Law of the Gump

The Library Stapler

2009-02-05T16:04:00.002-05:00

I had few minutes and decided to check my email. I had a bunch of updates from Facebook, so I decided to log on and approve a bunch of friends that had requested to be added. One of them had posted the following that I had written a while back while working in the law school library and was pissed off at the idiots who kept messing up the staplers that we had around the desk. Thanks for posting this Mary.

I found something in my desk today. It was a typed up piece of wisdom from a prior library student worker on the care and feeding of staplers. This is solely his work. I am merely passing it along for the giggles. - Mary
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This stapler is now in perfect mechanical condition. It works just fine. Please do not abuse the stapler. If you are stoned or just stupid, please refrain from using the stapler. This is for your own safety as well as the convenience of others.

If you are unable to reload the stapler due to lack of opposable thumbs or just plain ignorance, please ask for assistance.

Remember: This is just an ordinary stapler, not a rocket powered attaching device. It will NOT staple together half a ream of paper.

Unlike a plowing mule, hitting it really hard will not make the stapler work harder to accomplish your goal. Stapling imaginary paper will only clog the stapler because there is nowhere for the bent staple to go. Please staple your imaginary paper with an imaginary stapler. In other words: Do Not Play With The Stapler.
Stapler hide-and-go-seek may sound like a fun game but it is not. Place the stapler back where you found it. Which is right here.

Bar/Bri Begins

2009-01-13T14:47:00.000-05:00

Barbri bar review started last week.
It is primarily (ok, actually) a series of video lectures. The real work is in the reading before the lecture and the answering of questions after the lecture in order to learn the material. Every thing that was learned in law school must be re-learned, summarized, applied, and distinguished.
The multiple choice portion of the bar will test fine line distinctions in the law and the essays will test your ability to put it all together.
Some subjects we didn’t learn in law school, others we did. Nonetheless we must learn the material as the bar examiners will test it, not necessarily how it is applied in real life.
The schedule is detailed as to what needs to be completed, and quite frankly, there is little time to spare

I was surprised by the few number of people attending the lecture. We elected to take the evening class. There are about 30 people attending at night, and less than 50 during the day lectures. That means that about 80 people are taking the Barbri classes and a few more who opted to only take the IPOD version of the taped lectures. I suspect that it is not that many. Between about 450 and 600 people will take February Georgia bar exam with us. So, surprisingly, only a small portion of the bar takers are actually taking the Bar/Bri review course.

There are other review courses out there, but Barbri is by far the most popular and most other courses also recommend that you take Barbri as well. I have to admit that the information so far leads me to believe that Barbri has done their research as to what is and is not likely to be on the exam. The bar exam passage rate for the February exam is less than 60%. It seems absurd that someone would not take the time to do a bar review course. Hopefully this will increase our chances on the scale. I certainly hope so. The course schedule has been the most helpful thing so far. Until I got the schedule I was kind of lost as to what I needed to be studying and how much emphasis I needed to put on each subject. Barbri kind of takes that out of your hands so that you don’t have to worry about deciding on it. The trade off is that the volume of work is much greater than you probably would have done on your own. However, that is probably a good thing.

I have to take breaks every once in a while because the volume of information is crushing to re-learn or in some cases to learn anew. So I am taking this time to write a short blog. This is something that I have neglected to the point that I am sure that I have lost a great deal of readers. But I feel sure that I will make more entries over the next few weeks.

Day after the election

2008-11-05T14:52:00.001-05:00

The day after the elections, the conservatives realize that they took a whipping that will not likely fade from memory soon. Across America, the day after elections, the loosing party pulls back, licks their wounds, and tries to figure out why they lost, and what to do now. I had done the math. I knew the race was lost for McCain when he didn’t pull off Ohio or Pennsylvania. There were no surprises here.

The economy was in shambles thanks to oil price fluctuations that fueled a hike on all prices and the rest of the economy was left to figure out what to do. Eventually it has begun to subside, but the recent memory of hardship struck a blow to the current conservative leadership in which American simply told the government that they were not happy with what was happening.

It is really not surprising that Barack Obama won the presidential election. Historically we see a shift when one party has a president in office for two terms. We kind of like swapping them out every once in a while. Plus, with a black person being the first major party candidate going into an election, you could kind of figure that it was going to be that way.
I wonder what happens now to the race baiters that have made their living for so long telling minorities that there is no hope. I kind of hope they are out of a job. That would be a true victory for America.
Conservatism didn’t suffer a wholesale defeat. All of the elections were relatively close and gay marriage bans won across the board, even in California.

We will have a chance to see what the democrats will do with their power. I am thankful that there was no super majority in congress. Frankly I disagree with some of the shenanigans that I see democrats trying to pull. Same goes for the republicans sometimes. Quite frankly, I don’t trust any of them. But at least they wont have a wholesale ability to shove unwanted legislation down America’s throat. I think the legislative branch is at its best when it is divided. That way real important legislation makes it through and the crap does not. Most of it anyway.

Obama scares me somehow. I just don’t know how to explain it. But sometimes you just have to trust your gut instinct. I don’t like his muslim ties. I worry about his pro-Palestine stance. I worry about his anti- Israeli stance. I don’t like his liberal agenda. I don’t care for his slick presentations. I am bothered by his foreign relatives living in huts while he becomes the most powerful man in the world. I am bothered by his aunt (who attended his swearing in ceremony into the legislature) who now lives in a big city slum. I am bothered by his wife who his campaign kept well hid because she was making too many verbal gaffs. Too many things worry me about this man and his plans for “change”. I have friends who swear up and down that Obama fits the profile for the antichrist. I don’t know if that is true. But if there is a rapture, I wont be writing this blog anymore. I will watching this all play out from somewhere else.

Did I want McCain to win? Yea, sure. But he wasn’t my first choice. When McCain ran the first time, he was not what you would call a conservative republican dream candidate. 4 years later the republican thought he was just conservative enough to pull it off. Even if McCain had won, the true conservatives wouldn’t have been happy, but they would find it tolerable. As for the other republicans that ran, Mit Romney was just as scary to me as Obama so I hope he doesn’t run again in 4 years.

I am so glad that the election is over. I am sick of the public ass kissing that Obama received from the bulk of the media. I feel that America was swayed by the political leanings of their news commentators. Things will soon change for Obama. The media loves to throw rocks at those in power. The honeymoon wont last long. Obama got away with some fairly flimsy excuses and exaggerated promises during the election. Soon the media will have to start doing its job in order to keep readers and viewers interested. Some tough questions will be asked of Obama soon. And soon those who saw Obama as the answer to their housing, economy, and financial woes will be disillusioned with the empty promises and realize that there is no simple answer, and the president’s agenda has little to do with their prosperity.

Oil has already started to spiral down. The economy will inevitably recover. Obama will get some credit for this. But eventually he too will be faced with some tough times for which he, like all presidents, will take the blame. Sure, it was time for some change in our political offices. I just wonder if America has made the right one. I am not happy with the results of this election. But I seldom am. I will survive whatever stupid decisions are made in Washington. I just hope that my country does not suffer for the one that they made.

Electoral College Tie

2008-11-04T12:35:00.002-05:00

So there is this election thing going on today…

And it is a tight race.
All arguments about shady practices by either side aside, what happens if it is an extremely close race.
“How close?” you ask.
Well, there are 538 electoral college votes. Although they say that it is not statistically likely to happen (Last look said the likelihood was about 3.2%). There is a chance of the votes being split in the electoral college at 269 to 269.
What happens then?
When we were little and we would have a tie in game it was called "sister kisser". "It is like kissing your sister. It dont count."
Everybody hates a tie. There is no winner. We, as Americans love a winner, and dispise loosing.

So what does happen if there is a tie in the electoral college?

The 12th amendment provides for the procedure.
In the event of a tie, the House of Representatives would vote for a president and the Senate would pick the vice president when Congress reconvenes in January.

What about this scenario:
The newly elected House, seated in January, is unable to muster a majority to choose a president after a 269-269 tie, but the Senate, which is expected to be controlled by Democrats, picks Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. from the Democratic ticket. If the House is still deadlocked at noon on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Mr. Biden becomes acting president.

OR:
Neither the House nor the Senate fulfills its constitutional duty to select the president and the vice president by Jan. 20, so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, becomes acting president until the whole mess is sorted out.

OR:
What if an electoral college elector casts a faithless vote (votes for the other guy)?
24 States have laws to punish faithless electors. That means that 26 states do not. This is unlikely because the electors are usually closely related to their party. Unlikely and not probable, but possible.

Things to think about…

Barbri

2008-10-29T10:21:00.000-05:00

We have began studying for the bar exam in February.
There is a saying among law students in regards to the bar exam. It goes something like this: “Do it once. Do it right. Never do it again.”
I’ve heard more bar prep horror stories than I care to recall. Much worse than anything in law school. And I have more than one friend who has taken the bar more than once. I don’t want to take chances with bar prep. So we are taking Barbri’s bar prep courses. Everything that is on the bar you don’t learn in law school. You have to pick up the extra material in a bar prep course before taking the bar. Barbri currently has the lock on being the most comprehensive Bar prep course on the market. Most people swear that Barbri is essential.

Barbri begins in January. Barbri fees are due by December first in order to avoid a $75 dollar late fee. Our combined bar prep fee is around $5000 just to take Barbri. We opted out of taking PMBR just because of the cost even though we both have about $100 already paid into PMBR.
Bar prep is a big cost, and with my lack of a job, Crystal’s job almost pays for our current bills. Six grand for Barbri means that we have to get a bar prep loan. Great. Just great. But with me already owing six figures, what is the difference of a few thousand more. Our law schools loans are currently in a hold position (in deference or hold or whatever they call it nowdays) until a little while after the bar. At that time we will need to look into consolidation loans and repayment. It is not that far off. But we really cant afford to worry about that right now.

We have inherited a good bit of bar prep material from friends and are currently using that along with our law school materials and some early bird Barbri courses taken earlier this year to start prepping early. We will need it. The amount of material is amazing. It is a task unlike any I have ever approached. Some of it I will be learning anew. Some of it I will be relearning. They say it is approachable if you break it down into sections and have a study plan. Ok, that’s a good idea. Only one problem, I have no idea where to start. I have no idea of how to allocate time and on what subjects I need to concentrate the most. I will have to do a little research and figure it all out. In the mean time, I am still looking for a job, worrying about bills, starting to study, wondering where I need to concentrate, and wondering where I will be when bar results come out at the end of next May.
And in the mean time, I will continue to write on this blog. Hopefully it will keep me focused and you mildly entertained.

To kill a mockingbird - or just make him move away

2008-10-28T14:10:00.003-05:00

Recently I picked back up Harper Lee’s “To kill a Mockingbird”. The book is the quintessential southern gothic and I highly recomend it if you have not read it.
In the book Harper Lee said that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird because mockingbirds never harm other living creatures. I understand the juxtaposition of the death of the mockingbird and the death of innocence in the book and all that. But I disagree with the point that a mockingbird won’t harm anything. Mockingbirds are like little heathen gang members.

Jerry, the only mockingbird that I ever knew personally, lived in a tree not far from my front door. He was a terrible and aggressive creature. Maybe it had eggs or little ones in the nest in the tree. But every time I would walk outside the front door, it would screech and dive bomb me until I was out of site. Our poor cat lived in fear of the front door.
Jerry would swoop down and flog the cat, pin him down low and then come in for another flogging swoop. The cat ran for cover in a drain pipe and the mockingbird guarded it until the poor cat had to make his way down the pipe a half block away. The cat eventually made it out the other end and snuck back to the side door where he was let in. From that day on, he would sit in the front window an gnash his teeth at the bird through the glass but lived in immortal fear of going out the front door. I named the bird “Jerry” because he was constantly harassing the little tomcat.

Mockingbirds can imitate just like a parrot. I would go outside and take the cordless phone with me. I would lay the phone down as I worked in the yard. If it rang I didn’t have to run back inside to answer it. All I had to do was pick it up and press “talk”. Eventually, Jerry learned to imitate the sound of the phone. He was actually quite adept at it. He sounded exactly like my telephone. This was funny at first. But a little known fact is that mockingbirds are prolific singers and will make noise all day and sometimes all night. Thus the phone rang whether it was ringing or not at all hours. I eventually had to buy a phone with a different ringer to be able to tell the difference.

Jerry was like a little Frank Sinatra. He sang all the time. Especially on the weekends when your head is under the covers hiding from the early morning sunlight. Jerry also loved to sit on the power line running to my house. The power line cut across the drive way. So Jerry used it as his own private little lavatory. The thing more annoying that being dive bombed was the bombs that he left on my car.

Jerry had to go.
I toyed with the idea of a BB gun but was afraid that if I missed the neighbors would have a cracked window. He seemed to disappear whenever I brought out the BB gun anyway. So I bought a plastic owl and hung him in the tree next to Jerry. I enjoyed watching Jerry dive bomb the owl and make his yellow eyes jiggle. Eventually Jerry got accustomed to the plastic owl and one morning I noticed that Jerry had switched his lavatory to the limb just above the plastic owl. Either it got too cold and Jerry move south or he decided that his bird poop covered plastic barn owl neighbor had driven down his property value to the point that he needed to move. Either way, good riddance Mr. Mockingbird. Harper Lee was full of crap.

Trick or Treat - You choose

2008-10-23T13:52:00.002-04:00

I cant stand trick or treaters.
I know, I know. It is a kids holiday. I am supposed to love giving away free candy to kids dressed as fairies and spidermans.
But I don’t.

Years ago I lived in a nice neighborhood that was known to have lots of treaters and we got hit pretty heavy. People would come from miles around so they could put their kids out at one end of the street and pick them up on the other with their bags full of goodies.
Some time in the evening I had to run to the store, so I put a bowl out with candy and a sign that said “take one”. I was gone 5 minutes. The bowl was empty. I had been robbed!

Every year it is the same. A few kids I know show up in the cute outfit so that the parents can show them off and then a bunch of kids I don’t know show up with an open bag begging for candy. Some of them don’t even have costumes. I wish I had a rotten apple to give those no costume kids. I remember Charlie Brown getting a rock in his sack. That is funny. But I know the little hoodlums would just throw it at my house.

Don’t get me wrong. I was a little fat kid who knew how to work Halloween for all it was worth. We hit every house within distance and hit the relatives twice. I had two bags. One bag stayed in the car and one bag went with you to the house. Once I got goodies I emptied them into the one in the car and then went to the next set of houses with only a piece or two in the bag. When they answer the door you give big happy “Trick or Treat!” or if you knew them very well the proverbial “Trick or Treat – Smell my feet – Give me something good to eat!” The people answering the door would load you down because they felt sorry for you after seeing all the other kids with full bags. I guess they thought we had got a late start. But you got more candy with an empty bag. I shared the secret with my siblings the next year and bada bing bada bang bada boom – it was a dandy candy explosion.

That year I had a Halloween haul so big that I still had candy hid under the bed at Easter (another free candy for kids holiday). I donated it all to my sister. She ate candy till she was sick. But she was smart and kept quiet about why she was sick. The next day she did it again. My parents took her to the doctor. They thought it might be a bad Easter egg. But she didn’t squeal on me. We were tight like that. We also learned a valuable lesson about moderation and something called an “expiration date”.

Having worked the system with such gusto for so long, I guess I got old and cynical early. But my plan this year is to put an EMPTY bowl out on the porch with a sign in it that says “TAKE ONE”.

Trick or Treat?
This year I choose "Trick".

Worst job interview ever

2008-10-17T17:06:00.001-04:00

I am looking for a job.
I moved to Georgia shortly before I graduated in August. Because I missed the July bar by about 3 weeks, I have to wait on the February bar next year.
Ok, so I am not a lawyer yet and am looking for work in a law office. A couple of things were really promising, but fell through at the last minutes. I have resorted to going door to door to door at law offices submitting my resume. Which I believe is usually put into the circular file beside the receptionist / gatekeeper’s desk (trashcan) because she doesn’t want anyone invading her precious space.
Ok, so at this point I just need a freaking job. NOW!!!

I got a reply from some unknown job that I had sent a resume in for at some point. This just goes to show you that the internet is not always your friend.

It was someone wanting to move from what she said was a very successful internet based business that she operated out of her home, to an actual business location and start selling products in a store. She told me all about it over the phone and it sounded very promising. Essentially she was looking for someone to get the business up and running while she handled the online portion and also looked into opening a second location right away. It all sounded very legitimate and the woman talked a good game.
So I went to meet her after hours so that we could discuss the job in person. I took Crystal, my wife, with me.
We met her at a store near her home and immediately things looked suspicious. She was not what you would call professional looking. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt because she had stated that was one of her problems and wanted a person with a professional demeanor to set up her operation. She pointed to some nearby store fronts that were currently in use and said that the owners were willing to remodel it for her and it would be ready in two weeks. (Gee, that is funny because there are already stores there. I don’t see them packing up boxes to move.) She said that she had a few other possible locations that she was looking at.
Anyway, we follow her to her home to take a look at what her plan is for the job. We get to her home and the second alarm bell goes off. It is not a nice place. But it has a garage and I figure that is probably where she does all of her shipping.
Wrong.
We follow her into a smoke filled house with children everywhere and I am alarmed. I look for a way out but it is too late. She dismisses it and says that this is the reason that she needs a more professional location from which to do business. At this point there is no turning back. We follow her to a room she calls her office and she unlocks the door. It is little more than a bedroom with a computer desk. And it isn’t nice.
At this point I am looking for a way out but I want to be nice about it. This lady is crazy and I don’t want to alarm her. Crystal is giving me wide eyed scared looks and I talk to the lady for a few minutes as she makes wild promises that she could not possible even dream of fulfilling. I told her it was something I would have to think about and made up an excuse to leave.
The woman was obviously crazy.
I tried not to spin the tires as we pulled away. Crystal is immediately on the phone to her mother telling her about the danger I had just put her baby daughter in. Crystal swears up and down that it was a meth lab house. I think the lady was just crazy. Either way, it was scary.

Heed these words if you are in law school.
Go to your career office and make them find you a job!!!!!!
Stay on them. They are there to find you a job. Make them work. Apply for everything. Until you pass the bar you are “persona non grata” everywhere. You will be over qualified because you will have a JD. You don’t qualify for most paralegal / legal assistant jobs because they want someone with paralegal / legal assistant experience and someone that will have longevity if they are hired. You cant practice as a lawyer until you have the bar results back. You will be in Nowhereville until then.
The economy is in the dumpster. No one is hiring. Even the staffing agencies don’t have positions. And if they do, you don’t qualify.
If you have a lawyer in the family, start pestering them now. Have a job waiting. If you don’t have that and you are moving out of state after graduation and if you have a while until you take the bar, welcome to my world.

