Two Truths and a Lie

Weekly Truth Serum

2005-09-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

On special request by Ashley, I will reveal which one of these is false this week. There isn't really anything all that embarrassing from this week of stories, so I don't mind letting you know the two that are true.

The false story was about going out and drinking too much and then not waking up in time for work. The truth is that despite my joy in drinking beer, it does not affect the time I must wake up in the morning. And it is a truly loathsome time. I have to wake up every morning at six AM to get to work.

Terrible times for me...

Taking it All On

2005-09-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

This week was a pretty crazy week at work (of course, one of these stories is a lie):

1. One of the attorneys went on paternity leave. He left me with a really difficult brief that has to go to a court that has already ruled against a similar case. Our argument is supposed to be that there is a split in the circuits and the other circuits have got it right. This one is going to go over really well. It makes it even more difficult to write because he wasn't there.

2. One day after work I went out with one of my friends to get some dinner. Then we went to a restaurant that serves dollar pints. After a handful of those, I was feeling pretty good about things and ended up staying somewhere else for the night. That left me waking up almost late for work. I don't think many people noticed when I came in about 30 minutes late.

3. Working to fast on a case left me and the attorney in an awkward position. We didn't notice that the client had claimed something that didn't technically happen. We had to do a rush memo on something else that was a lot more involved and has a higher chance of being rejected by the courts. Fortunately, we did notice it before the head attorney went to argue something that didn't actually happen.

Truth Serum

2005-08-20T00:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, since it's been a couple weeks since I've posted a truth serum, I will post two.

The first will be for the NYC posting about my recent trip to NYC:

The first story in it is actually true. My mom was quite the klutz that day and spilled her fresh iced tea over the feet of a couple friendly French men. They sort of laughed and tried to scoot away from the puddle that formed on the floor. Then there was the issue of my mom going back to the pizza place and asking for more tea. They filled it back up but it had a little leak in it. In the Amtrak there was a small puddle forming on my mom's tray, so she ended up having to dump the tea down a drain.

The second truth serum is for the posting about the bar examination:

The second story is actually the truth. There was a girl (I can't recall her name right now) who is going to be clerking for an appelate court judge this year. Anyhow, she wasn't all that pleased about some guy sitting to her right who was checking her out before the bar exam. Note: I'm not the guy who was sitting to her right.

NYC Trip

2005-08-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, here are three stories from my trip to NYC. Like always, two of these will be true and one will be false.

1. While waiting for the Amtrack from DC to NYC my mom decided to get an iced tea. As we were standing in line for the Amtrack she decided that she would fumble around with things in her purse. She decided that she needed to set the drink down so she placed it on her bag. The bag was sitting upright so it was sort of resting on it's wheels. Of course, the iced tea dropped and fell all over the feet of some family that was next to me. Perhaps someone will be happy that it was a few friendly french people.

2. While I was eating dinner at a Mexican food restaurant in the Hell's Kitchen area around 9th Street, I ran into a celebrity spotting. It was the ever funny Mo Rocca who was came in to eat with a friend. He seemed to be very talkative, but I couldn't hear what he was saying very well. I did notice that he said something about Andy Williams and some song by Williams that he really needed to find.

3. I was in the Harlem area one afternoon and saw a theater friend of mine who graduated a couple years ago. He was sitting at a cafe drinking some coffee with a couple of friends. He was happy to see me again and I was thirsty so I sat down with them. As it turns out, he's dating a girl who is in the ensemble of Mamma Mia. This girl happens to be roommates with one of the stars in the current Wicked. So I got to have coffee with a couple Broadway actors and my friend who's in an off-off Broadway production.

The Bar Exam

2005-07-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

This week I took the Texas Bar Exam, which gave me a good deal of things that I can sort of muse on for a few months. However, it also gave me a few stories that I can tell about the exam and all.

1. The Hotel. Because the exam was not in my city (it was in Arlington), I went out to a hotel in Arlington. Even though it was about a mile from Six Flags (and across a major highway from it) I was able to watch all the rides from my room. Specifically, I would sit there and watch the Batman and Mr. Freeze ride for hours at a time. The most interesting thing was that when I went outside, I could actually hear people at Six Flags.

2. At the exam there was a girl who is friends with the girl from the bar review class that I liked. After the first day, I saw her in my hotel walking down the hallway with her friend. She said to her friend, "if that guy who sits to my right stares at me again, he will not finish the bar exam.

3. I didn't actually finish all of the questions for the essay portion of the exam. There was one question in the morning that I only had time to write out a rough outline for. I'm not sure if that will completely hurt my chances, but I know it's not a good thing overall.

Dealing with Mute

2005-07-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Everything will return to normalcy after I finish the bar exam, which will be Thursday evening. Just give me a couple days to recover!

Thanks

The Homeless Runins

2005-07-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

This week I was confronted with a couple homeless people. There are only two stories at are actually true...

1. Riding on the train, around 10 in the evening on a weeknight, there was an interesting situation. A guy who was walking around to ask for money (he said he had AIDs and needed medication) walked by me without asking for money. I guess, that in some ways, having your mp3 player is a good way of diverting some panhandlers. After he passed me, he started to ask an elderly lady if she had any money to give him. She declined to give any money and was treated with this loud "BOOM" noise. The homeless guy freaked everyone out by doing this thing, but, I think most of all it was her who was freaked out. She quickly got off at the next exit (I don't think it was where she planned on getting off) and was visibly shaken up about the encounter.

2. Walkiing around in the West End area last night my friend, Biggity, and I were encountered with a homeless guy. He first asked us if we had any cigarettes. Neither of us smoke, so we said no. We went over towards the Chipotle to see if it was open, it was not, and walked around further. It wasn't long before we ran into him again a few blocks elsewhere. Right before he approached us, we noticed that he was given money by a young female. Then he came over to us and told us that he needed money (by the way, he had a cigarette now too) for the train because he lost his ticket. We didn't give him any money.

3. I pulled into the gas station to fill up my truck after waiting far to long to do this. It was around midnight and the station wasn't lit very well. Anyhow, it wasn't long before a guy walked over and told me that he just needed sixty cents to get himself a drink inside. I said that I didn't have any change but he begged. I went over to my change consol and gave him 75c. Then he left and I went back to my gas pumping. His friend soon came over and asked if I could give him some money. I told him no because he also told me that he knew my brother from Garland. I was like, bullshit, my brother doesn't live in Garland. In fact, my brother doesn't even live in Texas. He asked where I was from and I said Kansas. Then he asked what they call me up there -- huh? Anyhow, I guess that they call him Genuwine.

The Game is Played

2005-06-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

Other people also like to play two truths and a lie. Here is a blog post that engages...

The Onion

2005-06-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

My horoscope is spot on...

Pisces: (Feb. 19—March 20)
You used to compare yourself to Icarus, but you're less likely to do so now that you know he once helped a woman cheat on her husband by having sex with a cow.

Restaurant Woes

2005-06-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

This past week, I went out to eat a few different times and experienced a couple interesting things.

1. I went to a place called Lovers Pizza, which was obviously a happening place on Friday. There were so many people that the only table was the worst in the place. It was over by itself near the restrooms. I'm never entirely aware why restaurants do this stupid thing. They put a table in a location that is bound to make the customer upset and is out of the way for the waitor. All of this just ends up with upset patrons and employees. Well, at some point during the meal, we are alarmed by the sound of a door banging and being pulled. We look over and see that one of the restrooms is being attacked from within. After a few minutes, the waitress goes over and unlocks the door. I guess that it locks from the outside. The girl was in tears as she accidentally locked herself into the restroom. The waitress asked her if she would like a glass of water...

2. I went to Chipotle after my bar review class. The inside of the restaurant was far too crowded, so my friend and I decided to go outside to eat. There wasn't a cloud in the sky but it suddenly began to rain on us. Very disconcerting but temporary.

3. This story deals with how weird waiters can be. We sat down to eat in the middle of the lunch hour crowd. The waitress trots over and introduces herself and sits down. She says that it's been a rough day and it helps to take a load off every now and then. I wasn't really aware that they could take a load off at the table where patrons are eating. I'm not sure why she didn't go ahead and help herself to some chips and salsa while she was at it.

Truth Serum

2005-06-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

One of the true stories from this past week was spending the 90 some dollars on antibiotics. I've been using them for four days, and I've finally started to feel a little bit better. I guess that makes it worth spending that much money on them. For whatever reason, my student insurance card didn't cover prescription medication. Ugh.

The Spendthrift

2005-06-07T18:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, since this is posted so late in the week (I try to have the Truth Serum in the middle of the week), I will wait until Thursday or Friday to reveal one of the truths.

This post will not be the typical stories but will be three things that I might have purchased this week. The point is to show how I waste money on stupid things.

1. I spend 90 some dollars on antibiotics, because I didn't wait until the morning to go to the campus pharmacy where it would have been nearly free. Also, if I hadn't waited a week to go and see a doctor, I'm sure that I wouldn't have got a sinus infection.

2. I paid 3 dollars for a bunch of stupid plastic Coca-Cola Dixie cups. There is no reason for me to need these cups. I mean, I like Coca-Cola products, but I certainly didn't need these. What is more, it wasn't even an impulse purchase. I saw them when I was getting my prescriptions, but I passed them up. Today I went back to the CVS place and purchased.

3. Every morning, I buy myself a bottle of Diet Coke at the place where I hear my bar review lectures. The vending machine charges a mere three dollars for a bottle of soda. I could easily buy a pack of six bottles to carry with me to class, but I'm too irrational for that. I could have bought those instead of buying the stupid Coca-Cola cups.

Clearing up

2005-06-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

I've changed the name of my midweek reveal post from Lie Detector to Truth Serum. I think that calling it lie detector was confusing to everyone but me. Of course, I'm just often confused, so I don't think I'm as good of a judge.

Just to confirm: every long post has 2 true stories and 1 story which is nothing but a work of fiction.

Then I will reveal one of the true stories which means you should be able to figure out which is the remaining truth pretty easily.

Thanks for participating!

Truth Serum

2005-06-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

Per usual, last weekend I posted three stories of which two are true and one is false. To help you narrow it down I reveal one of the stories that is true.

This week, I'll reveal that the third story about the Rangers game was true. It actually turned out to be a really fun game. Last year, I would always load up on the alcohol both before the game and during. This year I've only been drinking one beer when I'm at the game and none before. I guess it's one of the sadder parts of growing up when you start to experience the negative effects of drinking a lot harder. Recovery is much longer than it used to be.

I did have the nachos, a beer, and an ice cream sundae when I was at the game, so I guess I can't claim to being too healthy. I had a lot of fun though. We went with a group of about 10 friends who are all in the bar review course together. Since we had a long weekend, it was fun to get that time to relax together.

Hopefully there will be another opportunity to watch the Rangers this summer.

The Pivot Pen

2005-05-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

Again, there will be two true stories and one lie contained in this post. Sometime in the mid-week, I will go ahead and reveal one of the true stories. Let's hope you don't pick that as the lie.

Story 1:

Every morning I drive from my apartment to a park and ride parking lot. When I get there I hope on the train that takes me to the place where I take the bar preperation class. This is fun because public transportation affords ample opportunities to meet and watch interesting people. This week, I think that I did a little of the watching and a little of the meeting too.

The meeting came on the trip back on Monday. I was sitting there listening to my ipod music player when three young boys asked me how much I would pay for a little dvd player they had. From there prior conversation it seemed that the item was hot. I told them that I wouldn't pay more than a hundred for it if I was in the market. They said they would sell it for $200. I'm not sure what they didn't understand about my price. Whatever, they then said they would just go and sell it at a pawn shop.

Then I saw an interesting guy on the way to the class later that week. The guy, apparently, liked the music he was listening to. Not only was he singing along but he was dancing and playing the drums against the window on the train. Not so much entertaining as it was boring.

Story 2:

This week I went swimming in the pool at my apartment. There is a group of teens/young adults who like to use the pool in the very late hours of the evening. Since my apartment has a pool view (it is across the creek from the pool), I can usually hear the people going in and out of the pool area. It annoys me that they go out there so late, so I decided that I would go swimming too. Just to ruin their fun a little bit.

I put on my swimsuit and went on over. They didn't seem to be as casual once an outsider was there doing laps in the pool. Actually, it didn't take too long before a few of them decided to leave. The others didn't take to much longer to follow them out of the pool area.

Then later in the week a memo came from the management asking people not to swim in the pool after posted hours. I haven't heard or seen this group out there since.

Story 3:

I went out to the baseball game to watch the Rangers kick a little White Sox ass. Unfortunately, one person in our group didn't make it there until it was a little bit later. It was the second inning or so before he arrived. Since we picked up the tickets at will call, we had to go out and meet him when he arrived. He telephoned to say that he was parking and would get there in a few minutes.

One of my friends went with me to meet him. Since we had a couple minutes we decided to get our dinner and a beer. I decided that I would get the big nachos with all the great toppings. Then I got a Miller Lite to drink. As we waited, we ate our food on the little tables and benches that is near the exterior fence.

I guess that for some reason the guy had to go back to his car after he almost met us. However, he didn't call us to let us know that he was walking all the way back to his car. During this extra time there was a homerun and a great play that we missed as we sat and ate nachos and drank beer.

Alas.

Truth Serum

2005-05-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

Every week I will reveal the truth of one of the three stories. This week I must admit that story two is true! It's a little embarrasing, but I did drink a beer right before I went over to church. Since it is a megachurch, I very well could have gone to the church and got a coffee at their coffee shop. But that would not be nearly as much fun, now would it?

Called as Paul

2005-05-22T06:06:00.000-07:00

This is the first post to follow my new formatting change. I hope that it works out!

