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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

This kills me!

GI Joe with kung fu grip

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

This blog may be too popular

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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!

"Saban is great. I just blew a .08"

So, the University of Alabama now finally has a head coach. He was heartily received at the airport. One eager fan named Colette Connell was so excited that she ran up and hugged and kissed him. She even had her own cheer.
“Praise the Lord, God is so good, Nick is now in the Bama hood."
It made the local news.
Unfortunaltely so did the picuture of her (still in her team jersey) posing for her DUI mugshot 3 hours later. Now it is all over the internet.

http://igottarant.com/showthread.php?t=23941

I may have accidentally emailed it to The smoking gun.

One more

One of my Photographs taken last summer

Books

Books for 2 classes (to be used only one semester) = $379.00 .
Damn, I hate the bookstore. It is such a rip off! I swear everytime that I will buy my books online and I always end up waiting too late.
My buddy wanted to go out tonight but I am still feeling a bit under the weather.
He called while ago. He spent $450.00. Now he doesn't want to go out either.
I guess we had better stock up on ramen noodles and start huffing paint, because we cant afford food or beer. ;-)

Grades are in

All the grades have been posted and it looks like I survived one more semester.

New Year's trip

My parents gave me some money for Christmas. Which was nice, considering my perpetual state of brokness.
I decide to put it in my savings account. I carry the check to the drive through where they promptly (5 minutes of sitting at the window) tell me that they will put a hold on it until the check clears. “No problem, it is going into savings after all.”

I drove up to North Alabama to do some duck hunting and stay with some friends. When I got there, their 6 year old had drew me a picture on that big 1st grade paper with great big lines on it. That was kind of nice. I think I am going to put it up on the fridge.

We had a nice couple of days of hunting and did really well. The last day I was there, we had a surprise birthday party for one of my friends. He didn’t suspect a thing.
When I left, my buddy’s little boy cried because he didn’t want me to leave. It did my heart good to know that someone wants me to be around not because they are my family or friends, but instead just because they like me. Plus, I have always thought that kids are a pretty good judge of character. They can see through the B.S. and will call you on it because they don’t know any better.

Anyway, I am driving back from my duck hunting trip and notice the fuel light is on. I pull into the next available exit and go looking for an ATM. I need to see how much is in my checking account and transfer some money.
After riding around for a good 15 minutes I spot a bank. The checking account was considerably low, as I already knew. It was down to $25. However the savings account gave me a negative balance. OK – that is impossible. First of all I had money in there prior to putting in the check.
Apparently my lovely bank has decided to not only put a hold on my check, but also to put a hold on my entire savings account balance. WTF!!!!
I am in the middle of no where and riding on fumes with only $25 in my checking and no cash to speak of.
I emptied out my checking account to get enough gas to make it to my folks house. Luckily that was enough, other wise I would have had to beg from strangers or call for someone to drive and come get me. By the time I made it back to my parents I had a sore throat. My mom loaned me some money for gas.

New Year’s was nice even though I felt kind of bad. I spent it with my family. We stayed up late and watched the ball drop. We got up the next day and watched some football, repaired some fencing and chased some farm animals into the recently repaired fence. I drove through Birmingham to see a friend and then back to the Gump.

Not long after arriving home I realized that I was coming down with something serious. By this morning I was miserable. But I could not go to the Dr.
Remember – I have no funds available. So I go to the bank and after 20 minutes they sort it out and apologize. I transferred $200 and got some cash.

At the Dr.’s office I find out that I have a case of pneumonia. After the Dr.’s office fee and $260 worth of medication from CVS, I am cleaned out once again.

Puffy and Scruffy

It looks like Puffy's jackets came from Scruffy.

From the AP:
"Macy's has pulled from its shelves and its Web site two styles of Sean John hooded jackets, originally advertised as featuring faux fur, after an investigation concluded that the garments were actually made from a certain species of dog."

Those darn Chineese kids will sew up anything for twelve cents a day.

