Da da da da da

The title of this post is what Ada has been saying repeatedly over the past few days. However because she says it so often, whether I am around or not, I don't think it refers to me. I think it is either a sound she likes or she is actually a Russian spy. But it's fun to hear her talking. It's also fun to see her climbing around, learning things, and being a little more patient with her parents, specifically her dad.

Ada and I went to swimming class this morning, and she did an excellent job. She is very adventurous and was even trying to dive into the water when I would have her sit up on the wall. I did not let her actually dive in, which might have affected how excited she was about doing that, but we will get to that soon. She is a good sport, and does not complain too much when I forget to keep her above water.

Other than Ada learning new things and trying things for the first time, not a whole lot is going on. I am learning new things and trying things for the first time, but discussion if those matters would be deathly boring for the reader. I like my job, though, and so it does not really matter if Nyone else would be interested.

The city basketball league ended this week and our team finished first. It was a fun league, and we had a fun team to play on. We are already talking about keeping the team together for the summer league.

Not much else to report, so I'll end it there. In the words of Paul F. Tompkins, "Don't get drunk and fight each other."

100th Post

As the title indicates, this is my 100th post on the Tucsonic Boom. Considering that I have lived in both Phoenix and Prescott since I left Tucson, I guess this is not surprising. I've been trying to come up with a new name for the blog, but since it's already here I've just stuck with it.

Kat and Ada are in North Carolina, so I am here at home on dog duty. It's pretty calm, but I do miss Ada's brand of chaos. Even though she is not here, I present this photo series that explains a lot about us.

We are pretty similar and enjoy many of the same things. Our favorite pastime is watching NBA highlights, as we are doing here.


We both regularly have awkward moments. Also, we are often too intense. This leads to ridiculous facial expressions.


But ultimately, we do like to be together. Ada will even listen to me tell her about my job ...

... for about five minutes, after which she is almost fatally bored and it is time to hang out with Kat. Or sleep. Or crawl around and make sounds.

Ada has become a very good sleeper and likes to do it quite regularly. We actually got rid of her swing (the Ada Swings cam name doesn't really make sense anymore), but we gave it to some person with an infant on the way. Although Ada had many great hours in the swing, it was not sad to see it go. Apparently, I don't have the Rinne gene (I guess it's recessive) that prohibits giving away items related to children or youth. I'll remember the swing, but it's better off with someone who will use it. Ada has grown so big that she would destroy it if she kept using it, so it was time to move on.

Not much else to report. I recently finished reading The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. It's an excellent novel and highly recommended for anyone, whether you like baseball or not. I have started 11/22/63, the latest Stephen King book, which is supposed to be quite good.

Ada's not yet reading books (although she eats them regularly!), however, she definitely is interested in popular culture. In this final photo of cuteness, she is already showing her interest by going through our DVD and CD bins and laughing at our terrible sense of taste.

Ugh! Is that a Bright Eyes CD? Are we children? I mean, I am, but what's your excuse?

Almost Crawling/Still Cute

Ada and I are hanging out together this morning while Kat is at yoga. I get a chance to see what Ada is like when I'm not around. The answer is quite similar to what she's like when I am around. She is very good at playing quietly with her toys and she does not get into too much mischief. She is an excellent sleeper and a pretty adventurous eater.

I realize how boring that prior paragraph was but some people actually think such information is interesting. I will never understand some people.

What is interesting is that Ada is becoming a little bit more person-like. She has not crawled yet because all she wants to do is walk. You have to crawl before you can walk, but I think for her it may be "You can just roll around for a long time until you can walk." I was wondering if she is not crawling because the only two people she gets to hang out with (a real sad state of affairs for her!) never crawl and always walk. I have been trying to demonstrate crawling as an example, but it's not fun and hurts my knees. Ada may have the same opinion, and thus I fully understand her aversion to crawling.

There is not much news other than Ada news, so I don't have much to report. I don't have any funny cases I've run across, but I did like the name of this case: In re TMI Litigation, 199 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 1999). Although I am still new to being attorney, I've come to quickly realize that all litigation is TMI litigation.

Kat bought a new desk, which we are going to attempt to assemble today. It's not from IKEA, but I think it has even more parts than furniture from IKEA. I will be cursing an Allen Wrench at some point today, that much is clear.

I've been enjoying the photos of Chlomaline. (Although remember, it's important to talk to your doctor before beginning Chlomaline!)

Ada is now hitting my chair, so I guess this means that this particular post is over. Sorry for the Christmas letter quality of this post. My topics for discussion are limited by ethics rules, ennui, and extremely boring information. I do the best I can.

What I'm Reading: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
What I'm Watching: Downton Abbey Season Two and NFL Football -- two great tastes that taste great together
What I'm Listening To: The Decemberists "The King is Dead"

Cuteness Level: Elevated

As this is Ada's first Christmas, Kat is working hard to ensure that it is a memorable one. For us, I guess, because I doubt Ada is going to remember it. Anyway, we took her to see Santa at the Prescott Gateway Mall and the results were pretty good. She was an excellent baby throughout.

