Thunderbolts and Lightning at the Confirmation Hearing

Last Monday I was attending a confirmation hearing for one of my chapter 13 clients in the Ogden federal building.  The hearings are held in the court room, but the judges who preside over the hearing are actually sitting in their Salt Lake courtrooms and they appear in Ogden via video conference.

For years and years, the video conferencing used by the bankruptcy court has been plagued with problems.  Sometimes you can't hear what is being said in Salt Lake or you can't see the video down there.  It just never seems to be working perfectly.  Last Monday was no exception--there seemed to be some kind of lag in the feed that made it so you could only hear about 4 out of every ten words the judge or the trustee said.

The thing that was new this last time was a picture of a lightning bolt that appeared on the monitor showing Judge Mosier.  I am guessing the lightning bolt was supposed to signify some problem with the feed to or from Judge Mosier's camera.  It looked like a lightning bolt you would see in a cartoon.  It showed up right next to his head and every time it appeared, it gave the impression that he was very angry about what he was hearing.  I thought it was really funny and I was glad that it did not appear while I was talking to the judge.