Previously Unpublished

The garden! On the balcony. I will blog about that next.

Or maybe about seeing my heart during a recent physical. That was pretty crazy as well.

-jd

I thought I’d post a blog again.

Post.

Ah, that’s lame. So much to say all the time and yet my esq. prevents the best of it from reaching the prying eyes of the internets. Let’s see, where to begin. Well, going backwards in time…I just grilled myself a london broil, which will be good eats from now until Thursday. I’m drinking some white wine and listening to jazz. Specifically, I’m listening to Miles Davis “It Never Entered My Mind.” Earlier, I bookmarked “Don’t Explain” by the Dexter Gordon Quartet. I also billed approximately 8.4 hours today, which is pretty good considering I don’t usually make court appearances.

In the broader scheme, the Cards’ season is all but lost since they’ve just lost there fifth, maybe sixth game in a row. I think maybe this year, I’ll determine to get into football…either college or NFL (probably the latter since I didn’t go to a PAC-10 school or one that even really had much more than a flag football team). I’ve also recently looked into joining the local astronomy club and writer’s critique circle. Both groups would seem to be a good way to make friends since I’m rather isolated from old friends and classmates by my move for work. It’s all good though since solitude is necessary for both tragic writing and good star gazing.

Let’s see. That’s about all for now. As promised many times in the past…I’ll try to find a new theme given that law school is all said and done. For now…look for summaries of what I’m eating and listening to as often as possible. Oh…House is returning to television tonight. HIMYM is next week!

-jd

Went off espresso this past week. Well, I had a single shot in a demitasse Friday morning, but it was solely for taste and nothing more. Other than that I have not had any espresso since last Friday.

Why is this significant? Well, since I haven’t been blogging that much, the online community is oblivious to my coffee consumption since starting work at a firm with an espresso machine. A good espresso machine. No copper tubing, but I doubt it was cheap. And it makes an amazing crema. Plus the machine will make double shots on command. I normally have six shots per day: two doubles in the morning and one in the afternoon. However, sometimes I’ll have more than that.

The problem? Well obviously it isn’t good for you to overindulge in anything. I was abusing the espresso. I purposely would pack it on if I started to feel the caffeine in order to get sort of a euphoric caffeine high, especially if I had to stay late working on something. I mean I like the taste, especially the almost bitter quality, which I’ve written about before, but mostly it just became a habit. The corollary (I picked this word specifically), is that for the past three to four months, I’ve felt sort of intermittent dull pain or pressure in my chest. Not all the time or I’d see a doctor, but it was starting to get noticeable enough that I couldn’t always write it off to stress of a new profession, the legal profession or indigestion.

Then, after much debate in the office regarding the benefits and detriments of espresso (Some doctors advocate coffee, like red wine, in moderation. However, it is a non-filtered coffee), I decided to just stop. Shockingly, I didn’t have any noticeable caffeine withdrawal other than having to go to bed earlier. Plus all week, I’ve felt great. Like I could go running. I almost think I work faster too (I had this theory a couple times during law school that drinking coffee accelerated my already overactive mind, distracting me from within with thoughts). So no more espresso other than the token shot.

I wonder the impact this will have on the office supply (I work in a fairly small office, so it would be like the second largest oil consumer in the world, suddenly no longer needing oil). The only real drawback is losing the camaraderie that drinking the espresso brought. It was sort of a shared interest I had with my bosses.

To make up for the loss of the habit, I tried tea. However, I’ll have to come up with a simple and less involved brewing method. The espresso was so simple and tea requires getting water, heating it, letting the tea steep, disposing of the bag, cleaning up drops from pulling the bag out. I imagine some sort of desktop single serve brewer, but so far, have not found one.

Time to get a shot….smoothie and then work.

-jd

Hello again. Thought I’d write in the old blog this year. Not too much to say since law school ended. That was sort of the common theme around here. There was a lot of periphery stuff, but grinding it out for the JD was the main point.

I’m not sure what to do with this old thing. I have a number of ideas for new writing projects, mainly revolving around mundane little projects as I move forward through life. Well, not boring to me, but probably to most readers. For instance, yesterday we went to a local yogurt haute called Yogurt World because it was supposed to be the cat’s meow; it was. At Yogurt World, you serve yourself as much frozen yogurt in as many flavors as you like and deck it out with toppings. You then pay by the ounce. Mine was such a hodge-podge of goodness that I could only call it a “trash can.” Hence the name of this post.

Once in a lifetime, huh? Well, it was cool to me and is probably the best frozen yogurt joint in town. Of course being that I moved to a new town after law school, pretty much everything is the “best.” For instance, I have also located the best margarita for happy hours, the best Irish bar, the best mojita bar and the tastiest caipirinha place.

I had an idea to turn this into a one stop shop for self-publishing as sort of a side-business, but there are a number of places online that seem to do what I had envisioned doing and also this domain name is apparently already purchased as a stand alone “.com.” But don’t you worry. I imagine I’ll come up with something to post since my girlfriend will not be able to put up with my meandering orations forever.

-jd

Good thing my girlfriend didn’t have to return the engraved watch she got me that had today’s date on it!

-esq.