It is hard not to become cynical when you hand over your resume to the squinty eyed receptionists who view you as an interloper onto their precious soil. They have established a very secure and powerful little nest. She will defend it with all her might. She will not easily open the doors that you need opened, and quite likely, she will be as helpful as an angry cobra loose in your house. Beware of the guardians of the gate. I know of at least one lawyer whom I know did not receive my resume after I gave it to the receptionist / gatekeeper.

Smitfraud Fix

2008-10-03T12:37:00.001-04:00

I got another virus today. This one was called “Total Secure 2009” and it was nasty.
The latest round of viruses, malware, spyware, adware, or pain the the rear ware, are known as smitfraud. I don’t know why.
I have some high end antivirus software from NOD 32 that got 77 files cleaned when I ran a scan but it still didn’t get rid of this nasty bugger.
Anyway, the way they work is that they pop up continuously saying that you need to use their new and trusty tool. You have to pay for the tool which is named something that appears to look like a legitimate anti virus program. The tool probably does no good or only clears you of the current program they invented for a year or so. Either way, hooligans will now have your credit card info.
No dice!
If you get one of these just look up “Smitfraud Fix” and download the free tool from one of the sites that have the link. Open your computer in safe mode and run the program. It will get it fixed in about 10 minutes.
I got mine here.
http://www.pchubs.com/blogs/totalsecure2009-removal-process-remove-total-secure-2009
Scroll down the page until you see the heading that reads “Automatically Remove TotalSecure 2009”
This is great considering that a similar piece of crap virus cost me all the info on our home computer only a month ago.

Brian Nichols Trial

2008-10-03T12:23:00.000-04:00

Brian Nichols; Public Defenders; Death Penalty; Funding death penalty cases

Brian Nichols killed 4 people when he escaped from the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, GA. The trial is an everyday headline in Georgia and occasionally in the national papers as well. The case has also caught the attention of every public defenders office across the nation.
The case has cost the public defenders office approximately 1.8 million dollars before it ever went to trial.
On March 11, 2005, Brian Nichols was on trial for rape when he allegedly overpowered a deputy, took her gun, and went into the Fulton County courtroom where his trial was being held. Nichols allegedly shot both the judge and a court reporter. Nichols is also charged with killing a sheriff's deputy outside the courthouse and a federal agent a few miles from the courthouse. Nichols's escape set into motion one of the largest manhunts in Georgia history; it ended after he allegedly took Ashley Smith hostage and she convinced him to turn himself in.

The factual accounts seem to be clear that Nichols killed several people and there are lots of witnesses. The day before the trial jail officials found homemade knives in each of his shoes, which indicates that the spree was premeditated. So why then is it costing so much to defend this man?
Nichols defense is that he is not guilty due to insanity. The money is going to pay for experts who will testify that he is indeed crazy. These will be negated by other experts on the DA’s side who will say that he is not crazy. Then the jury decides who had the best and most convincing experts.
In the end, Brian Nichols either gets the death penalty, is found not guilty (not likely), or is deemed so crazy that he is not fit to stand trial for his crimes and spends the rest of his life in some sort of jail / mental ward. And will cost Georgia taxpayers over 2 million dollars just to put on the trial.

There is no doubt that there is something wrong with someone who kills several people.
Arguments against war, self defense aside, to willingly take a human life is so against our peaceful culture that any one who does it has to be some what different than the rest of us. The very idea that it is ok to kill someone not trying to harm you is so far removed from what we view as correct, that doing so means that the killer has something inherently wrong with them. The point being that ANYONE who willingly murders another is crazy enough that we don’t want them around. Whether this is temporary or not, the general public does not want murderers running around willy nilly taking lives on a whim. There is one solution. Remove this person from the general public so that he can not do harm.
There are two ways to do that. You can imprison him somewhere so that he does not have contact with the public and can’t commit murder. Or you take away what he has taken from others. Namely, his life. If he is dead, he cant go around killing folks. This also solves the nasty retribution killing problem by putting the state in charge of the death penalty so that it is not performed by lynch mobs.
We could spend a long debating that very subject, and it has and continues to be debated.

On one extreme you have the “eye for an eye” folks who support the death penalty any time someone take a life. On the other extreme you have the “No death penalty at all” folks. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. The voters of the state of Georgia have decided that they like the idea of the death penalty. So there is no argument to be made here. The death penalty was on the table as a valid option. The state of Georgia has decided they want to pursue the that option. The heinousness, callousness, premeditated and very public way in which the murders were done demand that elected official call for the most extreme punishment that is allowed by law.

So why all the hubbub?
Because the defense of this obviously guilty man will cost the taxpayers well over 2 million dollars.
Why does that matter? Isn’t everyone entitled to defend themselves and aren’t we supposed to give him the best possible defense and consider him innocent until we prove he is found guilty by a jury?
Yes?
But the defense of Brian Nichols has sapped the funds of the already strapped Georgia Public Defenders office to the point that they can not now carry on the adequate representation of all of their other clients (some of those are capital murder cases as well).

There are some arguments and questions here:
1. The death penalty is bad and this is just another reason why we shouldn’t have it.
2. The death penalty is a vital part of our justice system but when a life is at stake there should be no question about money. The state should just shoulder the burden of the cost of the defense and move on.
3. Even if the state should have to shoulder the burden of the cost of the defense, is everyone entitled to an “OJ style” multi-million dollar defense?
4. Should the state legislature set a limit on how much a death penalty defense case can use?
5. How much would it be?
6. Would that be constitutional?
7. Why isn’t anyone considering how much it costs the state to prosecute the case?
8. Doesn’t the state have an equally high cost for professional expert witnesses?
9. If anyone who murders someone else is crazy for doing it, how crazy do you have to be in order to avoid prosecution?

I myself have always subscribed to the notion of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It seems just, cruel but just. No one wants to be punished. The human mind rationalizes in order to survive. We can’t see ourselves as bad people because that would undermine our self worth to a point where we could not function. I am sure that crazy or sane that Brian Nichols has rationalized that what he did at the time was perfectly ok, or at least that even if it was not ok that he should not be punished for it.

The people of Georgia have indicated that they want blood for blood, and I’m ok with that.

Labradoodle

2008-10-02T17:13:00.000-04:00

First there was “Desilu”, then “Benifer” and “Billary”, then “Tomkat”. The list goes on of famous couples.

A couple of weeks ago we got back (for the second time) a small poodle that we had given away. Give something away, if it comes back to you it is yours. Give it away again, and if it comes back to you, you are stuck with it.
Buddy is my wife Crystal’s dog from when she lived at home. He had been living at her parents house. She gave him away shortly before we got married. Something happened, we got him back, and then we gave him away again to a couple that worked on the farm. When they left, among other things, they also left Buddy. So we got him back and I guess he is here to stay. And that is fine. She loves hime and he loves her.
Only one little problem. We have a lab that is a little over a year old. A while back Crystal made the statement “I want a puppy.” I had always wanted a lab. So we got one. He is a mess. He has been at a professional trainer since May. He is now supposed to be able to pick up ducks that I shoot. As often as I get to go duck hunting, he may forget before he gets to do it again.
Anyway, Buddy got used to the house and us. Then Jake came home last night. He is MUCH bigger than he was when he left. He is like a big cow running around in the house. And Buddy doesn’t like it. Jake is big, bouncy, slobbery, chews up everything, but is totally harmless. Buddy is tiny, growly, and every since I took him to the barn and clipped him the other day, hairless. Buddy looks like a big naked ferret until his hair grows out.
They are learning to get along. Slowly!!
Buddy thinks of Jake as big nasty intruder. Jake thinks of Buddy as a stuffed toy.
It will eventually work itself out. Until then, stuff keeps falling mysteriously off shelves and Buddy growls at Jake continuously.
But like it or not, the Labrador retriever and toy poodle are going to have to learn how to get along. Like it or not, they are a couple.
Thus, in the current spirit of giving celebrity couples a name all their own. I have deemed these two “Labradoodle”.

I Declare Shenanigan!!!

2008-09-26T16:16:00.000-04:00

Beware of Career Network Scam!

Looking endlessly for a law office job I send out a lot of resumes and search every available job board every day.
But now I think I have found a scam. And I Declare Shenanigan!

The company is Career Network (AKA: Career Network, Inc.; AKA: CNI)
The company has several different web sites that are all essentially the same. They use different names at the top of the pages, but the data entry portion is the same and if you look closely in the about us and links there will be a mention of “CN”.
Some of the web site names used by CN are:
Employment Link
Great career paths
Thistle Careers
Iron Careers
Perfect Choice Careers
The Career Wizard
You look for Careers
Pop up Careers
Career Zoom
Power it Careers
There are probably many others as well.

A November 1, 2001 release from the FTC stated that “Career Network, Inc. (CNI), based in Crown Point, Indiana, and its principals, Walter Turulis and Kathleen Key, are permanently banned from promoting or selling any employment good or service.”
You can read more about this here:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/11/careernetwork.shtm
The case against CNI was filed in January 2001 as part of Project "Stamp Out Job Fraud," a joint effort between the FTC and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to stop the fraudulent sale of employment services.
But it appears that CNI is back in business. I have seen their direct advertisements on all the leading job boards but they are mainly backdoor attempts through job listings on sites like Craigslist.

Here is what I have put together so far.
A job ad is posted to which a person looking for a job responds. That person gets an email back asking them to fill out one of the above mentioned web site’s information page. During the application the applicant gives all his info and then has to choose not to receive text messages from CN.
(Weird huh? – This was a big tip off – You cant go forward in the process without giving out your cell phone number and who you have service with).
To close the application the job seeker must go through a series of pages in which they are asked if they want info on everything from online education to credit repair services. The job seeker must DE-select each “scam me, spam me, call me, and generally annoy me” boxes in order to not get the contacts. At the end of this process the job seeker is told he will be re-contacted within 24 hours. True to their word, the job seeker is contacted again and told that he or she is being considered for the position but that additional info is needed. A link is provided for the job seeker to give out his references information.

The unwitting job seeker has given out 3 to 5 people’s recent and correct name, address, phone number, and email address. All of these get confirmed as correct if the reference replies to the request for info on the job seeker from CN. Of course they are going to do this because it is the job seekers reference and the questions asked by CN are legitimate looking enough.
What does CN get?
Including the job seeker, CN now has 4 to 6 peoples correct and confirmed info to sell to direct mail and marketing. If the job seeker does not click off the correct places he gets hit with spam and calls and direct mail advertising.
And CN gets to market the job seekers info to companies as potential MLM (multi level marketing AKA: work at home and make millions) scam contacts.
Find out more about MLMs here:
http://www.quatloos.com/mlm/mlm.htm

What does the job seeker get?
Zip, Zilcho, Nada!
No one I have spoken with has obtained employment through the CN network of sites nor have I received any additional contact from the company after de-selecting all the “scam-me” boxes each time I entered info. I recently added my numbers to the Federal Govt.’s do not call registry. This may have helped me to not get blitzed by telemarketers. One blog I read from a job seeker stated that he had selected one of the contact me options and was immediately blitzed day and night by online education scams.
That link is here:
http://www.debthelp.tv/personaldebt/labels/advertisement.htm

I have seen several advertisements by CN for court clerk positions. It would seem to me that these are government jobs and directly contravene CN’s negotiated deal with the FTC.

A job and some paint

2008-09-16T23:05:00.004-04:00

Job search:
I have not yet taken the bar and the bar exam is months away. Much less the fact that the results are not available for a couple of months after that and assuming you passed, you cant hang out a shingle to try to start making your own money as a lawyer until then. Nobody likes lawyers and nobody hires lawyers that are not lawyers yet.
There was one public defender job position that looked really great. But when I talked to the PD office today they said there was a “oodles” of resumes that came in for the job. My guess is that somewhere in those oodles there is an already licensed lawyer or two who just might knock me out of getting the job.
Then again there is the temporary (till Feb next year) judges secretary position that is open and I have high hopes for. It is a longshot, but still, it is a longshot with great pay.

Non-legal job search:
The guys from
http://barelylegalblog.blogspot.com/ had it absolutely correct when they discussed non-legal jobs straight out of law school. You would think that a doctorate level degree would open some doors. Nope! The harsh truth is this:
Don't fool yourself, you are absolutely an entry-level candidate
No, a J.D. does not mean it is easy to find a J.O.B. I'm not even qualified to be a substitute teacher because I missed the mandatory substitute teacher "training course".

I have redoubled my efforts. Ok, so I am it is more than that. I spend most of the day scouring the internet and sending out resumes. The only real prospect is one guy who wants me to sell insurance in downtown Atlanta. Oh, did I neglect to mention the fantastic commission structure that pays zilch. I have never even heard of the insurance company.

Why would I spend every waking moment doing this? Well, we have bills to pay and I need a job, but there was another tiny matter. There was a little fire. Ok, it wasn’t so little. I pretty much scorched half the kitchen and ruined the stove and microwave. Every one thinks I am an idiot for nearly burning down the house. It is not like this is a regular occurrence. I have been cooking since I was 11 years old and there has never been a similar incident. Well, there was one incident involving some fried hot dogs when I was 12. But that did not compare to this.

I was making dinner and my brother in law called. I walked out of the room to look something up for him and when I was done I thought I smelled something cooking. Well, I though I must have turned to stove on by accident. I walked around the corner expecting to see a hot stove eye and that be about it. Nope. That wasn’t it at all. I had left cooking oil in a pan on the eye. When I walked around the corner, the entire wall of the kitchen was in black smoke and flames were already reaching the ceiling. I tried not to panic and reached for the fire extinguisher. THERE WASN’T ONE! So maybe then I started to panic a little.

To make a long and painful story short: We had just finished putting out the fire and I was almost done barfing up the smoke I had inhaled when the fire trucks got there.
The microwave was melted and part of the stove is too. The cabinets are scorched and we have smoke damage. But other than that damage and the clean up, the house is ok. I’ll have to prime and repaint the kitchen, ceiling and walls.

I don’t really know how to sum it all up right now except to say this:
???

Ok, so I really don’t know how to say something to put it all in a neat little box for you. I don’t have anything positive to leave you with. I don’t have any nuggets of personal vindication. I don’t have any sunny outlooks.
I just need a job…. and some paint.

Back home / Horse show / Diplomas

2008-08-27T16:00:00.001-04:00

We just got back from the World Championship Horse show in Kentucky. The horse show is during the KY state fair which makes for some interesting problems but plenty to look at and do. We came home with one reserve championship (that is what people in the horse show world call second place – if you had any horse sense you would have know that – LOL I crack myself up sometimes – horse – sense – get it? – ok – not that funny)
Anyway, out of all that we showed we wound up with the one ribbon which is good because it is the world championship but bad because we expected to do better. We were gone for over a week. It is good to be at home again. It was fun, but I was tired of living out of a suitcase in a hotel. Try eating at a state fair everyday for a week and you will learn to appreciate a good old peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I am currently looking for a job in the legal community. Which is harder than it sounds for a law graduate who has not yet taken the bar exam. Most job search engines like yahoo or monster are of little help unless you have already passed the bar or live in a downtown metropolitan area. I am preparing to send out resumes by the pound and to emails by the dozens.

The school sent an email saying that our diplomas were ready. I drove down yesterday to pick them up. They are huge. We took them to get framed immediately. I chose a frame the size of a bed sheet with lots of matting. Crystal and her mom kind of frowned on it because it would have taken a whole steel reinforced wall to hold it up. I wound up with a more sensible size frame, it was only the size of pillow and will only require part of a regular wall to hold it up.
We got to pick up our diplomas early because the next graduation is not until the spring and after the bar exam results are back. I guess they wanted us to be able to hang something up on our office wall before then so that clients will actually believe that we went to law school.

Reciprocity

2008-08-05T16:35:00.001-04:00

I learned about a nifty little thing called reciprocity yesterday. No, not the kind of reciprocity from one state bar to another, but the reciprocal relationship between two law school career services departments. It is not something that they like to talk about. But the information is readily available if you know that it is there.
Here is how it works:
You apply for reciprocity with another law school to get access to their job postings for grads. You do this if you are trying to get a job in a different area than where your law school is located. In return your law school gives access to one law student from the other school to your law school’s job bank. The access usually last for a few weeks at most.
There are two catches though.
1. Reciprocity is not available from August through December at most schools. This is because the schools are holding their on campus interviews during this time. The bad part is that this is when I am looking for a job. Oh well. I might go ahead and ask for reciprocity with a larger school here in Georgia if I still don’t have a job that I want in December.
2. The other catch is that the job postings are usually only available by going to the school. You don’t get to access them conveniently over the internet.

It is something to put on the back burner for now for me. But if you read this and know that you will be looking for a job away from your law school starting in the spring, you might can use the info to your benefit.

Working on the blog

2008-08-04T16:08:00.000-04:00

I have not messed with the settings of the blog for a while and not even looked at my links. I had signed up for “blogroll” but didn’t much like it. I had originally signed up for it because I thought that it would improve web hits. Whatever.
Anyway, I had a terrible time deleting one of my links. It was a blog that at one time was pretty good, but apparently the site got too many hits and the guy sold out his blog to be a porn and link site or something. He had to go. Abracadabra – Alakazam – Alaka-delted.

I decided to take a look at my other links and the guys at those links were not really posting anything worth reading. I had linked the barely legal blog but once again it has stopped being interesting and funny. It turned into nothing more than the guy complaining about how hard it is to find a job with a law degree if you don’t want to practice law. At one time, barely legal was the premier law school blog and was sued by some big porn company that had the same name. At its prime the blog got more hits in one day than most blogs get in a year. They were getting a lot of attention. Not just from the “blogosphere” but from legitimate news sites as well. He could have done something really cool with that or went on writing. Instead it turned into a whine festival. I mean seriously dude, go back to school or something. The rest of us have law school loans to pay for. I can’t afford not to work in the legal field.
So, he got the deleto annoying mosquito treatment as well.
After that I just decided to delete them all and start over.

"FREE AT LAST. FREE AT LAST. GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY, WE ARE FREE AT LAST." - My First Week Out of Law School

2008-08-04T15:12:00.003-04:00

So with the first week of no law school it seems amazingly similar to many of the weeks of law school. We are studying for the MPRE, the pre-bar exam ethics exam. The MPRE is this Friday. The test is multiple choice, 60 questions long, only 50 of which count, no one knows which 50 count, takes a little over 2 hours to take, and involves about 4 ½ hours of driving time to get there and back on Friday.

What else is going on:
We have about 2 weeks to get ready for the world Championship horse show in Louisville, KY. There is a lot of prep work that needs to be done before then. We need to be spending our evenings at the barn getting horses ready, but also need to spend plenty of time this week studying for the MPRE. So even though we are not in law school anymore, it is still haunting us. I spent most of the morning at the barn watching the farrier (the horse shoe guy) doing his job and running to the feed store for shavings to put down in the stalls. After seeing how much a barn operation takes to run, I think that most farmers would be well advised to get another job to pay for their farming hobby. The expenses are daily, and the profits are few and far between. This afternoon, I am on the internet looking for legal jobs and getting ready to start beating down doors putting out resumes. At this point it looks like I will have to take some sort of law clerky type position if I can find it or maybe just law office help for the time being. Bills don’t stop arriving just because you don’t have a job or a student loan.

