This is not my blog.

I get a couple of Urban Legend email newsletters each week and today I saw one that had an interesting quote of the week.

"As many as 12% of people misdirect lost motorists, with some deliberately giving false information, it has been revealed. Of those dispensing misinformation, around half say they are panicked into giving false directions, a survey of 1,008 adults by telephone company Orange found. But more than a quarter send people the wrong way to show their one-upmanship while 27% just cannot be bothered to give the correct route." -- The Press Association

Urban Legends abound during this season. Here is a list of a the most common Christmas themed ULs from Snopes.com. Additionally, David Embry has an interesting Christmas folklore quiz you can try as well as a page about Thanksgiving myths.

Labels: myths

Late night last night. I was at my office past the time when my garage closed and I didn't realize it till I was leaving the building. When I got to my garage, two blocks away, my car was all locked up inside. I was lucky to find a Charleston cop who could let me in so that I could get my car out and get home. Ugh. I took some great skyline pictures last night though. I posted two yesterday.

Labels: misc, myphotos

People have been hitting my blog looking for a version of Twas The Night Before Christmas that is geared toward the upcoming 100th edition of The Backyard Brawl with WVU vs. Pittsburgh in a football deathmatch for the BCS Title for WVU and for bragging rights for Pitt. So I went searching for it and found that Mike over at Open Mike had it on his blog and it's called Twas The Night Before Pittsburgh and he credits Mike Casazza of the Charleston Daily Mail. Here it goes...

Twas the night before Pittsburgh, when all through my mind,
Were visions of couch burnings, both yours and mine.
Firemen were resting and acting quite lazy,
But they knew that things were about to get crazy.

The players were nestled, Markell did his dreds,
While visions of Bourbon Street danced in their heads.
There were Quinton’s gold teeth, Larry’s son in his lap,
While the quarterback made noises to sound like a cat.

When down in the end zone there arose such a noise,
They sprang from their homes and called all their boys.
To the field they flew, fast as Devine,
Making sure to pick up the offensive line.

The invaders had arrived at the stadium early,
These Panthers were looking noticeably surly.
There was a point to this late-night trip through the hills,
They were out on the field doing defensive drills.

With a dapper old coach who combed his mustache,
You knew in a moment it must be Wannstedt.
He’d made his name as a defensive master,
And he whistled and shouted for them to run faster!

“Watch Slaton! Watch Schmitt! Watch Reynaud and White!
Watch option! Watch bubble! Could be a rough night!
Let’s stand at the goal line and build a big wall,
And keep them from their shot to play for it all!”

As they began to believe his bold rally cry,
There was a flash and a pop up high in the sky.
They reacted the same, with a quick double take,
What they saw made them stop in their cleats and quake.

On the top of the stadium a man made his stand,
As he calmly adjusted his Nike wristbands.
He said “My name’s Rich, as you surely know,”
Then ran down the bleachers with Mountaineers in tow.

They were dressed all in gold, from their heads to their feet,
And they looked like they’d win a 12-team track meet.
A bundle of plays he had in his book,
And there was no mistaking that confident look.

Pitt’s eyes, how they widened! Their hearts, how they pounded!
All for the biggest game since this brawl was founded.
One side had momentum, the other desperation,
This battle wouldn’t wait for the eyes of the nation!

Caridi was roused from a much-needed sleep,
So were Hickman and Hertzel, the last with a bleep.
They brought their pens, paper and elaborate prose,
To witness this battle of bitter old foes.

It was dark and cold, your breath you could see,
But that didn’t stop the kickoff of Pat McAfee.
The tackle, of course, came from an old Hawk named Emery,
And so started this game that would soon be a memory.

They spoke so few words as they went to work,
But score after score drove the visitors berserk.
The Mountaineers rolled, as was expected,
While the Panthers backed off, clearly dejected.

There was a Gatorade shower that gave poor Rich shivers,
While no one seemed happier than one Vaughn Rivers.
They exclaimed after singing about Almost Heaven,
“Well see you in New Orleans on January 7.”

Labels: news

The holiday season is upon us ... yes ... I said "holiday" so sue me if you don't like it. I am getting to where I feel like I can enjoy Christmas this year. The last couple of Christmases have been tough for me in various ways. Now I'm trying to get back to that part of me that really enjoys such things. I still have to get my Christmas cards done and had meant to have them ready by now ... but how do you tell all of the major changes like that to people who haven't been in regular contact with me? I didn't send out cards last year and got very few cards myself. I need to tell everyone my new address before they send their cards this year and to let some people simply know that I'm still alive. So I have to finish that by the weekend so that I can get them mailed in time. Usually I mail my Christmas cards through some place with a Christmas related name as many of them have special holiday themed postmarks this time of year but I don't think that I really have time for that this year. Maybe next time. One of these days I'm going to mail early enough that I can send them through the North Pole postal station in Alaska. One year I did Santa Claus, IN and that was the best postmark. I've also done Rudolph, OH; Bethlehem, PA; Nazareth, PA; Christmas, FL; and Noel, MO (I think that was the one).

The other thing that I had to do was to get some decorations for my office. I never really put much in the way of decorations up in the past so I decided that I had to get a few this year now that I have windows again. I've put up Ziggy for many years and I also have a tiny little tree thingy that Inca Princess once gave me a very special ornament for made by a local artist in metalworking. I picked up this Yoda snowglobe last year but I don't recall that I displayed it before ... so Yoda now sits on my desk to remind me that he is the reason for the season ... or something like that. I bought this neat little candle that lights up at a set time each day and stays lit for about 8 hours and I put it in my Capitol Street window. But I had to find something else for my Kanawha Blvd. window ... so I went tree shopping to find just the right little tree to fit on the windowsill that would say "hi" to the passing cars on the boulevard and river below.

I went all over town looking at the trees that were under 3 feet tall. I went to Kmart, Wal-Mart, Target, Rite-Aid and even CVS. Nothing quite fit the bill of what I was looking for. They were either too big, fiber optic light shows, cheap looking, or something else that just didn't sit right with me. It wasn't till I was making a return trip to Rite-Aid to get one that I had liked the best of the ones that I didn't quite like that I noticed a box sitting on the bottom of the shelf across from where the trees and other decorations were. It was a replica of the leg lamp from the Christmas movie classic A Christmas Story ... otherwise known as "a major award." I had read a story last year about how a guy was making a museum to A Christmas Story in Cleveland, Ohio, where the actual house from the movie is located, and he was selling leg lamps to fund the museum. This would be the perfect decoration for the office I thought! It was like all of those other trees hadn't fit my interests just so that I could find this lamp! So I bought the lamp and a timer and couldn't wait to get it set up.

I got to my office later that evening and installed the lamp. Then I went outside to take a look ... much like the father from the movie did. As Ralphie would say ... "the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window" looking down from it's high perch above the street said that Christmas is here. Apparently someone else agreed as I saw a note had been left on my phone today saying "love the new Christmas decos!" Most likely left by one of the co-workers who come to my office seeking candy from the jars that I keep stocked for that very purpose. I wonder just how many fans there are of that movie who will get the joke? It has to have had quite a cultural impact for TNT to run a 24 hour marathon of it during Christmas Day for the last several years. I know that The Film Geek is a fan as he posted about it last year. In fact, he just posted today about how the child star of the film, Peter Billingsly, did not go on to become an adult porn star ... as some of the visitors of his blog seem to have thought (according to his sitemeter report). Peter Billingsley actually went on to become a director and I was just watching Elf the other day with director commentary and the director pointed out that the elf named Ming Ming who comes to address Buddy's productivity in producing Etch-a-Sketches is none other than Peter Billingsley making an uncredited cameo. But that's a whole other topic.

I hope you enjoyed my holiday decorations ... I certainly am.

Labels: weird

I wanted to welcome back two bloggers who had gone MIA for a while for various reasons.

First is the dude that we know as The Holywriter who had given up on his blog due to some heavy duty heckling from some detractors. He appears to now be back ... and just after I took his old blog off of my blogroll for being hijacked. It's a very good blog that I'm glad to have back in action.

Second is Tinfoil Hats and Rock-n-Roll which I had removed from my main blogroll but had left on my WV blogroll. It's run by a guy we know as moneytastesbad. He used to do a lot of really good and thought provoking blogposts which is why I never took it off of my WV blogroll but I did remove it from my sidebar due to his proclivity for posting pictures of naked women.

Now, I have nothing against naked women and I've been known to use word porn (i.e. gratuitous use of the word "fuck") on my own blog, but I just wondered if it was fair to have an unsuspecting user click through my blogroll and suddenly be face to ... well ... something with some of the pictures on the site. I guess I could put THARNR back on the blogroll with a warning ... but that seems to take some of the fun out of it. What do you guys think?

Labels: misc, myphotos

Wondering how the tv writers' strike will affect your favorite tv shows? Well, Jennifer at Tube Talk has put together a list of tv shows with a corresponding number of shows that are finished and ready to air. Check it out.

Labels: tv

This Sunday Sci-Fi Channel is premiering an update to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which was first published in 1900. Sci-Fi is calling their 6 hour mini-series Tin Man and it looks like it will be very good. In the re-imagining of the story the cast will be led by the lovely Zooey Deschanel (I just love watching her ... she has such pretty eyes) who will play D.G., an update of the character Dorothy Gale from the original book. Click here for a pretty good write-up of the Sci-Fi movie. The first episode will be 2 hours and will premier on Sunday, Dec. 2 at 9pm with episodes 2 and 3 following on Monday and Tuesday. Or you can wait till the following Sunday on Dec. 9th and watch or tape all three episodes from 5pm to 11pm (what I will likely do).

I've blogged before about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and other re-tellings of the tale before. I saw the 2003 musical Wicked last year which was a Disneyfied version of the book Wicked: The Life And Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (which was a much darker story than that of the play). Some fans of the 1939 film adaptation, The Wizard of Oz, didn't like some of the divergences between the story lines of the two adaptations. Part of the reason for this dislike by Oz "purists" was that Maguire based his book off of the original book which is significantly different from the 1939 film. In the original book, for instance, the Emerald City isn't actually green ... the Wizard simply tricks his subjects into wearing green glasses so that it all appears that way. However, as the wikipedia article points out, the canon is even muddled by Baum himself who wrote a series of Oz books without worrying too much about consistency.

I saw a "Making Of..." program on Sci-Fi Channel earlier this week about some of the decisions to update the old tale. One of the writers said that all great works should be updated every 50 years so that they can be brought to a new generation. I'm not sure if that is true but I like the idea behind Tin Man. The title character is another example of a character who has been reinterpreted. One of the complaints of Wicked and Maguire's book is a divergence between the origin story of the Tin Woodman ... of which Maguire's is a little closer to Baum's original dark origin. I like the spin that Sci-Fi is putting on the Tin Man and his missing heart as well as their depiction of the Scarecrow and his missing brain. I wonder what Baum would say about this adaptation? I would like to think he would approve. It is amazing how much scholarly thought has gone into analyzing the themes depicted in the works inspired from Baum's original novel. The legend goes that he first came up with the stories to tell his grandchildren and later he wrote them down. When coming up with the name "Oz" Baum was looking around his office and saw a file cabinet that had a drawer labeled O-Z and decided that would be the name of his magical land. In Tin Man O.Z. stands for "Outer Zone" and I can't wait to see what that means!

Oh, and since I was working on this post last night before bed I had another nyquil-inspired dream where Zooey Deschanel and I were judging the dance contest from It's A Wonderful Life but we were doing it in an American Idol style format. Will Ferrell was there too dressed as his character from Elf (though Zooey wasn't for some reason). That's really all that I remember from the dream though.

Labels: reviews, tv

As I take my nightly dose of nyquil I realized that I forgot to mention that nyquil gives me some very weird dreams in addition to knocking me out. Last night I dreamt that the Deputy Clerk of my court had gone on extended leave without any advance notice and that the rumor was that she had won the lottery and wasn't coming back. I found this disturbing and frustrating because I rely upon her to help me keep things straight in my court and to keep me out of trouble. She and I joke about how she is the one that everyone says nobody can get along with but I get along with her better than anyone else in the system. I'm sure that there are people who say the same thing about me anyway. In my dream I was having a hard time getting anything done and found myself very powerless. I told the Clerk about my dream today and she found it rather amusing ... but she also assured me that she would not be coming back to work if she won the lottery. :-)

Labels: weird

This was me today ... not feeling my best. I started getting sick over the weekend and have been trying to pop zinc and all of that other stuff that is supposed to get you feeling better fast. I've had some light days in court the last two days which has allowed me to get some extra rest ... but my head still feels so congested that I'm sort of loopy and fuzzy headed. So no working out for me until I get a little better.

I did get some things accomplished today though. I stopped off at the WV Board of Bar Examiners and dropped off the last of the paperwork that I need to have turned in to convert my Rule 9 limited practice status to fully licensed member of the WV Bar. All that I'm waiting for now are my MPRE results and they should be coming in soon. While I was at the Bar office today one of the women there noticed my prior job and asked if maybe I knew her niece. I recognized the name as a law school friend of mine who was a year ahead of me but was one of my WV connections up at law school (because the handful of us had to stick together). I said that I had lost track of her after she left the Prosecutor's Office and so I found out today that she had come back to WV to practice. Unlike me, she had taken both Bar Exams when the material was fresh in her mind so she didn't have to go through all of the red tape that I've had to go through. This still illustrated an important point ... in WV everyone always seems to know everyone else in some way or another.

The lady at the Bar Office told me that I would be looking at Jan. 9th or Feb. 13th as possible swearing in dates assuming that I get a passing result on my ethics exam (and I do have to be sworn in again ... oddly enough). She said that the January date would be a large class of people due to the Supreme Court's winter recess so I may wait till the February admission opportunity. For one, it will make it easier to remember when I was admitted and two it will allow things to be a little more special for the fam who want to come to see the spectacle (my sister mentioned wanting to come next time). So we'll see. Oh, and something else that I got accomplished today was to get some Christmas decorations for my office. I'll have to share those in a later post though. I'm tired right now.

Labels: law, stories

I blogged about phishing earlier this week and then I got this clever email designed to look like I'm a non-paying bidder for eBay. I get these all the time but notice what it is that they say that I was bidding on ... :-)

Please make up your mind, or i will report you as a non paying bidder! John -estate-agency

Labels: misc

This is the 23rd in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

23. When you see a Crime punished, you may be inwardly Pleased; but always shew Pity to the Suffering Offender.

More good advice that many seem incapable of following ... like Nancy Grace for instance.

Labels: civility

I have finally gotten my new car to where it needs to be. As of last Friday I now have a state inspection sticker to go with my WV license plate and I even took it in recently for an oil change and tire rotation. So it pissed me off last weekend when I saw my "maintenance req'd" (or whatever it says) light come on and flash at me for longer than it's supposed when I started my car Sunday. Kay has almost the same car that I have, a Toyota Camry that's not quite as fancy, and her maintenance light has been on for more than a year since they keep forgetting to reset it when she gets her oil changed (at least I'm assuming she gets her oil changed). Anyway, I just got an oil change with a synthetic blend so I did not want to have to look at that light for the next 5,000 miles so I dug out my trusty owner's manual to see if there was anything I could do myself so I wouldn't have to take it back for just that. I found the page and then I found out how I can reset the indicator all on my own!