Story 1:

On Thursday I went to an event at the Dallas arboretum with a friend. I haven't ever been to the arboretum before, so I was really excited to get to go. The event was a really neat pops type band that played everything from Biance to Elton John to Outkast! We got to sit on the lawn, see all the vegetation, and look out on the lake while drinking wine and eating yummy strawberries!

The interesting thing, is that before the show we went to eat at this Mexican food restaurant where they always have a live band on Thursday through Saturday. The band was playing their music and let these two young girls play maracas. I would guess that the girls were about five or six years old. They were so cute! One of the girls didn't want to sing into the microphone when the singer would hand it to them to sing the chorus.

The problem was that I became more entertained by the band at the Mexican restaurant than I was with my food. I didn't end up eating much food, and I certainly wasn't full after eating a few strawberries. This meant that after the music at the arboretum was finished, we decided to run by the Sonic on the way back home.

By this point it was a little after nine, so the sun had completely set. However, the moon was bright enough that you couldn't hide yourself very well. As we were driving around the parking lot, I noticed that in one of the cars parked at the back two people were really going at it. As we approached the car it became clear that they were having a lot more fun than you're supposed to have at a Sonic's parking lot. We left...

Story 2:

After witnessing that event on Thursday, I decided that it was high time to get myself to Church. I go to church every time that I go home to visit family, and I go a few times on my own here in Dallas. However, I haven't been able to go with the frequency that I really would like to go.

Today I went to church after finishing a bar review class. However, being the heathen sort of a person I am, I realized that I had about an hour to spare before I went to church. Instead of going and browsing the church bookstore and grabbing a coffee in their coffee shop (yes, it's a mega-church); I stopped at a sports bar and grabbed a beer. I was good and went for the 16 ounce draft instead of the 25 ounce beer!

Anyhow, I went to church and remembered part of why I don't get to church nearly as often as I like. I start to feel lonely when I'm at church in Dallas. When I was growing up, church was always a family experience with a lot of friends and family always meeting at church. During college, church was always with friends and people who I cared about and loved. Now I go to a huge church where I don't know anyone. I love the pastor of the church and really connect with the sermons, but I feel completely alone when I'm there. I mean, I love the experience because I do connect, and I think the people are nice, but I just don't know any of the people at this point. They have home teams and singles classes that I could join in with, but I haven't had enough free time to do that. Now that I'm out of law school, I think that I might start to do some of those activities.

The service was really nice. The title was "Go" and it was based on Matthew 28, which is the chapter that has the Great Commission. Of course, this is where you are told to go out and spread the gospel. The sermon started with a video of the pastor and two of the younger pastors meeting a missionary in Belize. They traveled through Belize into the jungle to spend a few days with some of the tribal people. The first night they ate Iguana! Then the second night they had roasted rat! It was fun to watch them spend time with people who care so much about building churches and spreading the good news.

As I watched the video, I started to think about how much I've wasted my time with law school. Why am I not out there doing something like that? When I was in high school my dream was to become a pastor of a church. Then life sort of led me to Dallas instead of a small Christian school. Then I started to think about going to law school, and I've ended up where I am now. It started to make me a little sad when I watched their passion.

However, I quickly changed my mind when I really thought about it. I'm blessed with the opportunity I have to help people here in America who are coming from far and wide to find comfort, care, and shelter. How could you find a better place to show love, care and support. The sort of thing that people take note of and want to know better? I mean, the head pastor and the two other guys were having a round table sort of discussion about the Great Commission and they made a good point. Preaching the gospel and leading people to Christ doesn't mean you have to walk up to strangers and tell them that they are going to hell if they don't accept Christ. What it means is that you plant seeds and you build relationships. That is the activity we are called to do. When the time is right, Christ will work through that or through you or through the church to fulfill the commission.

Story 3:

Finally, this week I went on about four runs around the lake. It was nice because I really was able to get some good work outs in. However, I was freaked out by one couple that I saw out at the lake. Now, couples at the lake don't normally bother me because it's a romantic and fun sort of location. You can lay on blankets out there together, walk, play Frisbee, run, bike, etc. What's not to love about the park if you're a couple?

I run about 2 miles out and then I turn around to return. At the turning around point I saw a couple making out by the car. They weren't in the car or anything but groping all over each other and doing everything they shouldn't be doing. I turned around soon after passing them. I would imagine, if they noticed, they thought I was turning around for a second look at their mini-porn display.

What's weird is that when I was nearing the end of my run I saw them again. It was like an unlucky deja vu, but a really weird one. They were standing outside the car making out again. This time they had a little more privacy so I guess the figured they could take a few more liberties. Her leg was sort of wrapped around the guy and he had his hands places they shouldn't be when you're outside. Sure enough, they noticed me running by again.

Now I've got to make it clear that I didn't follow them anywhere. At some point they drove away from where they originally were and took a road that goes back towards where I finish my run. The roads and the running/biking paths don't follow the same route, so I don't think either of us saw each other when we were moving. They did notice me when they were passionately embraced though.

Ok, those are the three stories. One is a lie...

Formatting Change

2005-05-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

With the change in my daily schedule and new responsibilities that go beyond mere working into the realm of having ethical responsibilities, I've had to reconsider the method in which I blog. Over at Singing Loudly I posted about what to expect on that site.

Of course, this is a very different animal, so I had to think about what I wanted to do. I considered the possibility of scraping this in its entirety, because I'd like to be more consistent. I decided against that because I do like the idea of this blog, and I enjoy writing it. However, I think that I can both make it easier on myself and better.

First, since I'm going to be working in a profession which mandates additional duties on those who are licensed to practice (in addition to some duties on students, clerks, etc), I am going to protect myself by never posting anything (be it truth or lie) about my work. This includes posts referencing co-workers, my own attitudes about the people, the silly tumble down the stairs I might make, and most importantly clients. I just can't do anything that is specific about work.

Second, I think that to provide more consistency and to better serve the purpose of this blog I'm going to make it a consistent twice a week blog. On the weekends, I will post a long post that will contain three items. Two of the stories will be truths while one will be a lie. This will make it easier for anyone reading to be able to guess which is the lie. Furthermore, I will better be able to remember how many lies I've posted.

Finally, at some point during the week I will post a "Lie Detector" sort of post. In it I will tell one of the Truths so that it will narrow the possible lies down to one or the other.

This is the best way I can foresee having the time and dedication to making this successful while still being able to juggle work and other responsibilities. I actually think it's a better format than what I'm currently doing as it more closely resembles the two truths and a lie game.

Fun Day Wednesday

2005-05-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

On Monday I will begin my classes for bar preparation, so I called my friend to have a Fun Day Wednesday. He came over to my place (most of my friends have seen my new apartment!) and said hi to my super cat. Then we went off on a drive to eat at Red Robin.

The problem with all of this is that I didn't really know where it was located. I ended up finding it after driving far enough away from my apartment. It seriously took like 20 minutes to get there. We got there and ordered one of their wonderful onion ring towers. Yum! It was greasy goodness...

After the lunch we went back to my apartment to play some XBox. We were going to try to play "The Simpsons Hit and Run" but realized that the multiplayer mode isn't dual screen or anything. So I decided that we should play Halo for a little while. We ended up playing it a lot longer than we should have, because I had to leave and meet my Aunt and Uncle.

After only three hours of digestion, it was time to meet family for dinner at a Mexican food restaurant. Yack!

My belly isn't pleased with me. Fun Day Wednesday rules!

Dropping the Water

2005-05-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

The other day there was quite a bit of rain, so I had a collection of water puddled in the seat on my balcony. My balcony isn't covered by anything and this chair is one of those camping fold up chairs. Once the water evaporates it leaves a ring of dirt. I didn't want to deal with this again, so I went outside to dump the water. My balcony is set up so that the floor is solid, so I decided to just let the water go over the side. Well, I didn't really think about the fact that the wind would bring some of it back towards the building. It was just a fraction of a second before I heard water splashing on the balconies below. It was only a few seconds before I heard the cat lady open her apartment door. Uh...

Needless to say, I ran back into my apartment and shut the door pretty quick. Unfortunately the weather was cool enough that none of the water evaporated. Ugh.

Studying for Nothing

2005-05-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

It's weird when you spend all your weekend studying for a final and can't remember anything that you really studied. Most law school exams are open book, open notes, open outlines, so if you are quick with finding things in you're outline and understand how to play with the material you can do fine. The test that I have today is not open anything besides the Code book. In the code book you can only have minor notations; i.e. you can't copy your entire outline into the book.

How am I going to pass the test when I can't remember anything that I've been trying to study this weekend?

The Cat Lady Below

2005-04-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

I've moved, unpacked, hung decorations, and started the process of settling into my new apartment. In the few days that I've lived here, I've noticed no noise. I'm very happy that Fogerty didn't follow me to the new apartment, but I must be honest and admit that I was worried I would miss him.

Where else can you find a neighbor who is in his 50s, has thinning hippy hair, occasionally screams for no reason, smokes enough that it seaps into your upstairs apartment, and brings you downloaded music on a weekly basis? That's the sort of character everyone wants in their apartment community to make things more interestings. I knew I would sort of miss that...

I think that there is someone just as interesting two floors below me: The Cat Lady. I noticed when I was moving in that there were a couple bowls outside the door of an apartment, which I am fine with. Then I was hanging out on my balcony and looked below to see a cat looking up at me and another cat jumping off the balcony into the tree. Fine...Then I look around and see a couple cats in the creek, the other cat still staring at me, and the cat lady trying to herd these wild things.

A couple days later, I think that I've finally got a decent count on the number of cats. It's in the neighborhood of six cats. There might be more, but I can't tell which ones belong to her. However, I do know that she yells from the balcony at them a lot, there is a cat door that lets them come freely from the balcony to the apartment, there is a cat bowl across the creek in the pool area for when they are hungry from swimming in the creek or pool, and that she yells out "Kitties, I'm outta here!" whenever she leaves the apartment.

Does it beat Fogerty? I'm not sure, but I find it a little entertaining.

Signing the Contract

2005-04-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of a handful of things right now, so I wasn't excited when one of the events fell through. Right now I'm packing boxes, because I'm moving in the morning. The movers are coming to load my stuff and deliver it to my new apartment. It's in an area of town that I like more despite a longer commute to work. I'm not excited about the commute (and I'm a little worried about the size of the apartment), but I am really looking forward to the area.

They told me that I could come in this evening to sign the lease and pick up the keys. Well, I did as they suggested and they realized that the maintenance guy forgot to make my keys. This is good and bad. It's good because they changed out the locks on the apartment, so the old person can't have a spare key hidden somewhere and come back. It's still a sort of upsetting start to things because it shows they are forgetful (I guess this is just a little thing since my official move in is tomorrow), but I wanted to move things in. I had a few bags of things that I wanted to move in.

This is all made stressful because I'm also studying for finals. Actually, the moving part is fun. I'm one of those people who actually enjoys moving my stuff to new places. I don't own a whole lot of things, so I don't have any real issues with moving. It's just fun for me! The finals next week are not fun.

What Do I Say?

2005-04-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

85% General American English

5% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I decided to take this test. I'm from Kansas, so I'm surprised that I didn't have more of the midwestern thing going on, but I guess I narrowly escaped it.

Take Me Down to the Paradise City

2005-04-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

This evening I went with a group of people to see the Texas Rangers take on the Anaheim Angels at the Ballpark. It wasn't a good idea, because I had an evening class which I have now missed twice in a row. Luckily, I heard that the professor didn't notice or care or both.

It was well worth going to the game because they won and there were a lot of interesting people around our group. Next to us was a friendly Asian couple who had a little baby boy. The boy was well-behaved and all, but the father was sort of out of control. He had this big bag of fish/chicken type food that was odd looking. It also smelled bad.

Then in front of us were four teenagers who seemed like decent people. The older brother wasn't a teen but he would buy his brother and his brother's friend beer, which was really cool. The two girls appeared to possibly be dating the two teen guys. The girls were actually cool seeming and they started the wave. They were just bubbly and young. The guys seemed like they were on the road to becoming the sort of dork who thinks he's a real stud. One of the guys had a pair of wrangler jeans with holes in the thigh area that seemed intentional. The other guy had cheesy earrings in his ears. Both of the guys were wearing trucker hats that could very well have been handed down from the older brother.

It was a lot of fun to people watch and watch the baseball.

One Week and One Fight

2005-04-10T01:05:00.000-07:00

There are some people who I cannot stand. It is a very small number of people, because I'm generally known as a very easy going and laid back person. It takes a lot to really make me dislike you. In law school I can think of only one person who has really made me loathe him. There are numerous people who I would refuse to go and grab a drink with, but I still think they are alright.

This one person shall be called The Racist, Sexist, chauvinistic, overly simplistic moron P.S. For short I will just refer to him as TRSCOSMPS or maybe just Bastard.

The Bastard somehow convinced a lot of the 1L law students that he was a good person last year. They voted him as the Student Bar Association President, which is the current source of his bloated ego. It is the only think that drives him to believe he is well liked and respected by others. This is the opposite of the truth.

My friend, Crimlaw, and I were teaching our 1L students about how to do oral arguments in our final class with them before they competed today. The girl in the group mentioned that she was going to be late for a meeting with the SBA and was worried that the Bastard would yell at her. I told her that I would talk to the Bastard and let him know it was our fault.

Skip ahead an hour and you have Crimlaw and me in the parking lot of the school. The Bastard pulls into the parking garage and gets out of his car. I tell him that the girl was late because I was teaching her about moot court and that he shouldn't give her shit. All of a sudden he starts in on me about how he doesn't care about what I'm saying. He says that he isn't planning on giving her shit and there are bigger concerns for him.

The Bastard was thinking about continuing but I had to stop him. Remember, I can't stand this guy, so I'm certainly not going to allow him to insult me with his disinterest. I tell the Bastard that it's time for him to think about all the times he bored me to death with his obnoxious stories about the SBA. I never gave a shit about any of that so I don't give a fuck whether he is happy to hear about this girl or not, he's going to listen.

