Thoughts

These people may be my favorite people in the world. I want to say that people like this exist in every country that has a cellular network, but I think I am giving my fellow Americans too much credit if I insist we are not alone in our gestures.

You're in someone's basement. You're in a movie theater. You're out in a field in the country. You're in a parking garage or structure. You could be anywhere and where you are at that moment, your cellular telephone does not receive a signal from the closest tower. You are without service. What do you do?

There are two schools of thought on this matter; even with a population that meets in the middle. School the first holds their cell phones out like a water stick in the desert leading them to drink. They follow the cell phone slower at first then gradually they pick up the pace as if they are hot on the trail to a reception.

The second group is more creative....right? How could you be wrong to figure by holding your cell phone a full arm's extension towards the sky your signal has to improve? Again, walk around the room with your phone over your head, perhaps stand on a chair; any means necessary. My only question for you, oh cell phone signal sleuth, is what are you going to do with your phone when you find service near the ceiling? How will you then get your head to the phone? I have never quite understood that part.

How am I affected? I thought you would never ask. My dilemma is do I point out the common sense of the situation where these people will not be able to get a signal and if they do will not be able to reach the single pocket of service without aid of a stool? Or do I just watch and let them amuse me? Call me crazy, but for right now I think I will opt for the latter.

On my drive to work this morning I saw a woman out walking her poodle. My first thought was, "My that is an ugly little creature." This was not as much about her poodle specifically, but more about the breed in general. There is nothing cute about these dogs.

Let's go ahead and clear up a point you will all find important. I am admittedly not much of a dog person. There are those who are and those who are not; I fall as much in the middle as possible, but closer to the "not" side. My overall perspective is that other peoples' dogs are cool. Having a dog is just not for me. I very much respect your right to have and enjoy dogs and it makes perfect sense to me up until the point where you say you want a poodle.

Why would you want a dog that looks like this? Is it a joke? Is it the scenario where you ran with the "ugly crowd" in high school to boost your self-esteem? Do poodle owners have some inflated sense of self worth because, "Hey, at least I'm better looking than my poodle"?

Or is it some deranged control issue? Because poodle owners do things that to my knowledge most other dog owners do not do. Were you brought up in a strict household and so you have repressed feelings of contempt for others? Maybe your boss is a jerk, how will you let your anger manifest itself? Why not shave stupid patterns into the dog. That'll show 'em!

And from what I hear, poodles are quite nasty. I guess we could speculate until we're blue in the face as to why these animals have a reputation for being mean. But then again maybe it isn't such a hard thing to figure out after all...

I think there should be a screening process implemented to weed out people with the potential to humiliate themselves and their animal. Or as a society do we promote this and encourage poodle owners to manipulate the animal for the enjoyment of others? Some may refer to this as cruel and unusual, but I guess that only applies to people. Screw with your ugly dog all you like!

Cell phones are to law school as oil is to water.

Does that take you back to the SATs? Anyway, in class last night a cell phone rang in the middle of discussion. The mobile device in question belongs to the person who sits to my left. He quickly fumbled around to pull it from his bag and cease its siren. His "fun" downloaded ring tone only sounds once, but that was more than enough; the damage was done.

Some law schools have different methods by which they call on their students, but many use their right to call on the students at random. Typically you will not be called on more than once in a particular class period, though the possibility exists under the system, or as we'll see here, or when your phone rings.

This student to my left, we'll call him "Stan", had arbitrarily been called upon to help us with the first case discussed last night. After his phone rang, he had the pleasure to brief about four more cases as well. Our Wednesday night professor is a lighthearted person. She has conducted class with authority, but while allowing us the ability to have fun while we learn. You could almost feel the room get colder after that cell phone went off; her entire demeanor had changed.

When a student is called upon to discuss a case, in the rare event that they are unable to answer a particular question, it then becomes open to the floor. Any student may raise their hand at that point and offer an attempt at the answer. It just so happened that the student who had the pleasure of the case in discussion as the phone rang was unable to recall a particular point about the case.

"Stan, you want to help her out?" asked the professor, without even surveying the room for volunteers.

