Wednesday, August 30, 2017
i actually put this truth in the court documents: even if i were to
walk out of the court room with the full settlement (which has now
inched up to 4679.46), we'd still have to find a mediation process,
afterwards, or i'm just going to take them to court every month.
i even offered to give some of it to charity. it's really not the point.
that number can keep growing. the bigger it gets, the larger a fraction of it gets, too. it can eventually get to a point where i shouldn't expect to see it, even if i win it. but, that's fine, because it's not the actual answer to anything.
the preferred answer was an epiphany. i was hoping i could help. sure, it's still possible. right now, the right answer is a legal mentor to get them to follow common sense legal principles - to tell them when they're fucking up and tell them not to.
that is infinitely more valuable to me than an unending court battle that i keep winning.
i even offered to give some of it to charity. it's really not the point.
that number can keep growing. the bigger it gets, the larger a fraction of it gets, too. it can eventually get to a point where i shouldn't expect to see it, even if i win it. but, that's fine, because it's not the actual answer to anything.
the preferred answer was an epiphany. i was hoping i could help. sure, it's still possible. right now, the right answer is a legal mentor to get them to follow common sense legal principles - to tell them when they're fucking up and tell them not to.
that is infinitely more valuable to me than an unending court battle that i keep winning.
they fucked up within hours: i have two more examples of harassment, just this evening.
but, things are different, now: i have a paralegal that has at least taken a couple of courses to run it through, and he has to tell his clients whether or not these things are worth doing.
they are minor concerns, in isolation: removing an air freshener from my window sill, changing the speed of the fan that i won by court order so that it's barely working. neither of these actions cost me anything. more importantly, refraining from these actions doesn't cost the landlord anything - but carrying them out could cost her a whole lot.
any decent paralegal should look at the situation and say the following,
"well, jessica is correct: you cannot be vandalizing her window sill, as it is an extension of her living space. anything on the sill is her property. removing an item from the window sill is the same thing as removing an item from her apartment. and, she won the court order on the fan, too, so you should basically never touch it, for any reason. if these situations were one-offs, this would be a waste of time. but, they are part of a pattern of harassment that could land you in a lot of trouble. this isn't worth fighting, and this isn't worth doing. you should sign the paper - and you should leave the fan alone, and leave items on her window sill alone, too."
that is dramatically more productive from my perspective than getting into a stupid shouting match and dragging the thing to a judge.
but, i don't expect this to evaporate tomorrow. it's going to be the paralegal's responsibility for the near future to get these people to start acting like grown-ups. it could take a long time. but, in the long run, if the behaviour is slowly corrected, the issue is resolved.
otherwise, we go back to court within weeks - and i'll do it, because it's the pattern that matters, not the precise issue.
but, things are different, now: i have a paralegal that has at least taken a couple of courses to run it through, and he has to tell his clients whether or not these things are worth doing.
they are minor concerns, in isolation: removing an air freshener from my window sill, changing the speed of the fan that i won by court order so that it's barely working. neither of these actions cost me anything. more importantly, refraining from these actions doesn't cost the landlord anything - but carrying them out could cost her a whole lot.
any decent paralegal should look at the situation and say the following,
"well, jessica is correct: you cannot be vandalizing her window sill, as it is an extension of her living space. anything on the sill is her property. removing an item from the window sill is the same thing as removing an item from her apartment. and, she won the court order on the fan, too, so you should basically never touch it, for any reason. if these situations were one-offs, this would be a waste of time. but, they are part of a pattern of harassment that could land you in a lot of trouble. this isn't worth fighting, and this isn't worth doing. you should sign the paper - and you should leave the fan alone, and leave items on her window sill alone, too."
that is dramatically more productive from my perspective than getting into a stupid shouting match and dragging the thing to a judge.
but, i don't expect this to evaporate tomorrow. it's going to be the paralegal's responsibility for the near future to get these people to start acting like grown-ups. it could take a long time. but, in the long run, if the behaviour is slowly corrected, the issue is resolved.
otherwise, we go back to court within weeks - and i'll do it, because it's the pattern that matters, not the precise issue.
i gave them another chance...