The Bastard's eyes got large as he realized he pissed me off. Of course, he starts a nervous laugh and claims he was just kidding with me. I tell him to fuck off and leave.

Royal Rumble

2005-04-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

Normally I am a very calm and collected driver. I don't honk very often because I think that horns are annoying. I glare at people when they honk at others for no real reason: such as wanting them to turn quicker. That's usually my favorite part of driving, when I can glare.

Today was different as I had to honk like crazy at this guy. I was driving down Greenville to go towards my apartment. There is a little turn lane that turns into a store front area that I use to cut through to a back entrance into my apartment. I went into the turn lane and turned on my signal. There was a lot of oncoming traffic so I had to wait for the cars to pass. Just as I saw an opening a person from the store parking lot pulled out in front of me. He couldn't even get into past the center of the road because too many cars were coming from my direction.

Needless to say, I started to honk because he screwed up my opportunity to turn.

Something Tells Me It Was Love

2005-04-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday evening I went out to see an art gallery walk because my bestfriend had a few pieces up in one of the dance studios. It was fun, and I was able to give him a ride back to where he lives. He hadn't had dinner so we decided to stop at a mexican food restaurant along the way. All was good and fine until we heard some cackling off to the side. It was a really drunk girl who couldn't have been much older than me. That's about 25 years old. Well, she was being clung to by some guy who might have been grasping for his life. He seemed a little drunk too, but he wasn't drunk enough to forgo doing the following:

Grabbing ass multiple times;
Sliding his hand in places it shouldn't slide;
Grasping her like she was a life raft;
Telling her (very loudly) that her daddy is younger than he;
Snapping his fingers to get the attention of the bartender;
Kissing her neck;
Giving her multiple massages;
Telling her that her kisses could use more tongue (again, loudly);
Whispering a lot of sweet nothings followed by cackling.

Oh, and I'm sure somewhere in the middle of the display he mentioned something about needing to get his retirement paperwork completed as he couldn't have been a day under 65.

I'm not sure why I find this so objectionable when I loved Lost in Translation. Perhaps it is because either the characters in LIT were not so obnoxious or it was fiction. This was sort of foul though.

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

2005-03-30T21:33:00.000-08:00

Isn't it odd when you go by one of your favorite restaurants at dinner time and it's closed? It's a Tuesday evening and all signs point to some Mexican food being a good option after a long, obnoxious day at work. You hop into your car and go slightly out of the way on your drive home to order some take-out.

The out of the way part is going to be worth it for the food.

Then you get there and see that the doors are shut, the mail is in the slot, and the lights are all turned off. All of the lights except the stupid multi-colored christmas lights that still adorn the edge of the roof.

It's inappropriate that the lights are still up and that the restaurant is closed.

This time you don't get out of your car because you think that you can see enough through the tinted windows to feel assured that the place really is closed. But why would it be closed? It's a Tuesday! Is it because they ave finally gone out of business? The last time you were there there were quite a few patrons happily eating. Did the health department close them down? Eek! You sure hope not as you turn your car around to take off. Did they get taken away like the end of times and you were left? Too many cars still remaining for that to be the answer, you think.

Why then is the placed closed on a Tuesday?

You will go back to try again on Thursday to see if any of the above is the reason the doors were closed and seemingly locked.

Sunday's Best

2005-03-27T20:07:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up early enough to be able to go on a short run before getting gussied up for church. Everything would have been alright, but I ran slower than I expected, so I was in a huge rush as I prepared for church.

After speeding down the highway, I made it to church.

5 minutes late.

It wasn't too much of a problem because everyone was still standing and the music was still playing. I think that I missed one or two songs, but I didn't miss anything with the sermon. Also, I wasn't a nuisance. However, there were a lot of people looking at me as I passed down the aisle. I had to go to the front because most of the seats were taken. It seemed like everyone was looking.

No problem though, because I was looking pretty nice. I was calmed down after the drive. Much to my chagrin, I noticed when I was leaving the church that I wasn't looking as nice as I had thought. The shirt wasn't tucked in very well and I forgot a belt. Guys cannot get away with the no belt thing like girls can.

Sigh.

The Sunday Reveal

2005-03-20T11:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, I haven't done one of these for awhile because I'm not getting many comments. I heard though that people are often just not wanting to make a guess on the comments, but they are still interested in knowing whether it is true or not.

The post about the office girl Dawn who is like the person from The Office was not exactly true.

At my office the paralegals and attorneys have little direct contact. The way that immigration law works might be different than other areas because they are allowed to do quite a bit of work. They handle a lot of the client relations while the attorneys prepare stuff for the courts. The only way we typically communicate is by saying hi when we walk by them and leaving messages in the case history for them.

Therefore, Dawn from work doesn't ever come by with any sort of flirty intentions. She smiles and says hi when I walk by her cubicle and then has left me a couple messages in a case history.

Also, unlike Tim in The Office, I don't care that there isn't much interaction.

The Cat Chronicles

2005-03-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made my cat go into her little carrier, and packed her into my truck to take her to the vet. It's been almost one year since I have owned her, so I figured it was time for the yearly shots.

When we got to the vet she started to shake in her crate. She heard all the puppies barking and whimpering and birds chirping and started to get scared. They took us into the waiting room, so I let her out of the crate. Of course, like any good cat she started to slink around to check things out. She found a little cabinet that had an opening on the top of it. She tried to climb through the hole and the cabinet doors came opening up. She fell down into it then! It would have been funny if she had not been so scared in the room. She wouldn't even eat a treat.

They came and took her temperature and the vet came in. The vet said it was too high. She wanted to keep Sophia for the day so that they could see if she calmed down the temp might go down. Otherwise she might be sick.

I told them she couldn't stay because I had to work and then go out for dinner right after work. They said that I could bring her today, which I did. They just called me to say that her temp was at 101 point something, and this is just the temperature that she needs.

Sophia is ok! They are going to just give her some shots and then I will go and get her in a couple hours.

Kiss Me I'm Irish

2005-03-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

Drink a few green beers for me!

Who Could Be Better?

2005-03-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

Somehow I ended up winning the playwriting competition. I don't get a shiny metal, a new trophy, a nice pen, or even a gift certificate. However, I get to go back home with my pride.

Writers Block

2005-03-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

I'm back at home for a few days at the start of my spring break to visit family a little, see a couple friends, and write. Apparently there is an annual playwright invitational. I’m not sure how it will all be judged in the end, but I think they give you a burger king crown or something if you are the best.

It's fun.

They invite a number of playwrights until they have five who agree to do this. They all convene on this mid-sized city and are given spaces to write, rehearse, and produce a play over the weekend.

There is a pool of actors (most of the college students and a few professional) who are there to help along with directors, stage managers, and other technical support artists.

On Friday night the playwrights are able to get the packet that has a sheet of paper saying about 30 things that have to be in the play. This one has things like "a white picket fence" and "a one legged chicken." From these things each playwright can craft whatever it is that they want. Most of the playwrights spend the first night writing.

I slept. Actually, I slept in the city of my law school and didn't wake up until 9am when I drove back home. That means that I got here in the mid-afternoon when most of the playwrights were putting final touches on their plays.

Oh well.

I spent about 6 hours today writing until I came up with about 90 pages of a very workable script. I just finished selecting my cast and found a director who I think understands how odd this play is and is willing to work with me on it. It's strange indeed.

I've got a pretty cool space to work on this. Right now there are three actors who are busy memorizing lines. They have to have all of it ready by Monday afternoon. Tomorrow I'll work a lot with the director on blocking, fixing problems in the script, and trying to help coach the actors in motivations, histories, etc of the characters.

There is one playwright who is of decent repute doing it this year. The other three are unknown to me. I shouldn't be too worried about being harsh as a female playwright (who I don't know) mentioned to me that she had seen something I wrote and thought it came from the mind of an idiot savant.

Personally I prefer dolt.

Ordering the same of different

2005-03-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

Does everyone else out there go to the same restaurants and fast food places to eat each week? I've found about five or six places that I really like, and I often go to one or two of those more than the others.

With work and school it makes it really difficult for me to have enough time to cook my own food. Plus I'm not a good cook, so I often find food to eat at restaurants that I like. This means that I will stop by places that are convenient after work. Like I said, this usually comes down to two or three places.

I'm also a bit of a creature of habit, so I've fallen into various schedules of where I go on different days. Not through any sort of planning, but just because I don't like to go to the same place twice in a row. The problem is that this habit has allowed employees at the restaurants to catch onto my game.

My selection of food is usually the same. I like to go to Chipotle and get a bol or the chicken crispy tacos with the same choices of toppings. I get hot salsa, cheese, and lettuce. No sour cream or guacamole for me, thanks.

If I go to Potbelly Sandwiches then I will usually get a turkey and swiss sandwich. This will be with mustard and lettuce. However, I can throw them off sometimes by ordering it with some hot peppers. The other thing that really gets them is the rare meatball sandwich that I will order in which I top it with hot peppers and italian seasoning.

Sometimes I stop at a Mexican food resturant and order cheese enchiladas. Sometimes I stop at Chick-fi-la and get a southwest chicken salad.

Well, today my game came crashing down when the guy at Potbelly asked me something about if I order the same thing each time. Oh, and at Chipotle the manager girl knows my name.

How would the Lone Ranger Handle This?

2005-03-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

It came to my attention that I am basically the Tim of my workplace.
I go in there and mind my own business at my desk only to be bothered
by pesky coworkers. I will say something that is vaguely aggressive
but just underhand enough to make me laugh to myself.

This would be enough to make things alright but it only gets worse.
There is a Dawn. Specifically, there is a girl who is a blonde
girl who sort of looks like a cuter Dawn. At some point I developed a
bit of a crush on her, which then resulted in my asking around about
her.

I found out that she's living with her boyfriend. However, I still
talk to her and she comes around sometimes with little flirty
intentions.

Yes, I plan on breaking up Dawn and the boy just like Tim. My office
does have a Christmas party every year.

Two Miles to Falter

2005-03-06T17:28:00.000-08:00

I ran in a 10K this morning. It was a great morning for a race here. The weather was around 55 to 60 degrees for the run, the sky was clear, and the humidity wasn't bad at all. That drew a pretty large group of runners out. This run is a through a particularly hilly area, which is one of the ways I excel when I run. Going up and down hills doesn't wind me too bad and they keep me from getting bored.

This race had a 25 to 29 age category that I ran in. I started somewhere in the middle of the pack and had to do all the jossling to get around some of the more casual runners. This run lets you have a device that won't start your individual time until you pass the start line, which is very cool. It was probably 3 or 4 minutes after the gun that I finally made it to the starting line, so it would have adversely affected me otherwise.

All in all, I came in 4th for my age group with a time of 43:39.0 which ends up as a pace of 7:02. The winner in my age group finished with a time of 37:13 and the overall winner had a time of 36:01 (which is less than a six minute mile pace).

What this tells me is that good racing whether has positives and negatives. I got my ass handed to me by a couple of runners.

Doctor Doctor Give Me The News

2005-03-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

About a month ago the campus doctor diagnosed me with having a hernia. In fact, he said that it was on that should be treated with surgery. I went ahead and got an apointment with the doctor who would be able to do my surgery.

Today was the day that I went in to talk to the doctor. I was actually supposed to go yesterday. I called a little before to verify that I actually had the appointment. They told me the doctor was in the middle of an emergency surgery and wouldn't be able to meet with me. They did a good job about getting me set up with an appointment today. At least I didn't have to go in to the office and wait, and wait, and wait.

After all this anticipation the doctor came in and did the little turn your head and cough test. It's the test that I hate. It's actually the test that everyone should hate. Cough, cough. Then he said to cough some more. Cough, cough. MORE. Cough, cough. MORE! More!!! Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough.

That was all. He told me to sit down and gave me the good news. You don't have a hernia but you have a little impusle. What is an impulse? I am not sure. No hernia is definitely good news.

The bad news was that he wanted to talk to me awhile about proper hernia prevention. Everything from wearing whitey tighteys to showing me the mesh. Then he showed me a hernia guard that I could buy at any 24-hour drug store. You would think this would be the end of the consult, but no. He then said that they used to do it differently on the ranch. He then showed me some weird leather contraption that was like a homemade resolution to hernias.

It was time to get out of there.

Shopping at the Gap

2005-03-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

Today I had to run by the mall to get my ring size measured. I felt a little bad going into a jewelry store to have my finger measured without any intention of buying a ring, but I think the girl working there looked pretty bored.

After getting all of that done, I decided to go shopping. Actually, I needed to go shopping because my favorite pair of jeans just developed a couple little holes. I can't believe it but it's true. Don't you hate it when you lose your favorite pair of jeans?

I walked around in the Banana Republic, but I decided that spending 70 dollars on a pair of jeans was a little over doing it. Maybe not. Maybe they would be great jeans that would make my legs all the happier, but I decided to skip it.

Instead I walked to the lower quality place and stopped by the Gap. Normally I shop at Old Navy or even Target (yeah, the sweater type thing that I bought there was messed up within a year) or the sale rack at Banana Republic, but I decided that I should step up to the regular priced rack at The Gap. I bought a pair of jeans there for about 40 bucks. That's about 10 to 15 dollars more than Old Navy. It's about 15 to 20 dollars less than at Banana Republic.

Does anybody know if there is any real difference in quality of look? I believe that these jeans look better fitting than my others but it might be psychological. Anyhow that is about it besides the weird looking mannequins. They pinned the shirts in the back so that they were pulled really tight. It was odd.

Scorned and Burned At the Bar

2005-02-28T22:14:00.000-08:00

On Saturday night I went out with my friend Digits. Digits was a theater major and is now doing plays and a little bit of commercial work in New York. He came into town this weekend to hang out with a girl he met on the set for a Crate and Barrel commercial.

