a holiday treat

for my vast reader audience; i to present you this holiday season the reason i can't sleep. without further ado, here it is, Title 28 of the United States Code section 1367(b):

In any civil action of which the district courts have original jurisdiction founded solely on section 1332 of this title, the district courts shall not have supplemental jurisdiction under subsection (a) over claims by plaintiffs against persons made parties under Rule 14, 19, 20, or 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, or over claims by persons proposed to be joined as plaintiffs under Rule 19 of such rules, or seeking to intervene as plaintiffs under Rule 24 of such rules, when exercising supplemental jurisdiction over such claims would be inconsistent with the jurisdictional requirements of section 1332.

i concur

Justice Heydenfelt of the California Supreme Court addressing the Defendant's negligence in failing to cover a hole in the sidewalk into which an intoxicated man fell and became injured in 1855:

A drunken man is as much entitled to a safe street as a sober one, and much more in need of it.

Robinson v. Pioche, Bayerque & Co., 5 Cal. 460 (1855).

hearing voices

my never ending quest to please the tech poet's delicate musical sensibilities trudges slowly forward. so far he has introduced me to spoon and the pains of being pure at heart, and everything that i try to offer in return he deems as crap (this is why i broke his rib). last month i tried to get him to listen to the gaslight anthem, but that was a no go. here is my latest attempt - the best song i've heard this month; Quiet Little Voices by We Were Promised Jetpacks:

president much?

some random sightings in D.C. the first family attended a GW basketball game earlier today in the building across the street from my apartment, so i decided to go outside and snap a few pics as they were leaving. sorry about the poor resolution, but i was trying to zoom out and just couldn't do it fast enough. that is indeed the president in the back of the limo waving:

and here are the first daughters just a few minutes before the president's limo pulled away:

how can i not love this?

emails from an asshole is great; this guy responds to classified ads just to fuck with people. while i'm sure immanuel kant would have strong objections, i think it's hilarious:

Old/used soccer equipment wanted for my kid. Will drive to pick up anywhere near Malvern. No calls, email only: ************@verizon.net

From Me to ************@verizon.net:

Hello,

I have a bunch of old soccer equipment that would be perfect for your daughter. I have soccer balls, nets, cleats, etc. Let me know specifically what you need and we can talk prices.

Thanks,

Mike

From ************@verizon.net to Me:

Actually the stuff is for my son because I want to get him started in soccer. I'm in need of a practice net, soccer ball and kids size 6 cleats if you have them. Thanks.

From Me to ************@verizon.net:

My mistake, I assumed it was for your daughter because it is soccer. If that is the way you want to raise your son, I have some other items you may want to buy for him. I have a pink twirling baton with silver ribbons, and a cheerleader set consisting of two pom-poms, pink cheerleader bloomers, and a toy megaphone.

I'm charging $100 for the practice net, $20 for the ball, $25 for the baton, and $30 for the cheerleader set. I don't have kids size 6 cleats, but you don't really need cleats for soccer anyway. Your son could probably just use his bunny slippers.

Let me know if you are interested.

Mike

From ************@verizon.net to Me:

Well I'm definitely interested in kicking your fucking ass. One question, asshole: if you think soccer is so gay, why do you have soccer equipment, and a cheerleader set and baton?

From Me to ************@verizon.net:

Please, you aren't kicking anyone's ass. The fact that you are getting your son started in soccer instead of football says a lot about you as a man.

To answer your question, I have the baton and cheerleader set as trophies. When I was a kid, I used to go around the neighborhood and beat up all the other kids who played soccer and steal their stuff. I acquired the cheerleader set and baton from this one kid in the neighborhood, Caleb. I always knew that kid wasn't right - he used to ride around on a pink bike and always wanted to have tea parties with the other kids. I tried to help him by beating him up and stealing his baton, but I don't think it worked. I saw him in Philly a few years ago, blowing some guy in an alley. Anyway, I kept my gatherings in my shed out back as a testament to my manliness, but I need to make room for my new shotgun and power saw.

So do you want the stuff or not? I also have Brokeback Mountain on DVD. I ordered Die Hard, but that was sent to me in error. It sounds like a movie that you and your son would enjoy watching.

From ************@verizon.net to Me:

You must be so proud of what a big man you are with your shotgun and power saw.

From Me to ************@verizon.net:

You're goddamn right I am. It's just part of being a man, which you apparently know nothing about. Tell you what - forget the baton and cheerleader set. I want to help you. I'll sell you my shotgun for $1,700. It is a 10-gauge Remington that'll put some hair on your chest. Take your son hunting with it. There is nothing more manly than blowing a deer's head off and eating the raw venison from its neck.

Then, after you are done manning up, you can come back and I'll sell you some football equipment for your son. I'd hate to see him blowing Caleb in an alley in Philly some day.

From ************@verizon.net to Me:

How about you take your shotgun and stick it up your ass and pull the trigger? Go fuck yourself.

gobble, gobble = pie * stuffing/ mashed 'taters(brussel sprouts + gravy)

thanksgiving eve: trying to figure out that title is like trying to figure out LE theories (law and economics) - on the one hand, i can group all positive and normative theories with their kinds. on the other hand, i can't figure out what the end points on a spectrum should be...this should be kind of fun to unravel...i'll keep you posted

nathan scott phillips

it's been said that every law student will have one of five experiences in the first year:

1. You will gain 20 lbs.
2. You will lose 20 lbs.
3. You will become a raging alcholic
4. You will develop a drug habit
5. You will enter into an ill advised romantic relationship with another 1L

as it is, i don't have enough money for the fourth option and i don't have enough time for the fifth option so that just leaves options 1 & 2 while i teeter precariously on the edge of option three (just a joke folks, i'm way over the edge on option 3). So what obligatory 1L experience am i currently facing right now? that's right option 1 ... boo. while not a full 20 lbs, i have put on 6 or 7 pounds in the last couple of months and i'm starting to look like nathan scott phillips (not the actor).

the reason for this is three-fold. first, finding free pizza at law school is like finding a virgin at a star trek convention - that shit's everywhere! go to a lecture = pizza. club meeting? pizza. just sitting around in the student lounge? hey, have some pizza! Also, there's the fast food, because, of course we have little time to cook, or are simply too tired to cook when we get home. hehe...on a side note; i walked up to the mcdonalds counter last night/this morning and ordered by saying "i can has cheeseburger?" nom nom nom...

second, sitting in a chair for extended periods of time with the only exercise being done by the wrist as you furiously hight-light and turn pages with the right hand, while looking up cases on westlaw with the left hand.

third, the booze. it's true, booze is very fattening - and we consume a lot of it. it's like undergrad, only we drink better stuff (i see undergrads carrying cases of busch light and natty light and i'm like "bleghh, gross").

