This is my last post about fun

Kat and I had a great visit with Elliott. Kat allowed us to watch a lot of football, even though in her mind, sitting on a couch staring at the television does not count as "doing something." But in between the football watching and the eating, we did fit in some things that might actually qualify as "doing something."

On Saturday, we went up to the top of Sentinel Peak (A Mountain). Here is Lloyd overlooking the vast expanse that is Tucson and deeming it worthy of a thumbs up.

Here is a photo of Kat - and of me, Matrix-style - on top of the mountain.

After the hike, we took a look at the law school. However, no photographic evidence exists of this trip. You'll have to trust me. Next, we went to the Reid Park Zoo. I had never gone to the zoo before, and I'm not sure why. Kat had occasionally asked to go to the zoo, but for some reason we never have. This, of course, led to lots of comments about how great the zoo was and how annoying it was that we had not gone before. I have no real defense to these arguments.

The zoo was a lot of fun. While we were probably the only people our age who were there and not pushing strollers, it was still a good time. Here is an Asian elephant and an African elephant who were playing a game of "pick up the stick with your trunk and throw it." They seemed to be having a pretty good time.


Here is a giraffe eating some grass. There were three very nice-looking giraffes.


These otters enjoyed playing to the crowd. The log in the picture is hollowed out and acts as sort of an animal water slide. They were thrilling the crowd with their human-like actions. Kat was rather pleased by this exhibit.

After the zoo we hit the In-n-Out Burger, which was tasty as usual. We then returned home for some lazing about and football-watching. While none of the games were anywhere close in excitement to the Nebraska game Friday (I think Kat was thoroughly disturbed by some of the actions that occurred during that tense contest), it was still fun.

Kat and I did put up Christmas lights outside our apartment last evening (Lloyd took a well-deserved nap), so now the house looks great. We also incorporated the wreath we already had up to display the gift that my Mom sent us. And while this is my last post about fun for awhile (finals, grrr!), this weekend has been great. It was awesome for Lloyd to make the trip and we all had a great time. I plan to return the favor during my spring break next semester.

We wish you a

and a happy new year!

By Request

I received an e-mail this week - from a person who alleges that I never return e-mails - that I was not blogging enough. That may, in fact, be true, but I'm trying to make amends. Here's some bullet points from my life.

- It was good to see the family, if only by Skype, for Thanksgiving. It looks like a good time was had by all at Tim and Kay's. I'm sure it will be the same for Christmas.

- I have two finals and a big paper due and then I will officially be half done with law school (as long as everything goes well with those two finals and big paper). I don't really know if it has gone fast or slow (it can seem interminable at certain times), but it seems like I am getting closer to actually knowing something and actually being able to provide someone a service.

- Kat had a good birthday party. There was a pretty impressive turnout (for us) of both people and dogs and we had a lot of fun. The weather was great, and most people seemed to enjoy it. There were some close calls with near dog-fights, but overall a good time was had by all.

- Lloyd and I went and played basketball this morning at the regular 6 a.m. game. Nothing can top the look of incredulity on Lloyd's face when I explain that people are actually willing to play basketball this early in the morning. It was great to get to play with him, and we "dominated the dojo" despite the fact that Lloyd was playing hurt and I can't shoot. It was a lot of fun. Now, we are back and Lloyd is back to sleep and I am blogging. Kat is sleeping, too, so ssshhhhhh!

- Kat did a great job on the food yesterday for Thanksgiving. She even found a coupon online, so we had $10 off of our Boston Market turkey. Some of the employees at Boston Market were not thrilled with working on Thanksgiving, but that is neither here nor there.

- I'm excited to watch the Nebraska game today. I haven't seen a single Corn game all year, but Lloyd promises me that it will be good. He told me that Ndamukong "A Boy Named" Suh has been living in the other team's backfields the last few games and that he is the one I should watch. I withhold judgment but will let you know.

- The Buzzsaw that is the Arizona Cardinals were more like the Butter Knife that is the Arizona Cardinals last night. The rather underwhelming game led to this interesting quote from Bryan Robinson, which made it seem like he did not quite understand the current saturation of American media: "Not a whole lot of people get the NFL Network. That's the good thing about it." Sorry, Bryan, I get the feeling that they are going to hear about how the Cardinals, who are going to win the NFC West even if they don't win another game all year, got drubbed by the worst team in the NFC East. That's just my hunch.

- In marginally good news, I was selected to be a Writing Fellow (I always wanted to be a fellow, whether it was academic-related, jolly good or otherwise) for the law school's writing program. This means I will be the teaching assistant to a small writing class of 1L's during the spring semester. You should probably start praying for them now. I think it will be fun to help and should improve my writing, too.

- As an NBA fun, this Summer of 2010 drama is kind of annoying. It means that the Knicks and Mike D'Antoni have a free pass to continue being terrible for another two years. Despite the fact that eleventy bajillion words will be written about them anyway. I like LeBron, and I know he can't stop what other people talk about, but he is on a good team right now. I don't know if he should have to tamp down the rumors, but it might help if he didn't talk about it quite so much. I don't see why Cleveland can't be the team that plays the Lakers in the Finals rather than the Celtics. That should be their focus - not on stuff that might happen in the future. But even if LeBron is distracted (or distracting) he is still doing amazing stuff every night. That is fact. I don't profess to be totally uninterested in 7-1-10 - if all goes well I should be studying for the bar exam then - which will either decrease my interest considerably or mean that I am going to fail because I never studied and instead read TrueHoop all day.