He stayed over at my place after he got in really late on Friday. Saturday afternoon we went for a run where he told me about wanting to go out to meet this girl. Actually, he described her as being unbelievable. This was all nice and fine but why would I want to be a third wheel? He convinced me that she had a friend who was going to come out too.

Curtis has a date!

Fast forward to that evening. We go out to one of the really ritzy clubs here in Dallas and meet the girls. After a few drinks things seemed to be going well. That is until two other guys came over who were apparently friends with the girls. They joined us and were talking to the girls. The one I was speaking with completely lost interest in me and focused on the new guys.

Finally the guys said that there was an exclusive party downtown that they could get into so they left without asking us to go. While we were happy seeing them go we didn't want the girls to leave. They did.

After this we were left with the tab which we paid and left. We went down to an area of town called deep ellum. We went by a couple of the dance clubs and a drank a lot more. Danced a little with a few girls and then ended up leaving after it closed. We stumbled around in the deep ellum area for a little while until we made it back to my apartment.

He left pretty early on Sunday.

A New Way to Eat Fajitas

2005-02-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

Ok so some of my readers will be happy to know that the end has come.

Yes, the end has come for the boom boom enchiladas. No more, never, never ever ever again.

Ok, so I lie. Boom boom will forever be a part of my life. But I have forsaken the boom boom. I feasted on them this week, but I have also betrayed them. They aren't my only Mexican food love.

Now I love two types of Mexican.

Today I went with a friend and had the Pappasitos Fajitas. I had been told they were good. I had been told they were wonderful.

Indeed.

Birthday Time

2005-02-23T22:01:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a pretty big celebration of my birthday! I'm 26 years old, by the way.

When Work Breaks

2005-02-23T08:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was able to get off work early.

See, the office that I work at revolves around this complex Access database. It has everything about a case that is important. The case history, intake information, all the client info, deadlines for the attorneys, paralegals, and whatnot. Without the database everything is very difficult to do.

It's funny because about a few times a day a message will come over the loudspeaker that says, "Please exit the database. Please exit database."

Everyone will exit and the administrators will do what they have to do to get the database fixed. I'm not sure what goes wrong with it but there is obviously something that needs fixed. It requires everyone being out of the database. Then a few minutes later they will say "you can now enter the database." Everything is all better.

Yesterday there was an exit the database message. A few minutes passed and everyone still was wondering what to do. Then there was an email message that said that the office was closed! It was about an hour and a half early. They said the database wouldn't be back until the following day.

Family Time Four Times Over

2005-02-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

This weekend my family came to town and one of my bestfriends came to town. The days were all spent with my family while the best friend consumed my evenings.

It was crazy.

My family came in on Friday. I met them after a little office party that was held at a place called Dave and Busters. They have these all over the place, so I'm sure you have probably seen one of them. The office party was fun but nothing major happened to speak of. I played some pool against one of my bosses and won based on an eight ball scratch.

I met my family at the Galleria where my sister was ice skating. It was awfully cute. Actually, she was skating for about three hours total. I don't get it. We went to dinner and then I took off shortly after that. By then it was about 9:30pm.

Later that evening I met up with two of my bestfriends, one was Biggity, at my apartment. We talked for awhile and then went to Taco Cabana for some late night snacks. Since I had already had a big dinner, I just got a couple flour tortillas.

I noted that there are a lot of very strange people who go to fast food restaurants late in the evening.

Singing in the Afternoon

2005-02-18T10:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I experienced my first office birthday party. They called
everyone to the kitchen where they had a chocolate cake and some sort
of a strawberry cake waiting for me. Everyone gathered around, put
candles on the cake, and then sang me happy birthday. Then I blew out
the candles and we at cake!

Today will be the first real office party I have gone too. We'll
be going to Dave and Busters. It ought to be a blast.

Thinking of Valentines

2005-02-13T22:26:00.000-08:00

Last year, on this day, I was buying flowers, getting a bottle of wine, and spiffing myself up for a second date with a wonderful girl. We had a fun evening together and went on to be nothing more than friends. I'm sad about this but not because I was hurt, but because I was my typical selfish self.

This year I made some sort of a resolution that I would actually care about getting into a relationship. Not because I think that I need a relationship for any sort of societal purposes or family pressures; although, both of those exist. But I want one because I know that I'm happier and better when I'm in a relationship.

I'm entirely selfish about it though. Unless I feel the strongest passion. The strongest feelings about the person. I won't even try to get into a relationship. I will go on a couple dates and then sort of forget about things. Occasionally I'll think about all the great things about the person. Then I'll try to slide into being a confused friend who often feels the need to try to date again. However, I usually won't ever voice that desire after things have cooled off.

Today is one of those days where I really start to miss what I don't have. Especially since last year was the first time I had a true valentines date. It didn't happen with the girl I was in love with because she dumped me on 2.13. It was shit. It isn't shit anymore. Just in the past year or two I've finally gotten over all of that shit. No more real feelings besides the afterglow that always exists. The memories that are hazy. The memories that teach you what to do and what not to do. But nothing like comparisons, longing, or other destructive remnants of her.

I make a really good friend despite the relationship selfishness. I am thoughtful, caring, easy going, and completely unselfish with my friends. My friends are all really close to me and I am close to them. Part of this is that I only keep a handful of people close to me. I can transfer this over to someone unknown in a dating relationship. That's the plan.

Things are better without the hangups that used to lounge in the back of my mind. Sitting on the comfortable hammock that constantly reminded me of what I had lost. Rent came due and that memory couldn't pay, so I booted it. It wasn't easy but it's gone. Now I have to work on making sure that I fill that void because I want to. Not in any immediate sort of way. But in the way that if something impassable comes into my life I won't pass it this time. No more fear, no more selfishness that comes from some of those problems, and no more worries about the future.

That's what this day reminds me of. I don't mind being alone today because I realize that last year when I wasn't alone -- I should have been. I should have been because I wasn't ready to have anyone.

Putting Things Together

2005-02-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

During the Summer I bought a little desk from some office supply store. I came home and put it all together. It ended up taking me a couple hours because my tools are not all that wonderful, and I'm no better at using them. However, I will say that I enjoy putting things together.

I decided that I would wait a little while to get the printer cart. It just meant that my printer would sit on the ground for awhile.

No big deal.

Today I went to buy the matching printer cart that includes a little file drawer. This is just what I wanted. I brought it home and started to put it all together. This board to that board. Until it was all together and ready to go. Despite being half the size of my desk it took about the same amount of time to assemble.

Anyhow, I scoot it into my bedroom to place it besides my desk. I put my printer on top of it and realize that this doesn't fit. Hmm...this is odd, the printer cart is not wide enough.

Well, there goes my ability to pick out good things for my desk set. My printer continues to sit on the floor. Instead, I will put the scanner on the printer cart. It'll all work out fine. It just leaves me a little more desk space which is good, I suppose.

Riding the Train

2005-02-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

Earlier I went out with my friend Little Sarah. She used to be a theater major here at my undergrad but moved back to her home in Maine. I guess she got tired of life here in Dallas.

She is back to see friends and mess around for a little while. I convinced her that she should hang out with me today. We did.

First we went out to lunch at this little place that is partially a pharmacy and partially a diner. They have great milkshakes and really good grilled cheese sandwiches. After that we walked around by some of the stores in the area and decided to go and catch the rail.

We hopped on and road it to somewhere that I didn't know. We decided to head back into the city and took the rail to White Rock Lake. We got off and she ran away down the street. Of course, I took off after her and realized that she was hiding up near the top of the overpass. I walked along as though I didn't really know where she was. All of a sudden she came running down from the top after me. I took off towards the lake.

By the point it was getting dark outside, so we couldn't see anything very well. When we were at the lake there was some sort of a weird noise coming from an animal. It scared her so we decided to head back. I think it sounded like a wild boar.

Little Sarah is always fun to hang out with because she's easy going and free-spirited. She just likes to experience new things in life.

Basketball Games

2005-02-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been going to watch my friends play intramural basketball quite a bit. There are a few of us guys who will watch the girls and cheer them on. It's interesting to watch the girls play a game on a court next to guys playing. The girls are really tough. No holds barred when they are out on the court. That makes it a lot more fun to watch.

This evening the opposing team was really mean on the court. They would elbow, undercut, and push around my friends. The ref didn't seem to want to slow down the play (or he enjoyed watching girls push each other around) so everyone was getting hurt ou there.

Eventually my friend yelled out push and got yelled at by the a player on the opposing team. I guess the fighting didn't have to stop on the court.

Swindle Sticks

2005-02-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

My work, thus far, has been a pretty enjoyable place to live. I like that everyone is pretty friendly. I don't mind that the named attorney sometimes gets passionate and yells or has a temper. And I think that most people are pretty happy to be there working.

The only problem that I have right now is that I don't have my own desk. I have to move somewhere else every day. They bought a few new computers but they haven't been set up yet.

I think that it's funny that we've got about 40 employees and only five of us are guys. Its unfortunate that there are some rules about dating co-workers. I'm not sure what they are exactly, but I think it's probably a good idea.

Anyhow, I think that a couple of the girls there are really cute. I think that everyone is really nice. I think that quite a few are extremely intelligent. Then I think that everyone blurs some of those lines.

That's about all.

Saturday Nights with the Cat

2005-02-05T20:44:00.000-08:00

I went out last night, so I decided that it would be a good idea to stay in this evening. Instead of getting my work done, I decided to go to the nearby Borders. I thumbed through some books, listened to a friend play music (I didn't know she was performing this evening), and I picked up a few magazines to bring home.

Anyhow, it's nice to have evenings where you don't do much.

I plan on taking a long shower, putting on my PJs and eating some ice cream to celebrate.

I'll make sure to give my cat some of her tuna flavored treats and some milk so that she appreciates me being here.

Messing with Fogerty

2005-02-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

Fogerty was loud again, so I called the security people. They went and told him to turn down the music. He tried to figure out who they were but he couldn't get it out of the officer. Then I left so that he wouldn't bug me.

He goes around to each and every neighbor to try to figure out who complained about his loud, obnoxious music. Anyhow, I come back later and he walks out of his apartment to confront me. He seemed to want to fight, which would be a bad idea for Fogerty.

Somehow I convinced him that it wasn't me.

I even had a little mix cd that I gave him when he walked out of his apartment (it happened to be in my hands). He thought it was something that I was coming down to give him. He also saw that I had a Mavericks ticket on me but didn't notice it was from months ago. I guess he thinks my story checked out.

I'm still angry about the whole thing.

Email Fights

2005-01-31T20:23:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else like to get into fights over emails? I know that I do. The most recent one happened with three of my bosses for a school job that I have. My immediate boss sent me an email that was asking something of me that I couldn't do. Basically, I wasn't in a position to commit. I told him that I couldn't but I made a guess at what I could do. He emailed me back and said that wasn't good enough. Then I sent a longer, nastier email.

I guess he forwarded on to a boss who I have never met and someone who I have met. The one I haven't met emailed me to clear up a few things but ultimately say the same thing as my normal boss. I let her have it too.

Bring them on! Unless they fire me (which they probably will) I won't quit!

UPDATE: Right after I posted this there was an email waiting in my box for the higher boss who I have met. Apparently he didn't like the tone of my email (who blames him), so he wants to talk. I called and left a message and sent him an email.

Retailing Around the Town

2005-01-29T18:40:00.000-08:00

This morning I went by school to try out a little Bar Review study course. Actually, it's better described as a pre-bar review study course.

It involved the boring chore of watching videos from previous bar review courses. Somehow I decided that it would be a good idea for me to sit there and act as if I was enjoying what was going on. It was a drag.

After lunch, I watched the videos (along with about 15 other people) until the next break. Then I told my friend Zapata if she wanted to take off. Indeed, she had enough of it. She was going to go computer shopping, because she wanted to see some more Apple laptop computers. I alerted her to the existence of the Apple Store.

Before too long we were at the Apple Store. Does anybody know why this place is packed? It was my first time going there, so I wasn't expecting to find that many people running around. It was difficult to find an available worker but they were friendly enough.

I think that a lot of people don't realize that they're not supposed to push someone out of the way so that they can sample the computer.

Artistic Fiend

2005-01-27T21:54:00.000-08:00

Alright so I'm a sucker for people who are artistic. I'm a little tipsy right now, but I must admit that in the grand scheme of things I'm a hack. I write decently. I come up with a few good ideas for plays. But I am certainly no Tony Kushner, Tennessee Williams, or even Sam Shepard.

No.

This is why I love hanging out with people who are the shit.

Yes.

This evening I went out to dinner with Biggity (a visual artist with one show under his belt and a very promising career), Peru (a smart, talented, and attractive photographer who works with Biggity, and Russian Girl who is an art student). I had to get a little homework done, so I didn't go with them to an art opening.

I got a call a little while later asking if I wanted to meet them at a bar in a sort of cool area in Dallas. I went over there to meet them. They had a guy who was the director of a gallery and a young art professor (ceramics) along for the beers.

It was great! It makes me wish that I had a little more talent, then I wouldn't have to rely on being a lawyer to make ends meet.

Days Off

2005-01-26T20:12:00.000-08:00

Tuesday evenings are typically a good time. Since Biggity has Wednesday off work, we try to go out with friends on Tuesday nights.

This Tuesday was no different in that respect but there was one big difference. I didn't study this evening.

Usually I will study on Tuesdays until 9pm or so, and then I will call Biggity to head out. We can usually find a few other people who want to join in the festivities. This time I wasn't able to study beforehand because I went to dinner with three of my friends. Then I went to watch an intramural basketball game.

