Monday, February 27, 2006

VP in Deseret News

"Vocal Point Rides Wave of Success"
by Carma Wadley

It's hot — and they're cool!

That might explain why Vocal Point is so successful. Its genre, a cappella music, is one of the most popular on the local music scene. And for 15 years, Vocal Point has been one of the best at it, now ranking as the most-requested... Read more

Big Weekend in NYC


I spent the weekend in New York, participating in the Lefkowitz Trademark Moot Court Competition. My team took 2nd place in the Eastern Region, and took home the award for "Best Oral Advocacy."

The competition took place in the New York Supreme Court, in the Soho district near Chinatown. Great location! I ate killer chicken parmigian in Little Italy and bought a fake Rolex. We stayed at a nice hotel, and the school paid for most of the trip. I had a blast. Lovely weekend.

Friday, February 24, 2006

On time

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
--Bertrand Russell

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

great weekend

I spent all day Friday and Saturday in Washington, D.C. at the J. Reuben Clark Society Lawyers Conference and LDS Law Student Conference. It was a beautiful, uplifting weekend full of insights, panels, speeches, networking, and good food.

Notable was the opening address by Elder Cree-L Kofford, emeritus member of the Seventy. He spoke about following the Spirit in connection with the legal practice. The thing I took away from it was this: Don't think you're smarter than your non-member counterparts. You're not. And you don't work harder than they do. So if they work 7 days/week and 16 hours/day, how can we ever compete? "Not only can you compete, you can excel!" That was very encouraging. If you keep your covenants, and follow the Spirit, you will be blessed. That's reassuring, when I'm competing with so many around me who have more free time than me, no family, no church obligations, etc. Nice.

The whole conference was great: corporate law panel, public policy panel, General Counsel of the Church, General Counsel of Tyco, BYU law professor, Catholic priest - Georgetown professor, Richard Bushman on "Joseph Smith and the Law,"... Fantastic.

The most enriching portion of the weekend was the final address, which was given by Judge Thomas Griffith, of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. He spoke on "Practicing your Religion in Your Practice." Utterly thrilling.

Once my amigos and I made it back to Charlottesville, Rosa and I went out to the Barrister's Ball (law school prom). It was very reminiscent of high school dances, with the exception that I went with my beautiful wife! Yay!

All in all, I had an unbelievable weekend.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Musical Weekend

So, first of all, I got a CD review published on CASA.org this weekend. Check it out here: CD Review: Voices Only 2005.

Also, I was asked to judge an ICCA divisional this weekend. As it approached, I was getting excited and nervous, but little did I know what awaited me. On Friday morning, the Executive Director of the ICCA called me and told me that the show's producer was extremely ill and would be unable to come to the event. She then asked me to produce and judge the event! Yikes!

So I did. After some extensive, frantic planning on Friday, I headed out on Saturday afternoon. I drove two hours down to Williamsburg through a nasty rainstorm. Luckily, when I got there, I found a nice venue, a host group that was extremely prepared, and five well-rehearsed groups that all showed up on time. It was a miracle. The judges came, the sound and lighting worked, the tickets sold, the volunteers were friendly to the crowds... it was great! The hardest part of the night was judging the actual show. All five groups were well rehearsed, and it was tough competition. In all the time I competed in ICCA, I never realized how tough it was to judge. But in the end, we came out with a winner, and a couple of runners-up. If you're interested in specifics, scroll down to the bottom of this page. After a bit of cleaning up, the night was over. Plus a two hour drive home. At 2am, I collapsed. Luckily I was in my pajamas in bed at the time. :)

And the final piece of news: my ward choir started rehearsing again yesterday. We finally have a place to rehearse! They sound great. It's nice to be conducting again.

That was my musical weekend. La la la!

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Judge Rejects English-only Drivers Test

An Alabama statute, which makes English the official language of the state, apparently does not make it the only language.

The story here.

NG

Okay, so we're into February at this point, and I still have no grades posted. My whole section is chomping at the bit here, hoping that maybe we'll have at least ONE grade posted. Instead, every time we visit the grade site, we're faced with an unfriendly batch of "NG"s. No grade. Hopefully they'll be up soon!