According to the manual. The light comes on if you have a problem with your emissions or when you need an oil change. The light flashes for 10 seconds after ignition if you've driven something like 4,000 miles and the light will stay on if you've driven something like 8,000 miles since the last time the indicator was reset. If you have a different problem it also will come on and stay on. The book told me how I can reset the light myself and I was amazed when it actually worked! I was so excited that I realized I had forgotten to take a picture of it before it winked out so this is after the reset when the car first starts up and the light promptly goes off afterwards. I tried the same trick on Kay's car and it also worked. I'm such a geek sometimes!

Update: for instructions on how I reset my light look at the comments.

Labels: misc

Jennifer over at the blog Tube Talk has posted an announcement about a series of web-only short episodes that fill in a few more gaps of the story in LOST. For those who are waiting for their LOST fix like a junkie waiting for payday then you should click over to see that they're all about!

Y'all can now check out all of my LOST posts here and from my blog's sidebar.

Labels: LOST

WVU managed to rank #2 in the BCS standings this weekend after their win on Saturday. This is by way of being ranked number #2 in the AP Poll (sportswriters never cut us any breaks) and #1 in the Coaches Poll.

Mike, over at the blog Open Mike, lays out a compelling argument for why he thinks that WVU will play for the National Championship so long as they don't get themselves spanked by Pittsburgh (our true rivals) next week in the Backyard Brawl. We shall see!

Labels: news

Tonight we had another great band practice and I wore another hat for my narration of Twas the Night Before Christmas. This was my headgear for the night (left). The antlers with bells on them got a great reaction from most of the band but a groan from the trumpets who I had to tell that I passed up the antlers that has seizure-inducing flashing lights on them. The music is going well and we have one more practice before our Christmas concert which will be Friday, December 7th at 7:30pm at LaBelle Theater in South Charleston (don't worry ... I'll say it again ... several more times even as we get closer to the date). Our fearless leader took Zampa off of our playlist tonight but we have plenty of other good songs on the list ... he replaced it with a piece by Handel that we had worked up earlier in the year. He said he wants to have more time to work with the winds on Zampa and I have to say that I agree ... though many of the winds complained that they had actually practiced Zampa this week ... I know that I had. Tonight we actually had all four of our french horns to our amazement. I took a picture of them (Kelly is hiding).

This was a full weekend with the Thanksgiving festivities (which I still have to blog about), Black Friday shopping, my mom's birthday, WVU football, and even some tree trimming over at Kay's house. I missed most of the Christmas festivities last year since I was going through the final stages of my marriage at that time. It felt a little odd being invited into someone else's house to be part of their tradition but I did my best to get involved while being careful to respect their traditions. It felt good to be with people who cared about me and who I felt the same way about. They have a cute little tree and various other warm Christmas trappings ... as well as a giant Viking statue to celebrate their heritage as Norse conquerors of the original Christmas celebrants (okay ... so I made that last part up). We played Christmas music while untangling lights and unpacking boxes of ornaments. Before long the room glowed of soft lights and we were able to turn off the room lights to have the tree light the room in a very pleasant and comforting way. It felt good to be there at that moment. Then I had to head off to band practice and now I'm killing time waiting for an 11pm hearing at one of the hospital ERs ... and the cycle of life turns another turn. :-)

Labels: band

I got this oldie but goodie in my inbox this weekend. It's a great example of phishing. I thought about how appropriately timed it was to hit all of those people who would be caught up in the Black Friday / Cyber Monday stuff. Not only is it bogus and dressed up with all the images (which I didn't include here) to look official but it even says the thing about not contacting them via email because of security.

Of course, a real email from a bank would not have a link to go to your account like this one does (including one on the side of the email that I didn't copy). I particularly like how this one even invokes terrorism as a way to scare someone into responding lest they get pegged as being connected to terrorist activities. Mon dieu! Just be sure that if you ever get such an email that you DON'T CLICK ANY OF THE LINKS or CALL ANY OF THE NUMBERS. Just go log into your account or call your bank the way that you always do to verify it.

Here it is:

Account Alert - Action Required

Dear jedijawa,

We regret to inform you, that we had to freeze your Bank of America account because we have been notified that your account may have been compromised by outside parties.

Our terms and conditions you agreed to state that your account must always be under your control or those you designate at all times. We have noticed some activity related to your account that indicates that other parties may have access and or control of your information in your account.

These parties have in the past been involved with money laundering, illegal drugs, terrorism and various Federal Title 18 violations. In order that you may access your account we must verify your identity by clicking on the link below.

Please be aware that until we can verify your identity no further access to your account will be allowed and we will have no other liability for your account or any transactions that may have occurred as a result of your failure to reactivate your account as instructed below.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

bogus website address

Before you reactivate your account, all payments have been frozen, and you will not be able to use your account in any way until we have verified your identity.

Because email is not a secure form of communication, please do not reply to this email. If you have any questions about your account or need assistance, please call the phone number on your statement or go to Contact Us at www.bankofamerica.com.

Labels: myths, news

Black Friday came and went this year and I found myself out in the fray again ... just not as freakin' early as the first stores opened. I've said it before that I think that the whole intersection of Christmas and commerce has gotten pretty bad. People just try too hard to consume during this time of the year and each year the stores push that agenda harder to make their profit margin off the backs of those who get caught up in this hype. I don't know that I buy into the whole "biggest shopping day of the year" stuff but I'll pass on talking about the urban legend aspect of it for now. I'm more of a Cyber Monday person myself as I'm more into internet commerce for my holiday shopping needs.

So Kay drug out of bed to go to Kohl's at 3am since Kohl's decided to one-up Wal-Mart by jumping ahead of the 5am opening that Wal-Mart used to do to get the jump on all the other stores who participate in this hype. She let me sleep in though. I met her with her daughter at around 7am at IHOP for breakfast with her and the woman who she went shopping with and then went over to Target afterwards (where the line to check out stretched to the back of the store and then some) to look at the bikes with K-girl where I took some pictures. This ended up being a mistake since it took us about 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot again making K-girl a little late for basketball practice. While browsing on Black Friday I took note of several examples of rampant capitalism, the spirit of joy and love for your fellow man, and all of that Christian goodness that is supposed to infuse this season with warmth. Above is an example of a person who I watched just pull her fancy Cadillac up into a spot that wasn't a parking space and walk on into the store ... as if she was so damn special that the rules just didn't apply to her. Now I'm a rule breaker myself ... but this was just jacknuttery at its worst and the sort of thing to get you keyed or worse on this day of all days. The lady at Kmart the next day told me of some such stories where fistfights almost broke out. Then there were the people who were buying carts of stuff. One of the big items seemed to be these VRockers that one woman had multiples of in two carts. I have no idea what they are.

I didn't buy anything on Black Friday ... well ... I take that back. I bought some stuff for Kay from her kids later in the day at Wal-Mart. I waited until Saturday morning (this morning) when I got up with K-girl to get to Kmart at 7am to get a good deal on a bike for K-man and then I went on to Wal-Mart to get a different bike for K-girl. I was glad that I got Kay a bike rack for her birthday as I had to borrow it to bring the bikes back to my house to hide in my basement since they will be from Santa (at least that is what K-man will think ... K-girl knows better and went with me to get his bike this morning and helped me to find it, guard it, and get it to the register). K-girl had to go off to basketball practice before I went to Wal-Mart so she's dying to know what her bike looks like ... and her mom isn't letting her see it. I think that they'll love these bikes and then I need to get another one for Kay who doesn't have one at all ... the kids are getting upgrades. I think that these will be good ones. K-man will get to practice using a hand brake while still having a single gear pedal brake but K-Girl is getting an adult bike with Shimano twist shifters and a triple chain ring. I'm glad I know a bit about bikes because they didn't do the best job putting K-girl's together so I will have to tweak it before Christmas.

While walking around Kmart I came across Santa in aisle 6. I rounded the corner and there he was. I snapped a quick picture as I'm accustomed to taking surreptitious photography of my subjects and then he actually posed so I took another one that turned out much better. I thought about a Blues Brothers line like "this mall's got everything" or "is there a blue light special on Santas" but didn't actually say either of those things. I was laughing watching Santa ham it up while not having a lot of children around from whom to take requests. All in all, I think it was a successful weekend. Black Friday was my mom's birthday this year so we deferred celebrating it on Friday and decided to do lunch tomorrow where we'll only have the church crowd to avoid ... which is much more modest than the Christmas consumer crowd ... ironically enough.

Labels: myths, rants, stories

I was on the way to the YMCA today to do some swimming and saw a caravan of cars flying WVU flags on the way to the big game. Here are two of the many cars that I passed in my brief stint on the highway. The Mountaineers cleaned the clocks of the Huskies in a 66-21 victory to clinch the BigEast title and to secure an automatic BCS Bowl bid ... if not the National Championship assuming that the rest of the season goes as well as tonight's game. With LSU losing and #2 playing #4 today there is a good chance that WVU will finish the weekend ranked either #1 or #2 tomorrow. They needed a convincing victory and they sure played their best today with some amazing runs and some great plays!

As for that swim. I swam a full mile today for the first time since August 15th of last year (I looked in my exercise log). I've had lots of quarter, half, and three quarter mile swims between then and now. I did a quarter mile of crawl, a quarter mile of breaststroke, and was working on another quarter mile of crawl when I started getting tired and went into backstroke halfway through. Then I decided that I might as well finish the mile out and did the other quarter of breaststroke while a woman was tearing up the water next to me doing crawl ... she was inspiring me to push on because she reminded me of Inca Princess. I feel pretty good now but it sort of made me take a little siesta at the end of the fourth quarter. Combined with getting up early to buy some bikes this morning for Kay's kids had me sort of tired.

Well, time to watch the Kansas v. Missouri game! Go Missouri!

Update: Well, Mizzou won! I don't know what this means for the Mountaineers. Missouri might get ranked ahead of us which will make it possible for the powers that be to flip us with whoever is number 3 (though it will make for a lot of complaining). I don't know. As long as we don't screw up next weekend it might look like a National Championship bid for us. Keeping fingers crossed.

Labels: misc

Earlier this week I went through and listed a bunch of new links for my West Virginia Blogroll ... contained in a post that I have linked on my sidebar because there are so darn many of them now (and because I'm too lazy to figure out a better way to do it). This weekend I went through and tried to clean up the list again and visited the usual sources to add a bunch of new ones in addition to the ones that I listed last week. I also added the following comment on the post.

I should say a word about the list that follows. I try to actively maintain this list. If you want to be on it then just let me know. My specifications when looking to add people to this list are that the author live in West Virginia, have some significant connection to West Virginia, or blog about West Virginia things on a semi-regular basis. I also tend to look to see if the blogger has posted anything in the last 6 months or so and how often they posted before that (I cull dead blogs). I try to avoid real extreme political blogs and other such screeds but sometimes I'll put one on the list anyway if the person seems to be putting a lot of thought into what they are saying. I like to promote WV bloggers and that is why this list is here.

Here are the new entries to my WV blogroll:

25 years and counting...
A Better West Virginia
Among the Hills
Appalachian History
Aurora Lights
Backyard Academy
Bound By Wild Desire
Broad Oaks
Buzzardbilly: Appalachian Being
Capon Valley Coalition
Chez Mama
Dante's Virgil
Daphne*Blue
The Duck - A Westerner in West Virginia
The Dys'Function
Electric Cheese
Firedoglake
From the little green house on the corner
gone stitching
grumpnet.com
The Herbwife's Kitchen
Illogical Pursuits
Imagine What I'm Leaving Out
It's Easy Being GREEN
kingfriend
The LeBlancs ... in West Virginia
Let it Be
Mark Wolfe Design
Mr. Brian/Mr. Fletcher
My Views of the World
now a reynold's...
One Crazy Day at a Time
The Pondering Potter
A PreFab Project
Rebecca Kiger Fotografia
Ridgeway's Way
Ron's Thots
Sandpiper's Thoughts
seedubya stuff
Senihele
Smallest Angel
Standing in the Shadows of Music
Swope News
This Blog Chose You
Tigers & Strawberries
Tim Graves
Traveling Down the Information Backroad
Unscripted Life
The War In Appalachia
The Warped Mind of Ron
West Virginia Highlands Voice
West Virginia Holler
West Virginia Informer
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
West Virginia Research Forum
West Virginia State Gov't Watcher
would you choose water over wine?
WVLA Academic Division

Labels: misc

I just made contact with another WVU person when posting a rare sports post on my blog. So welcome to Neal from the blog Notes From Neal. I think I'm going to have to add him to my WV blogroll because his stuff is quite entertaining to read. My favorites so far are the following posts:

The Steel Valley, Football, and the Mountainteers

Onslaught

A Loving Reminder

and my favorite so far ...

Grammatical Rules (Or Guide To Good Grammer)

Welcome Neal ... now go check out his blog.

Labels: misc

#1 LSU went down in flames to Arkansas in triple overtime tonight! With #2 Kansas playing #4 Missouri tomorrow there is a chance that if #3 WVU can pull it out and not manage to drop the ball too many times that we can wind up in a #1 or #2 spot in the BCS polls going into the last week of the season. I'm still not certain that some other team won't be leapfrogged ahead of WVU for the BCS Championship game but it would make it harder for them to do it if WVU could be sitting in the #1 or #2 spot. We shall see.

Labels: news

As we head into Christmas ... which in my world we are now that Thanksgiving is behind us ... I wanted to say thanks to those who indulged me in the meme that was passed along to me. Sitting there and answering it on the eve of Thanksgiving, knowing that my life had completely changed within the last 12 months from the previous Thanksgiving, just made me very contemplative. I have so much to be thankful for and so many good friends who have helped made my transition back to West Virginia possible. There is no way that I could possibly thank everyone enough ... though I may try. I don't feel like I said anything profound in my "8 Things" post but it did make me really think about where I was sitting as I wrote it ... looking out my office window at the lights on the Kanawha river below ... sounds of people on Capitol street coming from my right (on the other end of which is Delfine's where I took this nifty picture).

I plan to post about my Thanksgiving exploits later ... I'll probably backdate it and put it on Thanksgiving Day, I may do the same with my Black Friday stuff. Something else that I've been doing is going back and linking each of the 16 people who I tagged with the meme so that my link takes me to their versions of the meme. In looking back at some of the comments that others have left or seeing who else got the meme passed on to them it makes me think about the "web" analogy of the internet and how each of us touches upon other people with our blogs ... some of those connections are random and some of those connections are part of various networks that we belong to.

Looking at Michelle Klishis' blog today ... one of those random connections and people that my blogging introduced me to ... I see that one of her friends, Becky, had written a list of 8 things in comment. The 8th thing really resonated with me.

I enjoy stumbling upon blogs and checking back every now and again, connecting with people I’ve never met.

That's so true. So true. The tangled web of connections that we make fascinates me. I have enjoyed clicking out and seeing those people who responded to the meme and wondering who they will connect with from theirs ... then clicking into some of the other people who have responded from those places to see what they had to say about themselves ... and hopefully on from there. I see that some people who I had wanted to reach but couldn't have been reached as well as some people who I wanted to see connected up with via someone else. Surely there will be those who will find the thing an annoyance and I made some risks in mine in who I sent it to but I see that several who I didn't expect to respond have done so. And for that, and for those people, and for so many other things ... I am thankful.