The dinner was with an attorney friend, a law student friend, and her husband. It was a lot of fun. Catching up on old times with friends is typically a good time. We went to Cafe Brazil which serves pretty good food. Actually, I love their grilled cheese sandwich, which is what I got. I convinced the lawyer friend to do the same.

After all of this, I went straight to school to watch some of the law girls playing an intramural game -- they won. After that I found Biggity and a couple of people who live by him. We went out for some drinks and went back to their place to watch some Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

The problem with all of this is that I have an 8:30a class on Wednesdays. Even though it's good for Biggity, it is terrible for me.

Bloody Football

2005-01-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

Growing up involved very minimal exposure to sports. I played soccer, but I was never interested in professional sports. I didn't like football, baseball, or basketball, so I didn't watch any of them on TV.

The only time my family really watched sports was when the Superbowl came on. We had all the family over to watch. I loved those days because it was a big game and everyone was there cheering on their favorite teams.

I have since changed to the point where I will easily watch 15 hours of sports a week if allowed. Who am I kidding? I'd watch non-stop sports if I could.

Today was one of those fun days where a big group of friends go together to watch hours of football. There was plenty of beer, pizza, and other items of junk food to go around. We had a great time watching the game, talking about everything, and fighting over the games.

Tippin' Another for all the dead boom booms

2005-01-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

I was unable to post recently, because someone had the audacity to disparge the boom boom enchiladas via email. She was unable to see my tears and lack of concentration that resulted from this blow.

I sunk very low after this character attack on the boom boom. Very low.

Last night I was wallowing in my apartment. Wishing that I could go back to the innocent days when I believed everyone loves boom boom. In the middle of this upsetting evening, I received a phone call from a few of my friends. Apparently they were sitting on the sidewalk drinking cheap beer and they wanted the entertainment to arrive.

Boom boom was gone. What entertainment could I be?

I didn't even deserve to share their beer.

On the way over I stopped at the liquor store to pick up a cheap 40 of malt. I found a Mickeys. Made it over to the sidewalk and tipped a few drops to the dead boom boom. I will never be able to be the same again, but I was able to bring joy to those who have not heard what boom boom really means.

Boom Boom!!!

2005-01-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

Really there are just two things to discuss today that doesn't have very much to do with one another. One is a good thing and the other is a very good thing.

First, the good thing is that I decided to get some back bone and tell Dominos that things aren't working out. It was the most odd conversation, because we've only gone on four dates. We rarely talk to each other. It seems to be more that she calls me whenever she goes out and drinks. I wanted that to end and I think that it will now. I told her that it seemed clear that neither of us really seemed to have much interest in a relationship together, so I don't want to be called for dates or anything anymore. She was cool with it.

The second thing that is really great was Chika Chika Boom Boom day at Chuys! You'd better bet that Wednesday is the best day in the world. I've got into a weekly habit of going to get these oh so good enchiladas with my friend Amanda. She loves them too. After our admin law class we head over and feast. It is brilliant. Basically they are chicken enchiladas with the very best sauce ever. It's a cheesy sauce with green chile sauce sort of mixed together. Words can't describe how wonderful they taste.

I admit that my belly isn't happy that I only fed it Lucky Charms for dinner. I was in a hurry before my evening class though.

That was my day. Good and very good!

Make it a Double

2005-01-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

This evening I went out with Biggity to a local bar. We go there about once a week. Usually it is on a weeknight, because we like the calmer atmosphere. The weekends bring in the crowds of people who are just there to go nuts. Weeknights are the people who are there to hang out, talk with friends, and share a good time with friends.

It's nice.

We had a pitcher of Shiner Bock (Texas favorite) and a bowl of queso while talking about what is going on in our lives. We've been bestfriends since high school. Somehow I was able to get him to come from Kansas to Texas. He thought that it sounded like a good idea for college. He has stuck around ever since.

After the pitcher he got a call on his phone. It was his friend, Peru. She was talking to him about a photo job she just completed. She is a really great photographer here in Dallas. I think that she gets to go out to a lot of events and photograph them for wealthy people. It would be a pretty nice gig.

Anyhow, I told Biggity that Peru ought to come out and join us. After thirty minutes or so she showed up.

It is nice to get to hang out with good friends with a few drinks.

Moving Me

2005-01-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

Today I decided that I would drop by Best Buy to look into some of those mini-mp3 players.

ASIDE: Does anyone remember back when those Sony mini-discs were the hip things? I remember that when I first went to college (6+ years ago now), I rode in the truck of this guy who had mini-disc everything: his stereo in his dorm room, a portable one, and a stereo system in his car that would play mini disc.

This was when mp3s were just starting. I remember using audiogalaxy.com to find FTP sites to log into to download music my first semester of law school. Then it Audiogalaxy developed some sort of a device that was great. You could download this client that you would open. Then search online for music at audiogalaxy. Then you would just add that to the queue. It would automatically download the song whenever the host computer logged on.

I digress in my digression. This guy had a portable MD player that was so much cooler than my battery-consuming cd player that lasted 6 hours on two AA batteries. I wanted one of these things. The funny thing is that Sony did the same thing with MD players that they did with Beta. MD is better than mp3 or ACC as far as sound quality. However, it's a proprietary file-format so they screwed themselves over. This is how VHS beat Beta. Thank goodness DVD came around. Thank goodness digital files came around in other forms too.

I digress.

I went to Best Buy looking for one of the shiny new Apple Shuffles. When I got into the parking lot I was quickly reminded that everyone goes shopping if they have MLK's birthday off work.

Irk.

Do I go in or not? If I go in it means that I have to look for a place to park and then fight with the crowds. I decide that if a parking spot opens near the store then I'll park and go in.

One does. I go in. Bingo. There are the music players.

I trample over a couple of kids in my haste to locate the player I want. Then the worker guy comes over in his blue shirt to tell me that I shouldn't buy the Apple Shuffle. Something about how listening to albums is more enjoyable than listening on shuffle. That it doesn't have a screen to help you figure out what album you're listening to. That it is only 512mb instead of a lot more like you can get with other players.

Too bad I don't want all of those features. I want a little player that will shuffle the music for me so that I can enjoy my runs.

The cap will fall off, he tells me.

Too bad...I want it!

Well, we don't have them in stock yet.

What? You argue with me about what music player I need, after I tell you that I want the Shuffle, only to tell me that you don't even have any available?

Want one of the other players I mentioned?

Irk!

Grocery Store Trips

2005-01-15T19:41:00.000-08:00

I didn't have much that I needed to buy, but I decided that I ought to go to the grocery store today.

The motivation was the fact that they had 12-packs of coca-cola products on sale for 4/$10. I like to buy them when they are less than $3. There were a few interesting things that I saw while at the grocery store:

I saw a law student (or recent graduate) who probably was from my school. He was wearing shorts and a stupid shirt that had an emblem (think of the FBI sort of thing) and said "Law Student Division." The oddest part was the wearing a t-shirt and shorts when it is 40 degrees outside. I can't understand it.
Those really good Tollhouse cookies were on sale. I opted not to buy them because I'm an idiot. Give me cookies!
I bought a six pack of Amstel Light despite never having one before. I think it is pretty good light beer. Truth in advertising?
My checkout lady was trying to be flashy with the lady in front of me. She sort of swung the 12 pack and dropped it on the floor. Caffeine-free diet coke went everywhere. Heh.

I ended up spending $30ish on things I really didn't need. Tomorrow I'll make tacos though! Woohoo.

Lateness Lately

2005-01-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

It seems that I've been really remiss on giving my daily update on this blog. It really shouldn't be difficult as I just say something that happened every day, or I make up something.

Today was a boring day though. Yesterday was a boring day. Everyday lately has seemed to be a little boring. However, that wouldn't bother me so much because I could change a few of the facts and make it more interesting. The problem has been that I have been really busy getting some of the start of the semester matters in order.

What I intend to do right now is just explain my process of coming up with the lie posts. In all of my writing: here, poetry, and my semi-successful playwriting, I draw on things that I already know. It isn't always autobiographical, because I have some qualms against that in creative writing. Actually, there is a good debate about the merits and demerits of using autobiography in professional creative writing. I fall into the category of feeling that it creates inferior work.

I digress, when I write lies they are usually autobiographical because it's easier to be believable. What I mean by this is that when you read one of the lies it usually is something that I considered boring, but saw an opportunity to make it more exciting. No doubt, there have been a few posts that were entirely made up. However, there are quite a few of the lies that have an element of truth in them.

That is how I develop the posts. I hope that it's difficult to tell the difference. I know that a few of you just like to read and other people like to make guesses. I don't really think it matters. I enjoy when you guess, but I think that as long as you are enjoying what you read then my job is served. Also, I think that overall this blog gives a very accurate description of who I am and what I am about. The lies don't tend to be so extravagant that you would think I'm an entirely different person than reality.

I think this is good because blogs are, in many ways, about building a relationship. The purpose here is to just make it happen with a bit of a twist. It also allows me to say some things I wouldn't otherwise say, because I can hope you won't believe it is true!

Running the Loser

2005-01-10T18:45:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I went out to White Rock Lake to go on one of my semi-annual runs around the lake.

I try to work out, usually by running, four or five times per week. Right now I don't have any aspirations of training for any competitive runs, but I do at times. I just like to go and run a couple miles. It usually gives me quality time to think about things, enjoy the evening or morning, and see my neighbors.

Usually it is nothing all that competitive. I do have a very strange thing about not liking other people to pass me when I'm actually running. For this reason, I keep a pretty fast pace.

The run around White Rock is much further than my normal run. It's about 9 miles. Actually, I've heard that it's between 9 and 12 miles, so I'm not really sure what to believe. There seems to be a few different paths one can take, so I guess that might cause some disparity in distances.

This evening a high school guy passed me in after my first few miles.

I was not about to put up with this; no way. I went after him and ran back in front of him.

Apparently he wasn't going to put up with this either, so he came and passed me with very little effort.

Grr.

This cycle continued for about 7 miles until he passed me as he ran to his car. I sit here before you a very worn out and broken runner. I remember why I don't enjoy going on competitive runs -- I like it too much until I lose.

Swilly Timer

2005-01-07T18:45:00.000-08:00

Last night proved quite interesting as I had another run in with Fogerty.

This time it was partially my fault, although, it was prompted by him.

At around 6:30 pm, I started to hear a lot of music coming from below. I put up with it for awhile, but I was trying to read my immigration law text book. Eventually I pounded on the floor a couple times. Nothing happened for a little while.

About two hours later, he turned up the music again, which started to really piss me off. I hit the floor again to annoy him. I heard the level go down a little and his door slam.

My doorbell rang.

I open the door to find Fogerty fuming outside my door. Ok, maybe he wasn't fuming, but he did have steam coming from his mouth, since it was freezing outside. This is close enough to fuming to make me imagine a chubby dragon in front of me with rage in his eyes.

He asks if something was wrong in my apartment because he kept hearing noise. I told him that I could say the same about his apartment. Then he started to yell about how he was not going to turn his music down. Eventually I cut off his little rant to ask him how old he was.

50.

And you act like a college co-ed having a party.

I'm not turning the music down.

We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. If I have to call the management about it, I will.

Fine. Call the management. I've lived here for 10 years, and I haven't had any complaints from anyone living there.

They aren't living here anymore, are they?

Look, I'm not...

Listen, we can either work out a compromise or I will go back into my apartment. I'm not going to argue with you about this anymore.

I'm not going...

Did you hear what I just said? Let's try to reach some sort of a compromise. If you don't want to turn down the volume, and I need to study, could you agree to turn it off by 10pm? If you do that, then I'll study at the library in the evenings if I need to really concentrate.

Ok...

Then he talked to me a little more about random stuff. He's an odd little character, but I'm glad we've sort of got something worked out.

Sergeant Bilco

2005-01-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

I got a ticket today for an illegal U-Turn.

I'll admit, there was a sign at the intersection that showed u-turns are illegal. However, the officer did a couple things wrong that should give me an easy victory in traffic court.

1. He told me that he can't stand people that drive foreign cars. Interesting point of view. I'd like for someone to show me a new car that is purely American. I bet you can't do it. My vehicle is a Nissan, which is manufactured in Tennessee; just like that whiskey you're enjoying.

2. The sign clearly said that u-turns were not allowed from 10 PM until 4 AM. I'm guessing the restriction is either to cut down on people cruising this road or because u-turns might be more dangerous at the posted times. Maybe it's just a nonsense restriction. Regardless, I was u-turning at 3:00 PM.

I pointed that out to the officer, and he told me that I could fight it in court if I didn't agree with the ticket.

He doesn't realize that I'm a law student with little else to do in my mornings than put strikes on stupid police officer's record.

My Car Battery Went Nuts

2005-01-04T20:58:00.000-08:00

I think that the title speaks for itself, but I will elaborate.

My OEM battery in my truck started to get a lot of weird goo and flakes on the top of it. This didn't seem like something that is a positive character for a battery. (Pun entirely, and unapologetically intended).

While I was visiting home for the holidays I ran the truck by Pep Boys. They were pleased to put a new Energizer battery in the right place, clean up the goo, and tell me to pay 70 or 80 bucks. I paid because I didn't have to worry about shocking the shit out of myself.

Fast forward a few days to driving back to Dallas. I'm hitting the road in Oklahoma like any true Texan: fast and with a lot of disgust. Then my bladder tells me that it's time to either pee in a bottle or turn into the stupid Oklahoma I-35 rest stop.

Bottles are difficult to pee in (even for boys), so I decide to stop.

Then the truck won't start. I sit there for a little bit, and I look around, and I open the hood, and I look around some more. Then, like any good mechanic, I jiggle some wires. Suddenly there is power.

I drive.

For the next few days the same thing happens every now and then. The truck won't start, so I open the hood and jiggle.

Enough is enough.