Because the law school will not have another graduation until next May, we will be able to pick up our diplomas in a few weeks. The Diplomas, if they look like the ones they have used in the past, are about the size of a bed sheet and will cost an arm and a leg to frame. As much as I paid them, I hope the diploma is gold plated. Either way, that means that we have to make another 4 ½ hour trip to pick them up some time in the near future. I don’t really trust them to mail it. I am looking forward to staring at it for a while.

Final law school class

2008-07-29T12:45:00.001-04:00

My last law school class ever was Thursday evening. The professor announced the students for whom this would be their last class and we got a round of applause from our fellow students. Then the class was over and we walked out. The end of law school seems almost anticlimactic. I thought it would feel like a huge weight would be lifted off my shoulders. It does not. I thought there would be a huge party where we all took a chance to breath and smile. No, we just packed up our books and went home. My last semester was a summer semester in which I had only an advanced legal research class and an externship. So, I didn’t have any tests this semester. It wasn’t the typical semester that I have been used to in law school. But now it is over. I have often thought about being done and even fantasized about it. But the reality of being done with school is so far away from a student (even in the last semester) that it doesn’t seem to be a reality worth considering until you are able to raise your head from the last test.

If you are reading this as a law student 1, 2, or 3L, or even a law student wanabe, I wish that I could tell you that it was a dramatic finale where I suddenly felt lifted to new heights. Actually, it was kind of a let down. Law school has been a place unlike any other. I don’t know of any other place where there are sustained levels of self induced stress that last as long as the ones at law school. Marine Corps boot camp was stressful, but at least there the stress came in spurts. Here at school the stress levels are high, last for unreasonably long times, and is the product of your own willingness to commit. And often, even when you give it everything that you have, you will feel that it wasn’t enough. Law school consumes your life. It allows for no other outside interferences or you will fail. Unlike older, more established institutions, Jones is newly accredited and because of being under the watchful eyes of the ABA, Jones adheres to strict grading and attendance policies. In core courses 5 to 15% of the class must receive a “D” or “F.” Unlike other schools, we regularly fail out 2 and 3Ls. I didn’t miss a single day until the end of my first year when I was sick.

Anyway, law school is over for me now. I am not depressed but have to admit that I am a little lost in what will lay ahead. I am currently looking for a job, but have few prospects.
My wife found a job quickly because she had been with the public defender’s office prior to going to school and was able to get a job there that will allow her to ease into a roll as a defender. Georgia allows 3rd year law students and graduates to practice under licensed attorneys in rolls such as DA or public defender. They have already given her a case. I am very proud of her.

I will return to the school for the MPRE and then not again until graduation. My school has fit to only hold one graduation a year. This is at the end of next May. By the time graduation rolls around I will hopefully be a licensed practicing attorney. It is 6 months until the next bar exam. Job prospects are not exactly jumping out at me right now. Not legal ones anyway.
The law school’s career placement office seems to be a joke to me. This is especially true if you want to practice outside the immediate area around the school, much less out of state. A bit of advice to the future law graduate is this: Don’t rely on the school to find you a job. Hit the streets early and often. Unless you have a family connection or are the very top of your class, paying legal jobs are hard to come by for a new law grad. There are a lot of us and very few positions. This is especially true if you have not yet taken the bar. The career office is a last resort if it is anything like ours, and I suspect that it is. Either way, don’t expect much from them but promises.

I don’t want to end this post on a negative note though. I am ecstatic to be done with law school. It seemed so far away up until the very end and even now seems to hold some anticipation for some reason, like I expect them to call and say, “Oh, by the way, we mis-calculated last semester’s exams. You failed.” Or there is some unpaid fee somewhere that they will find and not allow me to get my diploma. Speaking of diplomas: I have no idea if I will have to wait almost a year to get mine or if they will allow me to have it before graduation. Who knows. But for now I will keep looking for a job and try to keep you updated on what it feels like to be finally completed with law school.

A day at the public defender's office

2008-06-11T22:50:00.002-04:00

This week I sent a man to prison.
This man was my own client.
My client was a young man who stole some things from the place that he worked. Unfortunately for him this place was a well know store. The store has excellent quality video surveillance footage of the client and another man stealing almost $900 worth of items. This means that it is a felony. The fact that it was a felony and the fact that there was such excellent footage of him stealing the items meant that it was in the client’s best interest to negotiate a plea deal because if he went to trial the DA would ask for a much stiffer sentence and the judge would likely agree.
I understand that a defendant should not be punished because he exercised his right to a jury trial. But unfortunately this is not usually the case. The DA’s office will offer pleas to most (if not all) defendants to save the court the time and expense of holding a trial of someone who admits that they did the crime. The DA’s office will offer a lowered sentence for the person in exchange for admitting the wrongdoing and saving the taxpayers the time and expense of trial. If the defendant does not accept the plea, the lowered punishment is off the table and the DA’s office will ask for a much higher punishment. In essence, this punishes the defendant for seeking a jury trial if he is found guilty. But this is the norm across the country and I can certainly see the argument for this being the preferred way to handle plea deals.
The DA offered to give my client 6 years with 2 years to serve. I negotiated back and forth for most of the day between my client and the DA’s office. Eventually we reached an agreement for 5 years with 1 year to serve, restitution of the value of the stolen items, and my client has to stay out of the store. Banishment from this particular store is not a punishment that most judges in a small town take lightly. The judge asked the prosecutor where she expected the defendant to shop and she replied “Target”. The judge turned to the defendant and said “I certainly hope for your sake that we have a Target in this town by the time you get out of jail.”
At 4:25 in the afternoon I stood with the client as he plead guilty and the judge sentenced him to “5 to do 1”. Then I watched the client walk away with the sheriff on his way to prison.

First Appearance

2008-06-05T16:05:00.002-04:00

I stood with my first client in court today.
It was a probable cause hearing. I was nervous and not quite sure what I should ask. I just tried hard to look competent and hope that I achieved at least that much. The judge called my clients name and the sheriff went to retrieve him. At that time, for the first time in my life, I moved from the gallery, through the bar, and into the hot seat. The sheriff ushered in a young man of no more than 17. He shuffled in and sat down next to me in his jail issued stripes, flip flops and cuffs. We had chose to waive the formal reading of the warrant. The judge swore in the police officer and the DA began asking questions. Then she deferred to me. I asked the arresting officer questions and then indicated to the judge that we had no further questions. The judge asked for anything else. The DA said “No.” and I asked for a reasonable bond. The judge found probable cause existed and denied bond. It was by no means a significant event for any one in that court room but me and my client. Being in leg and wrist cuffs, he was far less concerned with how he looked. I know that he wasn’t that concerned with getting a bond set either. His mother and father were in jail also. There wasn’t anyone to bond him out of jail even if they could have afforded to do so. The sheriff took my client away and I walked back across the barrier that had once separated me from the court.

summer classes / internship

2008-06-05T16:03:00.002-04:00

My last 2 classes are an internship and an advanced legal research class. The internship class does have a classroom participation component (sort of) that is fulfilled by answering questions and keeping a journal online. I will post some of those journal entries here because it fits both needs. The other (advanced legal research) class is one that I wish that I could have taken prior to writing my rigorous writing assignment. But oh well...

My goals for the internship are mainly to complete the required number of hours in order to get course credit and to observe as much trial tactics and skills as possible. As a secondary goal (which grows into more of a leading goal as the days pass) I need to network and market myself into a job. I want to pick up as much information as possible about the effective practice of law while I am working at the public defender office however. I want to learn how the criminal moves through the system from his arrest until his ultimate freedom if he is eventually released entirely from the “system”. I hope to see how criminal defendants think in regards to their lawyer, and how much of the information that they tell is actually truthful and forthcoming. I want the opportunity, however small it is, to stand before the court as the representative of another person who needs that representation. I want to stand beside him with the compassion that “this is my client and I owe a duty to him to speak for him in his best interest” while detaching myself enough to actually do what is in his best interest. Most of all, I would like the opportunity to taste the success of whatever victory I can achieve for my client, however fleeting that victory may be.

Mexican Bike race

2008-06-03T08:42:00.006-04:00

When I came into work this morning one of the lawyers showed me this.
Over the weekend a bike race in Mexico was interupted by a drunk driver (killing one and injuring 10). What a time to have your camera!

Catch up

2008-05-30T16:16:00.000-04:00

Alright,
So there has been a long time with little writing because of the extremely busy semester that I had. It was my last full term semester. I had 5 classes, 2 of which were practical skills classes, plus I was writing a rigorous paper (which the law school equivalent of a doctorial thesis). What little time I did have was usually spent traveling back and forth between Georgia and Montgomery.
But now here we are.
Lets catch you up.

1. We got married March 15th and then ran away to the Bahamas over spring break for a honeymoon. We stayed on one of the out islands (Abaco) and had a great time.

2. The semester sucked but it is now over.

3. During the semester I conducted a mock trial during my trial advocacy class against three other students. It went fairly well. I stayed on my feet despite some heavy hits and one low blow. (Their witness lied and kept out a key piece of evidence.)

4. I learned a hard lesson that you can either learn from me now or learn the hard way later. Here it is: When you take a trial ad. class, force the other party to either stipulate to every little thing that you could imagine would make the trial go awry. If they wont stipulate to it, they have a dirty trick planned. Plan to call as many witnesses as needed to get the evidence in and tell them that you plan to do so unless they relent with their little plan. Trial ad is meant to test your court room skills, not your backroom schemes.

5. Hard lesson number 2: Do not write your rigorous writing as an independent study. Take a class, get the grade and the coaching that comes with it. Writing an academic paper completely on your own with no guidance at all sucks!

6. I am now no longer have a permanent residence in the state of AL. Me moved immediately after finals were over. I turned in my apartment keys yesterday.

7. I am now interning / externing (whichever you want to call it) with the Public Defender office in GA. If I am not done with my hours by June 23rd , I will be participating in a murder trial with 3 defendants.

7. I finish with law school at the end of this summer. Currently I am taking one class (advanced legal research) and the internship. This is good because I will be done with my course requirements by July, but is not good because I now have to wait until Feb. to take the bar exam. This means that I wont get the bar results back until almost a year from now.

8. I need a job.

INCOMMUNICADO

2008-03-18T22:16:00.000-04:00

MONDAY, MARCH 17, 2008

WEDDING WENT GREAT
STOP
NOW ON BAHAMIAN OUT ISLAND OF TREASURE CAY
STOP
NO PHONE SERVICE VIA CELL PHONES
STOP
BORROWED HOTEL COMPUTER TO SEND MESSAGES
STOP
WILL BE INCOMMUNICADO UNTIL SATURDAY
STOP

Fixed???

2008-01-14T13:25:00.000-05:00

We got Jake neutered over Christmas break because we thought that it would help with a lot of problems such as him humping and aggressiveness, etc… After discovering that there is a wide disparity in prices for getting the dog fixed we finally settled on a traveling vet clinic that was tied in with Tractor Supply Company. It was at least half the price of most of the vets that we called and about a quarter of the price of at least one vet.
Anyway, he had stitches that we couldn’t get wet for about two weeks. Which meant that Jake didn’t have to suffer through any baths but also that the didn’t get to go swimming (a favorite Labrador pup activity). So when the next door neighbor kids wanted to hold Jake’s leash the following ensued:

Me: “You can hold his leash but don’t let him get into the pond because he has stitches.”
Kid: “What is wrong with him?”
Me: “We got him fixed.”
Kid: “Yea, but what was wrong with him.”
Me: “We got him fixed.”
Kid: “Yea, duh, I know. Because he has stitches. But what was wrong with him.”
Me: Oooohhhh. Well we got him fixed so he cant have puppies.
Kid: “But he is a boy dog. He can’t have puppies anyway.”
Me: Blank stare.
Kid: “Moooooooooommmmmmm?!?!”

blogs

2008-01-10T16:16:00.000-05:00

Because I have not had the time to write very much lately I have decided to simply type a few words as time permits in a word document as they occur to me and then finish them up when I have time and post most of them. So you may start seeing some bulk postings as I am able to finish blogs and post them.

Busy semester

2007-11-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

I have to appologize for the lack of updates. It has been a busy semester.

The wedding is planned for Memorial day weekend this spring. More on that later.
Jake is growing like a weed an chewing up everything he can get his mouth on.
Studying for finals now. Evidence is killing me.
Time is tight. I shouldn't even be typing this now. So look for updates after finals are over.
Peace - out.

Princpal's office

2007-11-06T22:27:00.000-05:00

This guy is the principal at the high school where one of my class mates attended.
I guess getting sent to the principal's office at this school was ...
Well, just read the story
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/1101071principal1.html

Halloween at Law School

2007-10-31T12:11:00.000-05:00

Halloween at school
My Remedies professor passes out candy.
To keep with the law school theme it is “Smarties” and “DumDums”.
Keeping with the grading curve…
There were twice as many DumDums as Smarties.

You know a case is bad when it starts off like this...

2007-10-31T11:59:00.000-05:00

Blachy v. Butcher 221 F.3d 896
The first paragraph of the opinion says:

Even a diabolical bar examiner would be reluctant to impose this case's complex mixture of subject matter jurisdiction, fraud, real estate, marital property, bankruptcy, tax liens, contributory negligence, equitable remedies, and civil procedure upon hapless law school graduates. Because reality often marches in where creators of hypotheticals fear to tread, however, we are the “hapless” appellate court judges obliged to struggle with this twisted tale of truelife conflict.

2007-10-19T01:51:00.000-04:00

I'm

Engaged

Bar Passage rate

2007-10-11T03:37:00.000-04:00

By the way.
The bar results came out the other day.
I forgot to mention that the bar passage rate for first time takers from The Thomas Goode Jones School of Law for the June Alabama Bar exam was 92.7%.
We didn't exactly smoke everyone this time. But that is a respectable number.
Congrat's to everyone that made it.

Jake update - A not so proud moment in puppy's life

2007-10-11T03:19:00.000-04:00

Jake has picked up a new habit. A very unsightly and unwelcome habit.
Humping.
He has humped a stuffed bear animal a few times over the past week or two. And I saw him humping the neighbor boy dog’s head. I laughed it off.
Nothing to worry about right.
Or so I thought.

Today Crystal was busy putting together the new house and looked up just in time to see Jake playing a little rough with the neighbor kid.

And then he humped him.

She stopped him. She whipped him and yelled at him.
Then he humped the kid again…
And then he ate the kid’s pop tart.
How humiliating. I think the kid will probably be in some sort of therapy for some time.

So…
Jake has now committed a tort and may possibly have to register as a sex offender.
I thought that when Crystal caught him running through the house with a pair of panties that it was just because he got into the laundry that needed to be folded.
It hindsight it may have been a warning sign.
Let me get this straight. My dog has now shown propensity to be a homosexual pedophilic cross dressing rapist. And apparently a repeat offender.
Not good.
What’s next? The future looks bleak. Jake hanging out at the local fire hydrant looking for a pick up. Bailing him out of the pound when the gay dog club gets raided. Puppy Porn. Doing tricks for a bone (yes, even hick southern law students know about the use of the double entendre).

This whole humping thing has got to come to a very quick halt or Crystal’s neighbors are going to shoot the dog.

I was wondering if neutering him would stop the behavior but when I tried looking it up on the internet all I got were links to discussion board websites. Each one praised the values of spaying and neutering (mainly these were lengthy diatribes on keeping the unwanted pet population down).
Look, I don’t really care what someone’s opinion is. I want hard scientific data with percentages and graphs. Is neutering the animal going to keep this from occurring, or is it too late? If the habit is already formed why would I spend a bunch of money on getting him fixed?
What little information I did find was of little help and was reprinted again and again as if the authors of the websites had written it themselves. In actuality they had copied an article and plagiarized it. Being a law student I know that they need to at least cite where it came from. But then again nobody is checking their work for typographical errors or if it follows “Blue Book” guidelines. (Although occasionally some jerk will send an email letting me know about one of mine.)
Well, we still don’t know if getting Jake fixed will stop him from humping.

So what did we learn today?
1. Jake is a sex crime offender.
2. The internet can be a place with more useless self repeating drivel then useful information. And no one cites where they get their information.
3. If you are a kid with a dog with a propensity for humping coming at ya – Run! And at all costs…
Protect your pop tart.

Jake update - dead animals - muddy kids - gnawed valuables

2007-10-10T12:23:00.000-04:00

Crystal is moving into a new house. This weekend we spent the majority of our time painting and cleaning and moving. There was an entire team of people putting down flooring, putting up blinds, and all of the other stuff that you do when you move into anew house. Many of these are friends and family, so they brought along their kids. Jake really liked that. I’m not always a big fan of other people’s kids, but Jake generally likes them if they run and yell and don’t pull his tale too much. He is a good dog with kids.

Early in the day Jake and the kids discovered the pond behind the house and played in the mud and muck. Actually I think one of the kids had stepped out of a flip flop shoe and was a little too slow in retrieving it. Jake was quicker. After all, he is a retriever. Never the less the kid was in hot pursuit but Jake had about 3 steps on him and was thoroughly enjoying this game of chase. The chase ended in the pond with the shoe being taken back (I’m sure that a tug-a-war went on because he likes that game too). Anyway, Jake and little kid and the flip flop in question were hosed off in the front yard sometime around mid morning.

The next surprise was somewhere around noon.

The next door neighbor’s kids had left a stuffed animal in the yard. Jake found it and being a retriever, he retrieved it. Now take into consideration that this particular stuffed animal was in the shape of a mallard duck (green head, yellow feet and all). You should also take into consideration that Jake had probably been outside chewing on this for a good half hour or so before deciding that it should be retrieved to his master.

Now let me set the picture for you.
Several women of varying age are inside the house straitening items, touching up paint, cleaning, etc. and in walks Jake carrying a wet and apparently DEAD and rotting animal.
I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. But Jake was not welcome in the house for a while.

Now let us fast forward to Tuesday afternoon.

We step out for a bite of lunch and figure that Jake has earned the right to stay out of the kennel for a little while because he has been well behaved. That was a mistake. I offer into evidence the photograph below which depicts 8 separate chewed items within a 4 foot radius.

1. Jeffers pet catalog torn into shreds one size too large for the vacuum to pick up.
2. My favorite flip flops. Minus the flip, and great deal of the flop has been chewed away as well.
3. Half eaten copy of “Coastal Living” Magazine
4. Small dust broom – chewed
5. Foot stool – now with chewed up corner
6. Collectors edition cup from the Olympic Horse Park near Atlanta, GA. - chewed
7. Gnawed corner leg of my Grandmother’s coffee table that I spent a week lovingly restoring and refinishing
8. Chewed corner of Oriental Rug

Nifong update

2007-10-04T11:39:00.000-04:00

Apparently I am not the only one that has a puppy with a chewing problem.
Below is a link to the “Smoking Gun” website which has a copy of the Mike Nifong letter in which he is tendering his law license. It explains that his puppy chewed it up and that his name is misspelled.
He never really respected it anyway. Why not give it to Fido as a chewtoy.