ok, so here's my threefold plan to fight this son of a bitch: 1. stop eating the crap and get back to eating lean, fresh natural foods. i've already started this by stocking up on goodies from trader joes. 2. get 3 hours of exercise a week + 3 hours/ week on my bike. right now i'm lucky if i get an hour per week on my bike. from now on i'm going for a long bike ride every weekend and hitting the gym 3 days a week. 3. only go out once a week. this too has also been under way for the past two weeks and i gotta say my mind is clearer, i have more energy and i'm much more relaxed...

so there you have it.

one last thing: on the way home this morning i stopped to watch 2 rats fighting in a flower bed...it was the coolest thing i've seen in a while. gotta love D.C.

the end is near

good week so far. products liability in torts, insanity defenses in crim, joinder of parties in civ pro, contracts? contracts is always rockin'. the best part of the week? no fucking LRW.

this weekend is going to be even better. outlines = goodtimes...

time to get crankin' on the ol' resume. it needs a little polish before i can start sending it out to law firms for a 2011 summer associateship.

on an unrelated note: turns out the dude was wrong. the eagles DO NOT suck...new kid in town? wasted time? and, of course, the obligatory hotel california...follow my logic here. if the eagles don't suck, that means, by extension, don henley does not suck. here's one of my fave dh songs (pay no attention to dh's douchy hair-do and douchy bono glasses.

ahhhhh (yea, this is gonna be lame)

after a few weeks of running non-stop, i took today off for some rest (on the advice of a friend). while to some my loafing may seem counterproductive, i see it as an opportunity to recharge my batteries for the sure to be grueling weeks ahead. so in my totally non-productive day here's what went down:

- slept on the couch until 11am. remained there for 2 hours watching tv and surfing the internets.

- went to District Hardware to get some brackets to mount my white board to the wall.

- a trip to Trader Joe's for chicken, some curry sauce, various deli meats, and assorted breads.

- a trip to the Watergate liquor store, where a pleasant surprise awaited me. Sierra Nevada has just released a hefeweizen that is, for a domestically produced beer, actually very, very good. it's rich yeast gives it a very smooth texture; not only that, but the yeast gives the beer a delicious after taste with a hint of cloves ... me thinks me wants one right now... mmm. I paid $10 for the six pack which, of course, nets out to $1.66 per bottle ... way less than the German stuff that's priced at around 3 and 1/2 bucks each... gotta love value shopping.

- came home and fell asleep on the couch for 3 hours...woke up and did a little reading.

ahhhhh. what a great day. currently listening to a speech the W gave at SMU on thursday. soon, time for bed, a bike ride in the morning (see the pic of my sweet, sweet aurora) and then a full day of outlining and working on websites.

i'm ready

i had dinner and German beers with my boss and mentor from back home tonight.

i got some really good advice.

i know what i need to do.

shart gargler

i can't sleep. i'm exhausted every night, but i can't sleep. i probably can't sleep because i know that i could be doing some work, but after a full day of work my brain is mush. i can't form a coherent thought, so when i try to do work at this hour i get frustrated and pissed, so i have to take a break. then i try to watch tv or a movie, but all i can think about every scene is "that's a tort, that's a violation of due process, that's a valid defense"... i'm having a really hard time "turning it off."

i was warned...(or as they say in the law i was "put on notice.").

in the words of the famous poet, parker "i'm gonna get a tattoo on my neck that says 'fuck you mom and dad'"

sometimes i want to stop and think, but most times i have to run away

wow. memo 2 is coming to a close and as i reflect back on the weeks of research and the past 72 hours (most of which were spent in this chair) i can't help but think of how much i learned about myself from this assignment. it's even sweeter to think that every other 1L was in the same hell i was in. tomorrow's going to be a great day. i'll have my second draft of this memo completed in the next 2 and 1/2 hours or so, then i'll get some sleep, wake up and work on my edits, turn in the third and final draft and go blow off some steam...pass or fail this was an experience to remember.

as i finish up i'm listening to some good stuff. i love how that certain song can bring back the most powerful memories...

my hate keeps me warm

UPDATED 07 NOVEMBER 2009; 00:40.
fuck you i hate law school, fuck you i hate 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), i hate LRW, i hate TREAT, i hate sitting in the same place for 15 hours, i hate the "convenience of parties", i hate the "convenience of the witnesses" i hate the "interest of justice", fuck you i don't mind "where it might have been brought."

there. i feel no better now that i've gotten a little better now, getting that off my chest :)

bleep blorp bloop

sometimes i wish i was a robot. a robot with dinosaur teeth and rockets that shoot out of my eyes...that would be sweeeeet.

halloween in DC was fun. i went to a party that was kind of, let's say, a sausage fest, so i rounded up some folks and talked them into walking over to georgetown where metro police blocks off some of the streets and you can do a bar crawl. we never quite made it. a buddy and i had to go out to my car to get my jacket and put up a bottle of booze that we brought with us. when we did, the rest of the group thought we left and so they started heading off to georgetown without us. me and my friend went back to the party grabbed a couple of beers for the road and started off walking...in circles...turns out he thought i was leading the way and i thought he was leading the way, so there you have it...and it was actually fun. sometimes the fun happens between the parties and the bars.

now, lest you get the wrong idea about life out here, a clarification: the 18-20 hour days sort of blend together. as i write this post it's monday evening. in about half an hour i'm going to sit down to read and probably won't finish until at least 3 am. this is on top of the 3 classes i had today (after writing a memo until 4am), the next time i open my eyes it's going to be friday and i'll have repeated the above described reading/writing/classes 5 times. it's not all going out and having fun. having fun is a very, very, small part of life here. life here is all about the task at hand. but i'm not gonna be the asshole that writes about the "care of duty" discussion we had in torts today - so i write about the fun times ... it's sort of like a sanity check for me i guess :P

hooked on a feeling

there's no greater feeling in the world than a surge of the stuff that makes your hands shake, your voice quiver and your heart beat about 10 times faster.

adrenaline is what you get when you raise your hand in lawschool - when the prof calls on you you get tunnel vision and words kind of just roll off the tongue and you really don't know what you're saying until after the sound has left your mouth. it's great. the thing is this: your're in a room with a ton of very smart people and you don't want to be wrong. if you raise your hand, you better be on point... a fella could get used to this.

another adrenaline high: the bike trails in washington dc = awesome (especially the downhill runs).

we had the greatest expectations

whoa. last night i went to one of the best shows that i've ever been to in my life. one of my favorite bands, The Loved Ones, was opening a show for The Gaslight Anthem at the 9:30 Club here in D.C. i initially went to the show to see The Loved Ones and was debating about sticking around to see Gaslight ... i'm so glad i did. The Gaslight Anthem blew the roof off of the fucking joint - it was... well, let's just say i can't remember the last time i pumped my fist in the air and screamed the lyrics to EVERY song that a band played.

hands off, frenchy.

a couple of weeks ago i went out to bar review with a few 1Ls. we went to a couple of different places - no big deal. what's interesting is what happened to the fella that i never saw that night. a friend of ours was supposed to meet us at bar review, but we wound up going to a different bar. again, no big deal, he was drinking with another group of folks at the dorm and said he'd meet up with us later. we stayed out until closing but we never heard from him.