I take it to a nearby Pep Boys and tell them that they fucked up my battery. Basically, they didn't put on a new clamp that would actually connect to the grounding terminal. The guy is smug. I get smug. He gets smuger. I tell him that I can talk to the manager. He gets a little less smug.

I'm such a stupid male sometimes.

Eventually he says that they'll put on a new clamp and everything, but I have to wait for an hour in the little room with a senile old lady, and I have to pay money for the clamp.

Since he has the clamp and the tools: he wins.

My truck is now running again without weird hiccups.

Odd Grocery Store Trips

2005-01-02T23:50:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have the strangest conversations at grocery stores?

Seriously, for me it's one crazy ass trip or another whenever I go to the grocery store. One time it was the bottom falling out of the pack of Guinness bottles that I picked up. They shattered right in front of the girl I had been checking out.

Another time I attempted to talk to a girl who was smiling a lot. Come to find out, she had a boyfriend who was getting a couple steaks or something. He wasn't pleased to find me trying to get the phone number from his girlfriend.

Today I was sort of complimented by a couple checkers. I went to check out and the girl who was actually checking me out commented on my box of Lucky Charms. It was white for the winter seasons. This girl thought that was cute and wanted to give me a hard time for getting a "cute box of cereal." After that, her friend came over and asked me if I wetted my hair.

That's right, she said, "did you wet your hair today?"

Strange.

It was pretty early in the morning, so I think that my hair was still a little wet. Right now it is long enough that it's curling up, so I'm not sure how easy it is to determine that it's wet. She did.

I said, "yes, in fact, I took a shower not too long ago."

She seemed a little sheepish and replied, "I like it...it looks nice."

My hair impresses check out girls at the grocery store. Beat that.

Swinging on the Christmas Tree

2004-12-30T13:37:00.000-08:00

This was a good Christmas for me. I was able to come home for a couple weeks to spend time with family, friends, and a few attorneys in a small bankruptcy/family law/personal injury/intellectual property firm.

Yes, it was Christmas in Kansas with all my siblings driving me just insane enough that I decided to work during the days.

Overall it was a very nice Christmas. In the grand tradition of things, we went to the Christmas Eve family service at our church. They did the usual thing of singing a few Christmas related hymns, their enactment (complete with a live horse!) of the birth of Jesus, and finally a candle-lit chorus of Silent Night. Our family followed that by a small gathering at our house with my grandparents, cousin, and Uncle. My sister and her family were also staying at my parent's house, so there was a good sized group of us.

Later that evening we opened a lot of our presents. I got all that I needed and more. DVDs of the Seinfeld series, books, and gift certificates to buy clothes. That's really what I wanted for the most part.

On Christmas day we had a nice breakfast, opened the rest of our presents, and had family over for a bigger dinner. After eating a lot of food we watched football on TV.

Everything was just how it was supposed to be.

Three Things Test

2004-12-21T15:59:00.000-08:00

From Melissa

Three names you go by: Curtis, Curt, Red

Three screen names you have: Alyoshka, Nextkresge, fakecurtis

Three things you like about yourself: Red hair, sense of humor, memory

Three things you dislike about yourself: Too sensitive about somethings, overthink stuff, and too trusting at times.

Three parts of your heritage: Irish, American, Sioux

Three things that scare you: Future job, current administration, impeding grades

Three of your everyday essentials: diet coke, laughter, and talking with friends

Three things you are wearing right now: khakis, blue shirt, black shoes

Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment): Wilco, Drive-ByTruckers, Stephen Kellogg

Three of your favorite songs at present: Wilco's Jesus, Etc., James's Laid, and The They Might Be Giants' Anna Ng

Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months: Korean food,skydiving, and running a marathon

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given): Commitment, laid back, lots of humor

Two truths and a lie: I was a radio deejay, I have been in a coma, andI my favorite food is spaghetti.

Three physical things about the opposite sex (or same) that appeal to you: athletic (not overly so), nice smile, and unassuming

Three things you just can't do: Hold my tongue, act surprised at"surprise" parties, feign liking someone

Three of your favorite hobbies: Watching movies, making up stupid skits with my friends when I'm drunk, and reading non-stop.

Three things you want to do really badly right now: Get off work, find some caffeine (no soda machine in this little office), and read somemore shit about secured transactions (err...maybe A Short History ofNearly Everything)

Three careers you're considering: Lawyer, acting like a lawyer, and standing around the court house.

Three places you want to go on vacation: Hungary, Vietnam, and West Africa

Three kids' names: Micah, Catherine, Leah

Three things you want to do before you die: I dunno maybe hike a mountain, camp for a week, and see all the major art museums in NYC and Paris.

Three people you want to take this quiz: Whoever reads me and doesn'thave their own blog ought to email me what they think

Driving to Austin

2004-12-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

I went down to Austin on Thursday to meet with a couple of professors of theater who are thinking about including my most recent play in their production series. From how it sounds it is because it is a very character driven play.

One of the interesting things about meeting with them was how professional the entire meeting was. I'm really nothing special when it comes to writing, but I've fallen into the right opportunities. That is the only thing that has set me apart from other people who write. Somehow I made the right contacts. It is weird that I have found my way when I have friends who seem to be more talented.

Anyhow, they are very professional when you meet with them. They seem to be impressed with my work and what I had to say. It's was quite a bit of fun. I'm not sure if it will happen or not, but I was one of the local playwrights that they wished to talk to about the upcoming series.

Passing By

2004-12-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

Today I was driving out to my friend's house for some lunch. I wasn't paying much attention, because of my cell phone. I know, in a lot of places it is illegal to talk on your cell phone while you're driving without a headset. However, I wasn't talking on it, but retrieving it after it fell down by my feet. See, a few weeks ago I bought this little pad that is supposed to hold your cell phone. The surface of it is a little bit tacky, which helps the phone to stay put. At least, they said that it was supposed to hold the phone. It didn't this time so the phone fell down and caused a lot of noise and misery.

I didn't get into a wreck, but I was close to it. What happened was that I cut off this car and then my foot, while I was trying to kick the cell phone out from under my clutch pedal, hit the brakes and caused me to almost schreech to a halt. The person behind me schreech and a couple cars honked. I continued to try to find my cell phone.

Then the car that I cut off and stopped short on passed me. I saw that it was a student driver car! And, if this wasn't enough, to add insult to injury the student driver was like 40 years old. She's learning to drive with assholes like me on the road.

Study the Night Away

2004-12-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

I will be back with more interesting things soon to come. Truth or fiction: I studied in the library today from 8am until 6pm?

What if I told you, from about 8pm until 12am I will continue my studying? 14 hours of studying in one day can't be true, can it?

Taking Exams

2004-12-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

I had my first exam on Friday in Consumer Law. It's a course that deals with a lot of deceptive trade practice laws, some contract issues like misrepresentations and warranties, and things like credit and debt statutes.

Anyhow, I did horribly on the exam. Law school exams are notorious for presenting students with long (often 5-10 page), convoluted fact scenarios. The facts suggest various issues that an informed student will "spot." This is the practice of issue spotting. A good fact scenario will have, oh, maybe 20-30 issues that can be discussed. Sometimes there are more and sometimes less depending on the subject matter and the way the professor writes exams.

This particular exam had six different legal actors who could be in court over the sell of real estate. The consumers (husband, wife, and child), the real estate agent who worked for the sellers, the sellers, and the roofing company. Some of the issues were cross-cutting issues that applied to multiple parties.

The exam presented this question that involved the consumers purchasing their first home. They called the agent when they saw the house. Scheduled a time to come and see it. When they got there the interior of the house and roof were being redone because of an alleged hail storm. Anyhow, they were rushed into the purchase by the agent, the sellers lied about the condition of the home, the roofers did a crappy job, and there were warranties, including an as-is warranty, out the wazzou.

The call of the question was to list all claims and remedies the home buyers have against the three other entities.

I should have just stopped when I saw it.

Whatever have I done?

2004-12-10T05:53:00.000-08:00

From Michelle's Thoughts on Life

directions:
[1] copy and paste into your livejournal/blog
[2] bold any that pertain to you*

I'll change to light green

01. I miss somebody right now.
02. I watch more tv than I used to.
03. I love olives.
04. I love sleeping.
05. I own lots of books.
06. I wear glasses or contact lenses.
07. I love to play video games.
08. I've tried marijuana.
09. I've watched porn movies.
10. I have been in a threesome.
11. I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship
12. I believe honesty is usually the best policy.
13. I have acne free skin.
14. I like and respect Al Sharpton.
15. I curse frequently.
16. I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.
17. I have a hobby.
18. I've been told I have a nice butt.
19. I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.
20. I'm really smart. I'm not a genius, just smart.
21. I've never broken someone else's bones.
22. I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal.
23. I love rain.
24. I'm paranoid at most times.
25. I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar free.
26. I need money right now.
27. I love sushi.
28. I talk really, really fast.
29. I have fresh breath in the morning.
30. I have semi-long hair.
31. I have lost money in Las Vegas.
32. I have at least one brother and/or one sister.
33. I was born in a country outside of the U.S.
34. I shave my legs.
35. I have a twin.
36. I couldn't survive without caller I.D.
37. I have made homemade peanut butter.
38. I like the way that I look.
39. I have lied to a good friend in the past 6 months.
40. I know how to do cornrows.
41. I am usually pessimistic.
42. I have mood swings.
43. I think prostitution should be legalized.
44. I think Britney Spears is pretty.
45. I have cheated on a significant other.
46. I have a hidden talent.
47. I'm always hyper no matter how much sugar I have.
48. I think that I'm popular.
49. I am currently single.
50. I have kissed someone of the same sex.
51. I enjoy talking on the phone.
52. I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants.
53. I love to shop.
54. I would rather shop than eat.
55. I would classify myself as ghetto.
56. I'm bourgie and have worn a sweater tied around my shoulders.
57. I'm obsessed with my LJ/blog.
58. I dont hate anyone.
59. I'm a pretty good dancer.
60. I don't think Mike Tyson raped Desiree Washington.
61. I'm completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother.
62. I have a cell phone.
63. I watch MTV on a daily basis.
64. I have days when I just wish I could just leave everyone and everything behind.
65. I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months
67. I have never been in a real relationship before.
68. I've rejected someone before.
69. I've graduated college.
70. I have no idea what i want to do for the rest of my life.
71. I want to have children in the future.
72. I have changed a diaper before.
73. I've had the cops called on me before.
74. I bite my nails sometimes
75. I am a member of the Tom Green fan club.
76. I'm not allergic to anything deadly.
77. I have a lot to learn.
78. I have dated someone at least 10 years older or younger...
79. I plan on seeing Ice Cube's newest "Friday" movie.
80. I am very shy around the opposite sex.
81. I'm online 24/7, even as an away message.
82. I have at least 5 away messages saved.
83. I have tried alcohol before.
84. I have made a move on a friend's significant other in the past.
85. I own the "South Park" movie.
86. I have avoided assignments at work/school to be on Xanga/Livejournal/Blogspot.
87. When I was a kid I played "the birds and the bees" with a neighbor or chum.
88. I enjoy country music.
90. I think that Pizza Hut has the best pizza.
91. I watch soap operas whenever I can.
92. I'm obsessive, anal retentive, and often a perfectionist.
93. I have used my sexuality to advance my career.
94. I love Michael Jackson, scandals and all.
95. I know all the words to Slick Rick's "Children's Story".
96. Halloween is awesome because you get free candy.
97. I watch Spongebob Squarepants and I like it.
98. I have dated a close friend's ex.
99. I'm happy as of this moment.
100. I have gone scuba diving.
101. I've had a crush on somebody I've never met.
102. Kissed someone I knew I shouldn't.
103. I play(ed) a musical instrument.
104. I strongly dislike math.
105. I'm procrastinating with something right now.
106. I own and use a library card.
107. I fall in 'lust' more than in 'love.'
108. Cheese enchiladas rock my socks.
109. I think The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest things ever.
110. I'm obsessed with the TV show "Lost."
111. I think Beyblades is the coolest show in coolsville.
112. There are more things i could be better at, if only i tried harder.
113. Sometimes I don't like food.
114. I worry sometimes that I'm not being the best friend I could be to the people I care about.
115. I desperately want people to respect me, but it rarely happens.
116. I have never been able to say anything positive about myself and truly believe it.
117. I am bisexual.
118. I think Scottish accents are very attractive.
119. I'm very neurotic.
120. I speak another language besides English.
121. I joke about eating, shaking, and kicking babies.
122. I'm most likely to spend my money on music.

Fighting Fogerty

2004-12-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

I've got a final tomorrow, which I mentioned to my neighbor below a few days ago. Tonight he was blaring his music (note: he's in his 40s and acts like a college freshman) down below. I tried to tolerate it, but I got frustrated and stomped on the floor. A few minutes later he showed up at my door angry because it disturbed him. This made me even more mad, so I started to yell at him. He yelled back a little more and told me that he didn't appreciate my stomping. Of course, I yelled that I didn't appreciate the bass coming from his "vacumn-tube" speakers. Eventually I shut the door on him and packed my stuff to go elsewhere to study.

The Cat's Out of the Bag

2004-12-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

My apartment complex doesn't allow pets of any kind. No dogs, cats, frogs, birds, or lizards. Ok, I think you can have fish as long as the aquarium isn't too large, but nothing the breathes without gills. I don't know the rule actually, but I am certain that cats and dogs aren't allowed.

This creates a real problem for me because I have a little cat, Sophia, who enjoys living in the same apartment complex with me. I learned this the hard way, because when I first moved in to this place I took her to my parents. I figured that she could live with them for a year while I finished school. It won't be long before I move into a townhouse or house. I will get Sophia back then and she'll be as happy as can be.

That idea when really far wrong. She has a bit of a temper problem when it comes to interacting with other animals. I should probably take you back in time a little to explain this further.

