verdict of guilty. Harvey had to ask for a few minutes alone (so we asked the bailiff to grant the jurors a recess) because he said he needed to think whether or not he can live with himself.

I may be naïve but I believe that the defendant due to his limited capacity really thought that he was going to have consensual sex. I thought the intent to commit rape was too strong. But, I think he did commit indecent exposure. According to the judge’s instructions, it is indecent exposure if he exposed himself to direct attention to himself OR to gratify and satisfy himself. He came to the woman’s bedroom at 1:30 AM with the intent or state of mind of having sex. That is why I believed that he committed burglary. In terms of the second count, we also found him guilty of lingering and looking into a window because he came back and just stood there watching the victim.

When the sentence was read, the defendant’s family cried. One of my co-juror’s who had served before warned me not to look at the family. But I did. I can’t second guess my judgment. I believe that I had been impartial as I have been. I had given the defendant as much benefit of the doubt as I can. Intent and State of Mind was what we were asked to judge. I agree with Harvey that no one can judge what someone is thinking. But no matter how much benefit of the doubt there is, the accused had singleness of purpose to go in the bedroom, removed his pants with the intent and single purpose of having sex whether he intended to hurt the victim or not. Whether or not the victim would consent was not something we were supposed to consider in indecent exposure.

I have to live with my judgment that I had contributed to sentencing a young man to prison. The legal system is not perfect. Proving one’s innocence or guilt is in the hands of the lawyers and the jurors and how they interpret the law. I have trust that everything will be ok and if my nephew Raphael ever becomes a criminal attorney that he will do the system right.

I question if putting the man in jail will make him a better person or if he will evolve to be a hardened criminal after being in the company of those who committed greater offence. As Joseph said to me that one can’t “possibly make someone a hardened criminal. And if his experience in jail does so, it is still him exercising his free will to enter that life, and shows even more that he has the capability and the will to intend to do crime.”

Jury duty is a serious responsibility. Don’t take it lightly. Don’t do it just to have a Juror Appreciation bookmark. If you can’t be impartial, find a way to excuse yourself.

So, Juror No. 11 rests her case.

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I thought my Saturday was going to be one of my normal lazy non-working Saturdays doing housework and catching up with things I did not do during the week. So, I woke up late, did my normal routine of booting up my Dell Workstation which we call Beedee and while it boots make my coffee. But, of course things didn't work that way.

Beedee running Windows XP SP2 (with all the latest updates) won't boot up (Safe Mode, Last Known Working Configuration, etc) and would just go into this restart mode. It is going into the restart mode because I have not changed XP's default setting of recovery settings when it encounters the Blue Screen of Death. So, I booted from the original Windows XP CD and pressed F8 to disable the automatic restart. Finally I see the blue screen of death with the error:

*** STOP 0x0000007E(0XC0000005,0XF8560A05,0XF89D54C8,0XF89D51C4)
*** PCI.SYS - addressF8560A05 base at F8556000, Datestamp 41107d31

Using Joseph’s Vate, I searched the Microsoft Website and found this:
You Receive a Stop Error 0x7E in Pci.sys

The article was not useful to me since under resolution it has: “To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows XP.” I have the latest service pack and all the updates. I searched the web for other solutions but I did not really find anything.

Joseph helped me and we thought that maybe my pci.sys is corrupted and I can just copy it from the original CD. We thought if that did not work, I’ll just reinstall XP SP2 since I have all my backups. So, with this plan, we disconnected all my connected peripherals (e.g. USB hub, etc..) and then Booted from the installation CD. We then followed Method 1 of the article:
"Pci.sys Is Missing or Corrupt" Error Message When You Start Windows which tells you how to Restore the File using the Windows Recovery Console.

After that was done, we restarted in Safe Mode and this time, there was no more Blue Screen of Death. From there, it gave me the option to recover from different Restore Points. I chose a restore point. The restore worked and I am happy that Beedee is back up and running.

I changed XP's default setting of recovery settings so it won’t restart every time there is a system failure. This is what I did:
1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Click Settings for Startup and Recovery
4. This will bring you to Startup and Recovery. Under System Failure, uncheck “Automatically restart”

Anyway, this concludes my long blog. For those of you who may one day encounter (hopefully not) the same error, I hope this post may prove helpful.

Whether one is a project manager for an Open Source Business Intelligence Project or any project for that matter, managing and monitoring project schedules are very important. One must continuously monitor schedule to actual work performed to ensure that the project stays on target. Delays in the project schedule affect all the aspects of the project.

In our project engagements one (with respect to Time Management) of the project performance reports we do is Float Analysis.

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The concept of float is integral to Critical Path. Float or sometimes referred to as “Slack” can be thought of as the maximum time an activity can slip without delaying the end date of project. As a quick way of looking at a float for a network diagram, if an activity is on the critical path, it has a zero float. (I have read some technical cases where this is not always true but it is still a quick way to look at it ) Simply, the activity with zero float has no time buffer or allowance for work slippage, i.e., if the activity is not finished on time, it will cause the project to fall behind schedule.

If we look at the example of the previous blog post, Critical Path in Schedule Management, the sample durations are:

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If you look at this simple example, all the activities are in the critical path since the critical paths are:
Start-A-B-E-F-C-End and Start-D-B-E-F-C-End.

Remember though that when managing the schedule and critical activities of your project, the other aspects of the project - Scope, Cost, Quality, Resource Management, Communication, Risk, and Procurement Management should not be neglected or have less emphasis.