i saw him after class the next day and i'm like "dude?". he says to me "i got robbed last night." turns out that the guy got hammered at the dorm and headed off to bar review. he had some more drinks a bar review and then decided to leave ... alone. remember that the last time something bad happened to one of my friends it was because he also left his group - this is the moral of the story: never leave your group to go walking alone in DC, drunk, at night.

he was stumbling home and stopped to talk to some guys sitting on some steps on the corner of 19th and M; keep in mind that he did not know these guys. he talked to them for about an until one of the guys left. then he stuck around and talked to the other guy for a half-hour or so. when he got up to leave and shake the guy's hand the guy grabbed my friend's hand stuck his other hand in my friend's pocket, took his money and started running. my friend chased him screaming "dude, what the fuck? I sat there and talked to you for like an hour .. i thought we were cool." to which the thief responded "wtf? you just wasted over an hour of my time...i didn't want to talk to your ass anyway." the guy got away and my friend made it home safe.

last night my same friend got ripped off again - this time by a drunk french girl. we were leaving a bar in Adams Morgan last night after last call. we went into Jumbo Slice for some pizza before heading home. Jumbo Slice sells the BIGGEST slice of pizza you'll ever see and they have no tables, so you walk up to the counter order your food and eat it on the sidewalk. well we were on the sidewalk, pizza in hand, and this drunk french couple, probably exchange students, walk by. the girl sees our pizza and reaches over and grabs my friend's slice and rips it in 2. she drunkenly devoured "her" half in like 1 bite leaving my friend standing there laughing his ass off thinking "wtf?". that's when i had to open my mouth "this is why we don't like the french." to which pierre (not sure if that was his name, but whatever) responded "what do you mean you do not like ze french?". "americans don't like the french, man" i said. "why not?" he inquired. "we just don't" i replied. i could tell frenchy was pretty pissed at this point so i decided to throw him a bone: "sarkozy is ok, i guess". "sarkozy is the fucking man" he said. i could tell that i diffused the situation so we went to another friend's apartment and smoked cigars and drank on the roof until everyone got tired and we all went home.

good news/bad news

taking a break from outlining civil procedure.

so i've been accused, in that past, of having OCD. i deny this of course because OCD is for crazy people and i'm not crazy, so there you go. the good news is that if i ever did have OCD it certainly has eased up since i've been in DC. the bad news is that i think the OCD is what made me such a good student ... i got my first memo back today and i scored 27/40 which equates to 68% ... this is one of those come to jesus moments. time to get back in the saddle and get this shit right. what i need is more study food...

let's roll?

bwahahahaha...here's an actual email i received from a class mate...douche much? actually the guy that sent this is a decent person, it's just that no one told him that the frat boy lifestyle ends at undergrad...i especially like the part about "rolling".

What is good, section 11. Here's the deal: we spend a ton of time together but we don't rock out together, in a big group, that often, and that's no good. So I'm throwin a party at my house on Friday to rectify the situation. Everybody should come out, we'll have a good time, get to know each other, maybe someone will do something memorable, who knows? Hopefully we can talk about something besides law school, but I'll settle for the good time.

This next part, i'm sure, just made EVERYONE want to go to the party:

A couple of things:
My house is not huge so a lot of people will be on the front and back porches, so dress accordingly. I'm getting a keg, but that's probably it, so I suggest you byob, too, cause no one wants to wait 20 minutes by a keg and then have it run out when you finally get the tap. Lastly, we're all adults. Don't fuck up my house or break anything, cause I will Castle Doctrine your ass. And stay out of the fridge.

anyone got any oil? we can totally oil ourselves up:

PS - If you wrestled in high school, or you do any kind of bjj or submission grappling, and you want to roll, or you want to learn how, email me, cause I'm looking for people to roll with.

ok, some of my friends had a talk with this guy and now he knows he was kind of douchy with the email...

Drinky McGlugglug

About 3 weeks ago we had our first memo due, for those of you (in my vast reader audience) that have never written a legal memo let me tell you this, it's not like bullshitting your way through an essay in english lit. You have to be thoroughly familiar with the cases that you're citing and you have to make sure that they are "on point" with the legal issue(s) in the case that you're working on ... not fun. by the way, another phrase that you hear that means that a case is on point: "on all fours" ... as in "Rhode Island v. Lead Industries is all fours with the case at bar...", sorry, i just like saying "on all fours"...anyway, the memo was due at 5pm on sunday afternoon...what do we do? we start drinking at 5:01pm. we went bar hopping that night and after the bars closed we headed over to our favorite late night drunk food place julia's empanadas. unfortunately the empanada place was closed (who'd know that they're not open at 3:30am on a monday morning?) so we decided to go somewhere else - that's when we lost someone...a person that shall rename nameless decided to go back to his dorm. against our strong protests he went stumbling in the direction opposite from us (which also happened to be the direction opposite his dorm). Well this person didn't make it to class on monday (to which a lot of folks didn't come b/c of yom kippur) so when i see him on tuesday i'm like "dude?" ... it turns out that he decided that the sidewalk would be a convenient place to take a nap so with a concrete pillow he settles in for a slumber...that's when the police show up - but the cool part is this: instead of taking him to jail they took him home...how cool is that?.

our second story doesn't have as quite a happy ending, but it works out in that no one got hurt...more on that later...time to read some torts...

1L can be funny sometimes...

i was cold called for a question by my torts professor that i didn't know the answer to...his response? "you make me sick!" ...if that sounds harsh then you really gotta know my torts prof:

on the first day of torts class we weren't supposed to have any assigned reading, so when he asked the class "who's familiar with the cases that i assigned?" about 95 out of the 100 students slinked down in their seats, including me. the other five students raised their hands and eagerly waited to be called on ... the first student that he called on gave the facts of the case pretty much on point; then the professor asked her "what do you think the judge meant when he said [insert obscure latin phrase]?" the poor girl responded "well since i don't speak latin, i have no idea". to which the professor responded "well you do know that they have latin dictionaries in the library, don't you...are you stupid?" ... i sunk even lower in my seat trying to bend his will with my thoughts "please don't call on me. please don't call on me. please don't call on me..." the prof then calls on the next person and she gives the latin translation and interprets the meaning ... to which the prof says "thank you for restoring my faith in humanity" then he turns to the first girl and says "you know what, why don't you get your things and leave for the day? you know what, why don't stay gone until you figure out if you want to go to law school? why don't you rethink your career choice?" at this point everyone that hadn't read the case is fucking freaking out! the poor girl leaves and then the prof goes to board and writes "just kidding" to which we all burst out in laughter and thunderous applause... turns out the girls that had "read the case" were second year students that were in on the joke... haha, phew! this guy has a sense of humor as warped as mine.

we work hard, so we gotta get our fun in somehow, right!?!?

more f-ed up stories to come, next time, 2 stories about what 2 of my fellow 1Ls did when they were drunk...more like cautionary tales really...

