Fire! No wait... aww crap

So was sitting in the library last night (yeah, big surprise there), minding my own business and trying to figure out exactly which flavor of Sanskrit the Bluebook (legal citation manual) is written in (I'm still not sure), when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. Now, the last time I was in a library during a fire alarm, I was at the University of Michigan studying engineering and observed a somewhat troubleing phenomenon...

nobody moved.

Now, I can understand if this sort of thing happened all the time, but I spent most of that semester living in the library (yeah, not much has changed) and that was the first time it had happened. People just glanced up from their work, confirmed that there was no immediate presence of smoke, and put their heads right back down.

Law students on the other hand apparently have a bit more sense. Yeah, we all took the time to pack up our things (hey, I had to save my work, bookmark the page that seemed to refer to the proper citation, put everything away and put on my headphones), and our exit from the building was more grumbly than timely or orderly, but at least we got off our asses. Now, it could be that engineers simply reason that "someone will come get me if there is real danger," while law students think "ugh, loud noise hurt ears, leave now," but I choose to believe that we're just a little less psychotic.

Anyway, I decided that someone was telling me that it was time to go home - probably the fire alarm, which not only has the traditional loud beeping and flashy lights, but also comes equipped with some ernest-sounding man saying "attention, attention" followed by a disconcertingly cheerful sounding woman who says something like "there has been a fire emergency reported in the building, please make your way to the nearest exit." Sheesh, there are easier ways of getting me to leave a building.

So I made my way outside and looked around for any smoke or people who are on fire, but discovered neither.

Ok, there was that one guy, but I'm pretty sure it was a cigarette accident.

Yeah, so putting my highly evolved sense of curiosity on the back shelf, I decided not to stick around to see what happened next (did you know that mammals, and particularly primates, are the only animals whose curiosity trumps their flight instinct? Any other animal has the good sense to run away when it senses danger, but we super-smart apes just find a spot we think is safe - like up a tree or across the street - and hunker down to watch the show... you'd think behavior like that would be selected against) and started walking home. I gotta admit, every time I glanced back over my shoulder (there's a "Lot's Wife" reference there, but I'm not going to be the one to make it) I felt a little disappointed that there was no smoke pouring from the building. Not that I really WANT the recipient of all my hard-borrowed cash to burn down, but I always feel vaguely cheated when I'm ushed out of a building by an alarm that turns out to be for nothing.

*imagine there is a picture of a burning building here, damn thing won't upload*

Yes, because I know you all stay up late wondering, this is what passes for excitement in my life these days ;-) You just wait until my prof's campaign gets under way and I start having an extracurricular life again. Oh, didn't I mention that yet? I'm volunteering as a deputy precinct chair for my prof's run for the Maryland state senate, I'll be second-in-command for whatever needs doing in one of the 28 precincts in his district, but this won't be getting into full swing for another few weeks. If you're interested, go check it out.

Oh, and the update. It's only been 13 hours, so I've just inched forward a little bit and am wandering through Farmer Maggot's turnip field. Total to date: 62 miles.

God damns... who?

Ok, a friend sent me this link and I just had to post a comment about it.

*twitch* see, this is the sort of thing that makes me want to ask the mainline church to cut back on sending missionaries to the developing world and instead send them to Kanasas, seems to me like these guys could use a little more "love thy neighbor" in their lives... not that it would work mind you, but it would be a nice gesture. Oh and this is good, according to wiki, the esteemed Fred Phelps is himself a disbarred lawyer who got the boot for filing frivolous lawsuits and intimidation.

*grumble* stupid belief in *grumble* free speech *grumble* stupid ethics *grumble* telling myself that he has the right to say whatever he wants *grumble*

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I can see farmer Maggot's house up ahead. Total to date: 60 miles.