Above is the mugshot from his arrest. I can't imagine that he is looking forward to the propect of doing time with people that he has possibly put away with similar tactics as he used in the Duke rape case. Nifong has now become an example of what not to do as a lawyer (even more so as a DA) and a perfect example of the fact that there are good people and bad people on both sides of the badge.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0815071puppy1.html

Jake Update

2007-10-04T02:10:00.001-04:00

So we started house training Jake. I read about a dozen articles on how to do it. I think that it is just one of those things that you have to do to be able to understand how it works. I ordered a couple of DVDs and bought a book. All of it takes time to do and if my DVDs don’t arrive soon I will have to complain to Ebay.

I read a lot of hype about puppy pads. Here me now and believe me later if you must. If you have a lab, puppy pads are fantastic chew toys that come into exactly one million pieces. You would better off using the pads to dry dishes but they are treated with something to supposedly make the puppy want to do his business on it. They were a waste of money.

We also started some basic retriever training with Jake. By “basic” I mean very basic. He is fetching a tennis ball but has the attention span of a drunk squirrel with A.D.D. If I throw the ball too far he might forget it before he gets to the ball. But he is getting better at it every day. You can see that it makes him happy to please you, but if he finds something he would rather do (or as Crystal’s mom puts it – “Saw something shiny”) you can forget about him finishing the retrieve or coming back to you. I think that it is clear that an electronic collar is in his future because he keeps forgetting his name and has discovered a new game that he likes to call “Chase the puppy into traffic”.

We go through about a leash a week with Jake. It is not because he eats them or anything. We just keep loosing them. On second thought. He eats everything but I have yet to see any silver buckles in his poop.

Even though we tried to choose a unique name for Jake, I recently found out that the most popular name for a retriever is in fact “Jake” Luckily for us we have officially named him “Gatormouth Jake the Wondetriever”. I don’t think that one is taken by the AKC yet. But who knows. His paperwork is being sent in and we will find out.

My classes this semester

2007-10-04T01:59:00.000-04:00

Mediation Clinic
The mediation clinic that I am taking this semester consists some basic conflict resolution training and then being thrown to the wolves at the county court house. We divided into teams and will hopefully mediate on average two cases a week per team.
The cases are the run of the mill average “You owe me money.”, “No, don’t!” type of cases. Good examples are: as botched home and auto repairs; debt collection; and the like.
We have about 4 or 5 cases under our belt so far. This is good because after the class and if we can accomplish 10 mediations we can go onto the state’s Certified Mediator list and potentially get paid for mediations. (Not likely but it could happen and after all it looks good on a resume). I think the best thing that comes out of this class and the Alternative Dispute Resolution certificate offered by the law school for completing all 4 of the ADR classes (ADR, interviewing and counseling, arbitration, and the mediation clinic – plus another practical skills requirement) is that we walk out of the school with some pretty solid dispute resolution skills. Plus I have got to watch several of our cases that didn’t work out in mediation go to trial. I have been surprised by the fact that who we thought would win doesn’t necessarily win even though they had the best argument and facts. It just goes to show you that going in front of the judge or jury is always a dice roll. If you can settle the case with something that you can live with (not necessarily like but can live with), you should settle the case.

Alternative Dispute Resolution
Mentioned above. This class mainly deals with different ways to resolve conflict (the arguments for against each) and the processes. It is part of the ADR certificate program.
The problem with both of these classes is that I don’t know if I will have conflicts with other classes that I need in order to complete the program and get the certificate. If Jones continues it’s not giving preferential class placements to upper class students I might not get the classes that I need to graduate with the certificate. Or graduate on time at all if they screw me just right.

Evidence
This is probably the hardest class in law school and the most important for trial lawyers to know. It is hard. I hope I get the working knowledge that I need. Due to my former status as a part time student I am taking this class with 2Ls. The professor that teaches this class is well known for ridiculously hard exams. But I have seen few professors with such a mastery of the working knowledge of his subject like this guy does. I had the opportunity to take another professor who was guaranted to have an easier class with less work, easier exam, and higher GPA. But I chose the guy who I thought could give me the best edge when I do hit the court room for real. I hope it pays off in the long run and doesn’t bite me in the shorts in the short term.

Remedies
This bad boy is on the bar exam. What I don’t know however, is what this professor’s exam will cover.

Family Law
So far in family law I have learned that:
A. Common law marriage is a crock of BS that should be outlawed and IS in most states. Alabama however remains on the cutting edge of 18th century legal thought and has seen fit to continue to honor these “sham” marriages. This creates an entire network of new problems because pretty much all you need for a common law marriage to stick is 1.) Have the capacity to enter into marriage; 2.) Have the mutual intent to do so; 3.) in a permanent and exclusive manner (not an open marriage). The marriage doesn’t even have to be consummated or even co-habitation. (AL law requires 24 hours).
B. Co-habitation probably means that they can sue you for $
C. Massachusetts didn’t really want to win the same sex marriage case because if they did so the state’s case wouldn’t look like the arguments were came up with by a 4th grader. There were so many more and better arguments that could have been articulated by the state. Thus….
D. Thank god for the defense of marriage act.
E. Legal Separation is for the birds. If you want a divorce, get a freaking divorce already.

At last! An update!

2007-10-02T22:17:00.000-04:00

I guess that it being so long in between updates that I have lost a lot of my readers.
The fact is that I have been so busy that I have not really updated like I should. I mean, come on. This is a blog about law school. Or is it.
I have questioned myself as to what exactly this thing is. And the answer is that I don’t know.
But I guess the best thing to do is put some updates up so that you can know what is going on with me and at the law school and law school life in general.

Ok so here is a personal update:
Jake the puppy (mentioned in an earlier post) continues to grow at an exponential rate. It is funny how I don’t seem to notice this but people who only get to seem him every week or so really are amazed at how fast he is growing. I started noticing when I picked him up the other day and he was much heavier than I remember. Plus he occasionally has an accident inside (occasionally Ha! – it is a constant battle – I am trying to crate train / house break him). These “little” accidents look more like a fat man snuck in and took a stinker on the rug. I am amazed that an animal that small can leave a pile that big. I have decided that it can't be him doing it. It is obviously someone sneaking in and playing a practical joke on me. I would blame it on my girlfriend but the pile is occasionally larger than she is and I don’t think she has a wheel barrow to bring that much dung up the stairs.

We (me and Crystal) have been spending a lot of time on weekends at her family’s barn and at horse shows. (We took Jake and he got more attention that most of the horses. I think I am going to take a litter of muts to the next show and see how much I can sell them to for. Come on. If daddy will buy his little princes a pony what is stopping him from peeling off a couple of hundred for a puppy.
Q: “Do they come with papers?”
A: “Sure, you get your choice of USA today or the Wal-Street journal.”)
Who knows. Maybe I can pay off my student loans.

I started learning how to ride a horse. I mean most people can ride a horse in the sense that you sit on top of it and as long as you don’t fall off you can say that you can ride a horse. I’m talking about riding it the right way. The way you control a American Saddlebred show horse and the way you control an old trail riding nag are as different as driving a car and driving a car with a stick shift. The idea is the same, but the way it works takes a lot more to learn much less master. We took break from this until after the show season ends next week but…
Here is a picture of Crystal giving me some pointers. By the way, the horse’s name is "Lilly".

Speaking of Crystal and the horses. During August we went to the World Championships in Louisville, KY. I showed two of the weanling (less than a year old horses) with Crystal at the World Championships. She didn’t win that class. After watching the video I have decided that it had something to do with me looking like a was fresh off the short bus out there in the show ring with her.

Her and her father showed one of the horses together. It was a 2 year old in hand halter class (this means they led the horse around the ring without a rider and that he is 2 years old). How did they do you ask?
Well they won. That’s right, “I’m in command” (or Junior as we call him) won the class and is now Word Champion.
By the way. If you ask Crystal how many different world championships she has won she will loose count but let’s just say that if your girl friend has won a dozen or so world championships at ANYTHING, you can give me a call and be part of my “My girlfriend is a multi-time world champion club”. Not that I am bragging or anything.

Anyway, here is a picture of Crystal and her dad (I think Crystal got cut out of this pic) and the word Champion “I’m in Command”.

Jake update

2007-10-02T21:27:00.000-04:00

A little picture of Jake that I took not long after we brought him home.

Whine and cheese and mediation

2007-08-14T17:17:00.001-04:00

Fall classes have started. I got into a capped mediation clinic class on Friday evening before classes started on Monday. Which is great for me because know I can “probably” finish the requirements for the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) certificate prior to graduation. One more thing to add to a resume and possibly make money on. I was pretty peeved because the class was capped at 16 people, which keeps it under the limit for a mandatory curve, and upcoming 2Ls got into the class before I did. So I did what I could and got on a waiting list for the class. They called Friday evening to ask if I wanted the class.
Duh, yes! I have been complaining constantly to anyone who would listen since this Spring at registration.
Luckily I had not already bought the book for the class that I had to drop.

Jones has been faithful in continuing its policy of part time program This is aprox. A 4 year program and adds great thing to our school because it means that we have some night classes offered. This means that some full time students can pick up night time classes after their first which allows them to cut the number of days a week that they have to drive to school. I originally started at Jones as a part time student (read night classes) and switched to full time status as soon as I was eligible in the fall of the second year. I have attended summer classes and am now approximately 6 hours behind my classmates who began as full time students at the same time I began. So I have more hours than the upcoming 2Ls and am considered a 3L.

Here is my complaint: I can not understand a true blind preference for capped classes. Upper classmen should have preference first in order that they may meet requirements before graduation. (Upcoming 2Ls have an entire extra year to get these classes.) This lack of preference is a bad policy and would probably have denied me getting the ADR certificate if someone had not dropped the class thus opening one slot. Now hopefully I can pick up the last remaining ADR class in the Spring and fulfill the practical skills requirement prior to completing school next summer (2008).

So how about an update???

2007-08-14T17:12:00.000-04:00

So how about an update.
I mean. I reckon it is about time.
Summer was blur. I attended class and spent a lot of time on the road traveling back and forth between School and a small town in Georgia where my girlfriend lives. I have not had much time to spare so I have not posted in quite a while.
Generally here are the updates to my life.
I have a girlfriend. Her name is Crystal. She is a hottie and a red head.(with fiery temper to spare) It is going GREAT.
I also have a new room mate. His name is “Jake” (not to be confused with me – yes I know it is confusing – get over it).

Jake is a chocolate 9 week old Labrador Retriever. I have never seen a “Labrador” but Jake assures me that he could retrieve it if I had one. Retrieving a Labrador must be very tiring because he usually sleeps all the time. I guess he is saving up his energy in case someone has a Labrador in need of rescuing.
Ok. Ok. So I caved a little on Crystal’s whole “We need a puppy” thing.
Jake has giant paws (read that as he wont be a tiny puppy for long), sharp puppy teeth, and chews on any and all things. This includes all inanimate objects as well as anything living that does not whack him on the nose. If he can get it or any part of you in his mouth, he WILL chew on it. He sleeps almost constantly when he is not eating, chewing, or going crazy or halfway fetching a tennis ball. He also is the quickest p’er in the world. I swear you can take the dog out and bring him back in and he will have p’d twice before you can hang up the leash. - Jake may occasionally think his name is “bad dog” because of this.
Apparently Jake is also a latchkey dog / child because he stays on the road between here and my girlfriend’s house in GA. Crystal has unsupervised visitation privileges later on this week.

These next two weeks are going to be hectic.
Crystal is a horse person (NO she is NOT part horse). Her family has always had horses and she shows American Saddlebred horses. She is showing at the World Championship in Louisville, KY. So we will be on the road between school, GA, and Louisville a great deal between now and the end of the month.

Things that I learned by studying the law today

2007-06-12T17:01:00.000-04:00

Things that I learned by studying the law today:

1. Strippers are not necessarily contractors but are probably considered employees. Regardless of whether or not they provide their own costumes (or lack thereof).
2. A stripper’s body is not considered a “major item of equipment” in regards to workers compensation claims for injuries arising from and in the course of employment at the "Hide-Out Saloon".
3. Particularly if the injury is a gunshot wound from a disgruntled patron of the “performing arts”.
754 P.2d 444

Don't you just love law school?

Much ado about nothing

2007-06-12T17:00:00.000-04:00

I got a lot of grief form folks wanting to know exactly what I was talking about in the rumor mill blog but it will suffice to say that (Long story short): At least two partial stories about me got pieced together to be one full story that didn’t jive with what the truth is. Like any law school gossip (or any rumor for that matter) it was meshed with a little bit of truth, a little bit of innuendo, and a little bit of misperception. And if it is remotely juicy… it spreads like wildfire.

And that is just what gossip is. When people tell what they heard for the gospel truth. When it is told enough times (or by the right people) it is just believed to be the truth and the person who is being spoken about just winds up being the one that pays the price.

The blog ends up being a place to vent sometimes when your voice doesn’t seem like it is getting heard elsewhere. That is what makes this place great. The fact that people occasionally read it that need to see my side of the story is a great plus.

So on to better things.

I'm back

2007-06-02T02:30:00.001-04:00

So summer school is now in session. Sorry for the lack of posts during finals and right afterward. Summer classes seem to drag on a little slower, so I will have more opportunities to post. Stay tuned.

Finals are over

2007-05-20T22:34:00.000-04:00

So that’s it.
Finals are over with.
Which is a bit strange.
I feel oddly uneasy.
After so much time working alone and thinking of nothing but the law (and those annoying little things pester your mind while you are trying to think about the law – you know like: the rent is due, or “I have fish? I wonder who has been feeding them?”

I feel odd and out of place.
I have talked to so many of my friends that feel the same way about it as I do.
I hear the same comment time and again, “I don’t have any social skills left.”
In a crowd they are easy to spot. Dark circles under each eye. Talking to anyone who will listen about something related to law school. Others claim they don’t want to talk about it at all, but always end up doing it anyway.

We all need some time to assimilate back into everyday society. I wish I had more time to do so. The world feels a little self centered and narcissistic. Which is probably how many of us were perceived during finals because we were so single minded in our focus.
The world has passed you by and all of a sudden you have just a little while to get on the ride. The only problem is the ride is moving faster than the last what you remember and it looks like there are not any empty seats left. For some reason the time off between semesters is a time in which I have made big plans to do certain things that are usually dashed on the rocks of other people’s whims. I think I will simply take it easy and try my best to assimilate back into society (for a little while), wait for the summer semester to start, try to learn a little guitar until my fingers hurt and I give it up for the day, and wait on my student loan to make me un-broke again for a little while.

The new summer semester will start for me soon. Initially (and hopefully) it will start with a slow roll and not an incredibly fast pace. Spring semester grades are due to come in probably about the time that the semester starts. Everyone is on “grade watch” everyday. I am sure that I will get several calls as soon as the first one is posted. I will try to resist looking until then. (Secretly I know I will check multiple times every single day.)

Middle of finals

2007-05-11T22:27:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts.
I am in the middle of finals.
However there is only one left to go and I have several days to prepare. So I am not overly stressed about it. We will see how that holds up as it gets closer to time to take it.
The class is Bus. Admin. and is a 4 hour credit course. So it weights pretty heavy on this semester’s grades. I have one class that is only two hours credit. This one is worth double. I know that is common sense, but it is something to think about.
The stress roller coaster has not been as bad this semester but it is still there. Other things always seem do be haunting the back of your mind. Like a personal relationship, rent being due (I’ve got to run that by the office), what exactly will I have time and the money to do in my break before summer classes start in a week and half after this semester ends, and the totally lack of a personal life that has become me during finals.

So that is the deal. Finals suck. Time is at a premium but seems to move too slow at times. The world is moving by without you for the time being. And everything else seems to be up in the air.

So I probably wont post again until after finals unless I feel a strong urge to complain or have some curious thought that I need to share.
Good luck to all my brethren in the heat of finals. And goodnight.

Studying at Cumberland

2007-05-03T17:01:00.000-04:00

Taking a quick break from studying.
I came up to Birmingham to try to get away for a few days to study for finals. If I stay at my school I get a lot of people coming in at odd times on their individual study breaks who want to chat for a few minutes or are looking for an outline or some help. That is all very nice, but after a while it gets to be a distraction. So I drove up to Birmingham for a few days. It was hard to try and find a really quiet place. I tried the local university but the undergrad library was really loud and busy.
On a whim I called another law school and taadaa. Here I sit typing to you in the Cumberland School of law Library on Samford's campus. It is very nice. Lots of study space and nobody knows me. So they won’t talk to me or want to borrow study material. Plus they are in the middle of finals and it is very quiet. The only draw back is, if I need something I don’t really have as quick access to it. But I need time alone with my outlines and study aids.
Finals start Monday! I’m trying not to freak out too bad
So long from Birmingham for now.

2007-04-29T02:52:00.000-04:00

Montgomery.
Even with friends this place can seem so lonely at times. Finals don't help. It only makes it worse to self seclude yourself in order to study. It makes it hard to concentrate at times knowing that when you get home that there is nothing behind the door that you unlock except an empty room.

Bar Exam Results

2007-04-28T17:58:00.000-04:00

This goes hand in hand with my underdog post.
http://lawofthegump.blogspot.com/2007/04/underdog.html
These are the results for the February 2007 Alabama Bar:

For first time takers at ABA-approved schools, the pass rates were:
Faulkner JSL---87.5%
Alabama---68.8%
Cumberland---54.5%

For all takers, including repeaters:
Faulkner JSL---74.2%
Alabama---61.9%
Cumberland---50.0%

Congrats to everybody that passed the bar.

"Understand that I aint braggin'. I'm just sayin'...."

DEAD WEEK

2007-04-27T01:26:00.000-04:00

Or if you prefer it in Latin “Mortuus Dies”.

In college I thought of dead week as a free time. Uhhhh. Not anymore.

Dead Week Starts Monday!

Review

2007-04-26T04:04:00.001-04:00

Please, please, please. If you ever grow up to be a law professor, please do a relevant review that gives SOME idea about what of the vast array of material that was covered is important. I’m not asking for test answers. I learned the law. Now tell me how much of that I need to pour over in minute detail!

Coversation

2007-04-26T03:43:00.000-04:00

This is how you know you spend too much time thinking nothing but law.

Conversation today in the Library:

Me: “Dude I need a blue ink pen. Where are all those blue ink pens the financial aid people left up here at the desk?”

Librarian: “Everybody got them. They are all gone.”

Me: ‘Dude, I need a blue ink pen!”

Librarian: ‘I guess you are S.O.L.”
(pause)

Me: “What does the statute of limitations have to do with blue ink pens?”

A-Day

2007-04-23T00:03:00.000-04:00

A-Day game at over capacity crowd.