.....to fuck up.
well, it's kind of true.
what i did was put the case on hold in order to deal with a paralegal. it's easy enough to scoff at me: i gave them a chance to get a lawyer involved? am i daft? or just imbued with gentlemanly concepts of fair play? but, it's actually better in the long run.
see, i'm far better off giving them as many chances as i can, like a tiger playing with a kill, than i am in trying to devour them multiple times. i'm going to get annoying if i take this to a judge every few weeks, and i want to avoid seeming aggressive: i am, after all, suing for harassment. i'm the victim, here. it needs to be unambiguous. i'm more likely to get a big settlement if it's at the end of incredible patience than i am if it looks like i'm coming back for seconds and thirds like a greedy glutton.
beyond tactical considerations, i'm actually genuine: what i want is for the shenanigans to end at no cost to me. it is perhaps true that the root cause of the problem is that they're all so legally clueless. perhaps a good deal of this would not have happened if they had sought proper legal advice. so, there is some reason to think that putting a lawyer between us could have a seriously positive effect.
also, i'm intuitive enough to realize that what this paralegal really wanted was to avoid the court date out of fear of being beaten by an amateur. the truth is that i actually intimidated him. he's not going to shape up in the course of weeks or months, but he may give the case less formlessness, and actually make it easier to sue as a consequence.
i actually hope that this is the end of it; they gave me back the $50 filing fee, but left me on the hook for the other $40 i spent on paper and mailing costs. i'd be surprised if it is; i should be able to add those costs on to the next date.
if i refile i can add all of the things that have happened since july 20th as further examples - at no extra cost - and increase the fine to six or potentially seven months at a better probability of winning and potentially with better evidence.
i'm sleepy. but i'll be getting to better and more productive things when i wake up.
.....to fuck up.
well, it's kind of true.
what i did was put the case on hold in order to deal with a paralegal. it's easy enough to scoff at me: i gave them a chance to get a lawyer involved? am i daft? or just imbued with gentlemanly concepts of fair play? but, it's actually better in the long run.
see, i'm far better off giving them as many chances as i can, like a tiger playing with a kill, than i am in trying to devour them multiple times. i'm going to get annoying if i take this to a judge every few weeks, and i want to avoid seeming aggressive: i am, after all, suing for harassment. i'm the victim, here. it needs to be unambiguous. i'm more likely to get a big settlement if it's at the end of incredible patience than i am if it looks like i'm coming back for seconds and thirds like a greedy glutton.
beyond tactical considerations, i'm actually genuine: what i want is for the shenanigans to end at no cost to me. it is perhaps true that the root cause of the problem is that they're all so legally clueless. perhaps a good deal of this would not have happened if they had sought proper legal advice. so, there is some reason to think that putting a lawyer between us could have a seriously positive effect.
also, i'm intuitive enough to realize that what this paralegal really wanted was to avoid the court date out of fear of being beaten by an amateur. the truth is that i actually intimidated him. he's not going to shape up in the course of weeks or months, but he may give the case less formlessness, and actually make it easier to sue as a consequence.
i actually hope that this is the end of it; they gave me back the $50 filing fee, but left me on the hook for the other $40 i spent on paper and mailing costs. i'd be surprised if it is; i should be able to add those costs on to the next date.
if i refile i can add all of the things that have happened since july 20th as further examples - at no extra cost - and increase the fine to six or potentially seven months at a better probability of winning and potentially with better evidence.
i'm sleepy. but i'll be getting to better and more productive things when i wake up.
so, i went to make a smoothie this afternoon, in the thunderstorm, and came back to a laptop with a dead processor.
this is the same laptop that was previously having electrical problems. and, i noticed that it was seizing up a little bit, this afternoon - so it didn't come totally out of nowhere.
once again, though, this laptop fails in co-ordination with my living room desktop, which went into the loop for the first time since replacing the hard drive. i don't know what that loop actually is, but i've designed the system around the need to reinstall to get rid of it. it may actually be a network virus. what's extra curious is the correlation: i seem to be getting periodic attacks by some kind of intelligence network that take everything down at the same time.
i vlog! i blog! i give you information for free!
oh, and my phone came in the other day, but don't expect me to actually use it any time soon :P. not now, with all these priorities...and, certainly not the way anybody expects. at least it's there though, right? have fun with it.
and, no, i'm not blaming the russians. i understand that the russians actually have extremely limited cyberwarfare capabilities, and are simply not technologically advanced enough to do much of anything they're currently being accused of. if i was attacked by a rogue intelligence gathering service, it was almost certainly by the good old cia. i don't think i'm very interesting to the chinese or the israelis, which are the only other serious operations running.