B < PL

we're now at the point where we're starting to get an understanding of the way certain justices think and whether or not we agree with that thinking. one of my early favorites is Learned Hand, after all, the man came up with the calculus of risk theory (also called the calculus of negligence). What is it? It doesn't matter - just know that it was a pretty novel idea in it's day and a very bright man just made it up out of thin air, and courts have been applying it ever since. how's that for being learned?

death penalty?

random 2am musings:
so we began a discussion in criminal law on the death penalty. professor cottrol asked "what are some reasons for keeping the death penalty?" we got the usual answers such as "deterrence" and "retribution", but no one gave the argument that is prevalent in Texas: "it's sanctioned by the bible." which i think is a load of crap. most people forget that the death penalty is sanctioned in the OLD testament under the abrahmic and mosaic covenants. people conveniently forget that these covenants were superseded by the NEW covenant, so unless you're jewish (and most texans aren't) that's an invalid argument...another thing that's not realized is that capital punishment was necessary in the ancient world. the tribal society was necessary for survival. you depended on your neighbor in those days, and anything that your neighbor did that threatened the stability of the tribe also was a threat to your very life. therefore capital punishment was indeed an deterrence and a necessary one and even the most trivial (by today's standards) infractions were potentially dangerous to society. we've evolved since then.

gaslights

Just some random 1am musings (an attempt to avoid writing my office memo):

the gaslight anthem fucking rocks - the best band that i've heard this year. i bet even the Tech Poet would dig on some of this stuff (the "59 Sound" album, maybe not the old stuff).

Being a 1L is getting rough, this is not a healthy lifestyle whatsoever. In bed at 3am every morning. Up by 9 on most mornings. class, class, class. cases, cases, cases. beer. cases. memos. beer (i don't want to go out, but it beats sitting in the library pulling your hair out and cursing dead justices).cheap, processed food (no time to cook)...this can't be good. this can't go on for too much longer...can it?

moosic

i finally got around to updating the music on my play list (see right). the list includes, for the first time in a while, some country tracks. check 'em out. you won't be disappointed ... and the gaslight anthem has totally taken me by surprise - they'll be in DC at the end of October (during fall break!!!). ok, now back to writing my office memo...

game time

i hear lots of talk from fellow students (mostly 1Ls and 2Ls) how they don't care about grades because they want to work in the public sector, rather than a private firm. I say that's bullshit. if you don't want to work for a private firm and make an obscene amount of money that's fine. but don't mask mediocrity beneath the cloak of altruism. don't pretend like your disdain for the private sector is a reason not to reach for the stars.

i say that what ever path an attorney chooses to take we each owe it to our clients to fulfill our human capacities no matter how much difficulty and sacrifice is required. this is even more so in the public sector where the (supposed) motivation is to affect genuine change. i don't know about you, but if i have someone pinch hitting for me i want a major leaguer, not someone from the farm club.

so with that said...game on.

sound advice

A young boy wrote a letter to Associate Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, in 1954 seeking advice for preparing for a career in law. Justice Frankfurter's response is below ... I hope that I've dispatched the duties owed to my chosen profession:

My dear Paul:


No one can be truly a competent lawyer unless he is a cultivated man. If I were you, I would forget all about any technical preparation for the law. The best way to prepare for the law is to come to the study of the law as a well-read person. Thus alone can one acquire the capacity to use the English language on paper and in speech and with the habits of clear thinking which only a truly liberal education can give. No less important for a lawyer is the cultivation of the imaginative faculties by reading poetry, seeing great paintings, … and listening to great music. Stock your mind with the deposit of much good reading, and widen and deepened your feelings by experiencing vicariously as much as possible the wonderful mysteries of the universe, and forget all about your future career.


Sincerely,


Felix Frankfurter.

a prayer for relief

sounds weird, i know, but a "prayer for relief" is the standard way to ask for a legal/equitable remedy in a complaint in most jurisdictions. just one of those archaic things from the early days of the common law that has been carried throughout the centuries, you'll find of lot of that in law school. it's a good thing that someone, somewhere decided to let some traditions die.

hmm. what's new in DC? not much just getting settled into a study groove that has been absent these first few weeks, so i'm definitely ready to sponge up some of these gritty details - and yes some of these cases can be quite graphic.

last night i had the good fortune to introduce my boss/mentor/friend/colleague from back home to 51st State, so that was pretty cool. tonight is the one bar review per month that i'll allow myself to go to, so it better be a good one (yes, i'll have my reading done for friday crim and contracts).

one cool thing about where i live is my grocery store, safeway; it's underneath the watergate hotel. see the big main building (curved)? the safeway is right under there - along with a cvs, liquor store, a chinese restaurant frequented by bob dole, and a few other shops and restaurants - all UNDER the watergate - it's insane!

balance

as i mentioned before, balance is key. we spend the better part of our week in class and when not in class we're huddled inside the library like a bunch of pasty losers asking each other things like "how does equitable estoppel apply in Ricketts v. Scothorn?"

so when the weekend comes around it's time to have some fun. friday wasn't too much fun, I was really run down from the week and I just wanted to grab a couple of brews and vent a little. Me and a friend went to 51st State and had a few - then we ran into some folks from our section, so we had a few more. Before I knew it we're engaged in discussion about the awesomeness of george strait, and the best method for picking ticks off one another...ok, it was sort of fun. The not fun part was when i got up to answer nature's call. I went and did my thing, but on my way back to the table i started to get that sick-spin-y feeling so i knew it was time to go ... i made it back to my apartment, and immediately stripped, got a blanket and laid on the floor 'til i felt better. then i made the folly of drunk-texting a girl that i don't like all that much (but again: drunk) and set up a date for saturday. when saturday rolled around i had to find a good excuse to get out of it.

saturday rolls around (i did manage to get out of it by saying that i took a nap, and wound up oversleeping ... lame, i know, but it's all i could think of - i'm not that smart) and i wound up meeting two friends, todd and brian, at 51st ... that's when i fell in love. the waitress at 51st is a first year nursing student...she's amazing. nothing happened, but we'll see ;)

we met up with 3 other friends (2 from our section -will and bobby - and one from section 15 - jesse) at 51st and were weighing our options. will knew about a party that some 2Ls were throwing, and todd was all about this jazz bar around the corner in georgetown. we figured more chance of chicks at the party so we went there. the 2Ls embraced us lowly 1Ls and we all just bs-ed, drank, and were merry. until the beer ran out...at about 2am we weren't able to get anymore beer from the keg although we could totally feel that there was beer in there. after about 20 minutes of trying 2 different taps we concluded that there was a problem with both taps - i then had the brilliant idea of disassembling the 2 taps and using the parts to build 1 tap that worked - success! we were back in business!