The vacuum

I was cleaning up the apartment so that when I return from Christmas with my folks I will come home to a clean apartment and don’t have to worry about it. Thus making my return that much more enjoyable.
Anyway…
I am vacuuming the dining room and use the little detachable hose to get into the corners. It isn’t working very well. “Oh well” I figure it just needs to have the bag replaced. So I turn it off and open the cover.

STOP FILM

REWIND TO 3 WEEKS AGO

I am vacuuming and decide to replace the bag because it appears to be full. I take the bag out and throw it away. Upon a thorough search of the entire apartment, it appears that I am out of vacuum cleaner bags. I go to Wall-Mart but they are out of the bags for my vacuum. I return home and make a mental note to try somewhere else for vacuum cleaner bags. I remind you that mental notes are useless to me.

STOP FILM

NOW FAST FORWARD TO 1 WEEK AGO

Without knowing the bag is missing. I vacuum the entire house. I sneeze alot for a day or so.

STOP FILM

NOW FAST FORWARD TO THIS EVENING

I open the cover and look puzzled for a few moments. Then I realize. There is NO bag. The entire inside of the vacuum is full of fuzz, dust, and a fine sand like substance that I can only imagine is some sort of carpet freshening stuff that I have sucked up into the workings of the vacuum. The HEPA filters have kept everything inside the vacuum. Unfortunately doing this has also ruined all of the filters.

So then I go to Wal-Mart and fight the weekend before Christmas crowd in order to pick up new bags and filters.
Wal-Mart does not have the bags or filters. So I try the next place.
Home Depot does not have the bags or filters. So I try the next place.
Lowes has both the bags and all the filters. I spend 15 mintues trying to figure out which ones go to my vacuum because the filter packages all have the model numbers located conveniently on the package. This would be a great big help if my vacuum had a model number somewhere on it. There is no number anywhere. Just Eureka Hepa. I turned the thing over twice looking for a number. No cigar.
I get everything home and spend the next half hour cleaning out the vacuum and hoping that it does not explode the next time I use it.
I get every thing put back together close my eyes and press the start button. I jump back waiting for the vacuum to start blowing out dust like a Texas sandstorm or shoot sparks in all directions.
Nope, it just hums right along.

Mental note: When I become a lawyer - hire a maid.

Grades coming in

Grades are starting to filter in. One of mine came in today. I know people that have several back already.

Do I wait until after Christmas (or even New Years) or do I check constantly everyday and obsess about it.
I think neither one. I am sure that every time a grade is posted online that I will get half a dozen text messages or phone calls telling me that another grade is in.
Will I have the self control to wait? Or do I dash madly to the nearest computer and log on to check? That is the big question.

If I was a professor, I think I would do all the grading ahead of time and then take the time after that to just relax over Christmas break instead of just doing a little here and a little there.
Hey – whatever gets me a good grade? I don’t really care. I just don’t want to think about it.

But I can’t help my self.

blogging

I spent 20 minutes writing a blog. It was well worded and made some pretty good arguments. But when I read it I realized that the arguments were too full of holes. The arguments were well reasoned but had no facts to base the analysis on. There was no supporting material. I just wrote what I thought. I read it and then trashed the whole thing. If it doesn’t have facts to support it, then it is just fiction.
Law school does a lot of things to you. It definitely changes the way you think. I can’t even enjoy bitching about something anymore.

Bunco

The American Heritage dictionary defines “Bunco” as a swindle in which an unsuspecting person is cheated.
Saturday night I had been suckered into playing Bunco. I have never before played Bunco and probably will not play again. Bunco appears to be a dice game for women in which they all cheat furiously. The best cheater wins. You keep your own score and the one with the highest score wins. I paid 5 bucks along with 15 other partygoers to see which woman would lie the best.
I think the secret to Bunco is that you have to lie in such a manner that it is believable to all the other Buncoers. An outlandish score will draw attention and likely detract from your future invitations to play Bunco. But a score that is on the fringe of believability gets you the cash.