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ bout!
92,138-plus! – And for a scrimmage game at that!

I didn’t get to go this year. I was studying.
Check out the story here at Sports Illustrated's web site.

Underdog

2007-04-22T00:21:00.000-04:00

I wrote a blog on Adriana Dominguez (a third-year student at Brooklyn Law School).
http://lawofthegump.blogspot.com/2007/04/juris-imprudence.html It was a story that I had seen on Fox news while in the break room at the law school eating lunch. It was picked up by several news outlets and was a topic of conversation among law students around the country for several days. It seemed like a good topic to write about for a law school blog. I mean come on! Sex, lies, and videotape, what more you want? I followed it up with a couple of more blogs on ethics.

I have a counter at the bottom of my page. It is nothing miraculous or extraordianary. It is a regular old free counter that is available to almost any web page. But even with this free counter, I am still able to see what domain (server such as charter, AOL, etc.) my readers come from; how long they looked at my page; and what refered them to me. If it was a google search, it even gives the search terms. If it scares you think that someone can get that much info for free then you should really be scared to think what you could get if you actually paid for a service.

Anyway, I was really surprised when my web site hits shot up the day that I wrote the blog. Over 30 times the average of my normal number of visits.
So I backtracked a few visitors that had actually spent some time reading my blog. I was curious to see how someone from across the country would find my blog.
I was surprised by how much specific things in my blogs had been googled (Such as Barrister’s Ball or other law school specific topics). I was really surprised at how many people were just looking for naked pics of Andrea Dominguez. But what really blew me away was the fact that there are discussion boards out there that linked my blog to their discussion.
This led me to discover that there are several web sites that have my blog listed for users to find easily. For instance I am ranked in the top 4 law school blogs from http://www.jd2b.com/ . That was really neat. Thanks guys.

But the blog also got some bad attention.
It got my link pulled from several other less conservative viewpointed law school blogger sites (A favor that was soon returned - thanks for the support guys).

I also noticed that I had become the topic of actual entire threads of some discussion boards (mainly regarding the Andrea Dominguez story) (and not from the site listed above – I won't give the other sites the time they rightly don’t deserve).
Instead of reading the multiple times that I refer to the article as being from New York Daily News web site, some of these people actually thought that I had written the entire story on my own. They trashed me for spreading the info. They dogged my school as lower tier and undeserving of their respect. I was supposedly trying to “sound smart”. And at one point I was even called a %#@*&^ #@%
Huh?
One point that I have to bring up is this: If you are on a law school discussion board talking about trying to get into law school, maybe you should actually get into one before you bash everything not labeled ivy league. As a matter of fact junior law school wanabees should just hope to get in any school that will take them. And then refrain from comments like the ones made until they actually survive just one semester.
Those who can do. Those who can’t – just talk about it.

As for my school, I have this to say:
I take great pride in the fact that the people who fail out of Jones and go elsewhere to law school have generally done quite well. We are recently ABA accredited. Because of that, our standards are very strict. Our scales are as tough as they come. Our policies leave no room for less then perfect standards of honor or sacrifice. I don’t blame the faculty and school for policies that other schools see as incumberances. We are the under dogs who are currently snarling, thrashing, gnawing, and climbing our way past the naysayer and elitists.

Any sports team is surprised when they are defeated by the underdog opponent.
Why? Because they underestimated the opponent. Because they were so filled with their own bloated vision of themselves that they did not see a worthy oponent before them. At which time they were summarily served their own asses on a plate.

I have friends who are extremely bothered by the lack of respect that we get in relation to longer established law schools (schools that we thougoughly trounced in recent moot court competitions). It doesn’t bother me.
I am from a small town. We had small sports teams. We were always, undermanned, undersized, slower, and underrated. Time and again we beat oppponents who were bigger, faster, had more depth as well as natural ability, and always ranked above us.
Why did we beat these teams? Because we were more determined, more disciplined, and trained harder. Most of all we had no overly grand ideas of our own abilities. We knew that to win we had to want it more than the other guys did and we had to work harder than they did. Simple as that. I have never played anything on a level playing field. It is always an uphill battle for one side or the other. Usually for my side.

You can all me bad names, kick my dog, or spit on the flag. But don’t ever underestimate me (or my law school). Trust me on this one. Otherwise when you come up against us, your are going to get your feelings hurt and your ego bruised. I have been the underdog all my life. I have learned to deal with that. It just means I have to work harder than others do to get the same respect. I don’t have a problem with that. But people desperately need to understan that if they underestimate the people from this school, they WILL get thier asses handed to them in court.

In the words of Forest Gump:
“That is all I have to say about that.”

Icarus

2007-04-21T00:36:00.000-04:00

Just a cool story that I thought you would enjoy.

There once was a man named Larry Walters. Now Larry had a dream. Larry wanted to fly. Larry had always dreamed of flying but was unable to become a pilot in the Air Force due to bad eyesight.
Years before, he had seen several weather balloons in an army surplus store and got the idea that it would be great if he could just float away on a baloon. In July of 1982 he bought and rigged 42 weather balloons to an aluminum lawn chair. He sat down in the chair with a bag full of sandwiches, something to drink, and a BB gun.
He reached down and cut the line that held the chair on the ground. The chair (with Larry in it) shot into the sky.
Larry planned to use the BB gun to shoot a balloon or two if he got too high or wanted to come back down. So Larry just floated around and enjoyed himself. He was flying!!

Not only was he flying, he was flying at about 16,000 feet!!
He eventually drifted down after shooting a few balloons with his BB gun. He was arrested and fined by the FAA for operating a"civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an airworthiness certificate"
When a reporter asked him why he had did it, he responded "A man can't just sit around."

Taxes

2007-04-15T00:33:00.000-04:00

Taxes are due
I know I know already.
I got my W2 way back at the end of January. Which I promptly filed away with a mental note to do my taxes as soon as possible. Those of you that know me know that mental notes are useless to me (as my brain promptly takes the yellow post it of information and wads it up and throws it away).
More observant or organized people may use a technical term for my filing system such as “pile”. But it works the same way. I put it into a pile with other mail that needs to have something done to it. (For instance mail back a portion of the mail with a check for useful things such as my cell phone bill).

It should be mentioned at this point that a short while back I noticed a squeaky sound occasionally to my brakes. At the end of the week it turned into a full grown roar. Several shops I called were busy and asked to drive on it a little longer and to bring it in Monday so that the brake rotors could be totally ruined and they could charge me a lot more money to repair the brakes. No problem.

Back to the taxes
I noticed a while back (yesterday) that it may be a good time to do my taxes seeing as how the deadline is the first of the week. Now most of you with real jobs reading this might be shocked because you have long since filed your taxes and received your return from the IRS. This is not as big a priority to me because I am in law school and my return is; well… let’s just call it minimal. I did my own taxes by hand this year because buying tax software (or lord forbid taking my taxes to H&R block) would have eaten up the measly portion that I am to receive back from the government.

Long gone are the days of deductions, tax credits, itemizations, employment expenses, etc. I filed the EZ form because it will be EZ for the IRS to see that they have a fair chunk of my money. My only job (and W2) was the law school library and I own practically nothing. Taxes done.

After work (Where I filled out my taxes. – Hey, what am I going to do there but fill out tax forms and study?) I went to the post office to mail my taxes. (Brakes screeching like a really bad American Idol contestant). Rain is pouring down. I make it inside after shielding my precious taxes under my shirt because “The Man don’t like no soggy forms”
I put my quarters in the machine to get stamps. No dice. No stamps. Oh, they have stamps in the machine. The machine just won’t let me have any of the stamps. After committing what may have been a federal offense on the post office machine, it finally spit my quarters back out.
So I drive across town to another post office. (Brakes screeching all the way) This post office got hit by a tornado a while back and there is still plywood and plastic sheeting up everywhere. (Walking into the post office makes you feel like you are walking back stage of a local theatrical production where Buddy, the local handyman, has pieced together all the props with duct tape, bubble gum and spit.) I make it onto the post office while keeping “The Man’s” paperwork warm and dry under my shirt.
I walk into the post office and what do I see? Well looky there. It is the new stamp machine with a brand new out of order sign on it. How nice.

Since this is ONLY the second post office that I have been to I asked a nice looking little old lady if she knew where another post office might be. I was on a post office tour. I figured that I might as well see all of them.
Little did I know that the little old lady was simply waiting for another tornado to hit the post office so that she could be interviewed by the local news crews and say things like “Wooeee, it was loud! Sounded like a freight train! We barely got all the dogs and hogs out from under the trailer before she got blowed away! We sure are lucky. The good lord was just watching out for us.”
She wasn’t any help.

I was able to fool some technological marvel of science on the other side of the post office into selling me some stamps so that The Man can look at his clean dry paper and see how much money he took from me this year. Finally I had stamps. I put plenty of extra postage on it so that “The Man” would be proud of me. (And I had no idea how much postage to actually put on the oversized envelopes.)
As the envelopes slide into the slot I notice that the The Man’s paperwork may be a little soggy. I know this because just as the envelopes slid into the slot I saw that some of the ink that used to be the zip code was sliding down the envelope. Thankfully, (due to my incredibly quick thought and amazing hand speed) I was able to reach for the envelopes and push then into the slot just as I mouthed a profanity.

Not to worry. The IRS is the government. The post office is the government. You could tape 37 cents in coins to the outside of a old coffee tin labeled “In care of IRS” and they would get it. The Man has people everywhere. And they take care of The Mans business.

I can’t wait to get back my return. I think I am going to use it to buy some bubblegum, or ask somebody if they want to go in halfsies on a candy bar, or maybe just save it up for stamps for next year.

Last post on Ethics

2007-04-12T00:22:00.000-04:00

I promise that this is the last post for a while on ethics.
Here is another perfect example of how a lack personal ethics shows up in a person’s professional life. This time it is not a lawyer or law student.
No other comments.

From http://www.thesmokinggun.com/
Joe Francis, the "Girls Gone Wild" founder, was indicted today on federal tax evasion charges for illegally deducting more than $20 million in phony business expenses from his 2002 and 2003 corporate tax returns. According to a two count indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Reno, Nevada, Francis, 34, sought to conceal income through the use of offshore companies and nominees. At one point, he transferred $15 million from one offshore bank account to a California brokerage account in the name of a Cayman Islands corporation he controlled. If convicted of the federal charges, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000. Francis was arrested yesterday on an unrelated federal warrant stemming from a civil lawsuit brought against him by seven underage women who were filmed by "Girls Gone Wild" cameramen in Florida in 2003.

Prosecutorial misconduct

2007-04-11T17:08:00.000-04:00

The post goes hand in hand with yesterday’s post on Adriana Dominguez (a third-year student at Brooklyn Law School whose own ethical missteps may cost her more than she planned).

Prosecutorial misconduct
Guilty?: Rouge prosecutor D.A. Mike Nifong; False rape accuser Crystal Gail Norman
Innocent: Duke players
Not caught up on the story? Here are the facts and timeline.
Mike Nifong faces ethics charges for prosecutorial misconduct by misleading the media and public in an effort to gain notoriety in a big case and ensure his re-election. He now stands as an example of what happens when a member of the bar lacks the ethics and higher standard to which we hold our selves and our peers.

March 13, 2006 — Duke University lacrosse players throw a party at an off-campus house, hiring two strippers.
March 14 — One of the dancers tells Durham, N.C., police she was forced into a bathroom by three men and beaten, raped and sodomized.
March 23 — Forty-six of 47 team members comply with judge's order to provide DNA. The sole black member is not tested, because the accuser said her attackers were white.
March 28 — Duke suspends lacrosse team from play.
March 29 — District Attorney Mike Nifong calls members of the team "a bunch of hooligans."
April 4 — The accuser identifies her attackers in a photo lineup.
April 5 — Lacrosse coach Mike Pressler resigns. Duke President Richard Brodhead cancels the rest of the season.
April 10 — Defense attorneys announce DNA tests fail to connect any of the players to the accuser.
April 17 — Grand jury indicts Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty on rape and other charges.
April 25 — Granville County authorities confirm the accuser told police 10 years ago she was raped by three men when she was 14. None of the men was charged.
May 15 — Grand jury indicts team co-captain David Evans on rape charges. He calls the allegations "fantastic lies."
June 5 — Duke president says team can resume play in 2007 under close monitoring.
Nov. 7 — Nifong wins election to continue as district attorney.
Dec. 15 — Director of a DNA lab testifies that, in an agreement with Nifong, he omitted from a report that genetic material from several men — none of them team members — was found in accuser's underwear and body.
Dec. 22 — Nifong drops the rape charges, saying the woman is no longer certain whether she was penetrated. The players still face charges of kidnapping and sexual offense.
Dec. 28 — North Carolina bar files ethics charges against Nifong, accusing him of making misleading and inflammatory comments to the media about the athletes. (He is also later accused of withholding evidence and lying to the court.)
Jan. 3, 2007 — Duke invites Seligmann and Finnerty to return to school. (They have not returned.) The accuser gives birth. Both sides later say she was not impregnated at the party.
Jan. 12 — Nifong asks to withdraw from case because of ethics charges.
Jan. 13 — North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper takes over the case.
Apr. 11 – Duke players announced innocent of charges

What happens now? I certainly hope that Mike Nifong is afforded what he attempted to deny the Duke players; due process, equal access to evidence, and an ethical prosecutor.
The biggest question that this all raises is what if these guys did NOT have the recorces to combat a rouge prosecutor? The answer is simple. They each would be serving 30 years for something they did not do.
Prosecutorial misconduct? Probably so. Do personal ethics affect your performance as a lawyer? Absolutely!
And if Nifong is guilty of this misconduct, how far does it go? Are there innocent people in jail (or worse - facing the death penalty) right now because of his actions? This my friends is why we hold our selves to a higher standard, because we are the defenders of the weak, the balance on the stong, and the protectors of the blessings of liberty.

Someone said they didnt get the cartoon. The lady standing there is lady liberty. Does that help?

Juris-imprudence

2007-04-10T14:52:00.000-04:00

Holy torts! Law student in erotic vid

From nydailynews.com
A Brooklyn law student who shed her briefs for a Playboy TV series may have to kiss off her career after the sexy video made its way into e-mail in-boxes all over the city.
Adriana Dominguez - a third-year student at Brooklyn Law School - happily strips naked, gets spanked and holds gavels up to her bare breasts in the provocative clip.
"I wanted to do something a little crazy before I graduate and do become a lawyer ... do something kind of out of character," Dominguez said with a grin as she posed for photographer Andrew Einhorn inside his friend's DUMBO apartment.
"Lawyers can be boring," the 24-year-old later added. But no one will ever call Dominguez buttoned-up. The brainy blond with Ivy League credentials was looking for a lark last July when she answered a Craigslist ad for women to appear in the Playboy TV series "Naked Happy Girls." The episode, called "Rock Star and the Lawyer," aired in January - and was barely noticed.
But in the past three weeks, a 45-second clip spread on the Internet among students and some faculty at almost every New York law school. "I did not expect it to become so widespread," Dominguez told the Daily News in an e-mail yesterday. "I do not know how it was leaked."
The University of Pennsylvania graduate appeared embarrassed and anxious when The News spotted her coming out of a meeting with a top dean. "We don't want this to ruin the career of a young lawyer," said law school spokeswoman Linda Harvey.
When she made the erotic video, Dominguez, a California native, seemed unfazed by the idea that it could wreck her future. "I'm not that shy, so it wouldn't bother me if, say, the opposing counsel has seen these pictures of me. I wouldn't care," she told Einhorn after he asked her if she had any concerns. "When we shot, she knew what might happen down the road if these pictures might get shown to people in her field," Einhorn told The News.
"But she had this self-confidence to not let that bother her. I don't think that she felt that this would be negative in any way to her career," he said.
The sexy stunt could have dire consequences for the would-be lawyer. If she applies for the New York State Bar this year, Dominguez could face tough questions from the Committee on Character and Fitness, which examines the personal character of future lawyers. "It may have an effect. It's a possibility in the worst-case scenario that the person does not get admitted," a committee representative said. And potential employers are sure to discover Dominguez's striptease with a quick Internet search.
Except for her naughty past, Dominguez has plenty to recommend her: she had a fall internship with the domestic violence unit of the Brooklyn district attorney's office and served as treasurer of her law school's Legal Association of Activist Women. Her fellow students at Brooklyn Law, who have dubbed Dominguez "Porn Star," said she should have been smart enough to know better. "It's a striptease. A bit trashy," said one young woman on campus. "I look at her differently. She's definitely smart. It was just a bad decision."

"I do not know how it was leaked." - LEAKED! LEAKED! It was on cable TV softcore porn! It was on the internet already. How could it be leaked? It was there waiting to be found. Her having it linked to her AIM might have helped a little dont you think?
As lawyers we are paid for our judgment. We are held to a higher ethical standard. Are ethics a gray area? The ABA doesn’t seem to think so.
The bottom line is that this girl will probably get some grief from the NY state bar committee on character and fitness. But the real question is this: If you pay a lawyer for her judgment, aren’t you supposed to be able to trust that judgment?
And as for the comment made by the young lady on her campus, “She's definitely smart. It was just a bad decision."
In NY, “Smart” apparently means something to do with how well you can answer test questions, and absolutely nothing to do with common sense.

HOLY CRAP!!!! HOLD THE PRESS – This snippets below were found below the article in reader comments.

“Oh, and by the way, this is just the tip of the iceberg on this young lady. Her posing nude is the least of what she does. Almost a year ago to the day, friend of mine, had a bachelor's party in a Manhattan hotel. His brother arranged for 3 strippers. One of them was the subject of today's article.” “Anyways, after she participated, with her alleged cousin and another girl who was the supervisor....in a 3 way lesbian activity...did nude lapdances..so on and so forth she goes into the other room and then reappears and asks if there were any lawyers there. She then produces her Brooklyn Law School ID and starts asking about which bar preparation course she should take, Barbri or Pieper. The whole lawschool thing put a cold damper on the event.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/04/10/2007-04-10_its_jurisimprudence-2.html
You have to register to be able to see all the comments. Only the last few are posted bellow the article.

Uhhhhhhh. I don't think "whore, stripper, and porn star" are quite what the ABA had in mind when they advocated "public interest work".

By the way - Don't feel too bad for Ms. Dominguez. She has now hired a publicist.

Sleep strategy for finals

2007-04-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

My Sleep strategy for finals:

Get some!

A brain is like a sponge needs time to rest and process the information that you pour into it. Just so much is going to fit in there at any one time without spilling a bunch.
I spent my first day and a half in finals prep mode. I came home and finished dinner by 7pm. I talked on the phone for just a few minutes, and passed out for 2 hours.

Sleep is so important during finals prep. It gets precious towards the end, when time is running short. I have to remember that it can’t be sacrificed, especially the few days before finals. I have to come in rested AND prepared if I expect to do well.