Insult to injury

Ok, I get it, the school wants to make sure that we get certain pieces of information. So here we are at a workshop that we are required to attend, listening to these guys from the legal research and writing department basically recite to us the stuff that is already covered in the handout that they gave us. Unfortunately, they really take attendance seriously. They've got THREE sign-in sheets circulating around the room, and we have to sign each of them or else they'll assume that we snuck out at some point. In every other aspect we are treated with the utmost respect, after all, we're LAW students. This school is full of some of the smartest and most motivated people in the country and there isn't a single person in the room who is not going to spend a lot of time and effort to put together a good writing sample for prospective employers. Yet they feel the need to confine us in a room and recite the contents of a handout to us by shovelling advice that is obvious even to me, the mostly illiterate engineer. Sure, the school wants to make sure that we understand that this is important... but one of the great fundamental legal concepts that they teach us is that people are responsible for knowing what they have been told. They don't take extra effort to tell us when scholarships or tuition payments are due, or loan applications, or anything else that is, say, important... but oh yes, we must sit there and listen to them read to us.

Ok, I'm done now, the workshop is almost over and it's time to go get some food with dad. Oh yes, dad is in town for a few days, gonna be a good time :-).

… of course, just to add insult to injury, blogger was down when I tried to post this for "scheduled maintenance" (who the hell schedules maintenance on a Wednesday during primetime?), so I couldn't post.

Made good progress the last few days. Dad was in town and we hiked all over downtown and visited the Holocaust Museum, and the Jefferson, FDR and Lincoln Memorials. What struck me most about seeing all of that is how very different the great leaders of the past are from our current "great leader." *sigh* I miss the Enlightenment. Anyway, I'm wandering in the trees and just stopped singing because some dude in black is screaming at me... man these secret service guys are creepy. Total thus far: 54 miles.

Getting too old for this…

Another legal rhetoric paper, another all nighter and another day with none of the reading I needed to do actually done. The paper is done though. I did better this time around. Usually these things get finished at about 8:30am on the morning that they are due (papers are always due at 9:00am and it takes about 30 minutes to get to school), but today I finished at about 6:00am and actually had time to do this revise and polish thing that I keep hearing about. It was mildly fulfilling, in a whacky, sleep-deprived sort of way. Now, if this added effort actually produces a higher than usual grade, maybe I’ll start doing it more often.

So geez. It’s been a while since I last posted… but then this is a law student’s blog, it says so right up there in the heading line, what do you expect? What have I been doing the last week? Reading and going to class and being sick of course. Last weekend I went with some friends to a fun little thing at the British Embassy (I know a girl who knows a guy who knows a girl that was throwing a “social event”), this past weekend I attempted to hide from the fact that I no longer know how to write. Ah well, it’ll come back.

Tomorrow the law school is sponsoring it’s annual externship fair, so I spent this afternoon rewriting my resume. You know, I had all sorts of great things to fill up a resume, I was a pretty involved guy back in the day… but the last of those days was about four years ago now and many go back even farther. Not sure that employers will be all that impressed that I was on the winning team in the 1999 Lower Michigan Math Challenge. *sigh* Ok, yeah, I have all that stuff I did in Africa which really was pretty damn cool, but do I stick that in the “Experience” section or the “Additional Experience and Activities” section? I wonder how far back I should take my employment history… hmm… I think I can definitely leave off my 1998-99 stint as a “computer lab assistant” at my alma mater.

Anyway, in addition to trying to figure out what exactly I’ve done in the last few years and which bits are relevant (those three months of madness that I spent at Michigan are definitely NOT getting put on there), I’m also helping this pretty girl in my class put her computer back together… yeah I know, they’re totally related. Poor thing has something vicious on there that’s turned off all her security updates and really made a mess of her operating system. Fortunately, I know how to fix it, and no, “fixing” does not include wiping her hard drive, just some good old fashioned geek tricks. Ahh. It’s good for the self-esteem to get some honest to goodness appreciation every now and again. Maybe all those years in tech weren’t wasted after all. ;-)

Oh, and since I was sick last week I didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked, only made it about 15 miles ‘cause it was cold and wet and I was sick and like to whine! Oh, and I was totally hiding from black riders and hangin with the elves. Yeah. So I’m camped at the Woody End. Total thus far: 46 miles.

Con sonar, crazy Ivan!