Ok here is the guy version of gambling:
You don’t EVER EVER EVER get to keep your own score!
We generally hire a guy in a striped shirt or at least someone to act as a dealer in order to keep the whole affair as honest as possible.
If somebody else got to keep his own score we would automatically call BS regardless of what he claimed, even if it was “zero”.
Even if your boys backed you by saying that you were not cheating, I am still calling BS and waiting for you outside to get my money back.
Guys would never invent a gambling game that involved someone ringing a little silver bell and certainly not one that requires you to yell “Buncing!” at any point.

I want my five bucks back

One More

One more test to go. In less than 24 hours it will all be over. I’m burnt out and trying to study. I think I did ok on the Criminal law test but forgot to talk about accomplice liability (Oh well, too late now – and besides, I am so burnt out that it took me 4 [no,5] times to type that last sentence). I have constitutional law tomorrow morning and then it will be over. That one has me worried.
I’ve got to go study.

"It is not the mountain we overcome, it is ourselves." Sir Edmund Hilary

Saturday night, tractors, law school, & POS cars

1:14 am Saturday night
I just walked in the door from the law library.
Thinking: Damn, if this was not law school and I was regular Joe, I would not be coming in just yet. And if I was, I would be hammered.

Anyway. My neighbor (obviously inebriated – which is indicated by the angle by which her car is parked) has left her parking lights on. So I knock on her door, and call her, and I sent her a text message, all to no avail. The car lights remain on.
Not to worry. After years of driving a POS automobiles, I grew accustomed to carrying a wide variety of tools. Tools such as coat hangers; butter knives; duct tape; a variety of fuses; and of course, jumper cables in my car. (At one point I actually carried the front fender of my car in the back seat for a while - but that is another story.) I was “POS Car Super Jerry-rigger Extraordinaire”. After actually buying a real quality non-POS, I refuse to ever go back. I just hope that this one makes it through law school. If not, I will have to borrow my dad’s tractor.
Living in Montgomery, I would obviously need an alarm installed on it.
And since this is Montgomery, I will obviously need to get some sweet rims on it as well. I wouldn’t want anyone to laugh at me for driving a tractor to school without rims or at the very least some chrome spinners. I think John Deere green and chrome would go great together.
I could cruise into the law school parking lot, use the front end loader to push that annoying little Mercedes Benz out of the way and always have a parking spot right up front. I could lower the plow attachment onto the car behind me (that way it wouldn’t get dirty from the ground) and then walk into class, making sure to press the alarm button on the key chain so I could hear that neat little “chirp –chirp”.


I feel so utterly unprepared for my last two finals. I really have to get after it all day tomorrow and Monday morning. I have one final Monday afternoon and one first thing Tuesday morning.

the paper chase clip

I thought some of you might like this. Especially law students. This is a famous scene of the tyrannical Professor Kingsfield, played by John Houseman in “The Paper Chase”.
It is the "sculls full of mush" and “At times you may feel that you have found the correct answer. I can assure you that this is a total delusion on your part.” clip.

http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-multimedia/the-study-of-the-law.wmv

You will have to cut it an paste it into the address window in your browser because for some reason it will not just let it be a clickable link.

Friday night

Ok, so I avoided a complete and total mauling by the bear named "Civil Procedure Test". I may have escaped with only minor injuries.
However, (I swear to God that I have never started a written sentence with the word “However” until I started law school) His brother bears named “Criminal Law Test” and “Constitutional Law Test” are hot on my trail and hungry for blood.
If I “bob” when I should have “weaved” then I am a gonner.