Let's imagine that this is April, a several months ago, and I'm getting stressed about finals. I decide that I want to adopt an abandoned cat, because I'm such a caring and nice person. I find out that the Petsmart near my apartment sells SPCA cats for eighty bucks. I go and hold this female cat named Sophia. She's a beautiful Maine Coon cat with calico long hair. She purrs, I grin, my friend thinks it's cool, and my other roommate (this friend that is present is the other roomie) agree to having a cat. Her little tag said a couple things that made her not such a good find for many people: she is almost 3 years old (people like kittens) and she is "very sweet to humans, but she doesn't get along with other animals." Well, I want an older cat and I don't have any other pets. She comes home with me.

Move ahead to a couple months ago: Sophia and I move into this new pet-free apartment. I drive her home to Wichita after a couple weeks. I stay for a few days and then leave her there. When I left she wasn't all that happy with the family cat. Actually, they both hated each other. We hoped that she would learn to get along.

A few weeks later my mom returns her to me. This leaves me with the task of keeping her hidden while I'm at school. I usually shut her in my room when I go with a little sign on the door that says something about how I was out late and that you should leave the papers on the table. The sign is addressed to one of my friends. It's all just a ploy to keep maintenance people from entering my room, and finding the cat, if they come by.

Well, they came by twice this month and found her once. The first time was just as I envisioned it. I was gone at school, and they came to change the filter on my a/c and heater. Then they came again when I was here to look for the source of the cigarette smell that comes from my downstairs neighbor. They found here when I was here with her.

I hear the door knock, so I hide her stuff and put her in my room. I noticed that she's sticking her paw under the door, because she's a social cat (remember, sweet to humans), so I go into my room and put her in my walk in closet. That door doesn't latch but it has a strong magnet that holds it shut. I go out to the kitchen and watch this guy taping stuff up. All of a sudden he says, "I wasn't expecting someone else."

Yikes. I look down and there is Sophia looking up at us. She was just checking out what we were doing. I guess that she pushed her way out of the closet and pulled open the other door, because I didn't completely latch it.

The maintenance guy was actually pretty cool about it. He said that he wouldn't tell the management about it.

Shrek Marathon

2004-12-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

Dominos finally convinced me that I should let her come over for a Shrek Marathon. I decided that it was an alright idea, in large part, because I don't have my first final exam until Friday.

I went out and bought a little thing of wine, Captain Morgans, and ordered us a pizza. It turns out she doesn't really like wine, so I'm going to save that for a rainy day, but she does love Captain's and Coke. I knew this, so I bought it especially for her tastes. I gave it a shot and decided that it was alright. I'm not a huge fan though.

We started the first Shrek a little before the pizza arrived. We were busy watching the movie when her phone rang. After she talked for a minute she gave the phone to me. Her girlfriend wanted to know if we would come to a bar in Addison, because of some sort of an ex being there and wanting to make the ex jealous. She said that she'd buy me a shot, so I agreed to coming out there for a little while.

The pizza came so we decided to eat it for a few minutes. After a couple slices we took off for the bar. I met her friend, had a shot, a few beers, danced a little, met two of this friend's exes, and then convinced the friend that Dominos and I had to leave.

We went back, at this point I was pretty drunk, to ostensibly finish watching the two Shreks. We did watch both of them but there was a lot of making out during it. She left around midnight to go back to her place.

All in all, the Shrek Marathon wasn't too bad. My overall impression of Dominos is still not all that great. I'm just not feeling it.

Ending it All

2004-11-30T19:37:00.000-08:00

Today was the parting party for the criminal defense clinic. This semester I served at a chief counsel in the clinic, so I'm completely done now. No more clients until I graduate and no more fun times in the clinic. It's sad to say goodbye to it, but I will gladly take the memories.

The point of this post isn't to pontificate about my feelings about law and cool clinics. No, I intend to say a few things about the party that we had. First of all, I didn't have anything alcoholic to drink despite the fact others were buying. That's odd. I've got finals on my mind, so I don't want to hinder myself. Second, we sat at this long table. I think that most people know what happens when you get a lot of people and a long table: conversations get become separated into smaller groups. It's just like you have two or three separate tables. I ended up in the middle. This makes things even worse because you are on the outskirts of two conversations. I didn't really like that, so after thirty or so minutes I pulled up a chair with the group that I preferred.

All in all a fun little party.

The Sunday Reveal

2004-11-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

This weekend I'll go ahead and reveal a couple of the posts this week, one lie and one truth. Recently there have been a few more lies because my life is currently boring.

Litter Bugs is a lie, well, technically a white lie. There was a litter bug running around the parking lot who threw a white styrofoam cup into the bushes. I'm not sure why he did this. What pisses me off is that it creates extra work for people who are working their asses off already. I don't like it when people treat janitors, gardeners, house cleaners, etc like scum. The gardeners job at this apartment complex isn't to pick up our shit. We have dumpsters to put our trash in. However, I didn't say anything to the guy when I walked over to pick up the trash he threw into the bushes. Instead I just stared him down when he walked by me.

Finding MILFS was a true post. There were actually two days that I got to play with my nephew and niece in the mall play zone. People often say that getting a puppy to take on walks or to the park is the best way to attract girls. This is wrong, it might be a good way, but I think that the best way is a little child. Girls seemed to love seeing a guy playing with two little kids. When you're playing with your little ones it isn't long before the other kids want to join. Soon you're playing with a group of kids and the mothers love you too.

The second day was even better because it was a weekday during the day. A lot of the women with children seemed to be nannies. Nannies are a good group too.

Finally Studying

2004-11-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

After a day of not doing anything all that productive, I decided that today I would get some work done. I slept in a little this morning and skipped my daily workout routine so that I could get my swerve on. I think that swerve means writing a paper for your death penalty class.

Footnoting a paper is not fun. If anyone ever tells you that footnotes are cool you should immediately punch them in the gut. They need to rethink their negative course in life. A good punch to the stomach will definitely change things for them.

I turned on the TV so that I could have some sports on in the background. A lot of people think that watching TV is a distraction. In my experience it is no different than listening to music in the background. Both of them are just white noise for me in the background that help me concentrate a little more on what I'm doing. I'm a little ADD with some things, so I need to have a little distraction.

I finished the paper and started work on my resume. I now have two different versions of my resume that are a little different depending on who I apply with. One is more conservative while the other is a little more liberal. Nothing is a lie in it...just the experiences change and the way I order things.

After that I read, and tried to memorize, ten pages of my consumer law outline. That's a little more fun for me than footnoting, but I'd still suckerpunch the fool who enjoys studying for law school finals.

After it got to be about ten p.m. I decided that it was time to watch a few episodes of Playmakers. I haven't seen any of it yet, so I decided to rent it from Blockbusters. My initial thoughts are that it's pretty out there. It's like they wanted a mixture of Any Given Sunday and Boston Public. I can understand why the NFL pressured ESPN to stop producing the show.

Now it's about time for me to head to bed. Tomorrow is going to be filled with more marathon studying.

I hope that everyone is having a good Thanksgiving weekend.

Not Studying

2004-11-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

It's crunch time with law exams around the corner and I'm watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. How foolish.

An Early Thanksgiving

2004-11-23T17:54:00.000-08:00

This weekend my family was visiting me in town, so I was able to spend a lot of time with them. The visit made me happy because I will be unable to go home this Thanksgiving due to the stress of school. I have to write a paper, study for finals, and continue in my job search.

My mother and grandmother came from Wichita on Tuesday. For a couple of days they stayed in Fort Worth with relatives I had not met. My mom came to Dallas on Thursday to hang out with me, my sister, and my little nephew and niece. Then on Friday they went back to Fort Worth after a morning and lunch hanging out. My sister went back to her home in Killeen.

On Saturday I went out to Fort Worth to have an early Thanksgiving celebration with the extended family. I hadn't really met any of them before this week, so I was excited to be there. It was surprising how many friendly relatives I had who I didn't know. Not to mention, there were a lot of cute cousins that I had never met, so I'm glad to know they are family. A few of them live in Dallas, so I know to watch out for the distant cousins when I'm out at a bar. All in all, it was a lot of fun to meet them all. It made my grandmother really happy as she is quite proud of me.

If I don't get to go home for Thanksgiving, this made it better.

Litter Bugs

2004-11-21T23:30:00.000-08:00

This evening when I was walking out to my car I noticed another vehicle driving into the parking lot. I decided to stall for a minute, because I didn't want that vehicle to take my prime parking spot right as I was leaving. I walked around for a minute and the driver circled off. Then I got into my car and shut the door so my light wouldn't be shining. The guy eventually parked and walked across the parking lot towards his apartment. He was drinking something from one of those white Styrofoam cups as he passed my truck. He didn't notice me sitting in the truck (mission accomplished), but I noticed him throw his trash into some nearby bushes.

I'm not a big fan of people who litter, in this case there was absolutely no excuse as he was twenty feet from his apartment, or of litter being left around. I decided to go and get the trash and possibly put that cup on in his windshield wiper so that he would see it the next day. I walked over and retrieved the empty cup and decided to take it over to the dumpster. At this point the guy walks back out of his apartment and sort of saw what I was doing. He went to another car (possibly his wife's car?) and got a bag from it. Then when he was trying to avoid any eye contact with me, I blurted out, "try not to throw that into the bushes." He looked over sort of sheepishly and walked back into his apartment.

I'm not sure why I get so confrontational about things. I'm not all that large of a person, I never lift weights or box or anything, so I'm pretty sure most people would destroy me in a fight. Strangely enough I'm constantly saying shit that I really don't need to say. In this situation, however, I would have kicked the guy's ass if he had tried anything.

Finding the "MILFs"

2004-11-18T20:31:00.000-08:00

A few members of my family came to visit me for the weekend. This included my mom, grandmother, sister, and my sisters boy and girl. The normal routine is that I will go and meet them, grab some dinner, and follow them around while they shop.

Today I got stuck on diaper duty with the my niece and nephew. While my mom and sister went shopping, they left me behind in some child play area in the mall. It was actually a cool area with these different breakfast items that the kids could play on. The floor and the structures were all soft enough that the falls wouldn't hurt anyone.

They played and I watched them running around. Oh, my niece is almost 2 and my nephew is almost 5, so it was all very cute. However, it wasn't long before I noticed all these hot women hanging out with their kids. Some of them were married but many weren't. Score!

Now I just need to figure out how to find a little kid to take to the mall with me on a regular basis.

Monday Night Football Fights

2004-11-16T21:04:00.000-08:00

I watched Monday Night Football at a bar yesterday with a group of my friends. We were upset because our Dallas Cowboys were feeling the pain. My frustration was only increased when a table near us switched from being Dallas fans to suddenly being fans of the Eagles. It didn't make any sense. At the beginning of the game they were yelling for the Cowboys. I guess that they didn't like cheering for the loser, so they decided to change their team in the middle of the game. Well, they got louder and more obnoxious as the game when on, so I eventually got louder too. They didn't like it when I let them know that if they didn't shut up on their own accord, I would help them do it. No. They actually seemed to be quite upset by this, but I had a few of my friends on my own side. While punches weren't thrown...there was a lot of yelling back and forth. Fun times.

Not taking Advantage

2004-11-14T19:02:00.000-08:00

I've been called on a few times by Dominos. First was last week on Tuesday when she called to see what I was up to. I felt a little bad that I had given up on her, or on us, so I said we should get together. She agreed, and we decided that we would get together on Saturday. I figured that I might as well use her persistence as a way to get some action, right?

I suggested that we go out to dinner and rent a movie. She agreed and told me to call her back with the specifics. I let her know that I had a presentation and studying for the MPRE examination, so I probably wouldn't be able to call her for awhile. Indeed, I forgot to call her on Wednesday and Thursday. I went out on Friday, so it wasn't until later that I saw I missed her call. I called her back that night (she was drunk), but she didn't pick up because she had passed out.

Come Saturday, we talk on the phone, and I cancel. I didn't want to deal with a last minute thing. Then she called me earlier today. I didn't answer the phone, because I had the ringer off. I still haven't called her back to let her know that I don't want to do anything right now. She wanted to come over for a "Shrek Marathon." I haven't seen either of the Shrek movies, so I wasn't really motivated to see them right now.

This whole situation is unfortunate. Why don't I just make her happy and take advantage of her?

Matt Nathanson Concert

2004-11-12T23:35:00.000-08:00

Oh what a night. If only it were late Decemeber.

I don't have much to say about my own experience. I had a number of beers, sang aloud a lot, saw a few people I knew, and enjoyed the show. I do have some other extraneous observations.

A. We ignored first homeless guy and walked on.

B. Biggity didn't have to pay for his ticket; the girl waved him in.

C. Beer was fucking expensive. Almost four bucks a bottle.

D. Girl danced around like a maniac during the opening band. At times it seemed like a little deer prancing. She also had a scarf that she played around with. She looked alright.

E. The urinal holes were shaped like a penis. I'm starting to believe this was intentional.

F. The singer for the opening band (Duo of Threesome or Duo of Triplet or something stupid) tried to drink his beer a little too quickly which caused it to overflow. Not smooth.

G. Girl flashed me and friends by lower her tube top for us.

H. I think that she believed I owed her access to my ass. She grabbed it a few times through the rest of the night.

I. Two girls attempted to dance with me despite my total lack of interest.

J. Matt Nathanson kicked ass.

K. Second homeless guy was given a dollar by me.

That is all.

The Corrections

2004-11-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Today was the day that I had to give my presentation in Death Penalty Project. Overall, I think that I did a pretty good job. There were two groups (four presenters) who worked together to pull together a collective presentation. Each of us took about 20 minutes to discuss our issues. I noted a few things I should work on in presentations.