The rest of my strategy:
To borrow a line from “Cool Hand Luke”, I have to get my “mind right”. This means I have to actually sit down and psych myself into understanding the weight and importance of what is now happening. In other words – I will scare myself into “wanting” to study.
Get plenty of rest (see above)
Take care of my self
Take my vitamins (Flintstones don’t get it – I’m a grown man. I need the good stuff)
Eat right (it is so easy to not do this during finals)
No alcohol (goodbye you sweetly brewed, delicately aromatic, nectar of the gods)
Keep my personal life free from strife and drama
(Attention Dramaters: If you have some Drama to disperse, do it now while I have time to deal with it. If you spring it on me right before or during finals. You will deal with an unholy wrath that will consume your very soul. Don’t do it! I know you want to. You folks always do. Don’t even think about it!)
Remember what is important (School, health, personal life).
Concentrate on what is important
Pour it on for the next 4 Weeks

Good luck to you all.
It is time to Strap in, Buck up, and hold on.

Law school firearm policy

2007-04-09T23:24:00.000-04:00

Actual official law school email:

"Please be advised that Faulkner University has a no firearms and weapons policy. A student cannot carry any firearm or dangerous weapon on their person or in their vehicles while on campus. Punishment for violating this policy could result in dismissal from school."

Was this email sent to discourage potential gangbangers from popping caps at each other?
Nope – it was 2 country boys looking at a new shotgun in the parking lot.
You can take the kid out of the country, but…
Country as a turnip green. That is me. And yes, it was a very nice shotgun.

Finals Countdown

2007-04-09T04:00:00.001-04:00

Get your own countdown at BlingyBlob.com

Beard

2007-04-09T01:49:00.000-04:00

Because in law school you don’t actually have to go to a job and look presentable all the time, I stopped shaving a grew a beard. I was kind of going for a Unibomber look. Not the hooded artist rendering,

but the full “I just got busted making bombs in my shed up in the woods - now I am wearing an orange jumpsuit” Unibomber beard.

Tonight I shaved it off.
But first I shaved it into big Elvis looking sideburns, then a child molesterish looking goatee that looked stupid. Then I shaved it into a sure enough looking molestash with the edges coming way down, then a little bitty mustache, then took it all off.
It is kind of like playing with soap bubbles in the tub when you were a kid. Too bad girls can’t do that. It is fun.
Wait a minute. On second thought, I am kind of glad that girls can’t do that.

Law school debt and Myspace

2007-04-03T23:24:00.000-04:00

Today I attended one of the two MANDATORY “law school debt workshops” that I am required to take prior to graduation. Apparently the Bar isn’t so happy about their members having to dip into client funds just to pay law school loans.
I went ahead and went to the one today because I could knock it out and only have one more to do before graduation (which is in the what seems like now unforeseeable future).
Anyway, we get into the mandatory meeting and it winds up being a freaking sales seminar with a guy trying to get us to consolidate out loans “right now” with company X.
The guy gave some tertiary information about loans in general and said that we are liable for them (duh).
If you are going to employ someone to council students on debt management a financial advisor might be a good choice. A representative of a loan corporation is not.

Loan consolidation guy did tell me one thing that was pretty funny.
Apparently loan companies go to great lengths to find clients. Lately they have taken to looking for their defaulting loan clients on where else: MYSPACE.

Hey look, I have a new friend request.

2007-03-29T02:51:00.001-04:00

1:30am
It has been about a week since I have written anything. (I apologize about that to my loyal readers). The only reason that I am still up at this hour is that I am worried about a friend that was supposed to contact me.

School

The first week back to school has been hectic. Monday started the countdown – 6 weeks till finals. I am not exactly looking forward to that grueling procedure. I’d rather have all my teeth pulled at once. But it is coming like a freight train and there is nothing we can do to stop it. The stress is about to kick in again. It is a little scary. My grades are not exactly stellar and I don’t have a lot of room to screw up.

Things around my apartment today

To the Asian lady down the corridor:
What the hell are you cooking with. It smells like rotting fish and curry boiling. Stop doing that.

To the little girls playing on the grass this after noon:
The dance you were doing was one that I had seen once on a rap video. It looked slutty then when done by a full grown woman. I did not enjoy seeing it done by a pre-teen fat kid. I realized society is going to hell when I realized your older sister was teaching it to you. I realized that your whole family will probably go to hell when I realized your mom was watching as well. Please stop doing that.

To the kids getting off the school bus:
Look both ways you freakin’ idiots. You nearly get run over every day. The law of averages is going to catch up with you. I don’t want to have to point out to my friends the greasy spot on the pavement that used to be you.

To the repair men that work at my apartments:
Stop dropping stuff in the parking lot when you leave (tacks, screws, nails, bolts, odd pieces of metal). If I get a flat then odds are that you will too (law of averages or revenge – you decide).

To the grounds crew guys at my apartment:
Why do you hire an idiot to run the leaf blower? Why does he go to work insanely early?
Stop doing that.

To the ducks in the pond outside my apartment:
People enjoy seeing you in the daytime. They do not enjoy being awakened by your loud nocturnal activity at 3am. Stop doing that.

To the ghetto thugs who have an apartment across the parking lot:
Just stop everything in general and move away.

The Graveyard Run

2007-03-19T21:30:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I decided to take break and go for a run (ok not really a run – a brisk walk – ok, ok it was a lumbering stroll – whatever, lets not get stuck on exercise terminology here) Anyway, her neighborhood is pretty busy and not really conducive to such activity. I rode around for a bit looking for a park but they were all near elementary schools and as I dont really want to be mistaken as a pedophile, I gave up and settled on a cemetery that looked semi deserted (I mean except for all the dead bodies).
A while after I started off I noticed a strange thing. This was not one of those normal cemeteries with headstones and monuments, but it was the kind where all the grave markers were low to the ground. It was the kind that you can drive over all of it with a lawn mower without bumping into anything. It was much too orderly and plain. A final resting place for the anal retentive so to speak.

I cut through a path and stopped when I noticed my name on a marker. Not my whole name of course, that would be TOO FREAKY. It was just my last name. But it got me to thinking. I decided something right then and there. I do not want to be buried in a place like this.
I want a great big monument at the top of a hill. Heck I may get rich and put some land in a trust to start my own. After all, foot per foot cemeteries are some of the most expensive land that you can buy. I couldn’t decide on an inscription for my large memorial that will be nestled between large oaks on top of the hill. But I did come up with my own obituary.
Here goes.

A nation in mourning

A shocked nation woke to the sad news that Jake (come on you didn’t expect me to give out my whole name – I’ve got too many stalkers as it is) was found dead Saturday at his palatial mansion.
Authorities claim that the 99 year old Mr. Jake was killed by his wife (several years his junior) early Saturday morning. Mrs. Jake claims that the death was a result self defense. Apparently the elderly but spry gentleman had overdosed on Viagra.
Mrs. Jake is currently recovering from exhaustion and being treated for depression. Doctors are confident that she will make a full recovery and will be able to walk again very soon.

The Jake estate is expected to be tied up in litigation for several years due to the vast sum of wealth that he had accumulated. Mr. Jake, a wealthy litigator, was renowned for his court room appeal and large judgments. Mr. Jake is most well known for causing the bankruptcy of Microsoft due to the large award that he attained for his client (who had rubbed a callus on her finger due to a “defective” track ball device that the company had manufactured).

City and state officials have called for all flags to be flown at half mast and for schools to be dismissed early.

Jake memorabilia has skyrocketed on eBay since his death. An ink pen that was once owned by Mr. Jake was sold yesterday for an undisclosed amount that was rumored to have surpassed the amount paid for Elvis Presley’s air plane. The Bic ink pen was out of ink and had a missing top.

The president is expected to call for a national day of mourning as dignitaries fly in for the funeral. Due to the large number expected visitors, the funeral has been moved from the local church to Legion Field Stadium this week.

The Easter Bunny hates you

2007-03-18T17:19:00.001-04:00

This weekend my sister was baby sitting for a little girl who is absolutely terrified of the easter bunny.
Terrified of the easter bunny?? How can you be terrified of the easter bunny? He is cute, loveable, and brings you chocolate (I never really understood why we hid eggs and ate chocolate to celebrate the resurection of Jesus. But hey, that is what we do.)
But how can a kid be terrified of the easter bunny??
-

Maybe this is why.

Drama

2007-03-09T02:58:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate drama. I hate drama queens. I hate people who thrive on drama. I hate the people who thrive on causing other people drama. I hate dramatic readings. Heck, I even hate the name “Johnny Drama” from the show Entourage. I won’t be practicing family law because that would involve “my baby’s daddy” drama, which is the worst kind of Jerry Springer drama and only one step above “a clown touched me on my no-no spot at my 7th birthday party” drama.

But it seems like nothing I do at law school and nothing I see at law school is drama free.

You see, Jones is a small law school (about 100 incoming 1Ls) on a small campus. Law school is just one of those things that force you to be around people that you don’t like and situations that you would rather not be in. There is just so much time that has to be spent at the school that you have little choice but to just endure it - drama and all. Because it is so small, you know all the drama. And we have more than our share.

Anyway,
I can’t figure out how to explain the drama without going into infinite detail and thus reliving the drama all over again. So I will just say this:
There was a misunderstanding
That turned into a full out sorority bitch fest
And “Al Gore” style drama ensued.
And…
I may have said something that might institute more drama (that I was semi-sorry for saying)

Also I dropped out of running for an office in my law fraternity because my GPA was in the “questionable zone”. And that was more drama that I didn’t need.

My life is an open book people. You see me here and this is me. Drama free.

That last thing is totally BS – Drama follows me like a lost puppy.
Heck that is why you read this thing, because my drama is… well the crap is kind of funny. And it makes your drama seem… well, so much less like drama that it makes it ok. And while I may stretch the truth to make the story more appealing, I won’t lie to you.
Unless you bring up some useless drama -
At which point I will pretend that my phone is vibrating and that I have to answer it.

The law week Heist (or - Tornadoes, blow darts, and pickpockets)

2007-03-07T02:03:00.000-05:00

We have this thing at law school called law week.
All week long we have distinguished speakers come in and give a short lecture on their specialized topic and take questions. It is pretty cool because even if the speaker sucks, they still feed you lunch.

One of our speakers commented early on that she didn’t think that she had enough material to cover the entire half hour allotted.
Yea, whatever.
45 minutes AFTER her original half hour was up, we were still sitting there.
Politicians… Who knew?

Anyway, the rain was beating down and the entire area was under tornado watches / warnings. (Who really cares about the difference anymore except for old people and the guy who drones on endlessly on the local TV news. You have to listen to him because you can’t see his face due to the fact that the entire screen is covered with pictures of the “super doplar ten million jigawatt mega fantastic” local radar, storm warnings, severe weather warnings, tornado alerts, and logos.)

“This just in - Breaking coverage: It is raining.”

No kidding? I was wondering what all that wet stuff was blowing up against the window.

As the speech droned on…
School was canceled and closed for the rest of the day due to the weather.
I think the speaker thought that this meant that she had us captive until someone actually died from boredom.
The dean came to the side door and was making all kinds of hand signals to those of us that could see her.
Now, for some reason I don’t think the dean is all that fluent in sign language.
What she was trying to tell us was that school was closed, there was a tornado, and we needed to finish up, get out, and get somewhere safe.
But…
Through her extraordinary use of sign language (something akin to what the first settlers must have used with the Indians). I was able to decipher that she was thinking of washing a pot or perhaps making soup. Or perhaps she had been bitten by a dangerous insect. I couldn’t really tell. She could have used smoke signals and it would have been clearer.
What we finally figured out was that she was telling us to shut the speaker up even if we had to choke her out.
I think somebody in the back of the room was busy fashioning a blow dart knock out weapon out of ink pens and Tylenol.
The speaker got to the end of sentence and took a breath.
We all started clapping.

“Oh, my time must be up.” She said.
No kidding lady. I was thinking of sending a bill to your office for the time I wasted here and perhaps a tort claim for unlawful imprisonment. (Actually she wasn’t all that bad – just long winded).

So the whole big crowd grabs up their books and hurries out into the parking lot to get into their cars. They do this because a giant tornado is coming and it is of course safer to be on the road in a blinding rain than to sit quietly for another half hour till the thing blows over.

Here is the sucky part.
While we were trapped at the meeting upstairs we had left our books in the room downstairs because we were supposed to have a class right afterwards.
Two of my friends happened to leave their bags in the room. While we were in the meeting, some thief stole their wallets.
I’m not sure if the speaker was in on it or not. It might have been some kind of bait and switch delay tactic they had been practicing or something.

2007-03-06T03:46:00.001-05:00

I promise the next blogs wont be so serious.

China, human rights, internet freedom, and the Great Wall of Filtering

2007-03-06T03:31:00.000-05:00

This post may seem a bit strange to you.
After my last post I was checking my counter stats and noticed something funny. Suddenly I got a lot of hits from China. From sources like: CNC Group and Chinanet
Places like: Shandong province; Hunan province; Shanxi, to name a few.
Wow, I thought to myself. Are all of these people that interested in the American Civil Rights movement? I was wondering: Are these people “googling” civil rights information?
Or is it something more sinister?
Say maybe a government looking for information that they wish to block their citizens from viewing or having access to. The type of hits I received do not appear to be people reading the blog. The site visits are of too short a duration. (If you don’t already know – counter statistics can be quite detailed – go to the bottom of the page and click on the icon to see for yourself)

China is commonly criticized for violations of basic human rights. Under the guise of blocking pornography, China was widely known to have purchased Microsoft programs and to have made deals with other software, search engines and platforms that have been modified to filter out content that the Chinese government finds objectionable. According to http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china it appears that the set of sites blocked in China is by no means static: whoever maintains the lists is actively updating them, and certain general-interest high-profile sites whose content changes frequently appear to be blocked and unblocked as those changes are evaluated. I took a look a list of blocked sites. Trust me, they are not blocking porn.
Interested in more? Check out here - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/resources.html

For instance there is a topic that is still taboo in mainland China and an image that the entire world (minus a big chunk of China) has seen. A picture that many of us will never forget.

The Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989, where students, intellectuals, and urban workers protested against the government. Martial law was declared and troops moved in. The communist party claimed that there were only 23 civilian deaths. The CIA averaged that the number was around 400 to 800. And the Chinese red cross estimated that there were 2600 deaths.
Like Mark Twain said: “There are three types of lies: Lies; Damn lies; and statistics.”
In any event, at the very least, there were thousands that were injured. The Chinese authorities apparently don’t use riot gear and tear gas. They used tanks and bullets. It still works. But it is a little heavy handed. Don’t you think? The point is that this is old news to you and me, but rarely seen in China.

So here is my question? Especially after this post, am I persona non grata in China?
Am I blocked? Am I filtered? Have I been placed outside “The Great Wall”? Or have I fallen victim to my own conspiracy theory-ism?

If you have access to someone in China, have them Google this site and let me know.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2007-03-04T14:02:00.000-05:00

This Sunday - 42 years ago

On March 7, 1965 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma. Discrimination and intimidation had prevented Selma's black population, roughly half of the city, from registering to vote. The marchers hoped to bring notice to the violations of their rights by marching to the state capitol in Montgomery.

They made it only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Alabama State troopers and the local Sheriff's Department, some mounted on horseback, awaited them. In the presence of the news media, they attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas, and bull whips.

Brutal televised images of the attack, which presented people with horrifying images of people left bloodied and severely injured, roused support for the US civil rights movement.

Amelia Robinson was beaten and gassed nearly to death — her photo appeared on the front page of papers and newsmagazines around the world.

Food for thought.

I, as a white, southern, male, law student, in Montgomery, AL almost roll my eyes sometimes when we have at our school yet another civil rights speaker.
Being from a poor white family - attending a public school - paying my way through college with work, loans, and the GI Bill – paying my way through law school on loans - In an era where race related crimes are overwhelmingly not against black people by white people BUT AGAINST white people by black people -
Sometimes I wonder “What does this really all have to do with me?”
This did not happen in my life time. I didn’t profit from the subjugation or poor blacks. My family didn’t own a plantation. We never had slaves. We were dirt poor farmers and laborers.

Then again…
This all happened less than 50 miles from where I now sit. And while it may not have happened in my life time, it certainly happened in the lifetime of many people that I know.

We, as we struggle to become attorneys (and when we do become attorneys), must be aware and constantly vigilant that those in authority will use that authority (and abuse that authority) in ways that take away the very liberties and justice that we set out to secure and defend over 2 and a quarter centuries ago.

This is what we fight. This is what we stand against. This is what we are duty bound to defend against.
This, my friends, is why we learn the law:
To protect the blessings of liberty for all.

The Cat in the Hat turns 50

2007-03-01T13:24:00.000-05:00

50 years ago today Theodore Seuss Geisel wrote one of the all time favorite children’s books.

Seuss was contacted by Houghton Mifflin because the current Dick and Jane books being used by schools were doing a poor job of educating and prompting children to read because they were…
Boring.
In a 1954 Life magazine article by the writer John Hersey the question was asked: Why can't Johnny read? Hersey concluded that the "Dick and Jane" readers that most schools used were just too boring. Hersey suggested that Dr. Seuss write a new reading primer for the nation's schoolchildren.
The editors of Houghton Mifflin sent Dr. Seuss a 200-word vocabulary list for 6 and 7 year olds. Dr. Seuss agreed to take on the task and figured that he would knock it out in a few days.
It took him a year and a half.
He read through the list and on the third try decided to find two words that rhymed and to make that his title. The two words were “cat” and “hat”.

236 words later we have one of the most timeless children’s classics to ever be created. It is a book that drove millions to read.

However, the book was never used in public schools because the school systems found it to be too “subversive”.

The cat in the hat was TOO SUBVERSIVE??????

That’s crazy as can be.
I do not agree with that
And that does not agree with me

Now, as Paul Harvey says, you know the rest of the story.

The North Face

2007-02-28T18:11:00.000-05:00

During a cold day this semester I was sitting quietly in class listening to the teacher and I caught my self doing something that I do quite often.
People watching
I watched the people in my class play with their face, or absent mindedly twirl their hair, or annoyingly click their pen, or stare in wonder waiting for something important to fall from the professor’s mouth so that they could furiously write it down. While doing this I noticed something odd about the row of students in front of me.
They are all dressed in the same black fleece jacket with the same white logo on the back shoulder “The North Face”. Not just one or two of them. The entire row minus one or two non-conformist. Looking around the room I noticed it was nearly the same.
The North face makes high performance mountaineering apparel and equipment.
Fleece jackets run from $80 and up $230 and the shells run about the same.