Once again at midnight (this time on a Friday – OMG I need my freaking life back) I am the ONLY person now at the law school. It has been deserted by all but me since sometime around 10pm. I commandeered a conference room and now sit at the head of the board. Ok, so it isn’t really. But I am sitting at the big table all by myself and it makes me feel important if only for a short period of time.
My plan to get naked and run all willy-nilly through the halls of the law school was thwarted when I realized that the really bored security guy having to sit in front of the camera monitors all night may actually take the time to tape it and then post it on the internet because he has nothing else to do. So…..

I got another email from a friend that wanted to know if I was still alive. I actually took the time to respond to this one because I need to take a break from studying. I have not read a book that was NOT written by someone named Glannon or Emanuel or the good folks at Barbri, since forever. I need a break. My brain is full. I am tired. I am stressed. I am rushed. I am at wits end. When I get like this I usually take time out to go look at some of Norman Rockwell’s paintings online and it makes me feel better because everything is good there - and then there is balance in the world. Everything makes sense.
If I had the option of him painting me into any one of his paintings right now I don’t really know which one I would want to be in.

Because any place besides this law school would not seem like home.

As bad as this all sucks right now.
As bad as this all is.
As bad as it all seems.

This is where I belong.

Monster

There is a vicious, ferocious, mean, ill tempered, monster of a bear stalking me.

Its name is “Civil Procedure Test”. It has been stalking me all semester. It is close to catching up with me. I expect it to attack me about 2pm tomorrow.

Gumpism # 2

Dubs: (noun)

Twenty-two inch car rims.
From the number “two” being said twice, thus doubled “twos” = 22
As in: “I got that heavy chevy ridin’ on Dubs.”

Dubs that spin continuously after stopping are called “spinners”.

Gumpism # 1

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.

Gumpism Number 1

Dunk: (noun)
Refers to a highly customized 70's era chevy usually with 20 plus inch rims, candy paint jobs, and booming sound systems.
Believed to have originated from the word Dunky (pronouced "dun-kee") which is the large posterior of a woman.
As in the song lyrics by the 69 boys – “Gimmie that dunky butt and ‘em big ole legs. I aint too proud to beg. I’m gonna break it down and beg like James. Ple-ease, Ple-ease. Let me ride that dunky dunky. Let me ride that dunky dunky.”

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Time and again through out law school I am asked by those that live outside the hallowed halls of justice “Is it hard?”
Duh!
I am at a loss to tell them exactly how hard it is.
It is nothing like graduate school of any kind other than maybe doctors or veterinarians. (but then again I nearly failed undergrad biology sooooooo)

I have figured out a way to explain it

Imagine putting together a something really complicated. Say a robot.
You have only rudimentary diagram written in Chinese in which you can understand the occasional tab “A” going into slot “B”.
You spend five or ten minutes staring at the diagram and then back at the pile of parts trying to figure it out. It is confusing and your brain just can’t quite seem to grasp what goes where and why.

Now imagine doing that 12 to 15 hours a day.
Now imagine no diagram and no picture of what it is supposed to look like when it is assembled.
Now imagine that the robot looks different where you live because your state decided it should look a certain way.
Now imagine that if you don’t get the robot assembled in time, and correctly, you loose your job and go substantially into debt all at the same time.
Now imagine that you can only find out how to put the contraption together by going to classes in which you read about tiny electronic parts that seem to have nothing to do with how it works. You can’t asks questions, but the teacher asks YOU questions about how you think it should work.

Then tells you that you are wrong.

Then you go into debt to buy books that tell you about each part.
Some of the other people who are putting together robots may lie to you about how to put the robot together so that yours will not work.
Then they tell you draw your own diagram and put the parts together.
Then you show up one day and they hand you a new pile of parts and give you three hours to put it all together and explain how you put it together.
If you can’t put your robot together in time or if your robot works but does not work as good or look as pretty as the other robots your family is ashamed of you, everyone considers you a failure, and you have to pay the robot people 20 grand for allowing you to try to put together their robot.
If you do succeed, you get to put together 4 more robots this semester and then you get to do that for about 3 years.

