CALENDAR SEARCH CRISIS

 The new year is not off to a good start. The Dade County Clerk's Office, whose technology is known far and wide as a leader in the industry, has been experiencing intermittent outages including, now, the all-important calendar search. 

What does this mean for you? 

You cannot go on the clerk's website and achieve all that you wanted. 

Now, mop up the coffee that you spit out after you read about the cutting-edge technology of our clerk's office, and let's get down to brass tacks, which by the way, is one way the clerk's secures files- with brass tacks. 

First, in County Court, the criminal files are still ...(cue ominous music) PAPER FILES!

Often is the time a newly minted ASA or PD comes bounding into court with their Starbucks and iPad, monitoring their Tinder on their phone, while carrying on a dozen text conversations at once, and stop cold and see something they are not familiar with.

"Wha..wha...what are those?" they point in amazement, seeing actual paper files on a Clerk's desk. 

It's been, what? More than 15 years since traffic files went digital. 

Of course, this is all part of the training because by the time they get to felonies, all the files are hard paper files. 

They inform their big-law colleagues (via text) of the wonders of the REGJB: "Dude, you know what I saw today? An f'ing typewriter!  And someone was using it to write on a paper and guess what? I got to hit a key! It was like uncovering a dinosaur bone in Utah."

The good news is that in the absence of a fully functioning website, which until recently, the Clerks required a Compuserve account to use (if you don't know, don't ask), you can go to the clerk's office or call them. 

If you go to the clerk's office, bring the following: a twenty dollar roll of quarters, two books, a thermos of coffee, a subway sub, some snacks, and you will be efficiently handled in several hours. 

If you call, here's the code:

"Good morning and welcome to the Dade County clerk's office. For Spanish press Uno, for Creole press Un, for German press Ein. For the Probate office just die...ha ha ha...just kidding, press 11 then star then pound then 100 and [click]"

Yes you will be disconnected. 

The simple fact is that not even the National Security Agency can get the documents they need from the Dade Clerk's Office (motto "Proudly providing you 1977 court files on floppy disks.").

"Good morning Mr. President. We have the latest translations of conversations on Putin's phone for you to review."

Biden: "Did you get that Grand Theft file from the Clerk's Office in Miami?"

NSA Briefer: "No sir. It's proving more difficult than we expected. We do have the videos from the latest meetings of the council in Iran and some from their secret nuclear weapons lab."

2022 is going to be a long year dear readers.