after a while things got to that drunken stage where people just start yelling out nonsensical things. i was talking to the host of the party and he said he was from massachusetts - todd heard this and asked him if he ever read jack kerouac (b/c kerouac was from lowell, mass.) then todd just starts yelling out kerouac is the fucking man!!! i started arguing that hemingway is the fucking man! todd starts yelling that he wants to go listen to jazz. a great, albeit drunkenly sloppy, literary conversation ensued as everyone on the patio at that moment circled around to give their 2 cents.

after things got tiresome we decided to call it a night as we all had a ton of reading to do. so we gathered our posse and we realized that we were missing one person - we found todd still on the patio in the same conversation. we told todd that we were heading out and asked him if he was coming with. he replied "i want to listen to some jazz." then he resumed his literary conversation. we left.

first post from DC

it's been a while, i know; but the past few weeks have centered around moving, finding my way around a new city, and beginning my studies - so i think the absence is justified.

where to start? DC is a amazing city! the people are extremely friendly; i think it has to do with everyone here being from somewhere else. on the first day of law school orientation we were introduced to our courses, our professors and classmates. GW picked a great group of people for the 2012 class. out of 500 or so students i've only met a handful that weren't just cool people. the professors are phenomenal, some of the best in the country - i'm feeling like i made the right choice.

that's the good part. the bad part: this life is fucking brutal - i wake up at 8am and go to bed at 3am. the time in between is filled with classes, and the reading of cases, the outlining of cases, and the drafting of memos. when i do finally go to bed i pass out from sheer exhaustion. but we do try to find a balance - every thursday is "thirsty thursday"; the law school provides free beer in the student lounge. from there it's on to "bar review" a weekly function organized by the Student Bar Association. for the first bar review the SBA picked up the tab. that was all kinds of awesome, except that i didn't do the reading for my friday class b/c i was having too much fun...good thing i didn't get called on in class! so i've decided to limit myself to one bar review a month - and it's conditional: i can only allow myself to go if i've done my reading!

i take saturday's off to run errands, etc. so it goes without saying that friday night is party night! last friday we (me and some members of my section) went to a place called Froggy Bottom. it's a decent joint with a cheap IPA and decent burgers. this past friday we went to The 51st State which, even though they don't sell any IPAs (i had to drink a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale), has a much nicer pub-like atmosphere (the frog is stashed away in a basement on Pennsylvania Ave.) From there we checked out a place called The Guards in Georgetown. it was pretty much an undergrad bar, but there's a dance floor in the basement, so it turned out to be pretty fun. saturday a friend from back home was going out with some girlfriends and i tagged along :) we went to a place called Muse Lounge in Chinatown. straight up d-bag club - definitely not going back there, but it was actually really fun dancing with her and her med school peeps [again :) ].

Oh - there's also some cool random things that happen too. i was riding my bike the other day and the presidential helicopter, Marine One, comes in no more than 100 yards over my head - i was a football field away from the president (sort of)!!! also, yesterday, i got to see the presidential security detail up close as they were pulling into the white house. those guys are no joke. they're armed to the teeth and, i'm sure, are in no mood to play games - they're shoot first types.

well, time to read torts and civil procedure now - more on DC adventures later.

a pic is worth a thousand...

i am the greetest

yes, i meant to spell "greatest" that way (bonus points if you get the reference). yesterday i posted the greatest movie scene of all time, today i bring you the greatest television scene ever: President Josiah Bartlet's showdown with God almighty. here's the latin translations for the end there:

gratias tibi ago, domine.
(Thank you, Lord.)
haec credam a deo pio, a deo justo, a deo scito?
(Am I to believe these things from a righteous god, a just god, a wise god?)
cruciatus in crucem
(To hell with your punishments!)
tuus in terra servus, nuntius fui; officium perfeci.
(I was your servant, your messenger on the earth; I did my duty.)
cruciatus in crucem -
(To hell with your punishments!)
eas in crucem
(And to hell with you!)

thanks to tv.com for the translations

hold the phone...

just to clarify: i didn't mean that the movie scene that i posted in my last blog entry was the greatest movie scene ever, because it's not. It's just an example of an early bromance scene (no homo).

if you want the GREATEST movie scene ever, you'll have to look a bit earlier in the film - to the excommunication scene, enjoy:

the original bromance

the "bromance" phenomenon is, of course, nothing new. This Wikipedia article mentions that Aristotle examined a similar concept as early as 300 BCE. What is new is the string of bromantic comedies that have come out of Hollywood in the past year - well guess what this isn't new either.

Anyone that's ever spent five minutes with me has heard me talk about the movie Becket. I love that movie - it's my all time fave. What i hardly mention is that the movie is actually one of the earliest bromance films...see for yourself...you'll have to fast forward to 3:38, but it's well worth it; it's an absolutely heart-wrenching scene.

update:

Update to my last post: i plan on spending as much time in mosh pits while i'm still young enough to not look like i don't belong there.

i don't love you anymore

The Rise Against show was effing awesome. They definitely did not disappoint. You know how you have a band that you listen to all the time, but when you go to se them live they suck? Yea, well that didn't happen. Those effers have a great stage presence (think authority zero). But there's one thing that bothers me. How can people sit on the sideline at a show like that? I've gotta be up near the stage screaming lyrics in unison (or at least what my tone-deaf ass thinks is in unison), getting konked on the head by crowd surfers feet, and enduring the occasional elbow, or two, to the face. That's the way I enjoy music - being part of the crowd and feeding off of the energy and giving that energy back. That's the way you enjoy a show.

damned if i don't...

The world lost a giant today. Robert S. McNamara died in his sleep at the age of 93. Although Secretary McNamara's name will forever be synonymous with the Vietnam war, it is not the failure of that war that he should be remembered for. He should be remembered for the lessons that the world learned from his mistakes. McNamara recognized the folly of war later in his life. Although he had been a key strategist in the Second World War, helped the world survive the Cuban Missile Crisis and, of course, was the architect of the escalation of Vietnam, it is his mea culpa that he should be remembered for. We lost a piece of history today. The world lost a giant today.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot

The Fog Has Lifted ... for one man

From the BBC:
Robert McNamara, who served as US defence secretary during the Vietnam war and the Cuban Missile Crisis, has died aged 93.

Mr McNamara, served under presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson. He was also an architect of the US policy of nuclear deterrence.

He had suffered failing health for some time and died in his sleep at his home in Washington DC, his wife Diana said.

After retiring in 1981, he championed the cause of nuclear disarmament.
Before taking up the post of US Secretary of Defense in 1961, Mr McNamara was the president of Ford Motor Company, turning the company around the post World War II era.

He is most closely associated with overseeing the escalation of the US war in Vietnam from 1961 to 1968.

However, in his 1995 memoirs In Retrospect: The Tragedies and Lessons of Vietnam he wrote of his regret over his Vietnam role.

it's official

yea, it's official. blogging for a living does make me less inclined to spend time in front of the computer for pleasure. So that's what accounts for the slow-roll of posts lately.

The real estate gambit is not paying off. The Aston is full so I'm looking to get a "Luxury" apartment at The Columbia Plaza, which is just a few blocks from GW. I have to call them on Monday to see if they have a unit available...hey, for a Texas boy, it'll be kind of fancy living in a building with a doorman.