*50 points if you can identify the source of this post's title*

I've heard a lot of people comment lately on the frustration they feel because Alito isn't really answering any of the Dems' questions. All we really want to know is whether is an ordinary conservative shill who will cede most of the court's power to the President, or whether he's so terrifyingly conservative that his confirmation must be blocked by a filibuster.

Unfortunately, frustrating as it is, Alito doesn’t actually have to answer a damn thing. Dems can only block his confirmation with a filibuster and if actually answering the Dems’ questions will only increase that likelihood of that filibuster, then Alito has exactly no motivation to do so. Alito knows that all he has to do to get confirmed is sit there and not say anything so outrageous that it would terrify the Dems or alienate a few Republicans. He has no reason to answer the Dems’ questions because the Dems don’t actually matter, so as John Stewart might say, this confirmation hearing is just theater.

I've come quite a long way since my last post, 31.5 miles in all. I am still on the Road, but there's a rider up ahead who looks kinda creepy; he seems to be dressed entirely... in... black.

Well shit.

And now... a poll! *or shameless fishing for an ego-boost*

Because I answered "Sure" to question 15 on my friend Kat's blog, here's my own shameless attempt to net some flattery (or if not, hopefully at least entertainingly written abuse).

1. Who are you?
2. Are we friends?
3. When and how did we meet?
4. Have you ever had a crush on me?
5. Would you kiss me?
6. Give me a nickname and explain it.
7. Describe me in one word.
8. What was your first impression?
9. Do you still think that way about me now?
10. What reminds you of me?
11. If you could give me anything what would it be?
12. How well do you know me?
13. When was the last time you saw me?
14. Ever wanted to tell me something but couldn't?
15. Are you going to put this in your journal and see what I say about you?

I'm 14 miles along on my trek to Rivendell; somewhere in the wilderness near Stock Road.

Global warming is a myth!

Seriously. Just because it's 61 degrees outside in the middle of January does not mean that local weather patterns are shifting and increasingly freakish weather will soon become the norm. No, everything is perfectly normal, just stop worrying about it and everything will be fine. In fact, we'll go ahead and pass some more tax cuts to help you take your mind off of things.

*grumble*

Ok, I know DC is technically "the South" (though people who are really from the South usually tell me differently), but this isn't Florida folks. It's 61 degrees outside and the forecase calls for temperatures in the 50s and low 60s all week. Madness.

So anyway. It's the first day back from winter break, the first day of my second semester of law school and here I am sitting in the library and not working. Yep, everything's back to normal.

I'm in a birch grove.
Total distance covered in my trek to Rivendell: 12 miles

So far, so good

See, here's where this blogging thing (yeah, you will have to listen to my introspective musings on the nature of the blogging experience for at least another few weeks, deal with it) gives me pause (or maybe it's the chili... that could be too). My instinct is to treat this like a journal, writing down things like "Woo hoo! I'm not flunking out of law school!" and then follow it up with the one grade that has been posted so far and comment on my satisfaction about getting an A- and my worry that since that was the exam I felt I had done the best on, maybe the other grades will not be so good.

But then I pause. I assume that, eventually, someone might actually read this. Simply writing down what is already bouncing around inside of my skull a'la a journal seems to defeat the purpose of putting said journal online, since the only intended audience is, well, me. Putting something online implies that my intended audience is the internet community, and more specifically my friends. However, that means I'll certainly be censoring some of what I write, especially gossip that I probably should not share with the general public or private thoughts along the lines of "oh GOD *name omitted to protect my ass* looked hot today, I would love to *remainder of sentence also omitted to protect my ass*"). Moreover, if I'm writing for an audience, it would probably be overly presumptuous of me to assume that the day to day details of my life are the least bit interesting, leading me to conclude that I should make these posts somewhat entertaining. So without further ado, I present the most ironic license plate I could find.



Oh, and I've crossed the river and am now in Tookland. Total milage: 5

The road goes ever on and on...

I could tell you about my visit to the federal courthouse today, but frankly, it wasn't very interesting (though apparently both Scooter and Abramoff will be tried in that building, so perhaps more interesting visits and posts will follow) and I would rather comment on something more entertaining.