It was at this precise moment that most of the air in the room was sucked out as each of the rest of us in our seats gasped then stared wide-eyed at our notes, hands in our laps. Stan, I would say, does not exactly have the best track record for having completed all of the assignments. This is not necessarily something that is brought to light in front of the professors, but you can often tell from pre-class discussion. Luckily last night he appeared more prepared than ever. He did well answering the questions posed to him and never wavered from being called upon. I think he expected it. To tell you the truth, I did not know what to expect.

Through orientation and even into each class, everyone tells you to be sure and turn off your cell phone or at least place your ringer on vibrate when you enter class. Professors all have horror stories of Judges who have imposed ridiculous penalties upon members of their audience who fail to observe the "turn it off" guideline. The atmosphere in law school is one where we have been fully warned.

That said, I feel Stan got off relatively easily. He escaped rather unscathed. I am not saying that he should have been punished to a greater extent, we are after all in this together are we not? It was not long before the professor's lighter side resurfaced and her smile returned.

Who knows, maybe this is now a cross he must bear for the duration of the term; stigmatized as the outcast, rogue student who disobeys the turn-off-your-cell-phone "advisement". Then again, maybe he has been punished to the full extent of his crime. Only time will tell.

Almost all of the credit for the success of Star Wars seems to go to George Lucas, and I do not challenge that. All I want to do is thank everyone, including Lucas, for the roles they played in bringing Star Wars into our lives. And yes, I do refer to the original three movies (now episodes 4-6). My complaints with the new ones? No, not here. That is a separate issue for some other time. Today is a post to celebrate the triumph under the Star Wars emblem.

In thinking about this post last night I planned to talk about Star Wars as a sub-culture. The problem with that is the bubble is too big. This is a full blown Star Wars culture. While there is nothing wrong with it, those who are not fans of Star Wars appear to be in the minority.

What else can bring together so many people under one common interest? For nearly 30 years now Star Wars has delighted fans and it may only be picking up steam. Many people make fun of those who take Star Wars seriously enough to show up at 12:01am dressed as their favorite characters; the costumes elaborate and the wearers proud and uninhibited. We often label these people as "nerds" for their outward manifestation of a fanatic interest in some Galaxy far far away, though we share in this fascination.

The fact is that as a society we do not harbor any ill will towards these people, in fact we celebrate it with sketches on comedy shows and exclusive reports for the news. We love Star Wars too.

Is it silly that we are a population of adults who embrace each other in all of our diverse glory as we come together united behind the plight of the Jedi? I think in the world we live in where often times we focus too closely on the negative it is everything but silly that we can unite under our common bond of Star Wars.

It may be the nerd in me, but I respect and salute the diehards who were in full regalia last night for the midnight showings across the country and those others around the globe. Sure, it is a little funny, but it is not often that they have an opportunity to dust off the Vader masks and Jedi robes. No, there was not proof of Big Foot's existence yesterday, those were pictures of people dressed as Wookies to celebrate Episode III.

I saw my first Storm Trooper up close and personal yesterday and I can say that it was a religious experience. I now consider myself one of the lucky ones. I was close enough to reach out and touch him. I did not, however, opt for a photo opportunity as did many others around him.

Thank you Star Wars.

In an attempt to not have to have this conversation multiple times, here is how things went in week 1.

Contracts 1:
My professor seems...fair. I am not sure I could ask for anything more than that. He thus far shows great patience and the desire to help us learn. That means that he will not berate us in front of our colleagues and will instead lead us to the answers he seeks.

He did tell us that his teaching style differs from an anecdote from his days in law school. He told us of a time where a professor he had threw a dime at a classmate and told him, "Go phone your mother to tell her you are failing out of law school."

His class is run well. It is more relaxed than I had anticipated. When it is time to discuss a case or a problem from the text he (at least in week 1) asked for volunteers. It is nice that no one in the class tried to hide behind this and keep quiet. Through various discussions I believe everyone in the room participated more than once.

Torts 1:
This professor, while fair also, appears to be more by the book. Her class will be run in accordance to a more stringent set of rules. When discussing cases and problems her method is to call on a student at random instead of taking volunteers. In either scenario we know to be prepared anyhow, but this is an added stress that seems unnecessary.

She has shown signs that she will also work with us to help us understand to the best of her ability. That is a very good thing.

Intro to Law:
This class is actually taught by two people. From my understanding neither is a professor, they are the teachers of the class. One is a representative from the Academic Resource Center provided through the school and the other is in a similar capacity though adjunct.