In other news...well there isn't really any other news...so MUSIC TIME!

Here's the new Reno Divorce video - the new album drops in the U.S. on July 21!!!! Can't wait 'til they tour the U.S.!!!!

really, Real Estate? really?

If anyone ever said that living in D.C. would be cheap, they're a fucking liar. I'm convinced that there's no way you can get a place in Foggy Bottom for less than $1100 per month - and even then we're talking about a shoebox...One direction I'm leaning toward is trying to get a spot at The Aston, GW's private apartment building for 1Ls.

Even that place is small, but at least I'll be in the same building with other 1Ls that will be sharing in my pain...misery loves company, of course. One thing is for certain; I'll have to make another trip to D.C. to get everything squared away A.S.A.P...

For now I'm consumed with trying to read the books that I want to read, because I know for the next 3 years I'm only going to be able to read what I'm told to read. I just finished my "Trashy Summer Novel": Angels and Demons. It was a bit far fetched, but Dan Brown is a heck of a story teller none the less. I refuse to ruing this story the same way I ruined The DaVinci Code, by seeing the movie. I also read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad on my flights to and from D.C. I've heard this book mentioned practically all my life, but I never realized that it was the inspiration for one of my favorite movies: Apocalypse Now (even though the book was written in 1889)..."the horror"...haha...right now I'm reading The New Influencers, by Paul Gillin. It's non-fiction, it's very informative. Next on my list: This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald...I should probably squeeze in some Graham Greene at some point too...duece!

an honest living

We can all imagine that driving a cab is not the most desirable profession in the world; cab drivers deal with daily annoyances like traffic signals and bad drivers. In Washington D.C. the daily annoyances are compounded by the "I want it now!" and the "stuck in a meeting" mentalities of the city. I was surprised by how much horn honking takes place ... that just doesn't happen in Texas. The "I want it now" factor is readily apparent - the city runs on the ability of people to get things done correctly and to get things done quickly. Nobody in Washington sits around and waits for things to happen; if that's your mentality you best pack up and go home. This behavior spills over into driving habits, people don't wait for openings in traffic, they create them. Being cut off in traffic is par for the course in D.C. I remarked to a cab drive how often drivers honk at one another in Washington, he said "you gotta let 'em know you're not gonna stop". I love it! The other reason to use the horn is to wake people up that are "stuck in a meeting". D.C. revolves around relationships, not friendships mind you, but relationships. A common saying I heard repeatedly over the past 3 days is "if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog". So relationships are the oil that keeps the machinery running and in order to maintain relationships, you have to have meetings. I discovered all to well that an entire day of work in D.C. can consist of nothing but hopping from meeting to meeting. Especially for out of towners, we are here to work as many relationships in the short time that we will be here. So we have to meet. Given the meeting mentality in D.C., it's no wonder that D.C. drivers are constantly either mentally reviewing the meeting they just got out of, or are mentally preparing for the meeting they're about to go into. In this cerebral fog it can be fairly easy to not pay attention to traffic signals and thus require a wake up call at a green light by the gentle tap of a DC cabbie's horn.

But these are the minor pitfalls of driving a cab in D.C. - what really made me thankful that I had chosen another occupation were the horror stories. The man that took me to the airport, we'll call him "Cabbie", was telling me "you can't trust anybody anymore". And after I heard his rationale, I beleived him. Cabbie talked about the time he picked up a fare from DC to Germantown, MD. The total fare came out to around $68.00. The fella he was transporting seemed respectable, he was nicely dressed and he asked to go to a decent high-rise apartment complex in MD. However, upon arriving. the man told Cabbie that he needed to go upstairs to get cash - he never returned. I asked Cabbie why he didn't ask the jerk to leave his wallet or ID, cabbie responded "I'm a gentleman, and a man of my word. I don't try to cheat the people. I expect the same from others". Cabbie's story is duplicated hundreds of times a week. People hop in a cab, with no intention of paying tell the driver to wait while they go to the ATM, and never return. Cabbie is an immigrant. He came to the United States the right way. He applied for permanant residency and when he got a visa he came here, and he got a job. He pays taxes and has a family. He doesn't make much, but the money that he makes is honest. He doesn't deserve to be ripped off.

If you think Cabbie's story isn't that bad, that it's just the cost of doing business, listen to this: A few weeks ago Cabbie was at a local gas station filling up. As he always does when fills up, Cabbie pulled, from his cab's sunvisor, a laminated card printed with the words "OFF DUTY" and places it face up on his dashboard. A young African American man suddenly comes up to Cabbie's open window and proceeds to punch him repeatedly - it seems that Cabbie's simple act of notifying any would be passengers that he was not available incensed this young man so much that he was moved to violence. When the police arrived to help Cabbie tend to his swollen bloody face, they theorized that the young man thought that the "off duty" sign was directed at him, and he wasn't going to have it.

Is that a cost of doing business too?!? What about this: It was around four in the afternoon and Cabbie picks up a fare. The young African American lady woman requests to go to Martin Luther King blvd. Cabbie is already uneasy as this is a sketch part of town, but being a gentlman, and having a trust in people, Cabbie proceeds and does his job. Right away, when the young lady is unable to produce and address of where she wants to go, only trun by turn directions, Cabbie senses that something's wrong. Cabbie tells the woman that he needs an address for his passentger manifest but the woman just directs him, left here turn right there ... Cabbie say "I cannot put left turn right turn on my manifest!!!" The woman directs cabbie into a dead-end alley and 3 accomplices come out of the shadows and rob cabbie at gun point. It was 4pm, these people are professional pieces of shit, they know that it's pointless to rob a cab driver in the morning, they don't have any money on them yet, so they wait until the afternoon. Cabbie's honest work doesn't deserve to be tarnished with the filth of lazy assholes that aren't man enough to do the work that Cabbie does day in and day out often with out recognition and defintely without thanks. Cabbie's not the type of guy they put on a postage stamp, and no one will ever write a folk song about him. The stories of the robberies and the beatings will never make it to the mainstream media. But I think, at the very least, someone, someone, should recognize what this man has to deal with. This man that takes us safely to our destination, gives us advice on how to survive in a strange city and makes sure we eat at a decent restaurant. This man that just wants to earn an honest living.

the doctor said i had too much "snoo" in my blood

UPDATE: 20 June 2009 - for the people doing Google searches for "snoo in blood", here's the joke:

* Person A: "The doctor told me I had too much snoo in my blood"
* Person B: "What's snoo"
* Person A: "Not much. What's new with you..."

Only the best joke EVER!
-----
Listening to Against Me!'s "Baby I'm an Anarchist" ... don't know why I felt compelled to share that, but that song always makes me feel better about the state of things - even though it's a white flag of surrender and a reminder of how difficult change can be when so few are willing to affect that change (yea that's right, affect as opposed to effect - look it up). But it makes me feel better about things. Other than that, other than music, there's not much to assuage the anguish of the enervated soul. "through the best of times, through the worst of times..."

comfort?

