And I don't mean that lightly.
Obviously, they'll appeal, because that's what lawyers do to make more money from their client. But for those who've watched this ridiculous egocircus play out, and for those who were damaged by it, it's still refreshing to see this result.
I bet someone's kicking himself now that they didn't request a jury trial so they could parade around with pancakes and preachers and stuff.
A nice turn of phrase from the judge's opinion: “The innocent, continuing shareholders of HealthSough do not have “unclean hands,” and Scrushy, who does, cannot use them to strum the harp of equity.”
Heh.
(Although, I do sort of wish he'd have said 'guitar,' given the defendant's stellar country music career.)
Had to stop at Target on the way home from church last night for some stuff. I parked and let Reba and Cat out to go in while Boy and Rebecca stayed with me in the car. Rolled the windows down and sat there for a minute to quietly collect my thoughts.
Been a long week and all.
Sat there vegetating, and ever so steadily, the sound of the shopping center's piped-in music began to register in my mind. The same instrumental, quiet, pervasive, calming tones one hears in elevators and suburban strip malls.
It's...no, surely not.
Then Jonathan piped up, "Hey--you hear that!? It's that song from Guitar Hero!"
Otherwise known as "Paint It, Black" by the Rolling Stones. Shorn of every bit of rollingness or stonitude, dipped in warm goo and made background noise for people walking to and from their car.
It was just all kinds of odd.
I enjoy my chosen vocation, aside from two things--having to climb up on top of things, and getting all hot and stinking from performing that task.
I have always been a bit unnerved by heights anyway, and now that I wear bifocals, it's worse. You glance out the bottom of your lenses and the world goes all blurry, and that's very disconcerting when you're on the edge of a roof.
And then there's this whole thing of having to climb that ladder--wobbly aluminum extension ladders, laid up against slick metal copings or fascias, and never with enough sticking out at the top to hang onto as you make that last step onto the roof.
Finally, let's face it--I am not feathery. Even though in my youth I was blessed with the stunning athletic grace of a young Junior Samples, age has slowed my reflexes somewhat, and I must admit I now have the supple elegance of a lard-filled barrel. And once you put a lard-filled barrel atop spindly aluminum spindles, well, it's just not good.
So--going up, bad. Coming down?
An order of magnitude more bad.
You've got that whole "can't see out the bottom of your glasses" thing, and the dizzying feeling you get when you're off the ground, and the shaky slidy ladder part of the equation, and then there's the certain knowledge that the laws of physics are trying their best to kill your blobby self. Maybe if I did this all day, every day, it might be better. I might get used to it, and be like one of those crazy Mohawk ironworkers who build skyscrapers.
Somehow, I doubt it.
Anyway, you get all through, and manage to get back to earth without dying, but you smell like you have.
It's late spring here in the sunny Southland, meaning it's already like Satan's own barbecue outside, and it's even hotter on top of a building, and even sweatier when you're losing fluids due to intense fear. And then you have to come back inside the building and have afternoon meetings with polite folk who don't sweat and stink in public. To top it off, I have to go to church tonight for our vacation Bible school, and be around other people who've gotten to go home and wash off the day's funk. Me? I'll have another five more hours of accretion of stinkbits before then.
Other than that, though, it's all good. And they pay me regularly, too. So file all this under observations, not complaints.
OH--and by the way, unrelated to anything above, Boy is now an officially sanctioned holder of a learner's permit. Oddly enough, he hasn't been pestering me to go drive, although this could be because of the time demands of the aforementioned vacation Bible school. Or it could be that he already knows everything.
6-10-09 AND--it's Mohawk ironworkers, not Navaho. Look, I have a hard enough time keeping the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek straight as to who does what.