I was unsure what to expect from this class as it is designed to be an aid in the rest of my courses for first term. Now I know that it is actually quite helpful. It is a little extra work, and at a rather inconvenient time (7-9pm Friday), but I do see benefit in the class.

The teacher who is actually full time with the ARC seems extremely helpful and he relates very well from what I have seen to date.

In total:
Law school will not be that bad. Sure it is all relative and I am still enjoying the few page assignments of the first few weeks, but it really does not seem too bad. As many times as even I have heard this, it does hold true: you just have to do the work. If I read and brief my cases, when I go into class there are no surprises.

I am still working on ironing out my routine that will have me do roughly 1 hour of work per night per class. That is what will really be the hard part about law school. The powers that be in law school land call it a "compromise" between my time spent doing other things, I consider it a sacrifice. Call it what you want.

1 week down. 259 to go.

Congratulations of the highest order to Drew and Kristen. My brother took the big step yesterday as he proposed to his special lady friend. She said YES! There is hope for us, yet.

I am very excited and happy for you both.

Drew, thank you for perpetuating my reign as the bad son. You're a good man, Charlie Brown. You chose a beautiful, intelligent partner, what a great compliment she is to you. I love you, man. I couldn't be happier for you.

Kristen, I want you to know that you will be a very welcome addition to the family. Hopefully you see now that we're not so weird...once you get used to us. Or maybe you see the exact opposite. Either way it will be an honor to call you "sister".

In a related piece of news, the family pool has me picked in last place of the four children to get married. Though I may try to throw them all for a loop and hang up my spurs early. Any takers?

Are your doctors too far away

So the tagline for Spamusement is: Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines!

This seems to be about right. The graphics, though far better than anything I could put my name on, are not what many would consider the best. The cartoons themselves, however, are very entertaining. It looks as though th

***Warning***Warning***Warning***
If literal humor is beneath you, you will not be "spamused".

Things to do before I die:
Publish a novel
Eat crawfish the "real" way
Get evacuated from my condo
Finish law school
Date a stripper

If you have never been evacuated from your home, I think you should look into it. The way I figure, everyone will be doing it in 2006.

Last night I may have burnt my dinner...but only a little. I turned on the ceiling fan in my living room to get the air moving some in hopes of having the stale smell dissipate. It was almost immediately that I noticed the rotation of my ceiling fan sounds like a fighter plane engine. Now I do not really use my fan all that often, but that was out of the ordinary. Ok, so that noise cannot be my fan. I turn it off. Is it my furnace? I put my hand in front of a register...no, not the furnace. What is that sound? Is it pouring rain outside? I open the doorwall to my porch and hear what sounds like an entire squadron of fighter jets flying over my neighborhood. Are the Canadians finally invading?

I IM some friends in the area; one close says she hears it. One further away (Jill) says she does not. I call my brother to see if he can hear this incredible noise in the background, somehow he says he cannot. I begin to get nervous.

My neighbor calls. He asks if I have any information on what is going on. I tell him I do not. He says it sounds like F-16s flying overhead and he claims he can even smell the jet fuel. My congestion kept me from being able to do the same.

Cue the phone call from Jill. She has found out for me what my noise is and why she cannot hear it. Apparently there was a gas main eruption. I pass the news on to my neighbor...he calls me back a few minutes later to tell me he called 911 and they are evacuating our area (a 1 mile radius from the site of the eruption).

WALK to the high school they say. It was only 2.5 miles, but that is daunting to many people and an inconvenience to everyone. There were cars everywhere, though. When in Rome...

The "incident" occurred at about 10:15pm and as I sat and watched the news on both channels 4 and 7 (or 11 and 8 respectively since cable can do whatever it wants) from my parents' house they gave the all clear to return to the area at 11:45pm. At that point there was no reason for me to head back home as I had brought everything I needed with me. I went to bed at about 1am with this new experience under my belt.

Allegedly no one was hurt.

Apparently there is a direct correlation between the amount of homework I have and my willingness to do my house work.

...I expect my condo to be both spic and span by the end of the day.

I have now seen my first H3 (from Hummer) on the road. My official opinion is that they look stupid.

(No, I did not take the pic. Thanks Car and Driver.)