Labels: stories

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the Aunt and Uncle's with my Dad's extended family today. I'm feeling very good today and high on turkey "good vibe" juice.

However, I'm feeling like I may have left some people out when picking my 8 people to pass my "8 things" meme along to. There are all sorts of ways that people are connected to my blog and some are from one community and others are from another. When I picked I was trying to pick a group of people who had various strong connections with my blog and would actually respond to my request. Thus, some people may not get a chance to do this if I didn't hit someone in their network. Therefore, I'm going to be selfish and choose 8 more people to pass the meme along to and I'm going to try carefully not to pick anyone who is in the same social network so that it will get out to more folks.

Here goes:

Route 75

Rick Lee

tanstaafl

Sensationally Red

Hillary

iremonger

Buzzardbilly

Labels: misc, myphotos

This is the 22nd in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

22. Shew not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

This is surely good advice ... if only we were capable of following it.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

Labels: civility

Rebecca of the blog J and C and Me has challenged me to an instant meme called 8 Interesting/Random things about me. Because I never get tagged for this sort of stuff (hello creative/thinking blogger award people) I'd better answer promptly ... so here goes!

1) I am currently wearing sandals (what I call "Jesus shoes") and plan to see how long into the winter I can do so before giving up ... or friends make me wear shoes. When I was at WVU I went for more than 2 years wearing only shorts unless I was either dressed up or in a band uniform.

2) I just finished seeing my first ever WVU basketball game with my girlfriend and her daughter (an aspiring basketball player herself). It was the WVU women's team vs. Tennessee. Expect a blog post later.

3) I am sitting at my work desk waiting out my remaining on-call time staring at a poster of Jennifer Garner, a picture of my nephews, a Tudor's Biscuit World map/puzzle of West Virginia, and the November page of the Runner's World calendar. I could be entering my time into the computer but this is more fun.

4) I am planning to visit my favorite Aunt and Uncle tomorrow for my extended family's annual Thanksgiving gathering. This is the one time a year they all gather. I've missed this celebration too many times in the last 9 years. I will likely eat too much tomorrow and not get enough sleep before being dragged out shopping at 3am.

5) I was really missing my friend, former co-worker, running and triathlon training buddy, and amateur therapist Inca Princess today.

6) I would like to run the full Akron Marathon next year if I can get my act in gear.

7) I often stockpile blog posts by jotting down a draft and then filling it in and publishing them when the mood strikes me. I try to not post more than three things in a day (a rule I learned from Hoyt). And speaking of posts ... TK421 why aren't you at your post?

8) Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

I am tagging the following people:

JDB

The Film Geek

Hoyt

Muze Euterpe

Michelle K

Mountain Laurel

The Fishing Guy

Shark Girl

Update: I added 8 more people to my list after sending this out. The others are listed here.

Everyone have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving ... or whatever you celebrate!

Labels: meme, myphotos

Last night, after going to see Beowulf, I decided to go do a long swim. I love my swim time and now that I'm getting back to it I am reminded that it is like therapy to me as I find it to be a great time to meditate while trying to keep track of how many laps that I've done ... sometimes I loose count but oh well. Last night I wanted to reflect on the advice that I'd been given in an earlier post and found the swim especially helpful for that as I clicked off 3/4 of a mile in about 40 minutes.

I decided to work on technique last night so I did my first 1/4 mile using a freestyle stroke and hand paddles designed to make me focus on the proper stroke technique. These are plastic paddles that attach to your hand in such a way that if you enter the water too soon or too close to your head it will drag funny and it will also feel odd if you try to pull your hand out of the water too soon while doing your recovery stroke. So the paddles demand that you do a long, smooth, and full stroke pulling all the way past your hip before pulling your arm out and fully extending it out for your next stroke. This also improves things like body rotation and extension which results in more power to your stroke. Indeed, the paddles make it more difficult to pull yourself through the water because of increased resistance so I had to take it easy so as not to tire myself out. The hand paddles certainly remind you where your power comes from. It felt real good to be working on the mechanics of my swimming and the water was cool but not too cool. It was perfect! I did the next quarter mile using breast stroke while I alternated laps doing a speed stroke and a power stroke. Then I finished the last quarter doing sprints a lap at a time using freestyle ... sometimes alternating breathing side and sometimes not.

I finished up at the pool and called Kay who wanted me to bring some dinner her way. I got on the road and then got two calls from different hospitals about clients that I would have to see for 11pm hearings. I got a chance to eat dinner and then had to head out the door at about 10:55 to go to my first hearing. That one finished after midnight and then I had to drive over to the other hospital ... with a stop at my office along the way. I didn't get out of the second hospital till about 2:30am so I'm pretty zonked today. I was glad to have gotten my swim in though.

Labels: exercise

Well, I had a break in my schedule yesterday so I went to see the new version of Beowulf that I blogged about earlier. Here I am re-creating my reactions - with cool 3D glasses resembling retro-50's nerd eyewear - when spears, a dragon, and Angelina Jolie's naked breasts came popping out of the screen at me.

Overall, the experience of seeing one of the modern 3D movies with technology like what they have at Disney World was pretty cool (they called it Real D). The ticket price for the 3D film was about $2.50 more because of the nifty 3D technology and the pair of 3D glasses that I guess we were supposed to keep since they handed them to us in little sealed baggies (I didn't see anybody collecting them afterwards). There were several previews of other 3D films (in 3D) that leads me to think that this is going to be a trend for the next couple of years. There is going to be a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, a live action Journey to the Center of the Earth, and a U2 documentary that are all being released in Real D within the next year.

I've talked mostly about the 3D effects so far. Well, that's about all there is to say. I was reading the wikipedia article about Beowulf while the initial stuff was unfolding (I sit in the back for that purpose). I have to agree with what most of the major critics have said. I could go on but I don't think that I need to. The movie is worth seeing as a visual spectacle and for the great 3D effects. They have fixed what some of the critics described as the "dead eyes" animation effect that made The Polar Express so darned creepy and the characters looked much more lifelike. Angelina Jolie looked much more like herself than anyone else that I recognized in the cast and I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. I read where she said that she didn't realize how exposed she would be but I find that doubtful since she seems to thrive on that sort of attention. The music was pretty good and set the tone real well. I've said of some movies like this ... most recently with Transformers ... that some of these things can be like watching someone else play a video game, but I didn't have that feeling while watching Beowulf.

So if you have the time and the money ... or a strong fetish for Angelina Jolie ... go see this film ... and make sure you see it in the 3D / Real D experience or you'll miss a lot of what they were trying to do with it.

Labels: reviews

As I was discussing with Inca Princess last week, sure Beowulf is a great and classic epic that has been retold before the most recent incarnation that is now in theaters. But when I saw the list of stars cast for this film and saw that it was going to be rendered in a motion capture technology (similar to what made that Polar Express movie so creepy) I wondered who the target audience was.

Iremonger over at the blog A Sort of Homecoming has been wondering the same thing in his aptly named post Jutting Breasts. Specifically he cites to a funny article that asks: "Yes, 'Beowulf' Is A Technological Marvel - But How Does Angelina Jolie Look Naked?" It would appear that the motion capture technology gives a pretty complete depiction of Jolie in all of her ... well ... grandeur. The article quotes Roger Ebert - "If I were 13, Angelina Jolie would be plenty nude enough for me in this movie, animated or not." The article goes on to list several other movie critics and their take on Ms. Jolie's ... attributes.

I really don't see what people get from Jolie. I mean, she's attractive and all ... but she's fucking nuts. Back when she was in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow I recall that Sci-Fi Channel Magazine did a funny graphic that showed the locations and gave a legend to the text of all of Angelina Jolie's freaky tattoos. And then there was that whole thing of the vial of blood she used to wear when she was dating Billy Bob Thornton. Shudder.

But I digress ... will Beowulf be worth seeing this time around? Perhaps ... but only if I can see it in the freaky 3D version that I've been reading about.

Labels: reviews

I try to add new West Virginia bloggers to my WV Blogroll whenever I find new ones. Recently I've found several that I've added and I've taken a few off who don't appear to be active any longer. I'll list the new ones here but all of my West Virginia Blog peeps can be found at the link on my sidebar that says "Links to WV Blogs".

The Gods Are Bored
The Ginger Quill
The Glamorous Life of a Hausfrau
Huh? The Blonde Goddess is Confused...
Imagine What I'm Leaving Out
Jeff Kay's West Virginia Surf Report!
Just a Modern Guy
Rednecromancer
SagaciousHillbilly
West BY GOD Virginia

Labels: misc

After giving this some thought today ... especially during my swim this evening ... I'm going to replace this post. A wise reader asked me if this post was meant to get a reaction out of people, if it was meant to poke fun at my ex, or if it was for some other purpose outside of what was stated here and that is not the sort of attention that I want to continue to draw by the question that I posed. I have plenty of other posts to get hits from ... such as the post with all of the keywords about Angelina Jolie's anatomy (yes, I was seeking irony with that one).

For the record, I appreciate all of the advice that I received. I thought it was all heartfelt and honest and I appreciate that very deeply. I think that I will keep my gift Yoga Journal subscription to myself unless someone else here wants it. Thank you all for reading and commenting ... I appreciate it very much.

Labels: misc, myphotos

I've been meaning to do this post for a while and just kept putting it down lower in my draft pile but then I saw a story in the news yesterday that made me have to.

So what's the deal with the Charleston and Huntington "user fees" that so many people have been talking about? For a quick review of the negative points click here and for a quick review of the positive points click here (I can't say that I agree with either of these guys though ... so check out this one).

A while ago I saw a sticker on someone's car that said "repeal the user fee ... no taxation without representation" and thought that it was odd. First, I'm not really sure that this is taxation without representation in the sense of The Boston Tea Party or anything. I mean, in the situation of the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Tea Act there was a distant King who was imposing a tax on his subjects without giving them a vote in any way to alter that outcome. In the case of a User Fee levied on a City payroll the people who are subject to the tax have an ability to vote by one of two means: 1) live in the City, or 2) work someplace else. From what I recall the American Colonists (who were still British Subjects) had no ability to participate in whether they were taxed or not ... hence ... no representation.

When I moved back to West Virginia and heard everyone complaining about the User Fee I had to wonder what the big deal was? Maybe if I had been living here the whole time I would have the same perspective, but I lived in Ohio for the last 9 years where we didn't have a user fee ... we had local income taxes. Now, this is one of the principle arguments against the User Fee ... that the State does not allow local income tax. However, when I saw earlier this year that the WV Legislature decided to give cities of more than 2,000 people the right to apply for home rule status I wondered just how long that it would take before the User Fee became a local Income Tax.

As this article points out most of us in the Mountain State are not familiar with the home rule concept. In Ohio, many of the larger cities use home rule to pass laws that sidestep state control issues and it's always a real fine line between what is and is not constitutional. I used to work in the only county in Ohio that was a "charter" home rule style government so I got pretty familiar with the concept. I'm not sure how local income taxes started in Ohio, but now just about every city of any significance has one. Where I lived our local income tax was 2% of your income but the income tax was actually withheld where you worked and Akron had a 2.25% income tax. Now compare that to Huntington's $2 per week user fee. Assuming that I had a job where I only made $5,000 a year I would still come out waaaay ahead by living in Huntington vs. Akron ... to the tune of a tax of $112.50 in Akron and $104 in Huntington. Now let's assume that I make a living wage and let's look at the taxes. If I were making the Federal Government's definition of "poverty level" ($10,210) and lived in Huntington my tax would be $104 for 2007 but it would be $230 in Akron. Multiply that salary by a few factors to get to your salary and figure out how much that you save by a flat fee tax that we call the User Fee.


Now, we don't have local income taxes yet but I'm just saying that it could be a lot worse ... and people who work in Huntington could soon be finding out how much worse that it can be as Huntington is now looking at levying a "payroll tax" in lieu of the User Fee that sounds an awful lot like a local income tax. Soon the people who work in Huntington but live elsewhere will really have something to bitch about. In Ohio, if you live one place but work in another you had better hope that the two jurisdictions have reciprocity (most do). For example, I lived in a place that levied a 2% income tax but worked in a place that levied a 2.25% income tax. That meant that I got credit for 2% where I lived but I didn't get that .25% tax back. My ex-wife worked in an area that didn't have an income tax so we had to hold out about $1,000 each year to pay her tax liability to our city ... luckily we could pay it in quarterly installments. Then I had a friend who worked in an area that didn't have reciprocity with where he lived. That means that he had to have a 2% income tax held out of his pay that was kept by the city where he worked and then he had to come up with a 1.5% income tax at the end of the year to pay to the city where he lived (yes ... that's double taxation folks ... and it was legal).

So I suppose that this is where I come back to saying "stop bitching about the User Fee" because it is not going anywhere and it could be far, far, far worse.

Update: Well, Charleston just decided to increase their User Fee from $1 to $2 last night. You can find the story here along with some commentary from local readers in the story and in the comments to the article.

Labels: law, news, politics, rants

This weekend Kay pointed out a sign that she saw at the Patrick Street Wendy's that was ... well ... fucked up. So I had to go take a picture of it on my way to shop for my funny hat yesterday. As Kay pointed out ... using "are" in place of "our" is a homophone (she's been learning to be a reading teacher this year). But how could someone really put that on the sign and think that it's okay? Then again, what about this sign?

Labels: signs, words

Tonight we had another band practice and I found another funny hat. Actually, I raided the Halloween leftover bin at Kmart and couldn't find a pirate hat, so the closest I could come was to take a Santa hat and put a pirate sticker on it (seen here). I came into the practice, sans hat, and put it on when it was time for me to read my part. This time Bob had me to come up to the front of the band to read since that is what I'll have to do at our concert on Dec. 7th. When I got to the front he whispered to me to tell him what community or technical college I went to so that he can properly introduce me. I told him Faber College and he looked confused till I said "as in Animal House." We worked Zampa again and it is still a balls buster! Bob conducted it a bit slower this time and I nailed several of the tough sections ... except that there were still some tough ones. Sue, the lady who sometimes sits next to me, turned and said "okay ... I'm impressed." This was the same lady who said "you know it's okay to practice this at home" the first week that we played it. I smiled and said that I told her I'd been practicing.

After practice our little clarinet group met to practice the bits that we've been working on. Then I went up to the Y ... just up the road ... and swam 3/4 of a mile. I was a swimming machine tonight. I did a quarter mile of crawl in about 11 minutes using alternate side breathing (meaning that I would breathe on one side going down the pool and on the other side coming back ... this makes your swimming muscular development more balanced). I took a minute of a breather and then did another quarter mile of crawl doing the same thing but trying to really focus on getting my arm positions correct for better power and follow-through. I ended up doing a slower stroke but ended up doing the second quarter mile in about the same time as the first. This was the longest I had ever swam using the alternate side breathing technique and I now think that I swim as well on my left side as my right. Then I did my last quarter mile doing backstroke and really pushed it coming in a little under 10 minutes. I felt great and it was the perfect way to end the weekend!