Then you get to try to put together a giant robot made out of all your other robots. But the state gets to design your robot and the pieces don’t really fit. You are supposed to find the pieces that fit together the best.

If your robot doesn’t work you wasted 3 years and 100 grand and can’t work for anybody putting together robots because you are not licensed to do so.



By the way -
I took out the trash today.

trash day

During finals I have been pretty busy. I really just stop at my apartment to sleep, put the clothes in the washer into the dryer, put the clothes in the dryer on a pile in the chair in the living room, then shower, grab some clothes from the pile in the chair, and leave again. Lately I have rarely eaten here. Hopefully this will all change after finals and I can clean up, watch tv, and just chill for a bit. Untill then the schedule will have to continue for a bit.

I tied up the trash the other day to carry it to the dumpster at my apartment. The dumpster being a large mechanical device that no one here knows how to operate, and is conveniently located a quarter mile away and then uphill. So I plan on taking out the trash quite regularly but it never happens as planned.
As I said before, I tied up the trash and then closed the lid again, meaning very well to carry it out. But, alas. I did not do it. Apparently I got in a hurry and forgot. Since then I have not put anything in that trash can. Yesterday morning I stumbled into the kitchen to look in the fridge. (This by the way is pointless. I know good and well that I have not been grocery shopping in at least a week.) Anyway I notice the smell. Which is undoubtedly coming from the trash can and make a mental note to take it out.

Note: mental notes are as good as gone during finals time. If it doesn’t have anything to do with law school and I don’t write it on a post it note and staple it to my forehead I wont remember.

This means that if I really want to carry out the trash and don’t want to forget I need to bag it up and set it out side the door so that I trip over it and am forced to take it to the dumpster. There are two problems with this.
1. Most people frown on trash bags just laying around in front of the apartments and;
2. The lovely ducks that grace the ponds around my apartment are carniverous and will tear into aforementioned trash bags like raving lunatics. Thus leaving your previously well manicured plastic container of smelly trash now strewn across half of God’s creation. At which point you can either blame it on your neighbor or suck it up and pretend you are doing time for community service and pick up the damn trash.
I prefer to do neither. Therefore I didn’t take out the trash

So tonight I come home and notice something amazing. There is NO smell in the kitchen??????
Whatever is in there has either:
1. Decomposed to the point that it no longer stinks.
2. Has been carried away as carrion by vultures who were let in accidentally by the maintenance man; or
3. by ants (there are no ants in my kitchen so I ruled this one out – or on the other hand they may have decided that there was nothing fit to eat here and moved on); or
4. has regenerated and is now lying in wait for me to open the lid to carry it out tomorrow. As we all now know, lying is wait will constitute first degree murder and I will be well within my rights to bludgeon it to death in self defense.

So right now I am making a mental note to carry out the trash. On second thought… Where is that stapler anyway?

Night Owl

Not much to report today.
It is 1 in the morning and I am the only person (I think) at the law school. I shut down the library around midnight and kicked out all the Faulkner Univ. students who were there studying for finals. The law students had long since left.
I sat in one of the class rooms with some buds going over criminal law for a while but they bailed about 12:30 or so.

Civil Procedure is on Friday and then I have two tests next week (Crim. law on Monday afternoon and Con. Law on Tuesday morning – then work at the law library on Tuesday night till midnight) This means that I have to either prepare some more during the week for these two tests or do it all this weekend. Civ. Pro. might not be the hardest test but it is surely the one that offers the most opportunity for confusion and trip ups. Crim. Law I expect to be mostly elements and Con law is…… Well, hell, it is Constitutional Law. Theoretically it is pretty challenging.

Well, I hear security coming around to lock up the building since they think no one is here. So I will say goodbye for now.

first final is over

Today I had my first final for the semester which was property. The dean of our law school taught this semester and I was able to find about 7 of his previous tests (most of which with model answers and covered an entire decade) from the Pepperdine web site. He used to teach there. Between that and the two finals that I had from him since being at my school I pretty much thought I knew what he was going to ask.
WRONG!!!!!!
Out of all the tests that I was able to look at, this was by far the hardest.