the storm is a good cover, right? hey - explain why everything all comes down at once, then.
nonetheless, occam's razor is to ignore the sputtering this morning and just blame it on the storm. did i get a surge? well, the power didn't actually go out, although i do think that i had a close lightning strike. but, nothing else in here got fried, and this laptop was actually on one of the better protected circuits. it doesn't quite add up; i'm not convinced.
given that i had all of the windows open, i actually think it may be more likely that the static electricity in the air got to it and shut it off as it was running hot. that would be terrible luck, basically. i've tried some dry boots and it's not working; i get the caps lock single flash, and it just shuts down. so, i'm going to have to let it sit and drain itself for a week or two. if i can fix it easily, it will be by unplugging it for a while.
for now, i swapped the drive out and am back on the backup laptop, as i was over the course of may and june. i hope it doesn't take as long to come back...
...but, even if it comes back sooner, i'm thinking i'll stick on this machine as a short term access point and go ahead and install the new drive in the other machine, which is what i was planning on doing shortly, anyways. that's what i'm going to be doing for editing in the long run.
if it doesn't come back, should i buy a new processor? i'm not confident about disassembling it. so, i might buy a new stripped down laptop (not necessarily the same model), actually, and just put the new components in it. i mean, i just bought a new hard drive and 8 gb of new ram or this: it should be running a fast sshd with 8 gb of ram. the optical drive works. if i can just get a barebones board/screen/case combo for $50 and then upgrade it with my new components, it will justify the existing investment and really be a helluva calculator. i've already spent around $200 on it, so i'm not just going to discard it - i'll find a way to reintegrate this component, one way or another.
but, am i getting fed up with it? sure. i'll give it a week or two to come back and then move on.
so, i'm probably on this machine for a good while. i haven't taken it up to 4 gb of ram yet but will soon. and, that should make it more than sufficient as an access point until i get around to reconstructing the studio.
that was a messy weekend. i found myself on a pcp buzz (i need to stop just smoking and/or eating whatever random thing anybody gives me - this was laced pot, i've been through it repeatedly and know it when i get it, it was a specific trip. i even know who i smoked it from, as i could taste it. it's a burnt taste, like hashish, but more intense) after actress, and stuck outside the bar until 5:00 am. again: i wasn't actually drunk. i didn't pass out, and i didn't vomit. i was just inoperable due to the high. in fact, i could have walked somewhere, and no doubt would have if i didn't have my bike, but i decided against bicycling until the buzz passed. safety first. well, i would have just sat outside the diner, anyways, right? i could sit outside the bar and smoke or sit outside the diner and smoke, what's the difference? as before, it took a while longer than i expected, but i caught the early bus, in the end.
saturday was even weirder, as i didn't get over until 00:30 and found myself at a party that ended at 9:30. i managed to get a lunch hour pizza on the way home, and then took until midnight on sunday to finish eating it. i again think i smoked something that kept me awake. this is the primary argument for legalization: you just really actually don't honestly know what the fuck you're smoking. you really don't. i know i was awake for 36 hours before i feel asleep.
...and that i then slept all day monday, and most of the day tuesday.
i now need to be in court in nine and a half hours, and it will be fine. i've got the information i need compiled and put together. i just need to figure out what i'm printing and what i'm not printing, and plan the rest of the morning around getting there on time.
i've decided that i'm going to wait until i get a ruling before i file a third case. this really isn't a lot of fun, after all. but, the point of this is to get them to stop, not to bankrupt them. if i put them in too difficult a situation, it could actually make it harder to sell the building. and, if i win the case, it could give me the leverage i need to make it stop.
i mean, to be clear: i plan on filing. 5 attempted evictions without cause requires a response. it's just that i'm going to want to do one thing at a time, so i'll give them a chance to respond, first.
this is the same laptop that was previously having electrical problems. and, i noticed that it was seizing up a little bit, this afternoon - so it didn't come totally out of nowhere.
once again, though, this laptop fails in co-ordination with my living room desktop, which went into the loop for the first time since replacing the hard drive. i don't know what that loop actually is, but i've designed the system around the need to reinstall to get rid of it. it may actually be a network virus. what's extra curious is the correlation: i seem to be getting periodic attacks by some kind of intelligence network that take everything down at the same time.