Labels: band, exercise

Earlier in the week I went to see the film Dan In Real Life and hadn't gotten around to saying what I thought of it. I really enjoyed it. In fact, it has had me thinking all week of just how good that it was. I found it to be very thought provoking and I hope that it stays around in the theaters for a while so others can see it.

Focus Features are always very good as I've enjoyed everything that I've seen that they have produced (like Lost in Translation). What really made this film, beyond the acting, was the cinematography, the sweeping vistas, how they set up the shots and how the music is almost like a character in the film that really sets the mood. There is a scene when the two brothers are singing "Let My Love Open the Door" to the same woman in different ways. The Norwegian pop/folk band Sondre Lerche wrote and performed all of the original music in the film, but there was a lot of other great music added in for great effect.

Steve Carell is so good at showing an incredible range of human emotions. His timing really can convey awkwardness and the way our interactions with others can be uncomfortable or unrefined. He can emote so much with his expressions and body language without saying anything at all. In many ways his performance in this film was like a modern day Cyrano de Bergerac. And Juliette Binoche is sure easy on the eyes as well ... this is the first film I've seen her in since Chocolat.

In many ways this film reminded me of another film by Focus Features ... Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ... in how it made me think about relationships and how we look at life. Two things that came from the film that have stuck with me was the line "Love is not an emotion, its an ability" and the final line that when we make plans the best thing that we can do "is to plan to be surprised."

Labels: reviews

"No excuses, no regrets" (sounds like an episode title for Babylon 5) is what the coach told WVU before the game today that might have wrapped up the BigEast BCS Bowl bid. I just finished watching it and seeing the wrap-up of all the upsets that still gives West Virginia University an outside chance of playing for the National Championship this year (though with the way that they've been playing I can't really advocate for them). Man, I watched both the Marshall and WVU games today and I can say a few things: 1) I'm glad WVU wasn't in all yellow again like last week; 2) that call in the Marshall game really sucked hard; 3) WVU plays such heart attack inducing games that it's enough to make you drink ... if you weren't already oh ... and 4) if I never see another fucking West Virginia Lottery commercial again it will be too soon (those things are so annoying)!

Actually, tonight I was having pizza and Cleveland, OH beer ... "Burning River Beer" to be exact about it since I saw it in the local store here last night. But I wasn't rooting for Ohio State, I got so sick of hearing about them when I lived in Ohio that I was hoping for the upset ... but it was LSU and Oklahoma who got spanked tonight. Something else that made me want to see Ohio State lose is that the AP sportswriters will probably find a way to leapfrog them ahead of us in the AP Poll tomorrow since there are two spots ahead of us that are now open from our number 5 spot. Grrr. Time for bed.

Update: WVU ended up 4th in the AP Poll and 3rd in the Coaches Poll and neither of them jumped OSU over us. We're even 3rd in the BCS Poll, but I don't us getting picked to play for the BCS Championship. Oh, and sorry Inca P. I forgot you had ties to OSU!

Labels: misc

It's that time of year again ... time for the Christmas Season(tm) to get underway (though I wish we could just get through one freakin' season at a time). That means that it's time for those who get all bent out of shape over "The War on Christmas" to do so again with the whole "reason for the season" and "taking the Christ out of Christmas" flap. These topics came up in our WV Blogger Forum discussions recently which tells me that I need to dredge up a few older posts and elaborate on an earlier one for this year's first Christmas rant from the jawaguy. I'm sure that the next rant will be the myth of Black Friday.

We were talking about Christmas and commerce in relation to the Seven Deadly Sins in this discussion thread a few weeks ago when I mentioned how I had blogged a review after reading a great book by Professor Stephen Nissenbaum called The Battle For Christmas that told how most of our modern Christmas traditions are exactly that ... modern ... in that they didn't exist until the early 1800's and were largely invented as a way to make the celebration of Christmas more peaceful and reflective in post-Industrial Revolution America. It's an interesting notion that is probably important for people to understand before talking about how we're taking religion out of Christmas when religion was only really inserted into Christmas for the masses back in about the 1830's when Clement Moore was first published A Visit From St. Nicholas otherwise known as Twas the Night Before Christmas. Before that time Christmas was a time of drunken carousing that more resembled Mardis Gras or New Years Eve. Thus, these guys are the ones who really put the "Christ in Christmas."

Then Muze started a topic of Christmas vs. paganism and the use of the term X-mas popped up in this thread just the other day. Specifically, someone mentioned the choice of terms people use to describe this season such as Chanukah, Christmas, Yule, solstice, or "the X-mas route." From the use of the term it reminded me of a story from my youth. I blogged about the use of the term Xmas last year but I was recently reminded of the story of when I first learned the real meaning behind this term and thought I would recount it here since some folks recently found my blog using the google search "is merry xmas disrespectful." BTW, the number one hit on this search is a very interesting blog post (it is where I got that image of Santa and Jesus above) that poses a great question about popular perceptions of Christmas.

I suppose that the notion that "x-mas" is a disrespectful term is something that I once believed in myself. I was raised Methodist and used to be pretty active in my church before going to college. I was in the choir, participated in youth group and Sunday School, helped out with Vacation Bible School, and even sat on two of the church planning committees. In one of those planning meetings the minister wrote "Xmas" on the board as we were planning the budget for Christmas trappings and activities and someone took issue with his use of the notation.

Now, I was in agreement when this occurred as I had been raised on the belief that writing Xmas was somehow wrong because it sought to remove "Christ" from Christmas. However, our minister took the next 15 minutes to educate us that the term "Xmas" predates any of that modern mythology. He said that in Seminary School they often abbreviated "Christ" with the Greek letter "chi" or "X" and that this was applied to things like "Xian" and "Xmas" for Christian and Christmas and that it was not an attempt to remove "Christ" from anything. This was a younger and fairly new minister to our church and I now realize that he was essentially saying "no you rubes, this is not some way of paganizing your Church, trust me ... I know what I'm doing." The lesson has always stuck with me.

So I would advise ... on the question of weather or not "merry xmas" is disrespectful ... that you have to look at the context of the statement to determine the intent. While there may be people who intend to remove "Christ" from "Christmas" in this way ... as long as you have the "X" you really still have Christ there. As both Snopes.com and the wikipedia point out, this notion is largely a modern myth. Commerce as been part of Christmas since the turn of the 19th century when "modern Christmas" got started so you really can't say that advertisements that use "xmas" are doing so for that purpose. These are the same stores that will sell things for Easter, Thanksgiving, and other quasi-religious holidays that have been secularized so the last thing they are going to do is say "we welcome pagans over all other religious celebrants." So come on people, be reasonable and come out of combat mode. I'm sure that it's WJWD.

P.S. Here are some of the other posts that I've done relating to Christmas. My favorite Christmas episodes of the radio show This American Life (including The Santaland Diaries); a link that will tell you what Christmas toys were popular when you were a kid; and some funny YouTube clips related to Christmas favorites.

P.P.S. If you really want to get your panties in a wad over Christmas controversy then check out this website called "f**k Christmas"; check out this mock-up of The White House Christmas Card from a few years ago; check out this interesting website that argues that celebrating Christmas is against every one of The Ten Commandments (with some creative arguments); or check out the classic The Spirit of Christmas where the creators of South Park pit Jesus vs. Santa in a battle to the death over the meaning of Christmas.

Labels: myths, news, rants, religion

Heading up to the YMCA has become my new habit. I managed to squeak off another swim last night and this time I did 3/4 of a mile in about 35 minutes. I can already start to feel the difference in my arms and shoulders as swimming is a great workout for the upper body while also giving you that cardiovascular workout my making your lungs really work. It's pretty driving up to the Y now that the leaves are changing and I love to look down the hill at Charleston nestled in its valley below. It's also pretty cool to see it at night ... it somehow looks bigger that way. I'm working on eating better too. Though with my hectic work day yesterday of 8 cases that I worked from about noon till 6pm I was only able to grab a hotdog and a bag of Sun Chips from upstairs. I think I may go and do some more water running or maybe a stationary bike session before heading to work today.

Speaking of biking ... I got this email with a link to the Ten Best Bicycle Jokes of All Time. Enjoy!

Labels: exercise

See if you can tell me what this object is? JDB can't answer this question btw.

Labels: whatsit

This is the 21st in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

21. Reproach none for the Infirmaties of Nature, nor Delight to Put them that have in mind thereof.

In other words ... thou whom hath smelt it must surely have, by providence, dealt it.

Labels: civility

I got my bike set up this weekend on my stationary trainer. I use a Minoura magnetic trainer for my indoor bike training and use my actual bikes rather than a dedicated stationary bike. Right now I have my mountain bike hooked up to the trainer which is a new thing as I used my road bike in the past. The road bike isn't as comfortable for someone with a bit of a belly like I now have so I'm going to use my mountain bike for a while. So I got it set up this weekend and gave it a spin tonight. I biked to the music of Everclear which is great music when you really want to drive a workout. This album has one of my favorite lyrics of all time with "breathing fire doesn't look good on a resume." It also has a song that came up when I was doing a simulated hill climb that had the lyrics "I don't wanna do this anymore" followed by "we rise" repeated. So I did 35 minutes on the bike alternating between fast and hard pedaling. My odometer said about 8 miles in total. I have a lot of work to do on the bike this winter. I'm hoping that I will be able to enjoy the mild winter here and get the bike outside some in the winter.


I did a great swim yesterday. I swam a half mile doing a quarter mile of crawl stroke first followed by a quarter mile of breast stroke. I did both sets in just a little under 12 minutes which was faster than I had expected to do those with my recent return to swimming. I started to do some water running but didn't do much as I had really overdone it on my frog kick on that last series of breast stroke. So my butt hurt ... sort of like it does now. I'm hoping to drop some serious weight here. Last week I weighed myself and came in at about 240lbs. which is as big as I was 5 years ago before I started my fitness and nutrition drive. About 2-3 years ago I managed to get down to 175lbs. and people started telling me that I was too thin (even though my proper weight on the government scale should be in the 170's). So I'd like to get down to 200lbs. or maybe a little lower. We'll see. I'm going to try not to weigh myself too often as I expect it to be slow going. I am eating better though with grilled chicken sandwich with no mayo, watching portions, reducing caffeine intake, etc.

Labels: exercise

Tonight I was watching the new Kelsey Grammer show Back To You and noticed that the story seemed, somehow, to be familiar. Tonight's episode "Something's Up There" was almost an exact rip-off of a true story that was reported in the episode of my favorite radio show This American Life called "Squirrel Cop" from the episode "First Day". Shame on you FOX, shame on you.

Update: It would seem that I'm not the only one who noticed this. I've been getting sitemeter hits based on this and I see that several other sources ... like the Pittsburgh Post Gazette have also weighed in on the rip-off.

Labels: news, radio, rants

Sarah Cooper has posted a nice blog entry on her blog The Putnam Scoop about the today's annual memorial at Marshall University in remembrance of the August 14, 1970 plane crash that was the subject of the film We Are Marshall. Slide on over and check out her post. Then if you haven't seen the movie you should check it out ... here is my review.

I haven't been to Sarah's blog for a while and hadn't realized that she had a new one (or that she still read mine). She writes about all sorts of nifty things over at her first blog - Sarah's Hurricane, WV Real Estate Blog. I need to get over there more often because I see several great posts just on a quick browse. The new blog is also quite spiffy Sarah!

Labels: reviews

I saw this story last week that Paris Hilton is postponing her trip to Rwanda till next year. My only hope is that, when she does go, they decide to keep her. The story says that Hilton is "determined to use her celebrity status for good causes." Well, that would be a first now wouldn't it! So the Halloween horror is that the Hilton ho will be staying around for a while longer ... the horror ... the horror!

P.S. Since we're already on the topic of distasteful things ... check out this hilarious post by fellow blogger Chris James on what I'll just refer to here as "the CT".

Labels: news, rants

I just realized that today was my 6th anniversary of being sworn in to practice law for the first time. I had been practicing under an internship license with Ohio Legal Aid prior to my swearing in after taking the Ohio Bar Exam in July of 2001, but 6 years ago this was the day that I was officially made a lawyer by the Supreme Court of Ohio.

Labels: law

Sunday I stopped by the YMCA for a quarter mile swim and about 20 minutes of water running. Friday I managed to squeeze off a half mile of swimming for the first time in a long time. I'm starting to get back into this working out thing. I just have to make a regular habit of it

Anyway, I wanted to talk about this new product that I picked up that I'm convinced was designed by a man. It is a dual body wash and shampoo. Now, I just know that the women who read my blog are rolling their eyes and muttering "they're animals" or some such thing. But really, when you're showering in public ... as you do in men's locker rooms ... you don't really want to be taking more time than you need to. What a good idea! It also economizes on having to lug more shit around with you and it's one less thing that you might accidentally drop in the shower and get the wrong sort of attention. It also works pretty well too.

Labels: misc

Tomorrow night NOVA (on PBS) is having a 2 hour special about the Dover, PA trial about the teaching of Intelligent Design last year. This was a very interesting issue to me and I wanted for everyone to have a chance to catch the program as I think that it should be a very interesting issue for everyone really. The program is called Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. It should be on at 8pm in most markets but should also be rebroadcast later in the week if you miss it.

Labels: news, rants, religion

This is the 20th in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

20. The Gestures of the Body must be Suited to the discourse you are upon.

There are so many places to go with this one ... so many places.

Labels: civility

Tonight I was in Kmart before heading to band practice. I was buying a cd that I blogged about already and then I saw something sitting in the bargain Halloween bin called "adult Big Daddy hat". I thought "I ... must ... have ... that" and it was only $2! I immediately got this vision of walking into band practice like Kramer in the episode of Seinfeld where he got the license plate of the proctologist by accident. However, I couldn't quite pull off the strut as I was walking into the band room at Capital High School. I did, however, get quite a reaction from my peers who were doing their warm-up at the time. JDB saw me and almost fell out of his seat from laughing so hard. It was JDB's first practice for a while so maybe that will have him coming back to more soon! It was JDB who took this picture actually.

Bob, our director, stopped the warm-up and said "what the heck is that?" To which I said "it's to get me into character when I read my narration for our 'Twas the Night Before Christmas piece". He rolled his eyes and said ... "whatever." Look across the room toward my Aunt and Cousin I could see that my Aunt was having a hard time playing her flute and the clarinets around me were having some trouble as well from their mirth. I felt like I had arrived ... but prop humor can be so tricky. Bob made mention of my chapeau again and I said that it was a preview for my Aunt's annual Thanksgiving Party to which she started laughing again and said she couldn't wait. Bob rehearsed our 'Twas the Night Before Christmas piece as our second one that night, perhaps to get me out of my hat which I had to doff when I read the line "and mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap, had just settled down for a long winter's nap."

The rest of the rehearsal was uneventful. We practiced Zampa and I told those around me that I had been really working on it. Yet, Bob had it going so fast that I was still struggling with this section ... but so was everyone else except for our first chair guy who is just amazing. At least I was hitting more of the right notes than last week. Then we got to this section:

... and I nailed it! In fact, my two cohorts on either side of me both commented on it one going "go you" while taking a breath and the other with "how did you do that?" when we got our next break. I told her that I learned the secret was to practice the tonguing all the time because my tongue was just getting too tired before I even got to the repeat bars. It has made a difference in some of the other pieces that we play too. I found Colonel Bogey March much easier to play this week because of my work in Zampa.