Before I even got to school my buddy called and asked me to come pick him up. His truck had been broken into over the course of the night and his radio, cd changer and whatnot were gone. He didn’t have time to call the cops before the test so we decided to do it afterwards. I picked him up and we proceeded to the school.

The proctor passed the exams down the row, carefully counting out each one. She came up short on every row. How do you do that? I mean miscounting once, maybe twice is excusable but damn.
Anyway we all get the exam and proceed to start the software for softest (Examsoft – Hey, this may be Alafreakinbama but technology hasn’t completely passed us by), and sure enough every other computer in the room restarts with that stupid annoying “taaadaaadaaa”. This is after the poor woman has asked everyone to mute their computers. So after diligently listening to the instructions I shoved a set of ear plugs in and went to work. The earplugs being quite useful because at least 50% of the class has depth perception problems and punches the keyboard with each stroke using the same force as Mike Tyson hitting a heavy bag.

By the end of the multi-state portion (that’s multiple choice to the rest of the world) I would have agreed that the answer was a shifting reversionary contingency interest in the remainder of a 3rd parties contract liability that did not violate the rule of perpetuities due to the second charity exception or something to that effect. (Don’t worry, if you didn’t understand enough about property law for that last sentence to be funny then you understand almost as much as I do.) At this point I chose the letter of the day which is “C”, because that is what I hope to salvage out of this test.

The first essay wasn’t horrible but there wasn’t enough time to finish it.
The second essay was so convoluted that there was no clear answer or way to argue it. Maybe I will post more about it after the A.D.D. folks finish taking their 6 hours to take the test (remind me to rant about that later).

We got back to my buddies place and called the cops. Some short fat black chick who squeaks when she talks showed up 15 minutes later, spent 5 minutes writing his personal information and asking him if he had the serial numbers to his stolen stereo (honestly, who keeps track of that crap – apparently folks who are able to get their stolen merchandise back from the pawn shop – that’s who). No fingerprints, no elaborate CSI investigation. Just a “Call us if you find anything else missing.”
My buddy asks: “What happens now?”
She says: “I don’t know I don’t work crime. I just do traffic.”
I was thinking: “Well I guess the night stick, pepper spray, handcuffs, and 9mm are all to protect the cop from those darn murderous speed demons out there terrorizing the community. Wow, I run a stop sign and my ass is grass but as far as crime – oh well. I guess that means you can steal anything you want as long as you walk. But if the get away car is too speedy you may get a ticket.”

So that’s it. I have one test down and several more to go. The week is just beginning and it is not looking so great for the home team. I think I know a guy from back home that sells meth. Maybe he can talk to some folks, put in a good word and get me a job on a corner. Apparently if my corner is in Montgomery and I walk to work I will never get busted.

One and a half days till finals start

I slept half the day away trying to let everything set in and recharge. Unfortunately that means I probably wont be able to go to sleep tonight and therefore not tomorrow night either. So tonight I will take a Tylenol pm or some heavy narcotic such as Nyquil (the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, how the hell did I wake up on my kitchen floor after drinking this magic elixir medicine).

I swear to god this is the truth. This is actually what the back of the card says:
Emmanuel Law in a flash Real Property Card number 168
REMEMBERING JOING TENANCY


“To remember this: Keep in mind that “joint" in drug parlance, is a marijuana cigarette.
Mental Picture: Imagine 3 people you know sitting around in a circle passing a “joint” from one to the other. One takes a puff and passes it to another, who in turn does the same thing to the third, and so on. The “joint” passes to the other two, as in joint tenenacy = right of survivorship in the other tenants”

How, exactly did that one slip through?

Sleep

I got to sleep last night. YEA!!!!
9 hours.

But now I feel like I missed some valuable study time. LOL
I gota quit blogging and get to the library.