We also bought a Christmas tree (a 5-foot Noble fir -- which means it is a tree that is highly unlikely to react with other trees (chemistry joke!)) and decorated it nicely. I broke only one of Kat's ornaments to which she is sentimentally attached, and now we have a nice tree next to our nice currently inoperable fireplace.




This is Ada struggling with ornament/food confusion.

Anyway, Christmas has arrived, and the cold, snowy weather helps to make it feel like Christmas. Today, Ada and I went shopping for some Christmas presents while Kat went to a movie. We did pretty well with the shopping, and Ada, as usual, was an excellent companion.

Merry Christmas to all!

Ada Enters Her Rebellious Phase

That's the Last Time I Listen to Ken Jennings

I recently finished reading Maphead by Ken Jennings, which is an excellent book if you are a nerd for maps. I'm sort of a map nerd (I passed many hours on long car rides looking at the Rand McNally atlas, which Ken Jennings said he also did as a kid - however, I think our similarities end there), but I'm not truly a map nerd.

But in the book, Jennings has a chapter about how he briefly got addicted to geocaching, so I thought I should give it a try. Well, that try was this morning, and I was terrible. I logged a total of zero geocaches, although I was close to about 10 different ones. I liked following the coordinates and hiking to different spots, but I'm helpless at finding things. Kat regularly calls me "the worst looker ever," and I probably should have known geocaching was not for me when I couldn't find the GPS in Kat's car (which is not large) prior to going geocaching. In the end, I'm going to stick with hiking but leave out the part where I try to find a film canister in a tree. I think it works just as well.

Ada did look cute in her geocaching outfit, but that was about the only good thing about it.


Now it's time for a new segment on the blog called: Funny Things in Old Arizona Case Law. Before you skip down to the rest (trust me, there isn't going to be anything better, I'm afraid) you should give this a chance. I've got two really funny cases I've run across as a result of my day job, and I think you'll enjoy them.***

The first is Fought v. Fought, 94 Ariz. 187, 382 P.2d 667 (1963). This is an Arizona Supreme Court case, and the names alone are funny, and it's funny that the Foughts got divorced. But the best part is the first sentence where it explains that the wife received a default divorce because while Mrs. Fought fought, Mr. Fought didn't fight. Mr. Fought's failure to fight forced default, and Mrs. Fought got a lot.

The second is better than the first (how could it not be?) and involves a situation where the Arizona Court of Appeals missed an absolutely golden opportunity to put in a funny footnote. The case is State v. Hansen, 117 Ariz. 496, 573 P.2d 896 (App. 1977). In the case, Hansen was sitting next to a man who was smoking a "marijuana cigarette." A police officer came up to the men, arrested them both, and then searched Hansen and found a baggie of marijuana. Hansen moved to suppress the marijuana for lack of probable cause to arrest because the officer never saw him smoking anything. While explaining the law regarding these types of situations, the Court writes: "As is well illustrated in a line of California cases, there must be some indication of 'joint activity,' or 'joint participation." Here is where the footnote should be. You have to acknowledge the humor, but the Court chooses not to. The Court reversed the trial court and held the marijuana had to be suppressed. The final sentence of the opinion -- offered entirely without irony states: "There was not, in this case, any showing of 'joint activity' on the part of appellant." Yes, there was plenty of "joint activity," it just was not by Hansen.

If I ever become a judge who actually writes opinions (and that is extremely unlikely) I would dd funny footnotes as often as possible. I think judges owe it to the people who actually slog through what they write.

***Note: You won't enjoy them and they aren't funny. What is funny to lawyers is so far removed from actual humor that it's not even the same thing. I've long been working on a word for stories and jokes that lawyers think are funny that really aren't, but I haven't been able to come up with it.

Kat and I have been talking a lot about food we used to enjoy that we can't get anymore. The list includes things like Bojangles chicken, the potato oles bravo at Taco John's, Runzas, the food at Mina's Thai, and Century Sundae, a limited Blue Bell ice cream flavor sold to celebrate 100 years of Blue Bell ice cream (the problem is that its centennial was in 2007, I think, and we have not had it since). We call this noshtalgia. It's been pretty strong lately, but I keep hoping to find new foods to look back on fondly.

I've been reading the new Neal Stephenson tome, Reamde, but I took a break to read Maphead and Moonwalking with Einstein, a book about people who are able to remember just about everything. The memory book is great, but I keep forgetting which chapter I'm on.

It's beautiful in Prescott today, which is, of course, why I'm in the house blogging. I'm thinking of hiking Granite Mountain tomorrow. I have not done it before, and it looks like a pretty good workout.

Kat and I have been enjoying a new television show called Up All Night, which is about hip people whose lives are changed by having a baby. Other than being hip, we are right in the demographic. It was, at times, bad in the beginning, but the last few episodes have been pretty funny. It's on Hulu, so you might want to give it a shot.