So do I retire my pimpy hat or do I wear it next week as well? We shall have to see ... but I'm certainly wearing it to our Thanksgiving gathering ... at least for the family picture this year! :-)

For the record. I stopped off at Kay's house after practice to show her my hat (I had sent Kay and Inca Princess phone photos that horrified them). Kay said she wouldn't go to my Aunt's if I was dressed like that and I said that I would make sure not to get a matching coat or anything. Her kids wanted to know why the hat was so funny and Kay reminded me that an 11 and 6 year old need not have the full explanation of what a pimp is. So Kay saved the day ... for a few more years. :-)

P.S. Doesn't the hat go well with my other purchase of a country music cd?

Update: Correction. Inca Princess has reminded me that it was the Seinfeld episode The Wig Master where Kramer is wearing the coat from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat when he finds the hat and is the pimp daddy. But I was thinking of the episode where he is walking down the street and people keep shouting "here comes the assman!"

Labels: band

The other day I was having an email conversation with The Fishing Guy and I told him that my girlfriend, Kay, has been working on bringing out my inner redneck. Kay, however, calls it "reminding me what it means to be a West Virginian." I had been telling The Fishing Guy how Kay and I had watched the CMA Awards the other night and how I was glad to see that Sugarland had won. See, I've been listening to more country music while hanging out with Kay and learning to appreciate it which is something that The Fishing Guy was trying to get me to do. She has also had me watching NASCAR. The exchange went something like this ...

That's great to hear. I guess Kay is turning you into a country fan.

Kay likes Jeff Gordon and Earnhardt Jr. as a second choice ... so she's happy about Jr. moving to the Hendricks team. Kay is bringing out my inner redneck with the country music and NASCAR stuff. I can actually car on a conversation about NASCAR now ... for a little while (shudder). Kay would prefer to say that she's reminding me what it means to be a West Virginian though. :-)

I can't believe you knew it was the Hendricks team. I'm impressed.

See what I mean?

I first saw Sugarland with The Fishing Guy last year along with Jack Ingram and Brooks & Dunn and liked them better than the other two groups. So I was telling the Fishing Guy that I was actually listening to the second Sugarland cd in my car earlier in the day. See, I had bought it for Kay because she had the first Sugarland cd and I wanted to hear the second one which I actually like a lot better even though I like them both. But I had to buy it for Kay because I couldn't quite bring myself to buy it for me. Tonight I crossed a line though. I had been asking Kay if she could find the first cd from when we cleaned out her car a while ago. She hasn't been able to find it and I wanted to compare it to the second cd so I stopped off at Kmart and picked it up ... and I don't have the excuse to hide behind that it was for anyone but me. But I made another purchase while checking out at Kmart that I think makes up for it (I'll blog about that one next).

Anyway, I really like Sugarland. They are a good band with a very interesting musical style. Actually, I knew many of the artists that won at the CMA Awards. Fishing Guy is always telling me about my "cousin" Brad Paisley (who shares the surname of my maternal grandfather). Kay likes both Keith Urban and she and Fishing Guy like Rascal Flats. They are all pretty good and talented. I suppose that on the continuum of my musical progression I went from rock, to folk, to celtic music, and the to modern country which has elements of all of three of the prior genres. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! :-)

Labels: reviews

The new phone books have arrived ... I'm somebody, I'm somebody! Today, awesome local photographer Rick Lee has posted a picture of me on his blog getting my haircut. I had never met Rick Lee before yesterday and he was a real nice guy with an awesome camera!

Yesterday, between hearings, I went over to Sheercut to have John give me another haircut. The first thing about John is that you have to know is that you can't show up at John's shop if you have somewhere to go. He'll tell you as much when you come in if you ask how long that it will take. He'll say that it takes as long as it takes, come back when you have time. He is a guy who takes pride in his work and I like that about John. He's also a real talker which is another reason that I like him ... we speak the same language. ;-)

Knowing this I called John since I was getting out of court at around 2pm and John tends to close shop between 2 and 3pm depending on the day. He said that he'd be open for a bit longer so I headed his way and got to Fife Street a little while later. Unbeknownst to me, John had called Rick Lee after getting off the phone with me to invite him over to meet me. John had asked me to send Rick a message to come see him after my first meeting with him and it was Rick who had tipped me off about John's shop in the first place. However, I had not met Rick before other than talking with him on the blogger board or through the comments of our respective blogs. So I was a bit surprised when Rick stopped by and started snapping pictures paparazzi style while saying that he had heard there was a celebrity in the shop.

He stuck around a little and we all three chatted. I shook Rick's hand and said that it was nice to meet him after enjoying seeing his work so much on his blog. John commented that he thought that Rick was the best photographer around and I can't dispute that. Then Rick popped back out and John and I continued to chat while he snipped and by the time that I was called away for another hearing we had been chatting well after my haircut was done ... almost an hour in all. I think that the haircut turned out nicely and Rick managed to pick out a shot of me that didn't look half bad. He had plenty to choose from the way that the shutter on his camera was click, click, clicking away. Thanks for showing up to meet me Rick, it was a real pleasure!

Labels: haircut

Last night I went back to the YMCA and managed to swim half a mile for the first time in a while. On the way out the door I got a text message from Inca Princess that went like this:

Omg! The evil Echo lives! It almost sideswiped me at Walgreens! I swear! It still has your 26.2 and tri stickers on the bumper! Lol!

How hilarious ... except for the part of Inca Princess almost getting sideswiped! So evil Echo has changed its colors ... or was tainted. :-)

Now I have this 3 day weekend without being on call. What to do? Well, I don't know. Maybe I'll set up my mag-trainer and get my bike ready to roll indoors.

Labels: misc

When I was in the pool yesterday I heard someone use a word that I haven't heard for a long time. It was "layaway" (well, maybe it's two words ... I'm not sure ... but wikipedia says that it's one). Anyway, two ladies were floating along in the deep end while I was working on my water running and were talking about Christmas shopping and such and one of the ladies talked about having something on layaway. I didn't even know that this practice still existed but I can remember using it when I was a kid to buy gifts for my family in installments. I can't imagine any of the big-box stores doing that now as it would cut into their almighty profit margin ... which is the true meaning of Christmas to retailers. Does anybody who reads this blog still know of places that do layaway and do you use it? I would imagine that in the age of credit cards its use would be lowered but there are plenty of people who could probably still benefit from it.

Labels: news

This is the 19th in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

19. Let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave.

In Presidential terms this would mean that one should not say "Bring 'em on" when talking about terrorist attacks.

Labels: civility

Okay, so people have been asking me when I'm going to get WV plates for my car ... well I finally have them ... well ... it since WV only requires a rear plate. I went went with the scenic plate (not the one that looks like a forest threw up on it ... the blue one). I had thought about getting a WVU plate, which is what I had before I moved to Ohio, but that would have taken longer and this was the third time that I had been to the DMV trying to get my car license plates.

The first time I needed another piece of paper that the dealer hadn't sent me yet, the second time I was told that the Memorandum Title that the dealer had sent me would have been fine for Ohio but that it wasn't fine for WV. So I had to contact my bank who was doing my car loan and get them to order a formal title and write me a letter. I finally got that yesterday and today I got my plates ... after paying about $1,000 which covered the cost of the plate and my 5% "privilege tax" that passes for the motor vehicle sales tax in WV. It's okay because it is still less than the 6.5% sales tax that I would have paid in Ohio if I had been living there when I bought the car. I had also planned for this and expected to write a big check (at least it isn't rolled into my car loan).

So now I'm almost done ... I still have to get my car inspected. Grrr. I also have to replace my Ohio "Share the Road" plates that promoted safety programs to educate drivers and cyclists of the rules of the road. I will also have to put the cool WVU plate on the front of my car that I bought a few weeks ago when I was over at the WVU store next to the DMV. I haven't had a personal front plate for a long time. It was hard to decide which one to get. I'll post the picture of the plate later ... once I get it installed.

Labels: signs, stories

Last night my parents called me to tell me that Papa John's on Patrick Street in Charleston is doing a special for the next several days where if you bring in 10 cans of food you can get a free large pizza with whatever toppings you want. And it's true! Mom and dad came to Charleston and met up with Kay and me. They were looking at clearing out some food that they weren't going to be able to use before the expiration dates so they came to town with 20 cans and shared with Kay and me and we got two large pizzas for no charge.

I don't know if all of the Papa John's Pizza joints are doing this but it's a heck of a deal ... and a good deed at the same time. And if you're wondering, Inca Princess, I had 3 pieces of pizza ... probably should have only had 2 though. Then I got called away to the hospital for a 11pm hearing at the ER.

Labels: news

Okay, okay, I'll go, I'll go! And I did go. I went to the YMCA where I did 35 minutes of water running, swam a quarter of a mile, then I got myself clean, had a good meal (there is a Subway in the YMCA), and did whatever I feeled (well, actually I just went to work). :-)

Now I feel pretty good, the arm where I had my flu shot was a little stiff this morning but it feels better now. I'm sure that I'll feel tired and sore later but for now this is a good start back to the old workout routine ... which I'll try to keep on top of now. Thanks for the love and prodding Inca Princess. Shark Girl, Kay, and the rest!

Labels: exercise

I had my flu shot today. I didn't get one last year and the year before the county offered this new flu shot that came in a nasal drip that was required unless you were over 45 years old. So I didn't have much of a choice if I wanted the flu vaccination so I took it ... and it messed me up big time. I have lots of sinus trouble and that stupid nasal drip thing just messed my head up for a while with sinus infection, respiratory crud, and I don't know what all else.

I haven't historically taken flu shots. I have only done that in the last 5 or 6 years. I have only had the flu once and that was enough to never want to have it again. I had it in college and thought I was going to die for a week solid. My ex-wife had it one year and she had obviously never had it before either because she kept saying "but I've had the flu before and it wasn't this bad" to which I said "no you didn't hon, no you didn't."

That's one of my pet peeves actually and I did a post about it last year. People who go around saying they have the flu when all that they have is a case of bad sniffles or a cold. The flu will make you wish you were dead for at least a week. You will be on your ass and unable to get out of bed even if you wanted to. The flu is nothing like a cold. So if you get your flu shot and then get a cold later this winter don't go around saying "but I got a flu shot ... but I still got sick" because at least you didn't get the flu.

• A Cold or the Flu? Which Is It? (see this helpful chart too)

• Flu Symptoms
• Flu Vaccine
• Preventing the Flu
• Treating the Flu
• Do I have the Avian Flu?

Labels: exercise, myths

For those who might have missed it ... I made several posts that I backdated to Sunday and Monday because I was just too busy to do them this weekend. One of those posts was a post about some very challenging music that my concert band is currently working on nailing down called Zampa. Well, I thought I would try to illustrate some of the points that I was making about music difficulty by posting some pictures here.

See, one of the things that I like about playing 2nd part clarinet in my band is that I don't have the pressure of playing the very high and very fast notes that you typically see in the first part that I've always had to be responsible for up till now (as I've almost always played first part until just recently). Typically second part looks like this nice and lyrical passage above and not like this passage below with all of its fast notes that jump all over the clarinet's register (something else that is difficult to do).

These notes are just eighth notes but the piece is going very fast and most of it is in cut-time ... meaning that you play it at least twice as fast as it's written. Don't let the poco animato marking fool you ... it's really freakin' animato when you're trying to slap your fingers down into those odd positions and cursing the violins that the part was originally written for who don't have to worry about the awkward spacing of a clarinet's keys when octave jumping. You can't see it in the above picture but here is a link to an example of where I've had to mark alternate keys so that I can manage to play the notes provided that I can get my fingers in place in time.

Though the above part may look innocent, it is anything but. It has been giving me fits because I can play it without any trouble when playing at a reasonable speed. This is the part that I mentioned goes so fast on the recording that I linked before that it makes my heart race because I can't even sing the part as fast as it is played with strings. This is one that I'm having to go around practicing just so that I can get my tongue accustomed to moving that fast for that long a stretch. Then you may notice the cruelty of the repeat bars before and after this little 12 second stretch of hell so that if I can get my chops to survive the first pass I get to do it all again ... or drop out and watch everyone else slogging through it. The U.S. Marine Band doesn't slow down as much as I would like but at least it's slower than the strings play it (click this link and forward over to the 6 and a half minute mark).

Then the grand finale is this little gem (above ... at about the 7:20 mark in the recording). In practice it sounds like everyone just picks a note to start on and they try to hit the top and the bottom together for the time being (well ... that's what I've been doing at least). I'm sure it will clean up as more of us either practice or give up on it and contemplate the ending while the stronger players race up and down the scales. I haven't even practiced this one yet and will save it for when I can get the rest of the music in this monster under control.

For all of this good spirited bitching ... I really am starting to like this piece. It is the most challenging thing that I've tried to play since West Virginia All-State Band in high school. So I will keep practicing ... and practicing ... and practicing. Actually, I haven't been very good at practicing but this piece has made me want to practice again so that I can conquer it. We'll see how that goes. :-)

Labels: band

I just finished entering my time into the computer for last month's hearings and other work. I was so busy last week that I hadn't had time to get it done and so I had to stay late to finish getting it all in the computer so that it could be compiled tomorrow. I see that I did 71 cases last month and spent approximately 90 hours in hearings or interviewing clients. That's my highest monthly caseload yet. Today we were slammed with 5 cases ... last night we had 3 at the ER past midnight who were all very much in need of help and we had done 3 earlier in the day who were all extremely psychotic. The psychotic ones really drain your energy because you can talk to these clients for an hour and really just get nowhere. Despite being tired from my 2am hospital hearings last night I had a couple of good client moments today. And that's what the job is all about for me.

Labels: misc, myphotos

Yesterday was a beautiful day ... before the torrent of rain came. I started my day by taking my car down to get a tire rotation and oil change at Appalachian Tire just down the street from where I work. I decided that the river looked so nice that I would take a walk down by the levee as I walked the 5 blocks or so to my building. It was pretty and it reminded me that I've been making promises to Inca Princess and others that I was going to get myself back into shape and drop this 40 pounds that I've picked up since being back home. I need to do something. It has gotten ridiculous. As I was walking along the river some thoughts occurred to me. Is it possible that my whole desire to get fit came about to fill a hole in my life where I wasn't having a satisfied life due to my increasing unhappiness with the state of my marriage and the fact that I was married to a person who didn't value who I was? That may be the case. I'm back where I grew up now with people who care about and love me for who I am and I'm happy. I mean, it's not like I didn't have people in Ohio who loved me and cared about me ... there is Inca Princess and The Fishing Guy to name two ... but it's different now.

Nevertheless I need to get my act in gear and get back to my routine in some fashion. Maybe I won't be doing that half-Ironman that I had thought that I might eventually work up to before I left Ohio but I can get my swimming back into gear, set my bike up on my stationary trainer and get that back into gear, and get my running game back on track. I don't have to be the best ... but I owe it to myself to not lose ... well to not lose forever what I had worked on for the last several years in Ohio. Plus, even my fat pants are starting to get a little tight. So I need to resolve right now to stop eating so much and such bad stuff and to start getting to the gym. Now, things were thrown off a little yesterday. My plan to swim after work was thwarted when Kay's daughter made the basketball team for her school (I mean, how can you not celebrate that). And then I had 3 difficult cases at the hospital last night that started at 11am and didn't get finished till almost 2am. So I slept in. But be on notice ... this blog was started way back at the beginning as a way of keeping me honest about my exercising and diet and I'm going to try to return to that, a little, with daily updates. Help me keep the faith people! Thanks.