So anyway, I'm finally giving in and sorta getting sucked into this blogging thing (yeah, like 4 years behind everyone else, but no matter) and so tried to leave my very first non-political commentary (I tend to leave *well-reasoned* comments on conservative blogs) comment on a friend's blog, only to discover that I apparently must actually maintain a blog on that site in order to post as anything except "anonymous" (if any livejournal users care to enlighten me otherwise, please feel free, otherwise...) Bah! Fie! Fie I say! ... why do I get the feeling that this blog is going to turn into a "posts only appear when Erik gets annoyed by something and feels like sharing?" Maybe it's just my imagination.

Right, so actually getting down to the point, a friend has pledged to walk from Bag End to Rivendell and beyond, a journey of 458 miles (as seen here)... at the gym. I won't be joining the "nerds on treadmills" team, but it sounds like a really neat idea, so I'll periodically update the approximate milage that I rack up stalking... err, hiking around DC. Hey, I'll even be carrying a "great burden" during most of those miles, sure it'll be a laptop and lawbooks instead of an evil source of ultimate Power... *insert clever comment about how law is actually more evil than the One Ring* Anyway, I'm going to retroactively count my walk to the store and back this evening, so the grand total to date is 1 mile, putting me somewhere on the lane heading west.

Oooo, I'm out the front gate.

Of techno and pushpins

Current annoyance: my entire house is made of plaster, this makes finally putting up some decorations (dug my old posters out of a box over the holidays) very tiresome.
Current score:
- Pushpins bent into unusable oblivion: 10
- Pushpins successfully pounded into molded-rock wall: 8
- Posters hung: 2

Right, time for a beer.


As for the techno, last Friday I went to The Nation with some friends of mine that had flown in for New Year's. The Nation is a massive club down in southeast DC (Navy Yard stop on the green line) and was awesome. Sure the cover was outrageous and it was full of people much younger than me (though I was certainly not the oldest there), but it also had the best techno I've heard in a long time. Must have danced for almost four solid hours before crawling home. Had it not been for the huge box of cookies that one of my friends gave me for christmas, I probably would have danced off at least 2 pounds. *happily contented and sugar-buzzed gumble* Ahh well. Am definately going to have to go back there though, nothing quite so cathartic as going totally spastic on the dancefloor to a beat so fast that nobody can tell whether or not you're following it.

Pros and cons of being home

Pretend this was posted on Dec. 28 *damn you spotty stolen internet connection, damn you*

Pros:
- Vastly increased food budget
- Run of mom's "much nicer than mine" kitchen to turn that increased budget into yummy, fat inducing goodness
- Massive numbers of christmas cookies
- Zero expenses
- Almost zero responsibilities
- Sleeping until 11 every day
- Hanging out with my brother
- Hanging out with my parents (yes, these are separate)
- Presents!

Cons:
- Nothing to do except hang out with family (parents moved to Illinois 2 years back, and I know exactly nobody who spends their holidays in Champaign)
- Having a greatly expanded food budget and free run of the kitchen so that my brother and I can eat like pigs and consume far more christmas cookies than is even remotely healthy... oh and the congregation seems to believe that the pastor's family is in danger of starvation due to insuficcient cookie intake, so several families dropped off additional supplies... I must have eaten over 200 cookies so far... this is only bad because I've gained 6 pounds in 8 days. *burp* Oi vay.
- Selective parental incompetence: yeah, sure they're both really smart people, but for some reason they are incapable of doing anything remotely technical, so they wait for me to come home. Sure I can understand why installing a dimmer switch might be a little beyond them, but how hard is it to hook up a stereo or print some pictures? Sheesh.
- That's pretty much it. I love my family and have had a great time over the holidays, but it'll be good to get back to DC.

And just because I feel like filling up more space, here's the grand list of this year's christmas gains:
- Lots of books that I will have no time to read, but love anyway
- Really comfy slippers
- Some new dress clothes, for all those upcoming job interviews *crosses fingers*
- Bunch of stuff that my little bro picked up for me in Asia, like a 2GB flashdrive and season 3 of the West Wing.

Oh look, more cookies!