Thanks Manda

My Professor sent out an email saying that she forgot to give us an explanation of a term that we would need for the test.
It said:
"Carnal knowledge" means the penetration of the female sex organ by the male sex organ.

My friend Amanda sent me her notes. Her explanation was just a little different:
“Carnal knowledge” = penetration of bagina by pee pee.

I love me some Manda. The only girl I know that decided her keyboard was way too tacky with all of those silly numbers and letter and decided to put happy bunny stickers on them instead. Her and her hubby took me to the Warped Tour in Atlanta this past summer (and bought my ticket). They rock!

The Monkey fish frog Controversy

Mr. Garrison explains evolution: Yes, it is funny. Yes, you want to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFjfc2M7gRY

The next time we have to come up with a stupid team name for something I am absolutely insisting on “The Monkey Fish Frogs”.

Congrats to my peeps

Coming from a small podunk town in the middle of nowhere I certainly appreciate the way it feels to be under rated, unexpected, and unwanted. Our trial team did really well against some top notch schools a few weeks ago (Which is extra cool because our school is newly accredited and for the most part not all that well respected because of that. TRANSLATION: Underdog). I always assumed that folks on these teams were like most of the crowd of gunners. To my pleasant surprise all of these folks are top notch, really nice, and pretty cool.

The following email was sent by one of our professors. I don’t know if they would want their names on my blog, so I removed them:

During the second week of November, H, G, N, & R represented the law school in the Buffalo/Niagara Mock Trial Invitational in Buffalo, New York. This was the largest trial competition in the nation with forty schools competing at one location. After the first two preliminary rounds only 10 of the 40 schools were still undefeated. We were one of the ten. Our defense team H & G defeated Chicago-Kent in an excellent trial with both teams scoring extremely high. The next morning our plaintiff team of N & R defeated St. Mary's in another high scoring affair. Unfortunately we lost a split decision in the third round and finished the preliminary round tied for eighth place with Temple, Cumberland, Michigan State, Illinois, Georgia State, Georgia and the two teams we had already defeated Chicago-Kent and St. Mary's. Through a complicated matrix of tiebreakers that I would happy to explain to anyone after exams, our team was left out of the advancing cut. (We fell just behind the University of Georgia - a team that was swept by the same Chicago team we defeated.)

3 days till finals

Last night I had a bout of insomnia and didn't get to sleep till around 5:30am.
I missed both my crim law review and a study session with some friends.
Did I lay in bed and think constantly about law?
Hell No!
All I could think about was my undergrad biology class.

But now I remember that Adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine are the building blocks of DNA. That has to be usefull to me sometime in the future. NOT!!!!!

Stress sucks.

4 days till finals

I have decided that I am not addicted to caffeine.
It just makes the headaches go away and makes me feel normal.

I tried Starbucks for a while but I was going to have to take out an extra loan to keep it up through finals. There is a coffee pot in the break room at school but the coffee always tastes like an unusuall mixture of stale urine and industrial waste when you make it there. The gas station down the street has excellent coffee. You can get an industrial size cup for $1.75 and you get mix your own.
My mix:
1/2 Columbian
1/4 Blend
1/4 Vanilla Latte
Enough sugar to send a diabetic into shock
Enough cream to make a cow cry
Put it into their usually leaky styrofoam cup
(screw the environment – I NEED HOT COFFEE!)
and then mix it together with a stir stick that is entirely too short. Attach the leaky lid, try to avoid squeezing it to hard when you go out the door, and then hold the precious precarious cargo in your lap because my buddy’s old truck doesn’t have cup holders. We usually make it back to the school with sticky hands and toasty warm crotches.

I once squeezed the cup just wrong after spending my last 2 bucks to buy the coffee. It went everywhere. I felt like Lenny from “Mice and Men”, having just squished my precious pet. I wanted to lick my sticky hand to stay awake but you just have to act a certain way around these high browed law folks.