My whole life I have hung out with a pretty outdoorsy crowd. Apart from hunters, I have a number of friends that are into nature based high risk activities: Rock climbers, boulderers (like climbers but with less equipment and difficulty), long distance hikers, cavers (apparently they don’t like to be called “spelunkers” but you can recognize them by that black and yellow bat bumper sticker), whitewater enthusiasts, etc. You get the picture.
The point is that these people rely heavily on their gear. If it fails, they wind up hurt or at the very lest uncomfortable. The North face was a common brand in these circles because they made high quality expedition wear that was dependable. It was warm, kept you dry, and packed light. Used to be that if you saw a guy wearing a North Face jacket you knew he was into some outdoorsy stuff or at least he was wearing THAT guys jacket.
I don’t personally own a North face jacket of any kind. Not that I would not. I just don’t plan on trekking on any glaciers in the near future.

But now every body has one. Even the chick that doesn’t own a pair of tennis shoes, much less a pair of hiking boots, is wearing one. I dare say that none of these people are trekking to any remote part of the world within the near future or ever. But they are wearing that guy’s jacket. The name brand has become so diluted that it doesn’t mean what it once did. It is apparent that The North face has become (dare I say it) the “Members Only jacket” of the 2000’s and ranks right up there with Ferrari brand folding sunglasses.
Maybe there is some kind of “you can’t read a book by its cover” lesson that I am supposed to learn here. And that you can’t assume anything about a person by the way they look. But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would you wear the uniform of something that you were not? It is kind of like a woman who is dressed like a hooker standing on the corner in a shady part of town who is deeply offended when someone offers her money for sex. The cops would be like “Geez, you are wearing a hooker’s uniform lady. What did you expect?”
It just seems out of place. But nobody says anything.

Kind of like the Toyota Pre-Runner –
It looks like a 4wd. It has big tires like a 4wd. It sits up high off the ground like a 4wd drive. It rides like a 4wd. It is JUST NOT a 4wd (which makes it the hermaphrodite of truck world so to speak).

Somehow I think if I walk up to any of those people and started a conversation about rappelling belay devices that they wouldn’t know what in the world I was talking about and think I was crazy.
“I’m sorry lady. But you ARE wearing a mountain climber’s uniform. What did you expect?”

The Lost Valentine Post

2007-02-28T04:13:00.000-05:00

I wrote this a while back at valentines day. I just found it. So here it is.

Dear prospective Valentine,

Since I am not actually celebrating the 14th of February as a holiday in the sense of Valentine’s Day I am unable to send you celebratory Valentine’s Day wishes.
I do however wish you a happy 14th of February, as I hope that you have a happy 15th, 16th, 17th, etc…
As I do not wish to celebrate the 14th of February for any other reason than it is another day to be alive, I am not of the mind to wish you any other thing than that your day is free from horror and disfiguring accidents.
While I do understand that you as a female may put more stock into this day than others, I am disappointed that you have bought into the notion of prepackaged romance and commercialized love. This is noted by the fact that the Greeting Card Association “estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines’ cards.” (Side Bar - Please note that any time you see a statistical average in the same sentence as the words “estimates” and “approximate” that the statistic is BS)

You should be aware that you will not receive from me a $150 bouquet of long stemmed roses that sell on any other day for $30. You will not receive from me the obligatory box of confection or a preprinted $8 sentiment on folded cardstock paper.

In an effort to do more of what seems to be required of relationships today, I have decided to be truthful. I don’t care about Valentine’s Day. It is a holiday that purports to celebrate love and relationships through commercial purchases (kind of like Christmas only without the family, food, celebration of the birth of Jesus or any of that meaningful stuff). In reality Valentines Day was a Roman fertility festival that was revived by Ester Howland to generate business for he father’s stationary store. The greeting card industry quickly adopted it in order to generate sales. (The flower and candy industry tagged along for the ride.)

The argument in the opposite (or to play devil’s advocate so to speak) is that the chick is the one who actually cares about Valentines Day. Because the girl cares about Valentines Day, the guy is obliged to also care about it because it means something to the girl and since the girl means something to the guy, he must then care about Valentines Day, participate in Valentines Day, and, squander money on soon forgotten trinkets of commercialized affection for Valentines Day.

All is fair in love and war.

So Riddle me this:
Can you tell me what a zone defense is?
Who took over Joe Kines position at Alabama? (Hint: it is not Nick Saban)
Can you recite any of the quotes from “Josey Wales” or “Full Metal Jacket”?
Do you know the difference in a pilsner and lager?

Your argument might be: “NO. I don’t know about that stuff. I don’t care about that stuff. That stuff is not important to me. Why does any of it matter?”

My point exactly.

Fun with Spanish words

2007-02-25T16:15:00.000-05:00

have this friend who is taking Spanish lessons.
She decided to take sticky notes and label almost everything in her house with the Spanish equivalent of the word for that item. So all over the house there are words written in Spanish on objects.
While she wasn’t around I placed a few extra ones. For instance I labeled a lamp, some dog food, and a stereo with the correct Spanish translation.

However, I also translated a few extra things for her.

The steak in the freezer I labeled “carne de caballo”
Translation:
Horse meat

The non diary creamer in the fridge I labeled "leche materna”
Translation:
Breast milk

The remote control I labeled “el consolador”
Translation:
The dildo

“Honey whats for dinner?”
“I’m making carne de caballo”
“Mmm. Mmm. That sounds delicious.”

“Would you like some leche de materna in your coffee?”

And my favorite
“Honey I am bored. Hand me el consalador.”

Gumpisms

2007-02-23T17:17:00.000-05:00

By popular demand “Gumpisms” are back

To refresh your memory – Because I live in Montgomery I constantly get barraged with new “street terms” for things. So I am starting my own ghetto dictionary called “Gumpisms”. That way you can be caught up on the new slang and never left out of the loop when talking to your friends.

This weeks entry:

Ridin’ crook’d on chrome
Or
Riding crooked on chrome

The act of driving a car with after market rims (see “Dubs”) and a “tricked out suspension system” (see “switches”) while the system is engaged thus leaving the car in motion while also being at a precarious angle (or crooked) in relation to the road surface.

Saying the wrong thing

2007-02-22T18:51:00.000-05:00

The other day in Civil Procedure the professor called on a girl in the back. He then called on me as co-council several times. Each time was a quick hard question that required some thought and occasionally an inventive answer. Not that I was able to do that every time. But that is what was required.

Last night we were on our way to go eat and the subject came up. This is the conversaton that ensued:

Me: What was the deal Professor G. ?

Brent: It was weird. He kept calling on you

Me: Yea, I know. He banged me really hard at least six times.

Uncomftorable silence followed by mad laughter as the car almost swerves off the road.

I can't write it.

2007-02-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

Due to the popularity of this blog and the fact that people read it that I would otherwise write about – I am unable to say some things that I would like to say.
So I decided to make a list and if you read the blog you can pick the comment that goes to you. You know who you are. They are no particular order.

POST REDACTED

WOW!
I can not believe the number of incredibly negative responses that I received to this blog. There were 15 separate comments. Almost all has been redacted because some of the things that were mentioned people automatically thought applied to them. Others thought that one applied to them when I actually meant for another to apply to them.
In particular item 2 specifically did not apply to the person who probably believes that it did.
Two of the items have been remedied and the other ones never will be.
I would like to remind my readers that I in NO WAY mean for this blog to be a place which I would ever air my personal grievances against anyone. I simply was ranting and thought some of it was funny.

However, I stand by number 4. :-)

The evil gatekeeper and my appointment

2007-02-22T18:03:00.000-05:00

I have an apt the other day. Like a good boy, I was early. I walk in and of course the secretary asks if I have an appointment.

Me: "Yes of course I do. I have a 2pm appointment."
Secretary: "Oh, I sent you an email that she might be a little late. It may be 2:15 before she gets back. Didn’t you check your email?"
Me: "Yes ma’am. I just checked it about 10 minutes ago."
Secretary: "Maybe it was a different email address. Do you have another one that you didn’t check?"
Me: "No ma’am. I actually checked all my email about 10 minutes ago."
Secretary: "Oh well maybe it didn’t go through."
Me: "That is ok. I’ll wait. Is it ok if I sit here?"

The secretary gives me a dirty look, a half smirk and nods. She closes a half finished game of solitaire and proceeds to shuffle some papers and tries to look busy. I know that is what she is doing because I have done it a million times before and I know what it looks like.

So I am sitting there thinking and making out a to-do list (note that a to-do list is almost as helpful to me as a mental note – but sometimes it helps to put things in order) I look up every once in a while and the secretary is eye-balling me and looking pissed off.

I was sitting there doodling and all of a sudden I realize:
This lady doesn’t even have my email address. She doesn’t even know what my first name is. There is no possible way that she could have sent me an email.
She was just flat out lying because she didn’t want me waiting in her office. She wanted me to leave, call back, reschedule, and go through this whole thing again. Just so she can goof off.

Why do people do that? There was no need for it. I stewed about it for a minute and was about to call her on it by asking her to what email address that she had sent the note.

About the time I was about to approach her, my appointment walked in and escorted me to her office. (Right on time by the way. If I had left and rescheduled this same office troll would be the one that gave me a hard time for having to reschedule for not showing up.)

I have worked in an office a few times and have never really liked all the pseudo drama that occurs. It just amazes me that people that work in offices become so engrossed in their little cubicle that the real world doesn’t matter to them. For all this lady knows, I drove 50 miles to get to this appointment. She didn’t care. It just upset her plan to screw around and do nothing. What a looser. That is what home is for. You go home, sit there and when somebody calls and asks what you are doing, you say “nothing”. You’ve got a job to do. Freaking do it. You take phone calls, make appointments, and whatever else you boss tells you to do with your miserable existence for 8 hours. Then you get to go home a goof off.

Not on my time lady! Now get to shuffling those papers!

Dog Lawyer

2007-02-20T22:44:00.001-05:00

This kills me!

GI Joe with kung fu grip

2007-02-16T03:11:00.000-05:00

ITS BACK!!!
Watch the original 70's commercial here
http://www.hasbro.com/gijoe/kungfugrip/

This blog may be too popular

2007-02-16T02:57:00.000-05:00

The other evening I was working in the library when a rather nasty storm hit.
Classes were canceled. Which is kind of stupid because classes were already in session and by the time the classes were scheduled to be over with the storm would have passed. It was like saying “Hey, it is thundering and lightning, raining like hell, about to start hailing, and there is a possibility of tornadoes. Why don’t you run outside, get into your car and go driving in it.”

I was standing in the foyer looking at the rain and marble sized hail beating our cars with one of my professors who happens to be a very nice lady. She had just got off the phone talking to her kids to make sure they were inside and safe. (They were not of course. They were outside watching hail beat the heck out of people’s cars as well. Maybe they don’t have cable. I dunno.)

Making conversation I start to tell what I considered to be an interesting story.
Mid-sentence she stopped me and said “This story doesn’t involve glass eyes or dog poo does it?”

If this doesn't make any sense to you then go see "The Glass eye" post in the January 2007 Archive

legal movies

2007-02-16T02:37:00.000-05:00

A Time to Kill

The other night I came home from studying when the library closed and grabbed a quick snack. I had planned to relax for a few minutes, check my email, and watch TV for a few minutes.
“A time to kill” was on. If you are not familiar with it then you really need to watch it or maybe read the book. It is by far Grisham’s best work.
The story line is simple. (Caution: Spoiler) A black man who feels the justice system has failed to protect his family takes the law into his own hands. The story follows the trial and the surrounding racial tensions that arise. It is a uniquely southern story reminiscent of “To kill a mockingbird”. The movie is star packed and Jack Brigance, the lawyer for the defendant, is played by a young Mathew McConaughey.
I once owned the VHS tape but wore it out. If I could fast forward it till the end and watch the lawyer’s closing speech, I would. But it was on TV, so I watched the rest of it.
It is one of those movies that make people decide to want to be lawyers and take on the unwinable cause

My favorite line from the movie:
“What is it in us that seeks the truth? Is it our minds or is it our hearts?”
It reminds me of what was said of Atticus Finch:
“There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us”…
“We’re paying him the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do it right.”

Anyway, McConaughey delivers a soliloquy as his closing statement that convinces the jury to return a not guilty verdict. The camera cuts to a jury member and a single tear rolls down her cheek. And you know he has already won. Snatching victory from the snarling jaws of defeat.
We all want to be that lawyer. We want to be that guy who takes on the case that can’t be won because it is the right thing to do. We want to be that guy who saves the world- one case at a time. We want to triumph.

After almost two years of dishing it out and law school has not taken that desire from me.
I hope it never dies.

Sometimes it is good just to sit back and think about why we have decided to do what we do and why we suffer what we suffer in order to make that dream come true.

Bad advice and valentines day

2007-02-14T02:26:00.000-05:00

Yahoo recently has started to do this thing that MSN has been doing for some time. The top of the page has some links to articles of interest. Usually it has something to do with what is going on in the world. If it is Christmas there is an article or two on what to get a boy / girl friend. That type of thing.
I read this article for today and of course it was on first dinner date dos and don’ts because it is near Valentines Day. Fair enough. I have done my reading for school and have a few minutes to spare. So I read the article. One set for the men and one set for the women. So far so good.

Number 10 of the women’s article reads:
10. Even if you asked him out, give him a chance to pick up the tab (even if you end up treating or splitting). I know we live in a world of equality and all, but some things make a guy feel good and picking up dinner is often one of them.
Where number 10 of the men’s article reads:
10. Pay the bill, already. She'll do the faux wallet-reach, but that doesn't mean she actually wants to reach inside. If this one's a keeper, she'll pick-up the nightcap

Complete hogwash! Ask any guy. Very seldom have I EVER had a woman offer to pick up the tab. EVER.
Granted, if we are friends and I have paid relentlessly every time, eventually she feels obligated to pay. Recently I was surprised when the chick pulled out her card before I could even reach for the check. She is a good friend. I invited her. It may or may not have been a date. But nonetheless I was excited about it.

Last year I went out with a woman who makes many, many times what I will make my first year as an attorney. She drove a car that I won’t even be able to afford for several years. You get the idea.
We met at a really nice (read that as expensive) restaurant that SHE chose. We had dinner and a couple of drinks. I was well dressed, friendly, complimentary, and on my best behavior. We parted ways afterwards and didn’t go out again. I smiled, never said a word regarding the cost or tip and spent nearly $100 (the whole way home I added up how many weeks of Ramen noodles that date was going to cost me)
Now some of you are thinking – So?

I am a law student. I live on loans. I buy everything on sale. I go to the dollar store looking for deals. I look at my bank account everyday. I just don’t have the money to spend. But to make a decent impression I felt the need to do the gentlemanly thing and pay as expected. Once in a while is great. Even the majority of the time it is expected. But this scenario has played out time and again. And again! And it does so for every guy.

Those two numb sculls who wrote the article are clueless.
This line kills me:
“some things make a guy feel good and picking up dinner is often one of them.”

Yes, yes! You have it exactly! I love to spend money feeding other people and buying them drinks because it makes me feels good inside. It completes me as a person.

How about this one:
“Even if you asked him out, give him a chance to pick up the tab”
At this point I roll my eyes and clicked away.

Think about it.
Marriage advice columnist – Divorced
Political columnist – washed up has been (or never was) that gets his jollies trashing those in the public light
Fashion columnist – trash all but the most spectacularly dressed (while they themselves look like hobos)
Child rearing columnist – abusive overbearing parent with gay children
And finally
Dating advice columnist – these fall into one of two categories
1. Already married and clueless or forgetful about dating – (side bar – once a dating advice columnist gets married they automatically get cut from writing about it. They get to write the column on marriage and kids.
2. People with only pets to soothe their lonely rambling about dating as obesity sets in.

I don’t think that girls honestly understand the amount that guys spend on them.
Last spring I dated a girl for about a month (I hope she never reads this). At one point she made the comment that she bet that I was happy to be dating someone that didn’t expect for me to buy everything and that she contributed her share. I agreed and complimented her because some help is better than none.
But…
Guess again sweetheart.
During our relationship just so happened to be at a time when I was making a careful accounting of where I was spending money in order to work out a better budget. I wrote down everything. I kept all my receipts. In doing so I had to estimate her portion of all our food, beverages, etc. I spent well over $1000 on her. This is only food and drinks. She had no idea.
Once again, if you are thinking “So?” to yourself you can kiss it. That’s a lot of money on my budget.

The point to my female readers is this.
Don’t listen to these people. They are idiots. Nobody likes to spend money that they don’t have to. A guy asks you out because he is interested in you. He is only paying because he knows that you expect him to. If you are interested it him, show it by at least offering to go half. He will more than likely not let you and it may seem odd to him because no chick ever does it. But he will respect you. If you are not interested in him, it is your duty to pay your half and move on.
Equality has its ups and downs. In an era where more women go to college than men, you probably make more money than he does. If you make a half hearted offer to pony up even 40% of the time he will be impressed.
If he is in law school, take the poor boy out. He is broke. ;-)

Now that I have dished out my dating advice I suppose I should go buy a cat and some Twinkies, or get married.

Astronauts, diapers, and valentines day

2007-02-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

So by now everyone has heard about the astronaut that drove non- stop across country while wearing a NASA space diaper so that she could attack a love rival. Someone asked me to comment on what happened.
What a beautiful valentines day gift.

“What did you do this weekend honey?”
“I drove cross country in a big diaper and a wig and doused that hussy you have been seeing with pepper spray. So, where do you want to do for dinner?”

Uhhhhhhh. She is crazy. End of story.

Speaking of crazy - Anna Nicole Smith is dead. Well that is a big surprise. I suppose they will want to say that she died of natural causes. They say her fridge was full of slim fast and methadone. I'm at a loss for words.

Brent and Rebekha sittin' in a tree kay eye es es eye en gee

2007-02-11T23:12:00.000-05:00

One of my best friends and my ex-roommate got engaged on Saturday. He pulled it off without a hitch. She said yes. I believe that he was pretty sure of himself because he had some of our friends hiding nearby taking pictures of the proposal.
I made sure to tell him that his sex life was almost over and that she would immediately start putting on weight, but he wouldn't be detered.
He joked about me being the "ring bearer". I said "Whatever dude, chicks love a guy in a tux. I'm in."

Below is the bulletin that she posted on Myspace. I copied it and put it here (minus all the pictures) because they are good friends of mine and I am proud for them both.

A few days ago, Brent asked me if I wanted to celebrate Valentines Day on Saturday, February 10, 2007, because I have Spanish class on Wednesday nights. On Saturday morning, Brent said he wanted us to go on a picnic in the Shakespeare Park for lunch. He said he had to go pick out a Valentines gift for me, and he asked me to pick up some lunch for our picnic. (I still had to go buy his gift too). At one o’clock, we packed our lunch and a blanket and started walking toward the park. It was really cold, so I tried to talk Brent into us just stopping and having our picnic in this open field, but Brent insisted that we should keep walking. We came to a hill, and Brent said, “The other side of that hill looks like a good spot.” When we got the other side of the hill, there was a blanket and two dozen pink and white roses waiting. The picnic spot was set up right next to the water, and the view was beautiful. Brent gave me my gift to open. It was a book entitled “365 Days of Happiness.” I started looking through it, and Brent said, “I got it for you, because I want to make you happy 365 days a year for the rest of your life.” Then I looked up at him, and he had an absolutely gorgeous ring in his hand. I immediately started crying. He said, “Will you marry me?” I hugged and kissed him, and he said, “Is that a yes? Did you say yes?” I said yes, and then he told me that our friends Amanda and Kenny were hiding nearby taking pictures. Now we have pictures of the whole proposal.We haven’t set a date yet, because we’re still deciding on location. We both want a destination wedding. The ring is a round one carat solitaire. Its absolutely beautiful.