Ada remains very cute, but she doesn't seem to want to sleep very much. I still like her quite a bit, though.

I've written a decidedly terrible legal annotation to The Cat in the Hat that explains all of the torts committed by the Cat. I started just doing this for fun when I would read to Ada, and she seemed to really enjoy it. However, what might have been a fun novelty while reading to a baby doesn't really hold up at full book length. If anyone is seeking some punishment and would like all of the footnotes I wrote, let me know. You'll have to find your own copy of The Cat in the Hat (it's kind of like a Rifftrax in that respect) but I'll gladly show you what I've got.

Well, that's all I've got. I hope this satiates GpaG.

Leave it all up in the air

There's cute, and then there's Ada cute!

Today Ada is 75 days old. I have not been counting, but the iPad, which may be moving closer and closer to sentience, informed me of this fact. That means if Ada were to live a full natural life based on current generally accepted actuarial tables, she has one year to live for each day she has been alive. Based on those same actuarial estimates, I would be around for approximately 45 of those 75 years. That's 60 percent. I don't know if I've "been around" for 60 percent of the things she has done in her first 75 days. I've seen a lot in person and a lot on video. I know I won't see everything, but I'm glad to be able to experience as much as I have. I have to enjoy it now before she figures out how lame I am. By the time she's 2 I think she will want nothing to do with me.

Lloyd is back! Truly quite exciting. He was in Iraq, right?

Boom! 1990s on you! Running the option, macking on cupcakes!

More for Lloyd whether he is reading or not: Derogatory nicknames I should have come up with at the end of last season for Nebraska's young QB who seemed to get dropped behind the line of scrimmage with some regularity: T-Minus 10 or T-Sacks. (that last one is also for Keith and Shaleah!).

Speaking of "young" college football players, I say it every year but I'll say it once again to ole' Brent Musburger: it's redundant to call a college football player young. They are all young. Thanks, pardner.

Brent is so ubiquitous that even when I watch a game on mute I can "hear" his brand of homespun nonsensicalness in my own brain. I don't know what this says about me, but I am happy about the return of college football because it just means more and better edsbs.com and @edsbs on twitter. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I invented awesomeness!

Unknown danger of watching the US Open on television: your wife will point out how little you have accomplished in your life. The match: Federer vs. Cilic. The question: how old is Federer? My misguided answer: we're about the same age. Her response: you two have had vastly different lives. The subtext that hit like a sledgehammer: are you ever planning to achieve anything? I tried to comfort myself by focusing on the fact that Federer's greatest successes are already behind him while mine are still to come but it just ended with gentle sobbing. I watched Federer win the match easily. Followed by more gentle sobbing.

I'm excited for Lloyd and Katie's wedding! Truly quite exciting. The wedding is in New Mexico, right?

Recently learned how to ride a two-wheeler!

Prescott is a wonderful place. It's my nirvana because it has nice weather and fun things to do that are close by and inexpensive. For a cheapskate like me the opportunity to hike and bike in the woods for little or no money is great. However I'm not the best bicyclist around. This looks worse than it was.

Ada has made things quite a bit different but in a good way. We've undergone some pretty big changes recently but we were going to have big changes whether she was around or not. Moving, starting a new job, taking care of an infant, hosting relatives, and living in a new place was a lot all at once, but we came through it pretty well. It's one way to avoid boredom. I'm sure we are going to do some of those things again in the future, but I have no intention of ever doing more than one at a time ever again.

I like our house. It has more decks than the USS Nimitz. (not actually true)

Keith and Ada on one of aforementioned decks!

For the first 70 days of her life, Ada went to sleep to a Beatles lullaby CD. You wouldn't think anyone could tire of the Fab Four, but if I hear Octopus's Garden one more time I think I might snap. (Quick digression: why are an Octopus's arms called tentacles? Doesn't eightacles make a little more sense?) We've moved on to Mazzy Star (whatever that is) for lullaby music, so I have received a temporary reprieve. I will note that Ada does not seem to have any reaction when we play "her song." (Or when we play Your Song because we've tried both). I hope she can soon identify and dislike the song she was named after, so she can come up with some alternate explanation for her name that she prefers.

I'm excited Lloyd got back in time for the Husker football season! Truly quite exciting. Nebraska is in the Mountain West now, right?

I'm not sure that joke is even working, but it's not for a lack of commitment! It's in there now, so it stays.

Now that I've written enough that I'm sure no one is still reading, I want to get serious with you. Ada is an awesome baby. She's cool. She has opinions. She likes all the same stuff I like. (Or I do the stuff I like near her and she puts up with it with only moderate crying) I can't recommend her highly enough. It's no great achievement to be a parent. And your progeny's successes probably have less to do with you than you think. The same goes for failures. There's plenty of randomness at work. So I don't take pride in Ada and I don't plan to, but I do get plenty of joy. I'm just happy I get to hang out with her (and the law says I can hang out with her until she is 18 and there is little she can do about it!).