Labels: misc, myphotos

In case you thought I had forgotten...

This is the 18th in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

18. Read no Letters, Books, or Papers in Company but when there is a Necessity for doing of it you must ask leave: come not near the Books or Writings of Another so as to read them unless desired or give your opinion of them unask'd also look not nigh when another is writing a Letter.

In jedi's world this would be ... "Use not your phancy fone in the company of others."

Labels: civility

Here is one last shot at legal ethics... this is a joke that I received from an undisclosed source (as in the person wanted to remain anonymous).

Two lawyers had been stranded on a desert island for several months. The only thing on the island was a tall coconut tree that provided them their only food. Each day one of the lawyers would climb to the top to see if he could spot a rescue boat coming.

One day the lawyer yelled down from the tree, "WOW, I just can't believe my eyes. There is a woman out there floating in our direction."

The lawyer on the ground was most skeptical and said, "You're hallucinating; you've finally lost your mind."

But within a few minutes, up to the beach floated a stunning redhead, face up, totally naked, unconscious, without even so much as a ring or earrings on her person.

The two lawyers went down to the water, dragged her up on the beach and discovered, yes, she was alive, warm and breathing.

One said to the other, "You know, we've been on this God forsaken island for months now without a woman. It's been such a long, long time. So,...do you think we should, ...well,...you know,...screw her?"

"Out of WHAT?" asked the other.

Labels: law

So you all know that I'm back into a band now ... and it's a really good band. We practice every Sunday and right now we're gearing up for a Christmas concert on December 7th. We're playing some good music with a nice blend of crowd pleasing Christmas tunage along with some fun stuff that serious musicians can dig playing and listening to. One of the pieces that we're working on right now is this barnburner of a piece that is the Overture to the opera Zampa. It is challenging music and what makes it even more so challenging is that it was transposed from string orchestra to wind symphony for the U.S. Marine Corps. Band. Now, this band is really freakin' good. I mean, they are so good that it just isn't fair for mere mortals to have to try to play the stuff that is written for them.

Here is the rub. When a piece is transposed from string orchestra to wind symphony then guess who gets stuck with the violin and string parts? That's right ... the reed instruments. What's the big deal? Well, first ... if you talk to a violin player about breathing and breath control they will just look at you with a funny look. Second, fingers can move much faster than tongues. So what we end up with is a lot of very fast tonguing and so many notes that we barely get a chance to breathe! That means that there is no way that we can ever play as fast as a string orchestra due to the mechanics of having to have oxygen and just how quickly your tongue can hit the little piece of wood that is attached to your mouthpiece and how often it can do it before it gives up. Oh, and I've had to break out the alternate fingering chart several times when it was impossible to go between two notes the usual way (another difficulty with transposed music).

So all of that was a fancy way of saying that we're struggling with this piece and it has been the one that I've least wanted to practice ... except that now it is starting to show up in my dreams so I have to practice it so that it won't defeat me. Our director told us that he had found this recording of the piece with strings on YouTube so I went looking for it and just about had a heart attack while trying to tongue my part without my clarinet while watching it. I'm attaching the clip below so that you can see what I mean. I went searching a bit longer and found another clip in MP3 format of the actual U.S. Marine Corps. Band playing this piece. I will link it below so that you can hear what it sounds like with clarinets and other reeds taking the place of violins and violas. I also have passed these clips along to Martin ... the car racing guy ... to return the favor for getting my heart rate up in his car earlier in the day. Martin is thinking about joining the band and so I wanted him to see that it's not just about fluff pieces ... hopefully it won't scare him away!

Here is the YouTube clip...



Here is the same tune played by the U.S. Marine Band.

Postscript: I was talking about how hard that my music for this piece is and I should have indicated that I play 2nd part clarinet for most of our pieces. This piece actually has 3 clarinet parts: solo clarinet (and there are two cool solos played by our first chair ... who is really good), 1st clarinet, and a combined 2nd & 3rd clarinet part. Emma, the high school junior who sits next to me, sometimes is assigned first part and she leaned over the other night and said "wanna trade" then we looked and saw, to our amazement, that there wasn't a substantial difference between our two parts. Later in that practice Bill, the retired band director who sits in the back row, said "no 3rd clarinet part should be so hard ... there is a REASON why we play 3rd part!" I suppose that there just aren't any slackers in the U.S. Marine Band. Actually, I know for a fact there aren't any slackers there. I've seen them perform and they are amazing!

Labels: band

This weekend my former college roommate JDB invited me out to see his final race of the season with the Sports Car Club of America group that he is part of. Actually, Martin, who had replaced my brakes recently, also invited me out so I thought I should go. It is only fair since I had dragged JDB out to be in band with me in the Kanawha Valley Community Band and I hadn't come to one of his races yet. They hold these races on courses that they set up with cones where ever they can stretch out enough to make a good technical course (sorry NASCAR fans ... not prolonged left turning here). They've used Yeager Airport, the large parking lot next to the Firestone plant up in Akron, and they tend to use Riverside High School's lot a few times each year. Sunday they were at Riverside which I had never been to before.

When the guys got there to set up the cones, JDB told me, they saw that there was a car in the lot that looked like it had been there for a long time. So they just put cones around it and set the course up anyway. These guys aren't going to be going so fast that they can't keep their cars under control. The course doubled back over itself several times with lots of turns before you could get your car up to speed. The fastest time of the day turned out to be about 71 seconds but there were lots of people who were in the 80+ second range. Beyond being fast, many of these cars were very loud too! Several of these cars were tubocharged but many were pretty much stock configurations with nice wheels and tires for racing. Pictured here is JDB's MazdaSpeed3.


Then there was Martin's beast of a car. It is a Toyota GT-Four which he has messed around with, rebuilt the engine, reconfigured the cockpit console, replaced parts to make it lighter, etc. Martin was running the fastest speed on the course when I showed up at a little over 71 seconds. Then on the last run a guy managed to squeak past him to near the 71 second mark using a go-cart. Now, before you laugh. This go-cart was very well configured and had such a tight gearbox that it could achieve higher speeds faster than the larger cars could. The only thing that kept the go cart guy from beating Martin earlier in the day was that he had hit a cone and every cone that you hit adds 2 seconds to your time in penalty.

Actually, when I got there the group was finishing their morning runs and was getting ready for a short lunch. JDB was working in the control booth where he was monitoring the computer that kept track of the timing equipment and recording the scores and times by manually entering penalties for cone hits. When they broke for lunch for a half hour I just hung out and talked to some of the guys like JDB's older brother, who I hadn't seen since college, and who hadn't realized that I was back in town. When JDB came back from lunch he asked if I wanted to ride along with him for his afternoon runs. I asked him if he was sure and he said, "sure!" Nobody else was in his class so my extra weight wasn't going to throw him off ... though he warned me that he'd blame me if anybody gave him a hard time for not beating his 3 morning times.


So we got out on the course and I was amazed at the rush of JDB's aggressive driving. I took a bunch of pictures in my camera's continued shooting mode and before I knew it the rapid turning, braking, and accelerations were over. Then we got in line for the next run. I only took two pictures on this run and took them with my phone to message to Kay who was not in attendance. The third run I wasn't taking pictures and I found that I actually finished the run a bit motion sick. I think that even though I only was looking at my camera occassionally the first two times that it was just enough to keep my equilibrium. I was actually motion sick for a while after that ... to which JDB said "cool".

We finished running JDB's three runs ... in which he didn't beat his morning time ... and yes he did use my weight when he was getting ribbed for it. Then it was time for the second group to go after which the course was open for some "fun runs" where the drivers switch and drive each other's cars or give each other ride-alongs. Martin had said to me when he was working on my brakes that I should come and he'd take me on a fun run. Now that I was just getting over being a bit dizzy from JDB's runs I was wondering at the wisdom of going out in Martin's supercharged car. He found me anyway and I agreed to let him scare the crap out of me with his car. Actually, it wasn't that bad. The car's vibrations were so much from the raw power that was contained in the engine that it took my mind off of the fear factor.

Damn that's a powerful beast of a car. Martin told me as we were waiting to go how this was the last run before he completely tore the engine down this winter and rebuilt it. He said he could feel that he was losing power in it but I don't know how he could feel much of anything! It was an awesome run and a great way to finish the day at the races. But my long day and weekend were far from finished. I had to go to the hospital for several cases while the roar of engines was still screaming in my ears and then I went to band practice later where I figured out a way to return the favor for Martin. But more on that later.

Labels: stories

Saturday, after my MPRE test I made my way to Kenova, WV with Kay and her kids to see The Pumpkin House with my sister and her family. Reports were that this year they had more than 3,000 pumpkins and that this was the first year they went to electric lights to illuminate these orange orbs. In previous years the host of the display used move votive candles than the archdioceses of West Virginia to light his many pumpkins for the couple of weeks before they all rot away. I'm told that the owner of this grand house is now the mayor of Kenova and that he does not coat the pumpkins or do anything else to them to preserve their longevity. That's why he needs lots of volunteers to help him carve these many jackolanterns before the first ones turn to mush.


The kids all were able to find their favorite designs. Mine was this WVa design with a black bear inside. Kman liked the Scooby-Doo pumpkin, kgirl liked the larger pumpkins like this Mickey Mouse, my sister liked this cool Lion King pumpkin, while Kay liked the mathematical "pi" pumpkin (of course). Once again a good time was had by all while the crowds enjoyed the final weekend of the pumpkin house for 2007. Some of the orange spheroids were already looking bad but that didn't stop people from enjoying the pumpkin orchestra. Using a light choreographed light display machine that is usually used by folks wanting their house to dance to the tune of music at Christmas, the pumpkin house uses it to light up pumpkins that are carved to represent instruments. Last year it was just the 1812 Overture but this year there were six musical selections that cycled from the overture to Orff's Carmina Burana to Beethoven's Ode to Joy to the overture to Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. You can catch clips on YouTube like these ones of the pumpkin orchestra in action.

All in all it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed a nice pizza dinner at Evaroni's in downtown Kenova ahead of time. So long great pumpkin house ... till next year!

Update: Check out the comment from The Film Geek for some corrections on the origins of The Pumpkin House. Film Geek is quite knowledgeable about The Pumpkin House ... including about where to park. :-)

Labels: myphotos, stories, weird, wv

I had the MPRE this weekend ... as those of you who actually read my blog have no doubt noted with my endless barrage of questions. Fret not, I think that I'm finished with the questions for now and will be returning to normal blogging now.

I arrived at the University of Charleston, where I had taken the LSAT some 12 years earlier to get into law school in the first place, about 20 minutes early for my MPRE test. I parked my car and took a last look at the test manual to decide what I wanted to try to get away with taking into the test room. When I was a law student, all scared of rules and such, I would have been terrified at the list of 14+ "Test Center Regulations" in the guide. I say 14+ because there is another section that further enumerates 7 types of behavior that are "Prohibited at Test Centers". These rules say such things as: that you "must bring at least two No. 2 pencils or mechanical pencils"; "the only things you will be permitted to bring into the testing room are No.2 pencils ... for example, you may not take pens, highlights, backpacks, purses, briefcases, food or drink, beeping alarms, calculator watches, wristwatches with a picture-taking feature, pagers, cellular phones, books, notes, scratch paper, Palm Pilots or other hand-held computers ... etc."; and "You may not wear a hat, earplugs, or headphones." In addition the rules tell you the things that will get you ejected and how you must make sure not to take the test booklet with you ... lots of real helpful stuff. It also tells you to make sure you bring your admission ticket with a passport photo attached and another form of photo id in-case you wanted to trust someone else to take the exam for you.

These rules really made me smile in a way that I wouldn't have when I took the test 7 years ago. I seem to recall fretting over some of these things back then and making sure that I did everything just right. As I read these rules I wondered about my choice of ironic t-shirt that I had chosen to wear today and contemplated that I went to law school with some people who would be neurotic enough to get freaked out about wearing a shirt with numbers on it because someone might think that it gave them some sort of advantage. I smiled and wondered if my shirt would freak out some law student who was a little too keyed up. I grabbed my copy of The Onion and picked up an extra mechanical pencil (so that I'd have exactly two) and exited my car. Yes, my copy of The Onion was contraband ... and my only regret was that I didn't have the shirt that you can buy from The Onion that says "Fuck off ... I'm reading The Onion." So I got to my seat and had some time to read before we got started. I was really enjoying myself too. I was one of the older people in the room but there was at least one other guy there who was taking the exam a second time as I heard him loudly complaining about having had to take the exam again having taken it 15 years earlier. I remained silent while people watching out of the corners of my eyes. The law students looked really nervous. It occurred to me that my streak of being a rules-breaker must have come from seeing how nonchalant that the older students were in law school. These were people who had seen the real world and who realized that all of these freaking rules and dos and don'ts just don't really matter much in most cases. Most anybody can recognize that mischievous trait in me now but I don't think it was present when I first took this test.

Here is a picture of the shirt that I wore. It's a reference to one of my favorite tv shows. We got started at about 9:30 after having to go through all of the reading of instructions, filling out our information bubbles, yadda yadda yadda. I contemplated how good it felt to fill out the bubble for "member of state bar" when it asked my status ... where last time my choice was "second year law student." I didn't see an option of "just taking it for shits and giggles" even though I don't think you have to be a law student or lawyer to take the test. One test taker just made it to the exam. He ran to the door in a panic as we were filling out the pre-test info having had a hard time finding the test center. He was lucky they let him in to take the test. So I got into the exam and took my time. I don't fill out the bubbles on my scantron form as I go, rather I circle the answer in the test booklet and then fill out the bubbles at the end (making sure I leave plenty of time for that). For this test I started filling out the bubbles with about 15 minutes to go. Kay had joked with me to choose "C" when in doubt and I laughed that I would think that the Bar nazi's would find a way to correct for that but I chuckled when I noted that I had answered "C" 19 times on a 60 question test while transferring my answers. Lastly we had to fill out a 10 question survey, if time permitted, about the test center. One law student asked in a panic if he would be penalized if he didn't have time to do that as the proctor called that we had 5 minutes remaining and she said no. I contemplated not doing the questions at all but did them anyway. One of them asked how much time had been spent preparing for the exam and my answer was the highest at more than 30 hours which may have been more time than I needed but I also included my D.C. Seminar in that.

I made it out to my car after the test booklets were collected and saw what looked like a parking ticket on my car! I got a little closer and saw it was a bank deposit envelope that had something written on it. It said "Let's do lunch? Your girls ... K and K. Call us" How sweet! Kay and k-girl had found my car and left me a note. I called them up and we met for lunch at Chili's and I started my new resolution to get my butt back into shape by choosing something from the "guiltless grill". I've been making some promises to Inca Princess that I would get myself in gear and now I have to do something about that 40 pounds I've gained since being back here in WV. So while I know I'm a little behind in blogging you can expect to see the following topics show up later today: the Kenova Pumpkin House; going to a race with JDB ... and going for a few ride-alongs; band practice and the scary hard and fast song; and my plan to get myself back into shape. Keep your eyes peeled. I have to head off to Court now (I'm blogging this on Monday morning despite the publication date). Later!