Good luck you two.

ps
I accidentally deleted two comments when I hit the wrong button - sorry. Feel free to repost them and I will make sure they get up.

Reader comments, Man boobs, and a simple lesson in contract law

2007-02-07T19:48:00.000-05:00

I was surprised to find that a loyal reader had posted an anonymous comment on the NY Times v. Sullivan Blog below. I was even more surprised that the anonymous comment read “I will show you some big titties for another blog.” (Not my words, I just cut and pasted that.)
I initially thought that it was my friend "H." from class because we had briefly conversed on the subject of “man boobs” earlier in the day. It was a rather humorous conversation that evolved starting out with sweater vests, moving on to bullet proof vests, and somehow ending with man boobs.
I had composed this short letter to H. in reply.

Dear H.,

As enjoyable as our conversation was regarding “man boobs”, I regret to inform you that I have little interest in seeing yours. It is a matter of personal taste and lifestyle choice. I can assure you that it in no way detracts from you as a person. It is simply my own personal decision not to want to see your man boobs. If you wish to have someone look at your swollen breasts, I think that appropriate person would be your physician.
I suggest that we consider this matter closed and that we should never speak of it again.
Best of luck in your search for a man boob viewer in the future.

Kindest regards,

Jake

Later on however, I was informed that the anonymous message was left by a friend’s girl friend "E". E. is a girl with rather ample (yet proportionate) boobs. (She is a girl, she is his friend, it gets complicated after that – but I think it involves smooching.) I apologize to H. at this time because I just naturally assumed that he wanted me to see his man boobs. My bad dude.

So I wrote this letter to the now not-so-anonymous loyal reader.

E,

I would like to thank you for your interest in the blog and your generous offer which I have decided to accept. You should consider this blog to be for you!
Offer, acceptance, and consideration. We totally have a binding contract now. Sweet! Ask S. if you don’t believe me. I believe that you are legally bound to this seeing as how the offer was made so publicly and not later retracted. Feel free to go ahead and forward any pictures / video to me at this time. However, I would prefer digital images / video in order to make it easier to post them on the internet later.
Also, if you have any other similarly proportioned friends that wish to make similar offers, I would be happy to oblige.
Anything that I can do to make my readers happy.

Jake

Ps – I am totally kidding.
H.,
If you want to show me your man boobs. I am ok with that.

E.,
Uhhhhhh. Just send the pictures. We have a contract.

A woman scorned

2007-02-06T18:34:00.000-05:00

Oh what fun!
Today in class a girl raised her hand to ask a question. Someone started coughing in the back. She stood up, turned around, and lit into them. The tyrade lasted about 30 seconds and she threw in something about slackers and canned briefs.
I didn’t understand what was going on at first. This is one of only 2 classes that I have with this group of students. I just figured that it was another 1L flipping out. After class I cornered one of my 1L buds and she gave me the low down on what had really happened.
Apparently it had been going on for some time. Every time she spoke up in one of her classes one of the guys in the back would cough.
The professor intervened. He didn’t know what was going on and neither did a lot of us.
Apparently she learned of the intended interruptions over lunch from a friend who told her. (She being previously unaware). She also apparently took offense to this, being as it was coming from the resident class frat boy slackers.

Her message was clear.
"I don’t care if you don’t like me asking questions or think that my questions are stupid. I pay a lot of money to ask any damn thing I want. If you don’t like it come get some!"

I love a girl with a streak of fire in her!

NY Times v. Sullivan

2007-02-05T19:40:00.002-05:00

Today in Constitutional law class we were going over the N.Y. Times v. Sullivan case. It is a pivotal case and during law school a student will confront the case many times in regard to many different points. It is one of the key decisions supporting the freedom of the press. The actual malice standard requires that the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case prove that the publisher of the statement knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty in proving essentially what is inside a person's head, such cases - when they involve public figures - rarely, if ever prevail.
Anyway, it comes out that one of the guys in our class is the grandson of one of the attorneys that worked on the case. Not a big surprise because this is Montgomery and this is where the case originally started. But still, that is kind of cool. Not because he is a relative of someone that handled an important Supreme Court case but because that he had to brief the case and not me.

Contacts

2007-02-05T19:40:00.001-05:00

I got a new prescription for contacts Thursday.
I went to the optometrist at one of the local Wal-Marts. I know, I know. Entrusting your eyesight to the evil empire and all. But to tell the truth they have good prices and a pretty good doctor.
The doctor dilated my eyes. That kind of sucked. I was pretty much blind for a bout an hour or so. For some reason I am more sensitive than most people to drugs.
My pupils were as big as saucers. The optometrist said that I looked like I was stoned. I thought I looked more like I had insane cartoon squirrel eyes. Either way, apparently I was sensitive to the dilation drug and my eyes were really, really dilated. The doctor said something about people with light colored eyes being more sensitive to the drug.

All I know is that I had to wander around Wal-Mart until I could see well enough to drive home. This was obviously an evil plot by Wal-Mart to make me buy useless crap. And it worked.
Since I couldn’t see anyway, I turned on the TV and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up it was to the history channel with a show about how farm tractors work.
Wow, they spent tens of thousands of dollars to produce this show and the only people who are watching it are either high or too lazy to change the channel.

It was about 4 hours before my eyes were somewhat back to normal.

The things you learn about yourself (you may not want to know)

2007-01-29T23:31:00.000-05:00

Last weekend (actually weekend before last – this last weekend I was busy getting over the cold that had flared back up) I attended the birthday party for a guy in my law school.

Upon arrival in the historic section of Montgomery I found the nice little house where I was supposed to be. I went into the house and didn’t see a single person that I knew. Lots of people from all walks of life. The crowd was eclectic. (that is another big word that means I didn’t know anybody there).
I finally found someone who pointed me toward the group of law students that had congregated on the back deck. If you don’t already know, Law school sucks most of the social skills out of you and you only have stuff in common with other law students. It should also be noted that nothing (and I mean nothing) so takes over your mind that you think of nothing else as the study of the law. So much so that you may revert back to childhood behavior in order to cope. Here in lies the only reasoning that I can possibly think of that explains my actions earlier last semester.
I’ll explain.

I found my law school buddies and sat down to chat.
Somewhere around the third beverage, a friend piped up.
(Warning – bathroom humor)

Friend: “I caught my self doing that thing.”
Me: “What thing?”
Friend: “I had to pee and caught my self singing. “
Me: “Singing what?”
Friend: “That song you did that day.”
Everybody: Laughing
Me: “What song?”
Everybody: More laughter
Friend: “One day you were in hurry in the bathroom and were standing there singing “Urine, Urine, Urrriiiiiiiine” ”
Note: this sounds incredibly like “you’re in, you’re in, youuuuuuuur iiiiiin”
Everybody: Laughing uncontrollably
Chick friend: “I was driving home over the holidays and had to go in a gas station but couldn’t go. I caught myself singing “Urine, Urine, Urrrriiiine” ”
Me looking shameful: “Dang, the things you find out about yourself from people you know.”
Chick friend: “You didn’t know that everybody knew about that? Everybody knows about that. I even know about it and I’m a girl.”
Awkward silence
Me, looking at the house full of people that don’t know me: “I think I’ll go mingle.”

Some people sing in the shower. Apparently I sing while I pee.
You learn something new everyday. Sometimes you learn something new about yourself.

Posts have been edited

2007-01-24T16:20:00.000-05:00

After realizing the growing popularity of this blog (one of my professors saw it today) I have elected to go back and take the profanity out of my posts.

Due in part to our popular culture but mostly to the fact that I spent several years in the Marine Corps, my ability to curse is prolific. It really can be quite creative. I can fit in cuss words where most people would give up and use Standard English.

So from here on out profanity will be used only for extreme instances.
I will insert the comic book version “#@$%^&*” in their place or use abbreviations.

It doesn’t really matter. The stuff is still just as funny. But I just decided that I would rather not have to explain to the state bar character and fitness committee why I felt the need to post obscene language.

The glass eye

2007-01-22T00:40:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid I got a BB gun for Christmas.
With the BB gun came the usual warning about safety and such.
My mother didn’t use the phrase “You’ll shoot your eye out.”
No way man.
She had Reni Goss as her reference.
Reni Goss was a kid a couple of years older than us. He was playing with a BB gun in the basement of his house. A BB ricochet hit him in the eye. It put his eye out.
He had a glass eye but sometimes wore a big black eye patch. When he did that, every little kid would shrivel in fear as he approached. The very thought of Reni Goss’s big glass eye and empty eye socket sent shivers down my spine.
We always wondered why he was wearing the patch. I told my cousin one time that the glass eye was hurting him so he took it out and laid it on the table. It rolled off the table and the dog had eaten it. I told him that they were waiting on it to pass through the dog’s system so he could wash it off and put it back in. My cousin spent a week poking through every pile of dog poop in the neighborhood with a stick looking for the glass eye. But I think that if I put a white marble in some wet dog poo and showed it to him he would have gone screaming into the night and never been right again. It was a close call. I almost sent my cousin to 10 years of therapy.
It was kind of mean but that is what kids do. Kind of like convincing my little sister that she was adopted. Although, in retrospect it may have been a little much to tell her that she wasn’t getting any Christmas presents from our folks because her real family was coming to get her and take her back to work on their pig farm.

All of the above material is true and has not been embellished upon. To prove my point I say this:
To this very day if my cousin steps in dog poo he looks cautiously to make sure that he doesn’t have a glass eye stuck to his shoe. And every year I look at my little sister on Christmas Eve and ask her the same question. “Is your real family coming to get you this year?”

I did not tell my parents of these events until much later in life for fear that it would be put on my “permanent record”.

Ah, childhood. What a marvelous way to mess up the rest of your life.

This post has been edited. I originally posted that they guy's name was Scott and not Reni Goss. I got an email from a reader that reminded me that it was Reni Goss and not Scott. Scott was Reni's little brother. Thanks to my loyal readers. But that just goes to show you, I didn't make it up.

Snow

2007-01-19T01:34:00.000-05:00

I pray for snow. Not now, but sometime between now and spring break.
I mean seriously. Come on!
You lazy government f*&%ers can’t give us a holiday other than Valentines Day from now till almost summer? This is the greyest gloomiest time of the entire year. And without a break! From MLK day through like forever – there is no holiday. It is just straight drudgery for what seems like an eternity. The only crappy holiday in between is Valentines Day. Valentines Day sucks. It is a total chick holiday that involves expensive flowers, food, and chocolate. I generally find a way to be single on this holiday. Every good place to eat is booked solid and every half way good affordable place to eat is packed with redneck couples who are out for their twice annual date. The other one is their anniversary. Flowers go for many times their actual value. Buy a dozen roses now for $15 - $25. Wait until Valentines Day – they go for $80 minimum if you can find them.
Snow is my salvation. Alabama (especially S. AL) is not prepared by any stretch of the imagination for snow of any kind.
One time when I was a kid we had a big ice storm. The local cops actually went to the store and bought a couple of boxes of ice cream salt and spread it around the only intersection that we had in town after somebody had a wreck on the ice. We have no snow plows, no deicers, no sand spreading trucks, no nothing.
Plus, the snow we get is not really snow at all. It is mainly ice and a couple of flurries that make it look kind of white. Snow balls here are actually deadly ice balls that hurt like hell if you get hit with one. We rarely get snow. Kids here generally use pine cones instead. The big ones are hard to throw. But the little ones are dense and zing along quite well. Plus they leave a big red welt on the side of your face if you get hit. This ends the “I got you!”, “You did not!” argument fairly quickly. However it quickly escalates into BB gun wars if you don’t reach some sort of truce before lunch. It actually is all fun and games until somebody gets and eye put out. Which reminds me of a story – but we will get back to that later.

Back to the snow.
If it snows then school gets canceled. It will be canceled for a couple of days if we get a good ice / snow storm. I have a four wheel drive truck so a quick supply run is no problem. The only problem is that when a big storm is coming people go buy up all the milk and bread. What is the deal with that? “Hey a big storm is coming. You better get to the store before all the milk and bread is gone.” WTF – I am heading straight for the beer isle before all of THAT is gone.

Dear Old Man Winter,

Please give us some snow. Come on snow. Leave us stranded at home. And please do so on a weekday. Preferably on say a Wednesday evening through say……. Let’s say Friday around noon. Oh, and if you could do it on Valentines Day as well, I would appreciate it.

Best wishes to your mom Mother Nature as well as your bother The Heat Mizer “Mr. 100 Degrees”.

Best Wishes,
Jake

ps
I would like to applogize for calling you "Old blue balls" when I was a kid. I did not realize that it was because you are icy cold all the time. I inititially thought it had something to do with you not exactly being too smooth with the ladies. My bad.

2007-01-19T00:45:00.000-05:00

I was going to spend some time writing a nice long blog for ya.
But instead I think I am going to go have a life for a little while. My life will consist of going to Wal-mart.
Don’t judge me. You know everybody needs a little Wal-Mart fix every now and again.
Where else can you buy candles, rugs, shotgun shells, food, dishwashing detergent, toothpaste, workout gloves, deodorant, and light bulbs all in one spot?
Did you notice I am making a list?
Did you notice the shotgun shells?
Quit freaking out! It is still hunting season and just because you think you can make tofu that tastes like real meat and come from a place that the only thing people use guns for is to shoot at each other doesn’t mean the rest of the world lives that way. Besides that, the bill of rights says I can.

I never made it to Wal-Mart. I took a nap instead.

Governmental lip service or why Grandad's corn squeezin's can't be bought

2007-01-11T23:02:00.000-05:00

Several years ago I bought a Ford Ranger Pickup that could run on unleaded gasoline or ethanol (known as E-85) or any mixture of the two fuels. E-85 is a fuel made from corn. It is cheaper than gasoline but does not get as good a gas mileage. I believe that it also less hazardous to the environment. It is pretty much a clean version of moonshine. Apparently Ford got some kind of deal from the government for making a bunch of alternative fuel vehicles. Most people will never run E85 in their vehicle even though it is manufactured to higher tolerances in order to burn the fuel.
So I got curious. The government is all about alternative fuels and saving the environment. I looked at where I could buy E85 – I thought I might give it a shot. I like to save money. And doing good stuff for the environment is always good.
It sounds like a really good idea. There is only one problem. There is not one single place in the entire state that sells E85 to the public. One city has a private pump that they run their vehicles on. The US govt. claims that there are several places in the planning stage. Still, none of these plan on selling to the public.
The closest place to buy E85 is in another state and exactly one tank full of fuel away. I could fill up here. Drive there, fill my tank up with E85, and then drive back. Just before I get home, I could stop and fill up again. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?

Just one more example of how your government evades doing the thing they told you they were doing, all the while patting them selves on the back for doing such a good job for you.

2007-01-11T16:43:00.000-05:00

My old room mate wasn’t in class so I called to see where he was. He had some problems with a leaky water heater. He had a plumber looking at it.

Me: Where is it leaking from?

Brent: Around the pipe at the top of the tank. It is rusted

Me: You don’t need a plumber for that. Dude, that’s not hard. We can fix the leak pretty quick or even replace the entire tank in an hour with right parts if we need to. Where is it at anyway? Is it in a closet?”

Brent: It’s in the attic

Me: Its where?

Brent: It’s in the attic.

Me: Sounds like you need a plumber.

Sampson - Expectations

2007-01-05T23:54:00.000-05:00

This is Sampson, my buddy's dog (in my truck with the ducks he retrieved). We went duck hunting last weekend. We were wading around before daylight in the swamp talking about how he has aged. "Maybe he just doesn't have the drive that used to have" Someone said.

Aprox 9 am Saturday Morning

A small group of ducks comes over. They flare at the last second because they have been shot at over decoys from Canada all the way here. We hit the calls. They turn back and flare again. One more time and they come in. Not low and landing but flying by.
We shoot.
One falls. One flares, and one is racing down the water to get away. I take a good bead on him and pull the trigger. He drops a little but sails on down to the end of the small lake we are on.
The dog retrieves the downed duck and I left to go chase down the one that may have landed on the other end of the lake. It is at this time that my other buddy falls into the water, dropping his gun into the foot deep muck at the bottom. This may not seem that funny to you. But the water wasn’t that deep. He was safe but making funny noises as he attempted to stand up.
Upon retrieving the duck, Sampson takes off after me. I am almost to the end of lake when Sampson gets there. He moves in to the water and starts towards some reeds.
He is making a lot of splashing sound when a duck suddenly jumps up from in front of me and attempts to get away. I blasted him and he fell. Sampson is still jumping around on the other side of the reeds.
“Here is the duck, you stupid dog. Come get it.” Sampson is still jumping around in the reeds and I can barely see him but I can hear all the commotion he is making. I figured that the duck landed over there and had swam out. I figured that Sampson was just smelling him on the water and running around looking for him.
So I start towards the downed duck and am about to pick him up when Sampson scares the duck that I first shot out of cover of the reeds and he his hurt so he only flies a few feet and sets down.
I prepare to fire on him but at that instant Sampson comes over the top of the reeds and is too close for me to fire. The duck makes one quick powerful stroke with his wings that lift him 3 feet off the water. He is about to fly away when Sampson leaps into the air and catches the duck in his mouth.
Awesome!
My dad always taught me to not waste game. And there is even state law that says that hunters must make reasonable efforts to bring into their possession downed game.
(For you city folks Game being a dead animal)
That duck was wounded and would have flown and short distance to the river and died. Sampson took care of that.

I guess the point of this story, even if you are not a fan of duck hunting or even hunting in general –
Is this – Expectations are never correct. When you expect something to be great, it almost never is. When you expect little and something exceeds your expectations you are surprised. Either way, your expectations usually have little to so with the real outcome of events.

Some things just have a built in desire to do certain things. Retrievers retrieve. That is the way God made them.

I have a desire to be better than I am. I just hope that my expectations are somewhat close to the real outcome

Reading assignments Rant

2007-01-05T23:30:00.000-05:00

School starts back early Monday morning. This is good and bad in different ways. It is bad because nobody wants to subject themselves to the punishment of law school again so soon. It is good because every semester done is a semester done. And the sooner we start, the sooner we finish.

They posted the first reading assignments today.
Yes, Friday afternoon at 5:40pm I got an email with tons of reading assignments.

You a$#&*^$# couldn’t send them any earlier? For goodness sake! We have been out of school for nearly a month and you send the reading assignments the Friday night before class starts.
That is just lazy and not thinking about your students!