I knew it was 8:15 this morning. I listen to NPR overnight, and thus, in the morning, and these radio guys are pretty good at telling you what time it is in the morning lest their hordes of listeners be late for work. Present company included. I knew it was 8:15, but I didn't want to get out of bed. I was comfortable.

Then, when I was in the shower, I remembered something - I remembered that we're not supposed to be comfortable. I was reminded of this when I recalled a speech that Robert F. Kennedy made in Capetown, South Africa in 1966. He said (when speaking of the dangers that the world faces):

For the fortunate among us, the fourth danger is comfort, the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged - will ultimately judge himself - on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

So we part, I to my country and you to remain...

So I trudged on - to shun the dangers of comfort, and embrace the virtues of adversity...

you had to fight to stay in control of the situation

I'm often misunderstood. I mean in general, but a specific example, that recently reminded of this occurred about a year ago: I told the friend of a girl I liked (we'll call her "_____") that _____ was "fucking insane". Word of my comment got back to _____ and I was basically yelled at and told that my comment was "not cool".

What _____ and her friend didn't understand is that in my world "fucking insane" is the highest compliment that one can receive. I had to attempt to explain this to _____ but to no avail. I tried explaining that I like people that say what they want to say, are uninhibited, and possess a sense of adventure. People that are uncommon, and do uncommon things - people that mire themselves in the mundane are a HUGE turn off for me and drain me of my energy nearly instantly.

After about an hour of defending my comment I was nowhere; _____ was still pretty pissed until I pulled out the "big guns". I quoted Kerouac:

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...

_____ finally understood, but it took me over an hour of being called some things I'd rather not be referred to as. I'm often misunderstood. Some people just "get it" though. I like those people too...

Do you ever just "crave" a song. That is, do you ever have a powerful urge to dig up a song from the past, that you haven't listened to in a long time, and just jam the hell out of it? For me, today, it was Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart, by Against Me! This song is particularly kick-ass because it features Tegan Quinn (1/2 of indie rock duo Tegan and Sara). Tegan has an angelic voice that is a great contrast to Tom Gabels' throaty salvos.

Against Me! - Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart video

base

I'm sick of people moving away from noble ambitions and giving in to base desires...fucking sick of it. sick of time wasted. sick of not reaching for the stars while we have our mighty reach - we have a small window of time to do what must be done. sick of mediocrity, but most of all sick of pretending I'm not sick of it.

... It's time to reevaluate a lot of things and shed some things that are no longer inline with the goals that are set and the might of mind possessed. We move on in our lives, it's what we do - those near us that understand us; need us... we need them to(& too). The rest can go to hell. you've given all that you can. you come to the end of yourself. We witness not any movement to actualize change - so I'm sick.

Music? Did you say music? This is what I've been listening to: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart...

Gone too long

Blogging without anything to say is kind of pointless so that explains the reason for no posts in the past several weeks. There's really nothing to say now, but I feel obligated to blog once again or else I'll just wallow in the stagnation that has become this site.

So here goes: Things that are new that are worth talking about? I graduated, I moved, I'm going to Washington D.C. in 2 weeks...yea. This is totally not doing it for me. They say that when you leave for a long time and come back, it's never the same.

Maybe it's the fact that I have to come up with "interesting" blog posts for a living that has me so unwilling to do it for "fun". Maybe it's simply the fact that I really don't have anything to say that is relevant to the world of the blogosphere - DPRK underground nuke test? we saw that one coming - what is this malaise that has come over me?

Maybe I'm too content right now? Work is fucking fun - totally dig what I'm doing. The new place is comfortable. Graduated Summa Cum Laude (that's tits, baby). Am I not entitled to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labor, if only for a little while? It won't be long until I'm back in the thick of the academicians' battlefield - gnashing teeth in a haze nocturnal creativity, days that tear the will asunder, and lecture halls ablaze with eager eyes which never shine as brilliantly as the mind of the foe. Pen wielded as sword; well worn pages held close as shield - we howl the weary battle cry of the lionhearted as we sacrifice all to rise amongst the ranks of the immortal few.

Since it was said, over the weekend, that I like poetry, maybe this will become a poets' blog. Here's one I like, by Tony Hoagland - reminds me of this time of year - birth and renewal; and perhaps, distantly, a special someone who's memory haunts the depths of the very soul:

"A Color of the Sky" by Tony Hoagland

Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.

Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,

which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.

Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,

dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.

What I've been reading

It's been a pretty light week as far as homework is concerned so I've been catching up on the news ... and mindless, time wasting websites. Here's what I've been reading lately:

Time Wasters!:
* holytaco.com - hilarious article on the stages of drunk. Funny 'cuz it's true!
* textsfromlastnight.com - exactly what it sounds like; texts that you wish you hadn't sent. Much more funny than fmylife.com
* Failblog.org - My daily fail fix!

International:
* Al Jazeera - interesting article on a Palestinian version of a holocaust museum. Very thought provoking piece.
* Foreign Policy - pretty much all good.
* The Economist - Assessment of the World Bank. I had such high hopes for the WB when Zoellick took over from a corrupt Wolfowitz...sigh.

That's the stuff that I've been reading...anyone else got anything interesting to check out? Let me know!

Song I've been rocking: West Bank Blues by Reno Divorce. If you've never watched a video that I've posted before, please at least watch this one. please.

Specter-tacular?

You've no doubt heard by now: In a move that further weakens an already flailing GOP, Arlen Spector, senior senator from Pennsylvania, defected to the Democratic Party. Citing the fact that the GOP has “moved far to the right,” (source: Financial Times). Mr. Spector now gives the President the prospect of a filibuster proof 60% majority in the U.S. Legislature's upper house. This coupled with the Democrat's nearly 100 person majority in the House of Representatives should have the American citizenry bracing for President Obama to run rough-shod over any chance of the promotion of a Republican agenda.

However, the optimist that I am, I see Spector's defection as a good thing. Let this serve as a wake up call to my Party! No longer can Republicans be beholden to ideologues that wish promote legislation based on emotion rather than logic! let us find not only our will to fight, but our will to win. To carve out a place in history that is not dictated by fear, but by courage. Robert F. Kennedy once said, in a speech at the California Institute of Technology in 1968:

There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.

That, my friends, is our Grand Old Party today.

haha...I wish Spector's defection was framed as poetically as all that. The reality is that Spector faced a tough Republican primary challenge next spring. This conservative challenger, Pat Toomey, is the Party's retribution for Spector's backing of President Obama's $700 billion stimulus bill. We are witnessing my Republican party at its worst.

If the Republican Party is to remain viable with an increasingly younger, politically active voting block, then we must make a push to the center as so wisely stated by Olympia Snowe (R-Maine): “If the Republican party fully intends to become a majority party in the future, it must move from the far right back toward the middle.”

To Strive, To Seek, To Find...

