Thursday, July 27, 2006

Role Model

So this summer I've been assigned to assist a guy with criminal traffic cases. The guy's name is Eric Sparr; he graduated from UW law school a couple years back, and was an intern like me a couple years earlier. Absolutely great guy. He's good at his job, and he knows how to have fun with it. That's a major reason why my experience here has been so good - the job is just plain fun, especially working with him.

Here's a prime example. Today he showed me a letter he received from a defense attorney regarding a tape recording for events that took place in an intoxilyzer room. The defense attorney, who Eric knew to be a pretty good guy, sent a letter indicating that the sound on the tape had been dubbed at an extremely high speed, so that all the people involved sounded like chipmunks. The attorney stated that he did not speak chipmunk, so he was requesting the DA's office to send another tape with the audio at a correct speed.

Eric showed me this letter, then the letter he sent in response. It stated that his tape had the same problem, and that he had also noticed that the people involved sounded like chipmunks. This confirmed a suspicion of his that the defendants were, in fact, chipmunks. In addition, he (Eric) happens to speak a little chipmunk, and that what the defendant was saying on the tape was "I am guilty. I am guilty. I am guilty."

EDIT: Eric sent the letters to the police department, along with the request for new tapes. Clearly, they got a laugh out of it. The lady that returned the new tapes affixed stickers of Alvin, Simon, and Theodore to the plastic case, and labelled it "Eric and the Chipmunks."

2 comments:

Ismael Tapia II said...

You know, it's awesome to have someone like that to work with. There's someone I look up to who is hilarious at my job, and it's a huge part of the reason I like my job so much. And he's super-smart, so I'm learning a lot, too.

Let's stop this conversation, though, before we start sounding gay . . .

Anonymous said...

Eric isn't gay, but he may be willing to learn.