- On the NBA tip (as the kids said about 10 years ago), I think the other problem with this season is it is abundantly clear that only three teams can win in the end. Last year, it truly seemed wide open and that any of a handful of teams could have the trophy. But this year the Lakers look unstoppable, the Celtics may not be as intense but look like they are ready for the grind and the Cavs look like they have "the player" and enough supporting players to do some damage. I think it will still be interesting, so if it wouldn't kill fans and the media, it would be nice if they could, you know, pay at least a modicum of attention to this season.

- And, just because I was thinking of it, here is Kevin Garnett's insane interview after the Celtics won the title.

- Last, I can't find this birthday card online, so I'll just explain it. (I'm sure it might dampen the hilarity, but you'll have to imagine). Kat received this card from her friend Lena (they were both once copy editors and share this humor, although it can also work for English teachers and people who correct people regularly - although I don't know anyone like that). Lena recently had a baby and Kat went to visit her and him in October. The baby has its own blog (although to me it doesn't look like he can even type yet!) and is relatively adorable. Anyway, that was a terrible and convoluted introduction (and I said I was a writing fellow!) but here is the card, if anyone has read this far:

We open with two girls, teenageish, apparently sitting in a school cafeteria. The quote balloon from the first says: "Where's your birthday party at?" The second then says: "Don't end a sentence with a preposition." 

Then, you open the card and the same photo is present and only the first girl has a quote balloon, which says: "Where's your birthday party at, bitch?"

So, Mom, in the future, you might want to be careful with your corrections.

- Kat is now awake, so I will cease blogging. Keep it real.

You would not believe the number of e-mails I still have to go through!

Change You Can Believe In!

Do not rush to your computers to send me e-mails! The change I am referring to is the orientation of our apartment. Kat was suggesting that we should change things up in our living room, but I was skeptical that things could be improved. As usual, Kat was right because the new setup has energized the place.

This is Kat sitting in her new "office." It was only fair that since I have an office she should have one, too. She likes the new setup because it allows her to work on her computer while simultaneously watching television. See below:

We moved the dining room table under the strange light balls, moved the couch to the exact opposite wall and have provided nice mountain views for admiring during commercial breaks while watching television. For those of you who have never visited or don't have much memory of how things used to be, this probably means little, but I've typed this much, so I'm going to keep going.

Here is Lucy enjoying the new setup. And that is my knee.

Kat enjoying television, mountain views and the helpfulness of a hat on a bad hair day.

Other notes:
-Huskers now 6-4 are going bowling. I am going bowling on Thursday in the annual Arizona Law Review/Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law nerd-off. I hope the Huskers do much better than I am going to.
-This LSU-Alabama game is exciting.
-I have a DTV analog converter (no idea what I'm talking about) but I only get some of my local channels. I don't know why I don't get them all. Currently, I watch NBC through the converter, but have to watch CBS and ABC over the air. There is no point to this except that I am not a technological genius.
-Enjoy Minnesota!
-Keep flying high, Lloyd!
-Viva dogsitting!
-That's all for now.

A Story I Think Is Funny

Now that a certain unnamed law firm has officially told me that they have no interest in my intellectual wares, I wanted to relate the story of my interview with them.

It was a relatively straightforward interview, but the weirdness occurred before it began. Because I am a bit of a worrier, I always get to my interviews quite early and just hang around until it is time for me to start delivering poor answers to benign questions. I add even more time when I've never been to the place before, which was the case for this interview.

Anyway, I was about 90 minutes early for the interview. I had found the business park where the office was located, but I saw no need to actually go up to the office, where some of their employees might actually see me and know how weird I am.

So exactly 10 minutes before 10 a.m. I walked up to the office. I found the door and pushed it open - it squeaked ominously. I looked in and saw no furniture and no people. It felt like Brigadoon or maybe those episodes of the Twilight Zone where the main character goes back to a town only to find that he is the same and everything else has changed.

I quickly realized that I had gone to the wrong office. Wherever this law firm was now located, it was not here. Luckily, I had printed off the front page of the Web site (the same Web site that said my current location was where there office was), so I was able to call them. The secretary said "Oh, you're at our old office. We haven't been there for a month or so."

So now the secretary was trying to give me directions over the phone to a place I had never been to before. I ended up parking about a half mile away from where I was supposed to be and trying to walk quickly - in a suit - to get there a little less late. So, when I finally got to the office - out of breath, embarrassed, starting to sweat and confused - I had to try to do well with the interviews.

It wasn't my fault that I went to the wrong place. They never even told me where the real office was. And that's the point of the story. Despite the fact that they didn't even want to tell me where their office was - kind of like when mean girls refuse to tell the ugly girls where the party is going to be - I still wanted to work for them. I didn't seem to get the message that they didn't want me.

I don't know if this story is actually funny or not. But I laughed about it after the fact.

In other news, if anyone is still reading after that nonsense, I will say that I'm excited for the NBA to be back. NBA.com has great highlights every day that I enjoy. Also, it is November now, which is a nice month generally.

I hope all is well with any of my readers. Take care.