Two events unceremoniously passed this week with hardly a mention…until now! First, November 2, 2007, was the 2 year anniversary of this blog. You can check out the first post here. Second, sometime a couple days ago, the blog had its 10,000th visitor. Not really much to get excited about, especially since this blog has been in limbo for the past half year or so. Also, compared to many websites, an average of 5,000 visits (non-unique to boot>who knows how many I’ve added myself) is not really a big deal at all. But this is my website and being the baseball fan that I am, I like milestone numbers.

It’s great that people still check in on the old blog. Especially all the July 2007 bar takers and also those who return time and again thanks to the major search engines spitting out my posts that involve the word “anal.” See here. I really need direction with this thing. I have a lot to say and my girlfriend would probably rather all the gibberish be spilled here as opposed to her overworked ears. Some themes that interest me are: scanning anything and everything I own that is in loose paper form, the television show How I Met Your Mother-”Suit Up!”, everything that needs fixing with the world starting with the “Oh, 8?” presidential candidates, and why everyone has a novel in the corner they can’t finish. Or some variation on a theme.

For now, I’m just happy to have checked out the counter to see the big 10k threshold crossed. What else is there to do with my time other than work and obsess about Bar Committee Claus’ naughty & nice list.

-jd

The only good thing about falling back to standard time is that you sort of have a burst of energy the first work day after the time change. I was early to work and felt I got a ton of stuff done despite the fact that it was a Monday (not that I wouldn’t normally work hard on a Monday…it just felt easier today). Otherwise, I hate doing the time change thing and having to walk out of the office after the sun has gone down everyday instead of just the long days. It’s such a psychological drag. I’d be thrilled if we always had light until 7-9pm as if it were summer all the time.

Because then it’d make up for the summer I lost this past May, June, and July.

Okay, I’ll say it. Bar. Bar bar barby bar bar bar!!!

-jd

Gosh darn it I’m lame. All that drama and buildup right before the bar exam and then in the month following that little adventure all I do is make a post about reincarnation nonsense.

So yeah. It has been a month tonight since I was out past my (now routine) bedtime living it up as only those who have just taken a bar exam can. I can’t believe a whole month has gone by. I remember everything about those three days as though it were yesterday. In some cases I’ve had more nightmares about the bar since the test than I did preparing for it (usually involving me being late and/or not having the right ID to get in). Of course overall I’ve largely put it out of my mind (okay, except for the daily jolting notion that runs through my head as I consider having to take the damn thing again). I usually placate any notion of failure by picturing the “this name appears on the pass list” wording on my computer screen in a couple of months.

I know anyone who still follows this blog is probably wondering: what does he mean by, “now routine,” when referring to bedtime. Well it means that due to the demands of my new job (arriving ~8), one that is great even though it did start a mere week after the bar, I have to go to bed ~10 every night to be effective (note that this is posting ~12). I won’t be posting really anything at all about the job, for obvious reasons such as that I am extremely grateful to be employed in such a dismal post-law school job market, but I am still trying to think of ways to maintain a public conversation online without the benefit of law school to rant and rave about. I’ll come up with something.

In the mean time, make sure to check out Superbad. It was great- although it’s the first time I’ve seen a sort of teenage humor film and thought to myself that I am definitely at a different stage in my life now. At least I can still fondly remember trying to secure beverages for a party while not have the appropriate credentials. McLovin. Genius.

-jd

Will be back soon. Reincarnation takes awhile.

-jd

I have secured the Martinelli Apple Juice. A tradition of mine since as long as I can remember, dating back possibly as far as elementary school when my dad would stop by the convenience store if he took us to school and one of the prized beverages to be had was the little apple shaped glass bottle of Martinelli’s. It was and still is the best tasting apple juice I have ever had, including the times I have been to an apple mill and had fresh apple juice pressed (though that is good too in its own right).

However, the main significance is that the usual reason my dad was taking us to school was because something big was up. Maybe he needed to help transport a science fair project, or was chaperoning a trip, or we had to go somewhere at a special time because we were taking a test and thus were also entitled to a special treat to get ourselves in gear. Every major test I have ever taken for as far back as I can remember, I have made it a point to have a Martinelli’s the night before.

Moreover, it has to be the little glass bottle, for tradition’s sake, because it doesn’t taste as good in the larger containers it comes in now, and finally because having become edumakated (I think it’s funny I had to look up how to misspell that word), into symbolism, and also raised Catholic. I have developed this little mythology in my head about how the apple is like the fruit from the tree of knowledge (it doesn’t go any deeper really than apples being a symbol of knowledge, though I do find the whole battle between good and evil fascinating).

So anyway, I secured it (this is becoming harder and harder to do) and in my mind, that was the last major hurdle to getting through exam prep. Now I just need to get down to the test center three days in a row, find parking, get the computer up, have it not fail on me, answer essays galor in a correct and competent manner and get a passing score on a 200 question multiple choice test, and then have upload work correctly, get a grader who is happy to skim over my essays and write pass, have the test not get lost as the grader shuffles to and from work, and have a passing score posted in November.

I need to watch a movie tonight. Potter 5 was good if anyone needs a suggestion. I’ll probably see Chuck and Larry at the risk of imagining family law, con law, k law, and tort law problems arising all over the place.

Good luck to anyone taking the bar exam tomorrow and for the next two or three days. I’ll be thrilled to post again at the end of the week!

-jd