Home

Well, its good to come home. I had a nice trip, but its not easy keeping up with these young guys. The trip was nice, some baseball, cooking, margaritas, beer, wine, steak, basketball, sun, rain, music, and mayhem. The weather didn't cooperate the whole time (it never seems to on Spring Break.) But it was still a great time. For some reason, it caused me to be very reflective.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how things are really coming to a head here. My parents are always asking me if I feel like "I can see the light at the end of the tunnel," and that sort of thing. I usually don't make much of those sorts of questions, but when I was asked the other day, I had an answer that many of you might relate to. I said, "I'm so busy right now, I can't really see very far in front of my face." I feel overextended right now. I really do. School and work will be over in about six weeks. While that's nice, I want to make sure I can avoid living my life in an overextended manner. It can make it really hard to enjoy yourself.

A friend of mine just did an interesting post regarding the value of religion. I am planning on responding as soon as I'm in the right frame of mind. You should read it, but if you don't have the time, here are a few snipits:

"I see tremendous value in religion. I find the value given to an individual that is received by belief in something to be, for lack of a better term, invaluable. I've looked for something to replace belief and I just can't find it. Belief, in my opinion, runs along the same lines as hope, but has been sublimated. And who among us would even dare to suggest the removal of "hope" from the human vernacular?!!"

"I was saying that hope and belief have very similar characteristics and that to disregard belief is to devalue hope. So I guess the counterargument would be that we should attempt to displace belief with hope, since belief relies on the supernatural. And I must say that makes sense to me if I'm claiming that belief and hope hold relatively the same value. But remember that I said that belief had been sublimated."

If you enjoyed those snipits, check out the post. The link is above. And my response will come soon. Best wishes to all of you!

On the road again

Hey all. Not much time to talk, I'm heading out the door in about 10 minutes. I don't know whether I'll do any posts or not. I'm going to be in Surprise, Arizona for one week. There will be sun, swimming, and stupidity. Always a good combination. Before leaving, I wrote down a list of "major to dos." The list was staggering, but since I assume I will complete it, I wanted to post it now:

• Complete all portions of the California Bar App by 3.31
• complete local government writing project by 4.7
• Find a job!
• Sublease my apartment
• Find an apartment in San Diego
  
• Complete & pay for Bar/Bri
• those bastards!
  
• Pass the bar!
• Torts II
• try to stay awake
  
• Civil Rights actions
• try to get another outline
  
• Secured transactions
• figure out what the %$#@ is going on in that class
  
• complete media law project
• partial first draft due 3.31
• interview with Judge

That's just the major stuff. But don't feel sorry for me. Most everyone I know is going through the same thing right now too. It's like I said to my friend the other day...I'm going to remember this when I'm trying to rationalize overbilling my clients.

Cheers!

In Case of Blackout, Grill Shrimp

Last night was actually one of my favorite nights of the year. I like it when stuff happens that throws us out of our routines. We all need a reminder from time to time that we don't have quite as much control over things as we like to believe. And its really nice to have the TV removed as an option for a while.

So last night I hung out in a dark room with a few friends, ate some shrimp that I grilled, and drank a bottle of wine I brought back from Cinque Terre, Italy. It was one of the most relaxing evenings I've had in a long time. I wish we had nights like that more often. I'm really getting bored with the loud bar scene. But I'm in too good a mood to complain. I just wish I still had some shrimp left.

Kansas 80 - Texas 68
Big 12 Tournament Champions

Hammer Time

I've added a new link to the side of my blog. That's right, none other than MC Hammer has started a blog. It appears to be slightly more popular than mine. But I'm not drinkin the Haterade. No way. Back in the day, Hammer used to be my boy. I had the parachute pants. I had the MC Hammer tape rockin my Sony boombox. I knew the words to random songs: "that's why we pray (pray), oh yeah we pray (pray), we've got to pray just to make it today..."

Soon enough the guy was on top of the world. Millions of dollars in the bank. Multi-million dollar mansions. Nothing could stop him. I recall when my father, who had slightly more refined musical tastes asked me, "do you really think he's still going to be around five years from now?" I laughed at him. I thought that suggestion was absurd. Hammer was the man! You can't touch this!

Fast forward ten years or so, and here he is, at home writing a blog, not all that different than me. Except I got a JD in the meantime.

"My my my my, music hits me, so hard, makes me say, "oh my lord!"

Hand Me That Gun

"After spending 3 years learning how to hold a gun, eventually you're going to want to put some bullets in and shoot something."
-me

This sums up the feelings of many of the future litigators of America. Most notably, my classmates and colleagues. We're hungry. We want blood! Seriously, I want to get out there and start shooting. I know that almost everyone is going to have more experience. That doesn't bother me. I'm young. I'm still a bit naive. And when I get my chance I'm going to line up my shot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot. When the dust clears, I expect to have my first victory and be on my way. But what if instead I see holes in my shirt and see that I'm the one that has been shot? Well, I'll just have to put some band-aids on and reload.

That's part of the fun of starting out fresh. We're young trial lawyers. A clean slate. While law school has worn each of us down to some degree, we still have the benefit of youth and inexperience. While experience is a weapon that can be quite useful, fresh legs go a long way. A 55 year old lawyer of 25 years may have seen it all. He may have tried hundreds of cases. And while that gives him an edge, it may also erode his passion. To me, my first case will be everything. The championship. I hope we all keep in touch so we can share the experience of cutting down our respective nets!

Shock the World!

10 Weeks and Life to Go

Nothing too scandalous to talk about today, so I'm just going to post the thoughts that have been occupying my mind the past few days.

Unbelievable as it is, the countdown is really beginning to get serious. 10 weeks from now, I will be in another state, studying for the bar. I've decided to take the evening review class which will be 6-10PM. I know that's kind of a bummer, but I found some compelling reasons to choose that time. First of all, the other choice was 9AM-1PM. I'm generally not all that great at studying at 9AM. I don't retain information all that well. Also, I could really use the time during the day for studying, surfing, and knocking on doors. I'm still looking for a job, but remaining optimistic. I won't receive word on the bar until November of this year, so I probably couldn't start until then anyway. I really don't want to work while I'm studying for the bar. I don't think the time investment is worth the money I could make. Nonetheless, it's going to be an expensive process. The bar review will cost me $3000, and the bar application will cost me at least $1000. Throw in my monthly expenses from June-November (6 months) and I'm looking at another $6000. Add it up, $10,000. But I think the investment is going to be well worth it. I'm risking $10,000 of loaned money to live and work in the place I want to be. Since I've only got one life, I don't see any other choice.

. . .

I had a very interesting chat with the Los Angeles Court Spokeswoman last night. I'm working on a project involving media access. I'm looking at issues such as cameras in the courtroom, gag orders and sealed documents. Specifically, I'll be looking at the Westerfield trial in San Diego. It looks to be a very interesting project and I'm looking forward to getting it done. I'm hoping that with the help of my professor, I can get it published. I'd love to have that on my resume and it would be a satisfying personal achievement as well.

Well, that's what has been on my mind, with the exception of the extremely vivid dreams I've been having lately. It's funny; I tend to rotate from periods of not dreaming or not remembering my dreams to having extremely detailed and memorable ones. Sometimes I wish I had a better understanding of psychology so I could understand what’s going on upstairs.