Crim. Law

This morning was the last class session of criminal law. Usually a last class session is good for finishing up a subject and then answering some general questions.
At the end of class (if the students feels that the professor is deserving) the students award the professor with a round of applause. The prof. Makes some “aww shucks” looks and leaves hurridly and ashamedly, only to pause in the hallway to gloat in their own admiration.
But today…
My crim law professor decided that we needed to know a great deal of material that was not covered during the semester. Therefore we cover almost as many criminal offenses in a little over an hour as we have covered the entire semester (and not on the syllabus). So add that material to the final. Holy Crap! You just doubled my study load for your class a week before the final. Not only did you just double it. You didn’t explain any of the material enough that it made sense.

The students were so stunned that we just got up and shuffled away. No thank you for the professor lady today. Just stunned silence.
I loved this class all semester. Nobody ever dies from natural causes in crim law. It is just fun. But today changed all that. Now it goes to the bottom of the suck pile. Too bad I already filled out the evaluation.

6 days till finals

It has come that time in the semester where things no longer make sense.

If you are an average person with only a basic understanding of the material and taking the test you could probably sift through it and do ok. But by the end of the semester your head is so convoluted with the differing rules, caveats, exceptions, and subtle differences that it no longer makes sense.
I am at the point where the sponge is full and any attempt to fill it any more is in vain. I read paragraphs of material 3 or 4 times in order to understand it because my thoughts trail off on the wildest tangents as synapses try to connect information.
The only problem is that now is the time I need these things to be coming together for the tests next week.
On a lighter note, I yelled at some underclassmen outside the library and told them to be quiet. They hung their heads in shame and scampered away (slamming the door on the way out in a vain attempt at rebellion).

The law school was at least 85 degrees today because the ventilation system has been on the fritz since this weekend. Some guys showed up at 5:30pm today and flipped a couple of switches. It was fixed immediately. Hmmm, higher education at it finest.

one week till finals

One week till finals - I thought I would break the tension with a little funny.
This is the heartless lawyer joke of the week:

One afternoon a wealthy lawyer was riding in his limousine when he saw
two men along a country roadside eating grass. Disturbed, he ordered
his driver to stop and he got out to investigate the situation. He
asked one man, "Why are you eating grass?"
"We don't have any money for food," the poor man replied. "We have to
eat grass."
Shocked, the lawyer said, "Well, then, you can come with me to my
house and I'll feed you."
"But sir. I have a wife and two children with me. They are over
there, under that tree."
Bring them along," the lawyer replied. Turning to the other poor man
he said, "You come with us, too."
The second man said, "But sir, I also have a wife and SIX children
with me!"
"Bring them all!" the lawyer answered. They all jammed into the huge
limo.
Once underway, one of the poor fellows turned to the lawyer and
said, "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you."
Genuinely touched, the lawyer replied, "Glad to do it. You'll really
love my place; the grass is almost a foot high

less than 2 weeks till finals

So it is 4:30 am and I am still up. Oh no, I have not studied in hours, not since midnight. I am just still up thinking about tests and what I need to do instead of getting my sleep and being able to study the way I need to.
The day after tomorrow is Thanksgiving. That beloved time of year where we give thanks for the gifts we have received and give hints of the gifts that we wish to receive a month from now. At this point I am asking for new book bags since mine are falling apart from a year of heavy use and a semester of the heaviest Con Law book ever created. It is more of a weapon than anything, but you have to be a power lifter to wield it against a foe. I actually used it as a door stop once this semester. A heavy door at that.
I will drive up to the parents for a few hours of merriment and several helpings of turkey. We started deep frying them a few years ago instead of baking. I imagine that, folks in the south deep frying something. Who would have figured? I swear if somebody went to the moon and shot the first space creature that jumped from behind a rock- they would bring it back to earth, we would batter it up and deep fry it.
“Hmmmm, tastes like chicken.”

Happy thanksgiving yall.