Labels: law, stories

Here are the answers to the third 10 ethics questions that I posted. Again, I'm including the correct answers (along with my choices) in the comments attached to this post. Later, when I have time, I will come back and give full explanations if y'all want them for the questions. That's how we learn after all. Thanks for playing. :-)

Labels: law

I survived the MPRE. I will do a big blog about it later, complete with pictures and funny stories. For now I'm glad that I'm done. I'm planning on meeting my sister in a little bit for pizza at Evaroni's and then we're going to see The Pumpkin House!

The questions were tricky on the exam. Most of the questions were about lawyer responsibilities such as lawyer-client, conflicts of interest, prosecutorial duties, judicial ethics, and handling client funds. This is much of the stuff that I talked about in my blog this week so I found those discussions to have been helpful. I was a little worried about some of the tricky questions because I know that some of what I know is specific to Ohio and D.C. and not to the model rules that the MPRE was designed to test. Maybe Shark Girl can help me research some of these so that I know if I got them right.

For instance: Ohio changed their Rules so that all fee agreements now have to be in writing where before it was discretionary with the understanding that the lawyer would probably have the fact that there was no written agreement construed against them. So there was a question on the MPRE about whether a lawyer would get in trouble for not having a contingent fee agreement in writing and I said that he would. I hope I got the rule right.

There was another one that I think I might have gotten due to the interactive test that we did in the D.C. ethics seminar a few weeks ago. In that seminar the presenter wanted to illustrate co-mingling of client and lawyer funds and said ... "see if you can tell me where the ethics violation occurs" ... he took a dollar from one pocket that he said was his and another dollar from his other pocket that he said was his clients and then rubbed them together and said "ding ding ding!" So in my question a lawyer had a client trust account set up to keep his clients funds separate and every year the bank automatically took the $150 account fee directly out of the account. He had been depositing $150 into the account so that when the bank did the fee at the end of the year it would not come out of his client's money. The question asked if this was a violation I had to pick between the two yes answers and chose "because he should have worked out another arrangement with the bank" rather than "yes, unless he had notified the Bar about this arrangement." So I hope I was right.

There were some other odd ones. There was one about a lawyer who had a friend of another tenant in his building come to seek his help because the tenant was about to be evicted for not responding to his eviction hearing notice. When the lawyer met with them he saw that the tenant was mentally impaired and was not able to grasp what was happening. They both tried to get him to agree to let the lawyer represent him without success. The lawyer ended up filing a motion at the behest of the friend to ask the court to stay the eviction pending a further hearing after the court could investigate whether the tenant needed a guardian ad lietem appointed. I chose that the lawyer was not subject to discipline due to the emergency nature and his reasonable belief that no other lawyer or agent was able to help the tenant due to his incapacity. But the answer that he had not actually been retained to represent the client was also tempting. Did I choose the right one?

There were a few odd withdrawal of representation questions. One was a lawyer who had been assigned by a judge to represent an indigent criminal defendant who petitioned the judge to get out of the appointment because he had already done 100 hours of pro bono work for the year. I chose that he was subject to discipline unless he had a legitimate conflict with the rules that would disallow the representation. Then there was another question about a lawyer who worked for a legal services agency who was overworked and didn't know what else to do because she felt that her caseload was so heavy that she couldn't possibly fulfill her duty of competent representation without withdrawing from some of her clients' cases. She couldn't get her managing attorney to do so and she felt that she couldn't withdraw from any of her indigent clients' cases because it would leave them without other means of representation. I chose that she had an ethical duty to resign her position because of her earnest belief of inability to fulfill her duties over the option that it was okay because her clients had no one else ... focusing on the part of the problem that said she honestly believed she wasn't able to fulfill her duties of representation.

So what do y'all think? Now I have to get out to have pizza and pumpkin gazing. Later!

Labels: law

Here are five more brain teasers before I head off to my test this morning. Perhaps these will be the last ones? I don't know, I guess we'll have to see (that's half a test after all). I got all of these right for the record.

Question 26: Walters is insured under an auto liability policy issued by Farmers Insurance Company. The policy requires Farmers to provide a lawyer to defend Walters, and it requires Walters to cooperate in the defense. Walters had an accident and was sued. In a sworn statement to Farmers' insurance investigator, Walters told a story that showed he was clearly not at fault. Based on that story, Farmers rejected plaintiff's offer to settle the case for a modest sum. Farmers hired attorney Chen to represent Walters at the trial of the case. Shortly before trial, Walters told Chen in confidence that he had lied to the investigator, and he recounted facts that showed he was clearly at fault in the accident. Chen realized that under the applicable state law, Walters's falsehood was a breach of the "cooperate in the defense" clause, and that it relieved Farmers of any further duties to Walters. At this juncture, what must Chen do?

A) Promptly advise Farmers of the situation and carry out Farmers's instructions as to how to dispose of the matter.
B) Promptly advise Walters that his best interests will be served by reverting to the story he told originally to the insurance investigator.
C) Promptly seek the court's permission to withdraw from the matter, without revealing Walters's confidential statement to anyone.
D) Promptly advise Walters of the legal consequences of his false statement, and continue representing Walters and Farmers in the matter as best he is able in the circumstances.

Question 27: Charlene was involved in an aviation mishap. The airline company has admitted liability and has settled with 10 other persons involved in the mishap for amounts ranging between $120,000 and $150,000. Charlene's injuries are very similar to those suffered by the persons with whom the airline has settled. Charlene received a settlement offer of $135,000 from the airline company. Upon receiving the offer, Charlene decided to employ counsel to determine if the offer was a fair amount, and generally to read over the settlement papers and the release that the airline asked Charlene to sign to get the $135,000. Charlene went to the offices of attorney Alp, bringing the settlement papers and release with her. She asked Alp what his hourly fee for reading the papers would be. Alp responded that Charlene had a personal injury case and that Alp's standard fee for personal injury cases was 30% of any settlement or judgment received by the plaintiff. Is Alp subject to discipline?

A) Yes, because Alp's fee bears no rational relationship to the time and effort required to perform the work requested by the client.
B) Yes, if 30% exceeded the usual contingent fee percentage in Alp's geographical area of practice.
C) No, because contingent fees are appropriate in personal injury cases.
D) No, because Charlene was free to obtain counsel other than Alp.

Question 28. Attorney Dave is defending Datatec Corporation in an employment discrimination suit in which the plaintiffs are represented by attorney Perello. Wallner is a Datatec employee, but he is not an officer or shareholder in Datatec, and he is not a party to the lawsuit. Wallner is in charge of Datatec's Personnel Department, and he is responsible for insuring that Datatec's hiring practices comply with the laws against employment discrimination. Wallner is in poor health, so Dave scheduled the taking of Wallner's deposition as a precaution in case Wallner should die before trial. Without seeking Dave's consent, or even telling him, Perello had lunch with Wallner several days before the deposition, and on that occasion Perello pumped Wallner for information relevant to the lawsuit. When Dave learned what had happened, he telephoned Perello and called him a slimy, mud-sucking shyster. Which of the following is most nearly correct?

A) Dave's conduct was proper.
B) Perello's conduct was proper.
C) Perello is subject to discipline because he should not have talked with Wallner about the case without Dave's consent.
D) Perello is subject to discipline because he talked with a deposition witness about the subject of the litigation before the deposition was taken.

Question 29: Defendant Devereaux was charged with first degree murder. It is claimed that Devereaux captured his victim, dragged her into dense woods, and stabbed her with a knife. Devereaux has pleaded not guilty. Pamela is the prosecutor, and Denise is Devereaux's defense attorney. During the proseuction's case-in-chief, one of Pamela's witnesses testified that he had seen Devereaux's car near the scene of the crime shortly before the murder. This courthouse has no private room set aside for conferences between defendants and their counsel. Thus, at the next recess, Denise and Devereaux held a hurried, whispered conference in the hallway, as follows:

Denise: "Were you driving around that area at the time?"
Devereaux: "Yes."
Denise: "Why didn't you tell me that before?"
Devereaux: "I didn't realize that anybody saw me."

Unbeknownst to Denise and Devereaux, Pamela was standing nearby and overheard their whispers. Which of the following are correct?

I. Pamela must seek the court's permission to withdraw as trial counsel and testify to what she heard.
II. Pamela must ignore what she heard and proceed with the case in the normal manner.
III. Denise must seek the court's permission to withdraw as trial counsel and inform the trial judge in chambers what Devereaux said.
IV. Denise must proceed with the case in the normal manner, even though Devereaux's statement may cause her to doubt his innocence.

A) Only II. and IV.
B) Only I. and III.
C) Only II. and III.
D) Only I. and IV.

Question 30: Paul is a title insurance agent. In serving his customers, he routinely fills in the blanks in standard form documents that are prepared by lawyers. These documents include warranty deeds, quitclaim deeds, mortgages, releases of mortgages, affidavits as to debts and liens, lien waivers, and the like. On occasion, when his customers specifically ask, he advises them about the meaning and legal effect of the technical language used in the forms. Which of the following constitutes the unauthorized practice of law by Paul?

I. Filling in the blanks on warranty deeds, quitclaim deeds, and mortgages.
II. Filling in the blanks on affidavits as to debts and liens and lien waivers.
III. Advising customers, at their request, about the meaning and legal effect of the technical language used in the forms.

A) None of the above.
B) All of the above.
C) III. only.
D) I. only.

Labels: law

This is the 17th in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

17. Be no Flatterer, neither Play with any that delights not to be Play'd Withal.

In short, neither a kiss ass nor a tease should you be.

Labels: civility

Here are the answers to the second 10 ethics questions that I posted. Again, I'm including the correct answers (along with my choices) in the comments attached to this post. Later, when I have time, I will come back and give full explanations if y'all want them for the questions. That's how we learn after all. Thanks for playing. :-)

I may post 5 more between now and tomorrow. I'll include the answers after that post I suppose. We'll see. The last five that I posted were pretty hard.

Labels: law

Because you can never have too much of a good thing ... and these are hard this time ... I got all but one of these wrong.

Question 21: Judge Jardon is a full-time trial judge in State A. State A has a statute that prohibits employment discrimination against gays and lesbians. In addition to her judicial work, Judge Jardon is the chief executive officer of a corporation that is closely held by Judge Jardon and her three brothers. The corporation owns and operates a nursing home in State A. Because of strong anti-homosexual religious beliefs on the part of residents, the nursing home does not employ gays and lesbians. Is it proper for Judge Jardon to continue as chief executive officer for the corporation?

A) Yes, because a judge is prohibited from association with an organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin only.
B) Yes, unless the management of the family owned business takes so much time that it interferes with the judge's judicial duties.
C) No, because a judge is not allowed to serve as an officer, director, manager, general partner, adviser, or employee of a business entity.
D) No, because the nursing home practices employment discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Question 22: Client Cox hired lawyer Lerner to draft a will for him. Cox willed his entire estate to Ruby Riddle, the 43-year-old widow of Ralph Riddle. Cox told Lerner in confidence that he was neither a relative nor a friend of the Riddles. Cox explained that he felt a moral obligation to Ruby because he had killed her husband, Ralph, and he had never become a suspect or confessed his sin to anyone. One day after signing the will, Cox committed suicide. In due course, all of Cox's assets were distributed to Ruby Riddle, and the probate court closed his estate and discharged his executor. Lerner never told Ruby or anyone else that Cox had confessed to killing Ralph. Now, a few years later, an enthusiastic young prosecutor is charging Harry Hapless with murdering Ralph in the first degree with aggravating circumstances, and the prosecutor is seeking the death penalty. May lawyer Lerner voluntarily tell Hapless's defense counsel what Cox told him in confidence about killing Ralph?

A) Yes, Lerner not only may, but he must, tell the defense counsel what Cox told him.
B) Yes, Lerner may tell, but he would not be subject to discipline if he decides not to do so.
C) No, Lerner would be subject to discipline if he told defense counsel because the attorney-client privilege survives the death of the client.
D) No, because Cox's confidential confession to Lerner would be inadmissible hearsay if offered against the prosecution in Hapless's case.

Question 23: Attorney Alice and attorney Baxter were brother and sister. They were licensed to practice in the Province of Manitoba, Canada. For five years they practiced together in a partnership in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Alice then moved to International Falls, Minnesota, where she passed the Minnesota Bar Examination and was duly licensed to practice law in the state of Minnesota. She opened up a law office in International Falls and had letterhead stationary printed which read: "Alice and Baxter, Partners, Attorneys at Law." Is it proper for Alice to use such letterhead?

A) Yes, because American courts have no jurisdiction over Canadian attorneys.
B) Yes, because both Alice and Baxter are licensed to practice law.
C) No, because the letterhead indicates Alice is aiding the unauthorized practice of law.
D) No, because Canadian lawyers must swear an unconstitutional oath of loyalty to a foreign monarch.

Qxuestion 24: For many years, tax attorney Aguero has handled all of the tax work for client Carrara, a famous post-modern sculptor. Carrara's large sculptures cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each and are sold mostly to wealthy collectors and museums. Carrara also, however, produces the occasional small, modestly priced work. Aguero greatly admires Carrara's talent and yearns for one of the small sculptures to display in his office. One evening, Carrara invited Aguero to his studio to discuss some tax returns that had to be filed the next day. In the studio, Aguero saw a small sculpture that would be perfect for his office. At the close of their tax discussion, Aguero told Carrara how much he admired the small sculpture and offered to buy it for $10,000, its approximate fair market value. Carrara told Aguero that it was not for sale. In due course, Aguero sent Carrara a $750 fee bill for the tax work. A few days later, the small sculpture was delivered to Aguero's office with the following note from Carrara:

My dear Aguero: I hope this small piece of my work will satisfy your recent fee bill. I want you to have it as a token of my gratitude for the excellent tax advice you have given me all these years. I hope you will enjoy having it in your office. Your friend, Carrara.

Would Aguero be subject to discipline for accepting the small sculpture from Carrara?

A) Yes, because the gift is of significant monetary value.
B) Yes, because the value of the sculpture is far out of proportion to the $750 worth of work Aguero did for Carrara.
C) No, because Aguero did not solicit the gift.
D) No, unless $10,000 would be an unreasonably high legal fee for the work Aguero did for Carrara.

Question 25: Duffy graduated from law school, but he never took the bar examination and was never admitted to practice. He works as an investigator and paralegal for the law firm of Schnell & Gao, a professional corporation. Which of the following statements are true?

I. On Duffy's recommendation, one of Duffy's friends retained lawyer Gao to represent her as a plaintiff in a personal injury case. It would be proper for Schnell & Gao to pay Duffy 10% of its fee in the case as compensation for the referral.
II. Lawyer Schnell frequently assigns Duffy to draft wills for Schnell's estate planning clients. Schnell supervises Duffy's work, revises Duffy's drafts, and is ultimately responsible for the final product. Schnell is subject to discipline for assisting a nonlawyer to engage in the unauthorized practice of law.
III. Schnell & Gao established a retirement plan that is funded partly by legal fees earned by the firm's lawyers. The firm may include Duffy as a beneficiary of the retirement plan.
IV. Schnell & Gao established a stock option plan to compensate its personnel for hard work. The options allow recipients to purchase shares of stock in the law firm at a reduced price. It would be proper for Duffy to acquire stock in the firm through the stock option plan.