Anyone that's known me long enough might know that I used to be a pretty big slacker; I just really didn't have that much of a drive. I was content, had money, decent cars, and a comfortable place to lay my head; life was good. But there comes a time in life when you realize that mankind is on a timeline of expiration. When you realize this there's only one thing you can do. And that one thing is "everything". You need to do everything you can to shape your own destiny. For me that moment came when I discovered Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The struggles, both within and without, that Odysseus faced did more to shape his character than any level of comfort ever could.

For the past five years, or so, Ulysses has driven my life. I never told anyone because it was something that was mine, something that could inspire me to strive with Gods. If there was ever a moment that I questioned why I was doing what I was doing, why I put up with the late nights and the homework, I would remember Ulysses. If there was ever a moment that I thought that I'd rather be hanging out with friends having a "good time", I'd remember "how dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life!" I never shared it with anyone because it was the one thing that I could call my own, and I never wanted to cheapen it or have it be made less than by sharing it with someone else. I'm sharing it now because I've made a decision to move on with my life. I'm moving to a new town, leaving those I care about behind, and, in all reality I'll never see most of you again. We'll stay in touch, but it will never be the same...if there's one thing I've learned in life it's that people move on. So, I'm leaving, but I wanted to leave you with something that is very, very dear to me, something that after all these years can still find me, lift me up, and move me in the same way all of you have.

Ulysses
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Say it aint so, Governor Perry...

Ok, let me preface this post by stating, up front, that I'm a Republican. I'm a firebreathing, gun-toting, pro-life, small government Republican. I voted for George W. Bush twice. I have always supported Governor Rick Perry...up until Friday that is.

As most of you know Governor Perry spent this past week going on and on about state's rights. He supported a Texas State House resolution affriming Texas State sovereignty. In support of the resolution Perry stated "I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,". The Governor then followed this statement with a series of national media interviews railing against the Federal Government and relaying the expressed desire for Washington lawmakers to keep thier collective noses out of Texas' business. Governor Perry also attended several "Tea Parties" on tax day, and continually updated his Twitter "tweets" claiming pride for the Texas "patriots" that were fed up with the intrusion of the Federal Government into their lives.

When I heard about what GovernorPerry was doing I was excited; I thought to myself "here's a man that speaks truth to power, here's a man that represents the minority opinion. Here's a man that speaks out against big government spending, and stands up for what he believes is right, not matter how unpopular his position may be." Unfortunately I was decieved - I was wrong. I was suckered in by Rick Perry's shameless pandering to the base of the Texas Republican Party. On Friday, April 17, Governor Perry posted a "tweet" practically begging for Federal asssistance in the wake of torrential showers that left devastation in many parts of Texas...this is a complete reversal of his earlier position of states rights...



...this is complete reversal of his position of not wanting the U.S. government to interfere. So which way do you want it Governor? You can't talk about kicking out the Feds one day, and ask for Federal assistance the next. Men of principal don't do that; only shameless politicians that care for nothing other than votes do that.

Unbelievable!

A few years ago my car got totaled and I was stuck with a Suzuki Aerio as a rental for a couple of weeks (which I have to admit, for an entry level car, it actually performed well and seemed well engineered...anyway...). This car had a CD player in in that would automatically find hidden tracks on any CD. This was around the time that Dashboard Confessional released Dusk and Summer (see where I'm going with this?). There are 2 hidden tracks on that CD; one of the is Vindicated, which was released on the Spiderman 2 soundtrack, and the other is a song called Write it Out, which has never been released and for which I've looked everywhere for copy! Well now I've found it!!!...it's one of my faves..enjoy

Mid-Week Update

Lot going on these days in the world of National Security news. First the Somali pirates are stepping up their game after the "3 shots, 3 kills" incident over the weekend.

Benyamin Netanyahu is taking a hardline approach with Iran in the wake of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim that Iran now has 5000-7000 centrifuges at its Natanz facility capable of enriching uranium (this nearly 2 months after the fact that is was discovered that Iran is already in possession of enough enriched uranium to produce at least one bomb).

Earlier this month North Korea successfully launched a Tae PoDong II missile. Bear in mind that the rest of the world is calling the launch a failure in that the missile wasn't actually able to put a satellite in orbit. In reality, the DPRK already has that capability with the Tae PoDong I. The test was an attempt to prove that the Tae PoDong II missile was able to achieve a longer range than its predecessor...which it did, traveling approximately 2000 miles before splashing down in the Sea of Japan. DO NOT believe the Western press reports that the launch was a failure!!! If you think that the DPRK wont have long range capabilities within the next five years, you're crazy!

Finally, (well there's tons more, but no one likes my "boring" blog posts, so I'll keep it short) China is working on its next big export: A carrier rocket capable of launching multiple satellites on a single trip. It's not a huge step to outfit this thing with MIRV capability, ya know.

Musical flavor this week is one of my longtime favorites: The New Pornographers. I saw them open up for Spoon last year...amazing. And Neko Case is so much hotter in person!

The Week Ahead...

So here I am, a little after 1am Monday morning sipping a St. Arnold's, posting to my other blog and thinking about the week ahead. This is my crazy time of year; T.S. Elliot was right. Let's see what I have lined up...need to complete my FAFSA, file for an extension for income taxes (now is just not the time to dig through all of those receipts...I'll do it after finals), I have a paper due in 1 week, a customer deployment in California, a customer here in Texas that needs attention, not to mention my regular work duties...oh well, at least I'll be busy and the week should go by rather quickly.

My paper topic is pretty kick-awesome: Pentateuchal Sources of the Just War Doctrine (Jus ad Bellum). Which is just another way of saying "how the Old Testament justifies war". I've already collected most of my research, now I just need to synthesize content...wish me luck!

Great picnic with the peeps yesterday and great bike riding today. My only regret is that Huntsville left me so tired that I didn't have any energy left to go hang out with my family for Easter...I guess that's the price you pay for glory...

Oh, they're good...

Ok, this is a sort of an anonymous blog in that I don't publish my name ANYWHERE on the site and, as far as I know, I've never received a comment that mentions my name. However, the Franklin Pierce Law Center, in Concord, NH (see previous post) found it! They visited yesterday and looked at 3 pages. So to the Franklin Pierce Law Center I say kudos!...I'm pretty sure I figured out how they found the Hobo (I have theory, which I will post later, that is so elegant in its simplicity), but I gotta ask them directly...how'd you do it?

Final Round

Well, the final round of law school apps has been sent out; the lucky recipients this round were George Washington University (D.C.) and Franklin Pierce Law (Concord, NH). All that remains is to wait around and see what happens...it is truly out of my control at his point.

It feels weird not having to go to Mock Trial practice everyday...I'm not sure what to do with my free time...guess I better be productive and do homework! So now that it's all over we're asking ourselves if it was worth it and I gotta say this: Mock Trial was the most demanding and excruciating program in my college career...but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

New Musical Flavor of the Week: The Sainte Catherines, they're kinda awesome.