1. Memorize. I think it helps when you don't have to look at the slides, or notes, in order to discuss your subject. Maybe refer to them but just a starting point. Then discuss the gist of that and allow the people watching to read the slides.

2. Speak slower. I go really fast when I get nervous. This is different from my normal speech pattern. Normal speech pattern, for me, being ass backwards slow. Oh well.

3. Eye contact. It sort of goes with why I should memorize the material. It's nice to make eye contact with people.

That's really about everything I can think of improving. Like I said, I think that I did an alright job overall. I am glad to be done.

Presentation Block

2004-11-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

These past couple days I've been cooped up in my apartment trying to organize a paper and power point presentation. I simply am not able to do it. It isn't a matter of knowledge on the subject. Reading of articles has been non-stop, so I'm not concerned about that. I could talk to someone for hours about the subject, but I wouldn't want to because it's sort of boring. My problem is just organizing it into a neat little power point presentation.

How do you business people do it? I can't figure it out.

Anyhow, this should be going for another day or so, and then I'll do the presentation on Wednesday.

The Ole Miss and a Turtle

2004-11-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening I was innocently walking to where I start my daily run when I heard a couple deep voices arguing. I looked around and noticed a guy, who I suspect is a drug dealer, in his convertible yelling at one of my neighbors.

My neighbor, Ole Miss, is a really, really old retiree who walks around with his wife a lot. He walks pretty slow; I blame it on his cane. There have been a few situations where I was walking down the path to get my mail and wound up stuck behind Ole Miss and his wife, which resulted in a delay of a couple hours. The guy he was arguing with has a nice black Mercedes with a Kerry sticker and he looks like a bouncer or defensive lineman.

Even though I wouldn't be able to assist, I stuck around to see if the Ole Miss was about to get his ass kicked. I was doing my stretches while listening to the fight go on about where you should get your news. Ole Miss was saying that he likes Fox News because he's an old man and knows when he's being lied to. The Dealer was yelling that Fox News, ABC, all of that is biased and they lie to you. His contention was that to get a fair understanding of what's happening in politics you have to watch C-Span. Then he yelled about how the Wall Street Journal was where you can read about the news but not The Dallas Morning News or NY Times.

My confusion was why this fight was occurring at the time it was? I mean The Dealer had his car in the middle of the parking lot and was trying to leave. The Ole Miss had his hand on the car like that would stop it from leaving. They were both upset with one another but why did the fight even begin? The Dealer finally drove off in a fury. I'm sure Ole Miss was envious of his speed. Then I ran off.

On my run I noticed a little turtle on the sidewalk. It was no bigger than the size of a walnut, so I guess it just hatched from its egg. I picked it up and carried it down to the grass near a lake so it can have a good life instead of being stomped by a kid thinking it's a walnut. When I got back to my apartment the Ole Miss was still outside looking a little confused, so I went up to tell him about the Turtle. He got a big smile and said that he's always had a special place in his heart for turtles, because he would buy little baby turtles at the dime store as a child.

Ole Miss is blowing my mind. Fox News, fighting with The Dealer, and buying baby turtles...what a life.

Running Over This Thing

2004-11-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

When you go on runs do you hate it when you hit those little manhole covers? Seriously...

I think that there is a huge problem with having these things around because they go clang when you hit them. I'm not sure why it bothers me so much, but I always end up stepping on them during my runs. Then I hear this clang noise and want to run faster because I get scared. When I get scared the people running around me seem to get nervous.

Today I clanged and sort of darted off it. This girl who I just passed probably thought I was nuts. Very strange if you ask me, but I guess that this is just the way things go sometimes. You run over the manhole covers and make girls hate you.

Clang.

All for Free

2004-11-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

This evening I went with a few friends to a popular restaurant where we got food for half off and some beer for free. All of this was because one of the girls is married to the manager. It was nice to get the food half off. After the restaurant closed we got to stick around and drink some beer, talk to some of the waitresses, and just have a good time. I'm not sure why any of this is cool but it was fun. You ought to give it a try sometime. I wish that guys got free drinks more often.

Who Drank the Wine?

2004-11-01T21:23:00.000-08:00

This evening I was running around in circles as I tryed to network with as many people as I could, however, it was hampered by my drunken state. I was invited, by my summer employer, to a fund raising banquet for their organization. They are a great non-profit that outsources pro bono participation in a type of law I am interested in practicing.

I drove over to the art museum where this shin-dig was located and noticed that a bunch of valets were swarming around the museum. There is no way I'm going to let someone valet my sweet car. Oh, it is a sweet ass truck replete with manual lock doors and a clutch. I drove off to a lot where you could pay to park, threw my five bucks into the box, and ran across the street to find my friends.

Everyone was there! Friends from school who had nothing to do with this organization, friends who were there this summer, my co-workers, my arch-enemy from school, and a bunch of old people. That is right there were a ton of old people running around with their wine. I decided that I should follow there lead. The wine guy and I became fast friends.

After enough running around with glass after glass of wine I decided it was time to start networking. I told as many people as I could that I was already drunk and needed a summer job. For whatever reasons nobody made me an offer. Before long I decided that I had spent more than enough time with my arch-enemy and decided to go home. However, I stopped to grab a sandwich at Potbellys because they are awesome. Then I watched football with more alcohol.

To sum up the evening: Wine, arch enemies, networking for idiots, meatball sub, beer, and football.

Now I'll pass out.

Late Night Trickery

2004-10-31T14:36:00.000-08:00

I went out last night in my costume with a few friends. Some of you might want to know what I decided to dress as for Halloween this year. Well, I can tell you that my outfit was better than your outfit. Actually, it probably wasn't unless you're one of those people who don't dress up for Halloween. Why do you not get a costume? It's a lot of fun. You should start wearing costumes for Halloween.

My costume this year was a Jared outfit. That's right, I found a mask a couple of years ago for Jared. I didn't go as Jared at the time, but since decided it is high time to go as Jared. I put on the mask, wore some khakis, threw on a bland shirt and bought a footlong to carry around. I was the thin king.

Some interesting things that I saw:

1) A lot of people who didn't want to dress up because they didn't think it was cool. They looked like losers.

2) Two guys (one dressed like the Rock and the other in a Ladybug costume) who were eating hotdogs from a street vender like they were practicing for the hotdog eating olympics. They each had about 5 or 6 on my watch.

3) Girl telling me that she had nothing under her little devil outfit and begged me to lift it up and see.

4) Another girl telling me that she had a boyfriend.

5) Guy telling me not to offer his girlfriend drinks

6) Guy not happy when I tell him that it takes a special guy to go out dressed like R Kelly.

7) Guy pissed off at this but later dancing like a madman to an R Kelly song that came on. I think he secretly lusts after the young ones. He was in his 40s (I would guess) and this girl was not over 25.

It was a fun night down at the clubs.

No Dry Spells

2004-10-29T12:24:00.000-07:00

The Whiner came back over last night. She came by a couple weeks ago after she broke up with her boyfriend to see me. I refused to do anything besides let her stay the night. I suppose because I'm conflicted, and because I didn't want to take advantage of her. Last night was fun and is better described by someone else.

Jen described last night as this:

he leans over and kisses me. Soft, full lips meeting mine, his warm tongue darting out to explore and I suck on it. I explore his face with deft fingers, trace his lower lip with my thumb and he sucks it into his mouth. Our mouths meet again. More intense. Hunger and need. We won’t let go. He pulls me onto his lap and snakes a hand up under my skirt to finger my lacy panties while kissing me.

He carries me upstairs to his bed. He holds my head against his chest, under his chin.

He peels my clothes off, damp from the rain. He peels my panties off, damp from wanting him. He presses his body on mine, his warm skin heating me, his arms on the bed on either side of me, his hands holding my hair from my forehead as he locks his mouth on mine.

And then the dance. The panting. Eyes watching me in the dark. Gently, gently, he moves around me and in me, claiming me in every possible sense, his scent on me, his fingers twisted in my hair as he gasps out. His heart beating to the rhythm of the rain.

Almost exactly the same. However, she started with a date, dinner, and running through the rain. We started with her calling me at 10 to see if she could randomly drop by, watching some Letterman, and then starting to make out.

Afterwards I made her listen to Ryan Adams (the happy stuff) and played around until it was time for her to head home.

Nine Layers

2004-10-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

LAYER ONE:
Name: Curtis
Birth date: Feb. 23, 1979
Birthplace: Wichita, KS
Current Location: Dallas, TX
Eye Color: Auburn red
Hair Color: Green
Height: 6'0
Righty or Lefty: Right
Zodiac Sign: Pices

LAYER TWO:
Your heritage: 3/4 Irish; 1/8 Norwegian; 1/8 Sioux
The shoes you wore today: sweet ass brown leather shoes
Your weakness: ice cream, girls, beer (in order that varies depending on the day)
Your fears: Losing myself in spite of you.
Your perfect pizza: Pepperoni
Goal you’d like to achieve: Defend a death penalty case

LAYER THREE:
Your most overused phrase on AIM: I'm sorry, I didn't know I was signed in
Your first waking thoughts: This early?
Your best physical feature: Hair
Your most missed memory: Runs with my mom

LAYER FOUR:
Pepsi or Coke: Diet Coke
McDonald’s or Burger King: BK
Group/Single Dates: Single dates
Adidas or Nike: Adidas (Saucony if I can go outside the two)
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Lipton
Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate
Cappuccino or coffee: Coffee (black)

LAYER FIVE:
Smoke: No
Cuss: Sure
Sing: Yep, badly too
Take a shower everyday: Yes, usually right after I run
Do you think you’ve been in love: Yes
Want to go to college: Never again.
Liked high school: Loved it
Want to get married: Probably
Believe in yourself: Not Usually
Get motion sickness: Nope
Think you’re attractive: Not at all, but I don't think I'm actively unattractive
Think you’re a health freak: Sort of
Get along with your parent(s): Yes, from a distance.
Like thunderstorms: When I'm inside
Play an instrument: Guitar

LAYER SIX: In the past month…
Drank alcohol: Yes
Smoked: No
Done a drug: No
Made Out: Yes
Gone on a date: Yes
Gone to the mall?: Yes
Eaten an entire box of Oreos?: No
Eaten sushi: No
Been on stage: No
Been dumped: No
Gone skating: No
Made homemade cookies: Yes (they sucked)
Dyed your hair: No
Stolen Anything: No

LAYER SEVEN: Ever…
Played a game that required removal of clothing: Yes
If so, was it mixed company: Yes
Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Yes
Been caught “doing something”: No
Been called a tease: No
Gotten beaten up: No
Shoplifted: No
Changed who you were to fit in: No

LAYER EIGHT:
Age you hope to be married: Whenever I fall in love with the right person
Numbers and Names of Children: Zero, but in case of compromise or accident: Micah, Elijah, Hannah
Describe your Dream Wedding: Probably eloping.
How do you want to die: Accident; tragedy.
Where you want to go to college: Went.
What do you want to be when you grow up: Retired.
What country would you most like to visit: Russia.

LAYER NINE:
Number of drugs taken illegally: 0
Number of people I could trust with my life: 4
Number of CDs that I own: 300
Number of piercings: 0
Number of tattoos: 0
Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper?: 20ish
Number of scars on my body: 3, from the same accident
Number of things in my past that I regret: 5 or 6

[Found at Quo Vado]

Witnessing the Wedding

2004-10-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

This evening I went to a birthday party of my friend Winter. She turned 25 today, so she was ready to party when she figured out we had planned a surprise party. It turned out that she was actually surprised. Usually those things don't work out to surprise anyone.

It's difficult for me to type because I had about six rapid shots with Winter and a couple of her friends. One of the girls at the party, who I don't know, but she kept talking about Wham, was pretty hot.

Wham girl was interested in hooking up with a guy. She was telling me that she had never had sex in the rain. I mentioned that I hadn't either but that I would think it would be a little risky on a night like tonight when there was lightening. Wham thought that the lightening would make it a lot more exciting.

After a few shots I started to like Wham despite the fact that she was annoying. Out of respect for Winter's birthday party I decided that it wouldn't be cool to leave the party to try to hook up with Wham in the rain.

Being respectful is often a bad decision.

Skipping Through Puddles

2004-10-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

Today I thought about skipping class because despite the weather reports to the contrary, the weather was nice outside. It wasn't too warm and wasn't too cold. More importantly there wasn't any rain to hinder activities like running.

I had a meeting at school over lunch, so I had to be at school. Once the meeting got done I was going to take off to White Rock Lake to lazily run around the lake. The meeting, unfortunately, went longer than I thought it would run, so I decided that I would stay at school and go to class.

My one class today was Consumer Law, which is the course where I once discussed doing poorly when I was called on via the Socratic Method. The meeting finished within ten minutes of that class starting, so I figured I might as well attend since I was already at school, and I could go on my run when class gets finished.

During class I raised my hand to answer some hypos because the Professor wanted participation rather than calling on people. I have some sort of sick sympathy for professors when students are in the mood to be interactive. It makes me feel guilty, so I'll usually chime in. I typically know the answers so it isn't very painful.

In the middle of the questions there was a loud bang from outside and the walls shook. The storm had come during the class. 45 minutes into class and it starts to pour outside with all sorts of lightening and thunder. So much for going on a run outside today.

The problem was that even though I brought an umbrella, the weather reports forecasted rain storms, I also wore a pair of new shoes. They are great shoes too! The roads around here get all flooded because Dallas doesn't know what to do with rain, so when class got out I avoided going to my car. I figured it would be worth waiting a bit to see if the rain would let up some.

Didn't happen.

I had to make a run out to the car where I attempted to jump over puddles. My shoes were still plenty wet (I'm sorry leather), so I'm worried that they are going to be screwed up. At least when I bought them, a few days ago, the salesman sprayed them with some sort of a watersealant.

Now it's time to put on a swimsuit and flip flops to run through the rain and puddles with friends.