A) I., II., III., and IV.
B) III. and IV. only.
C) III. only.
D) None of the above.

Labels: law

Attorney competency is a big issue before the Bar. Here are five more questions that all hinge on some aspect of competency. Oh, and I'm sorry in advance ... I missed one of these but I'm not saying which one yet ... okay it was #17.

Question 16: Seymour is applying for admission to the State A Bar. When Seymour was in high school, he and his parents lived in State B, next door to attorney Azevedo. Azevedo is admitted to practice in State B, but not in State A. Seymour seemed to be a promising lad, and Azevedo was disappointed to learn that during Seymour's senior year in high school, he was convicted of burglarizing a liquor store. After serving his sentence, Seymour went to college and later to law school. Azevedo has had no contact with Seymour since his high school years, but so far as Azevedo knows, Saymour has not done anything since high school that would reflect badly on his character. The Bar of State A sent Azevedo a routine questionnaire, asking a series of questions about Seymour's character. Azevedo does not know whether Seymour disclosed the burglary conviction on his bar application, and she does not know where to contact him to find out. Which of the following would be a proper response to the questionnaire?

A) She should not respond at all because she has no relevant information to provide.
B) She should not respond at all because as a State B lawyer she is not obligated to provide information to the Bar of State A.
C) She should not mention Seymour's burglary conviction in her response unless she first contacts him and obtains his permission to do so.
D) She should state what she knows about Seymour, including mention of his burglary conviction.

Question 17: Attorney April represents Chuck, plaintiff in a personal injury suit arising out of an automobile collision. Chuck asserts that he had the right-of-way to enter the intersection where the accident occurred. The defendant claims otherwise, but Chuck tells April that there was a witness present who would be able to verify Chuck's version of the accident. April obtains a copy of the police report on the accident, but the name of the witness is not contained in the report. April contemplates running an ad in the newspaper or hiring an investigator to find the witness, but April concludes that Chuck's testimony ought to be strong enough to win the case. The case comes to trial, and the jury finds for the defendant. Is April subject to discipline for failure to try to find the witness?

A) Yes, because she failed to properly prepare for the case.
B) Yes, because her client lost.
C) No, if she reasonably believed that Chuck's testimony would be sufficient.
D) No, because the name of the witness was not in the police report.

Question 18: The state in which attorney Lawrence practices levies an annual tax on trusts for the benefit of minors. Tax returns must be filed, and the taxes must be paid, by March 15; late filing results in an automatic penalty of 15%. In mid-January, trustee Morris retained attorney Lawrence to prepare and file a tax return. Morris heard nothing from Lawrence during February, and he became seriously alarmed when the first week of March passed with no apparent action from Lawrence. He called Lawrence repeatedly during late February and early March, but the secretary always said that Lawrence was "in conference," "in court," or "in deposition." Lawrence never returned any of Morris's phone calls. On March 10, Morris fired Lawrence and hired Donita to do the necessary work. She was able to complete the tax return and get it filed on time. Is Lawrence subject to discipline?

A) Yes, even if he would have been able to complete the necessary work between March 10 and March 15.
B) Yes, provided that the excuses given by his secretary were not in fact true.
C) No, provided that he would have been able to complete the necessary work between march 10 and March 15.
D) No, because neither Morris nor the trust suffered any loss.

Question 19: For many years lawyer Lacy has done business transactions work for wealthy client Chung. Chung was recently injured in an automobile crash, and she has asked Lacy to represent her as plaintiff in an action against the driver who injured her. Lacy has taken some business cases to trial, but has never handled a personal injury case. Lacy would like to earn a profit from Chung's case. Which of the following would be proper ways for him to do s?

I. Take the case and, with Chung's consent, associate a co-counsel who is competent in the field of personal injury law.
II. Refer Chung to a competent personal injury lawyer and charge that lawyer a $1,000 forwarding fee.
III. Take the case and do the study and research needed to handle it competently.
IV. Refer Chung to a competent personal injury lawyer and charge Chung a reasonable sum for the time spent in making the referral.

A) I. and III. only.
B) I., II., and III. only.
C) I. and IV. only.
D) I., III., and IV. only.

Question 20: Lawyer Lorenz agreed to represent wife Withers on an hourly fee basis in securing a divorce from her husband Hullar. Hullar is represented in the matter by attorney Atwell. Despite repeated warnings by Lorenz, Withers kept pestering Lorenz with telephone calls and office visits concerning inconsequential details and trifling personal complaints. When Withers was unable to contact Lorenz on the phone or in person, she would telephone Atwell, her husband's attorney, and try to put her questions and complaints to him. Atwell always refused to talk to Withers. Lorenz repeatedly told Withers not to contact Atwell, but to no avail. Finally, Lorenz told Withers that she would withdraw unless Withers changed her ways, but Withers did not do so. Lorenz withdrew and sent Withers a fee bill for the total number of hours she had spent on the case. Withers refused to pay the bill, and after futile efforts to settle the matter, Lorenz sued her to collect the fee. Which of the following propositions are true?

I. It was proper for Lorenz to withdraw.
II. It was proper for Atwell to refuse to talk with Withers on the phone.
III. It was proper for Lorenz to bill Withers for the total amount of time she spent on the case.
IV. It was proper for Lorenz to sue Withers to collect the unpaid fee.

A) I., II., III., and IV.
B) None of the above.
C) I. and III. only.
D) II. only.

Labels: law

This is the 16th in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

16. Do not Puff up the Cheeks, Loll not out the tongue rub the Hands, or beard, thrust out the lips, or bite them or keep the Lips too open or too Close.

Good advice I suppose.

Labels: civility

Here are the answers to the prior 10 ethics questions that I asked before tonight. Actually, I'm including the correct answers (along with my choices) in the comments attached to this post. Later, when I have time, I will come back and give full explanations if y'all want them for the questions. That's how we learn afterall. Thanks for playing. :-)

Labels: law

Because you asked for more ... well ... one of you did ...

Question 11: Lawyer Lars is defending Castco, Inc. in a suit brought in federal district court in the Second Circuit. One of the issues in the case is whether Castco violated a workplace rule promulgated by the Federal Employment commission ("FEC"). Castco denies having done the act that allegedly violated the FEC rule. As a fallback position, Castco argues that even if it did the act, the rule should be interpreted to exclude acts of that kind. For which of the following actions is Lars subject to discipline?

I. Failing to turn over incriminating documents that Castco gave him in confidence upon his employment, and which were requested during discovery.
II. Failing to cite a case directly on point decided last month by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
III. Failing to notify the opposing side of a witness who can testify that the president of Castco specifically instructed one of her deputies to commit the act in question.
IV. Failing to cite a three-week-old FEC decision that Lars found in a computer search and that interprets the FEC rule to include precisely the kind of act Castco allegedly committed.

A) II. and IV., but not I. and III.
B) I. and III., but not II. and IV.
C) I., III., and IV., but not II.
D) I. and IV., but not II. and III.

Question 12: Attorney Adams is defending defendant Dutcher at his trial for armed robbery of a liquor store. Dutcher tells Adams in confidence that at the time in question, he was sitting at home watching television with his aged mother, and that his mother can confirm his alibi. Adams interviews the mother, who solemnly confirms Dutcher's story. After talking with her, Adams strongly suspects that she is lying to protect Dutcher. Adams does not know for sure that Dutcher and his mother are lying, but every instinct tells him that they are. Adams has warned both of them about the dangers of perjury, but both have insisted that they want to testify to the alibi at trial. May Adams call Dutcher, or his mother, or both, as trial witnesses?

A) Yes, as to both Dutcher and his mother.
B) Yes, as to Dutcher, but no, as to his mother.
C) No, as to both Dutcher and his mother.
D) No, as to Dutcher, but yes as to his mother.

Question 13: Attorney Bob was engaged in a partnership law practice with his sister, Sarah, for almost 10 years. Sarah then decided to run for judge. She was successful in her efforts and was duly sworn in as one of the 15 sitting judges on the district court. According to state venue rules, at least 90% of the cases that Bob usually handles must be filed with the district court. Would it be proper for Bob to continue to handle such cases and appear before the district court?

A) Yes, unless an opposing party objects.
B) Yes, unless Bob implies that his clients will receive unfair advantages because his sister is a judge.
C) No, because it creates an appearance of impropriety.
D) No, because an attorney should not appear in a district court where a close relative serves as one of the judges.

Question 14: Newspaper reporter Dabba Ratchet writes a semi-humorous gossip column in which she reports on the vices and victories in the private lives of prominent citizens. Among her favorite targets are judges and lawyers. Over the years, Ms. Ratchet and lawyer Lubner have worked out a tacit arrangement. Every now and then in her column, Ms. Ratchet gives glowing praise to Lubner's legal talents and recommends him to her readers. In return, Lubner calls Ms. Ratchet whenever he learns a juicy tidbit about another lawyer or judge. Is Lubner's conduct proper?

A) Yes, unless the information that Lubner gives her is untrue.
B) Yes, unless the information that Lubner gives her is the subject of a privilege or a confidential relationship.
C) No, because a lawyer is subject to discipline for demeaning members of the legal profession.
D) No, because a lawyer should not give something of value in return for a recommendation.

Question 15: Attorney Anderson is licensed to practice law in State Red, but he is not engaged in the active practice of law. Anderson and Benson, a non-attorney partner, operate a temporary placement service for legal secretaries in State Green, which borders State Red. Anderson is not licensed to practice law in State Green, nor does he hold himself out to be so licensed. An investigation by State Green authorities results in the discovery that Anderson and his partner have intentionally filed improper state business tax returns. Is Anderson subject to discipline in State Red?

A) Yes, because his actions in State Green constituted fraud.
B) Yes, if he supervises the temporary service business from State Red.
C) No, because Anderson is not licensed to practice law in State Green.
D) No, because this situation does not involve the practice of law.

I got all of these right BTW.

Labels: law

I saw the lawyer today (well ... yesterday now) who let me borrow her study guide for the MPRE. I said to her that I had forgotten how tricky that those questions were and she said that she had thought that the practice questions were much harder than the actual test questions. Well, I can't remember for sure but I hope so. I've taken three of the four practice tests and my raw score has just now come into the passing range with this last one. But I'm learning from reading the explanations of the answers and the nuances that I missed in the questions. If I can nail 15 to 20 questions on the test that way it will just give me more time to think about the rest.

Actually, I've been worrying a bit about my performance so I looked up the scoring info and I was right. WV requires a 75 scaled score but I forgot how they scaled them. I was thinking that my original score was in the 90s but the more I think about it I think that it was around 115 because I recall that I did very well and the scaled range is 50 to 150 with 100 being the projected median. They scale the tests based upon how difficult that each question is and 10 of the questions you answer are not scored because they are questions that are being tested for future exams. The wikipedia has compiled some information on scaling that says a minimum of 79 points would equate to 28 to 33 correct answers of the 50 graded questions. Well, my first practice test I got 35, then 41, and lastly 45 correct. So I may pass with flying colors afterall. We'll see...

In the mean time, here are a few more that I thought were tricky ... I got 7 and 8 right but got 9 and 10 wrong:

Question 7: Linda, Phil's attorney, knows that the statute of limitations on Phil's claim against Debbie has run. However, the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense that Debbie would waive if she failed to plead it. What may Linda do?

A) File the suit if Phil is willing to incur the legal fees and court costs.
B) File the suit but inform the court that the statute of limitations has run.
C) Not file the suit unless Phil consents to disclose the fact that the statute of limitations has run.
D) Not file the suit as it is now a frivolous claim.

Question 8: Client Cristin sought the advice of lawyer Leona on a difficult and sensitive family problem. Cristin suspected that her husband had been molesting Daisy, Cristin's 12-year-old daughter by a prior marriage. Cristin asked Leona what she should do. Leona advised Cristin that all three members of the family should consult Frances, a licensed family counselor who specializes in precisely this sort of problem. Fearing that if Cristin were aware of the law she would not seek counseling, Leona purposely failed to tell Cristin that a new state statute requires family counselors to report to the district attorney all instances of suspected child abuse.

Cristin and her family consulted Frances, and Frances reported the matter to the district attorney, as she was required to do by law. The district attorney commenced criminal proceedings against Cristin's husband, much against the wishes of both Cristin and Daisy. Were Leona's actions proper?

A) Yes, if Leona believed in good faith that Cristin would not seek counseling if she knew about the statute.
B) Yes, because it is the policy of the state that all instances of child abuse be reported to the appropriate authorities.
C) No, because a lawyer should fully advise a client of relevant information.
D) No, unless Leona believed in good faith that the daughter had actually been molested.

Question 9: Attorney Acheson represents Dell, who has pleaded guilty to a burglary charge. Dell told Acheson during one of their confidential client conversations that this is the fourth time he has been busted for burglary - one other time in this state and two times in the neighboring state. Dell could be facing a mandatory 5-10 years in prison as a repeat offender, but he and Acheson are hoping that his pleading guilty will result in a shorter sentence. Unknown to Acheson or Dell, a glitch in the state computer files resulted in a presentencing report that did not pick up either Dell's in-state or out-of-state prior convictions. At sentencing, Judge Johnson states, "Normally, I throw the book at young men like you who have no respect for the property of others. However, because I see you have no prior criminal record, I think you deserve another chance. I sentence you to two years probation and 300 hours community service." Both Acheson and Dell remain silent. Is Acheson subject to discipline?

A) Yes, because failure to speak out when one knows that the court is operating on false information is the equivalent of affirmative misrepresentation.
B) Yes, because this is a sentencing hearing rather than a trial.
C) No, because the mistake did not originate with Acheson or Dell.
D) No, because Acheson could not reveal the confidential information even if he had been asked directly.

Question 10: Paralegal Platten works for the law firm of Dahlers & Sentz. Her direct supervisor is partner Dahlers, whose practice is limited to international trade law. Partner Sentz is the firm's leading trial lawyer, both in commercial and personal injury cases. On her way to work one morning, Platten saw a pedestrian run down in a crosswalk by a speeding car. Platten rendered first aid, and while she was waiting with the pedestrian for the ambulances, Platten said: "Here, call the number on this card and talk to attorney Seymour Sentz; he's really good, and he can help you recover money for the injury you have suffered." When she got to work, she told partner Dahlers what she had done. Dahlers admonished Platten not to hand out the firm's cards in such situations, but he did not discuss the matter with partner Sentz. Is Dahlers subject to discipline?

A) Yes, because he failed to warn Sentz not to take the pedestrian's case.
B) Yes, because as Platten's supervisor, he is responsible for any unethical act she commits.
C) No, because as a nonlawyer, Platten is free to recommend a lawyer to someone if she wishes.
D) No, because Platten may not have been aware at the time that she did anything wrong.

Are you guys having fun with these? Want me to do some more?

Labels: law

This is the 15th in a series of rules that I've been blogging about handed down by George Washington.

15. Keep your Nails clean and Short, also your Hands and Teeth Clean yet without Shewing any great Concern for them.

In other words ... have some self respect for your appearance ... but don't be too girly about it.

Labels: civility