i vlog! i blog! i give you information for free!
oh, and my phone came in the other day, but don't expect me to actually use it any time soon :P. not now, with all these priorities...and, certainly not the way anybody expects. at least it's there though, right? have fun with it.
and, no, i'm not blaming the russians. i understand that the russians actually have extremely limited cyberwarfare capabilities, and are simply not technologically advanced enough to do much of anything they're currently being accused of. if i was attacked by a rogue intelligence gathering service, it was almost certainly by the good old cia. i don't think i'm very interesting to the chinese or the israelis, which are the only other serious operations running.
the storm is a good cover, right? hey - explain why everything all comes down at once, then.
nonetheless, occam's razor is to ignore the sputtering this morning and just blame it on the storm. did i get a surge? well, the power didn't actually go out, although i do think that i had a close lightning strike. but, nothing else in here got fried, and this laptop was actually on one of the better protected circuits. it doesn't quite add up; i'm not convinced.
given that i had all of the windows open, i actually think it may be more likely that the static electricity in the air got to it and shut it off as it was running hot. that would be terrible luck, basically. i've tried some dry boots and it's not working; i get the caps lock single flash, and it just shuts down. so, i'm going to have to let it sit and drain itself for a week or two. if i can fix it easily, it will be by unplugging it for a while.
for now, i swapped the drive out and am back on the backup laptop, as i was over the course of may and june. i hope it doesn't take as long to come back...
...but, even if it comes back sooner, i'm thinking i'll stick on this machine as a short term access point and go ahead and install the new drive in the other machine, which is what i was planning on doing shortly, anyways. that's what i'm going to be doing for editing in the long run.
if it doesn't come back, should i buy a new processor? i'm not confident about disassembling it. so, i might buy a new stripped down laptop (not necessarily the same model), actually, and just put the new components in it. i mean, i just bought a new hard drive and 8 gb of new ram or this: it should be running a fast sshd with 8 gb of ram. the optical drive works. if i can just get a barebones board/screen/case combo for $50 and then upgrade it with my new components, it will justify the existing investment and really be a helluva calculator. i've already spent around $200 on it, so i'm not just going to discard it - i'll find a way to reintegrate this component, one way or another.
but, am i getting fed up with it? sure. i'll give it a week or two to come back and then move on.
so, i'm probably on this machine for a good while. i haven't taken it up to 4 gb of ram yet but will soon. and, that should make it more than sufficient as an access point until i get around to reconstructing the studio.
that was a messy weekend. i found myself on a pcp buzz (i need to stop just smoking and/or eating whatever random thing anybody gives me - this was laced pot, i've been through it repeatedly and know it when i get it, it was a specific trip. i even know who i smoked it from, as i could taste it. it's a burnt taste, like hashish, but more intense) after actress, and stuck outside the bar until 5:00 am. again: i wasn't actually drunk. i didn't pass out, and i didn't vomit. i was just inoperable due to the high. in fact, i could have walked somewhere, and no doubt would have if i didn't have my bike, but i decided against bicycling until the buzz passed. safety first. well, i would have just sat outside the diner, anyways, right? i could sit outside the bar and smoke or sit outside the diner and smoke, what's the difference? as before, it took a while longer than i expected, but i caught the early bus, in the end.
saturday was even weirder, as i didn't get over until 00:30 and found myself at a party that ended at 9:30. i managed to get a lunch hour pizza on the way home, and then took until midnight on sunday to finish eating it. i again think i smoked something that kept me awake. this is the primary argument for legalization: you just really actually don't honestly know what the fuck you're smoking. you really don't. i know i was awake for 36 hours before i feel asleep.
...and that i then slept all day monday, and most of the day tuesday.
i now need to be in court in nine and a half hours, and it will be fine. i've got the information i need compiled and put together. i just need to figure out what i'm printing and what i'm not printing, and plan the rest of the morning around getting there on time.
i've decided that i'm going to wait until i get a ruling before i file a third case. this really isn't a lot of fun, after all. but, the point of this is to get them to stop, not to bankrupt them. if i put them in too difficult a situation, it could actually make it harder to sell the building. and, if i win the case, it could give me the leverage i need to make it stop.
i mean, to be clear: i plan on filing. 5 attempted evictions without cause requires a response. it's just that i'm going to want to do one thing at a time, so i'll give them a chance to respond, first.
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