Saturday, September 30, 2006

Cleveland Rocks

Okay, it's about time that I mention my fabulous trip to Cleveland last weekend. It was just wonderful.

Last Thursday, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a lunch with the first General Counsel of eBay, and really enjoyed hearing his stories and advice. But unfortunately, I subsequently arrived a little late to the Charlottesville airport. And apparently, if you try to check in less than 30 minutes before your plane's departure time, you are locked out of the system, and totally unable to check any baggage. And since I had three bags in my hand, the man behind the counter began looking for other flights for me. No way! I said, "I've got a dinner planned tonight- I've gotta be on this plane." I understand why they have the 30 minute rule; TSA is unable to perform proper security measures on bags in less time than that. What's weird is that it's Charlottesville. There are like seven people in the entire building. I felt like saying, "The plane is right there - can't you just walk it over there?" Instead, I just took everything in my hanging bag and shoved it in my rolling bag and said, "There - I've now got two bags." So he checked me in, and I headed for security.

I was detained at security because I was now trying to carry several deadly weapons on board: toothpaste, shaving gel, aftershave, and heaven forbid shoe polish. In an effort to keep me from destroying the plane, they kindly removed these items from my dangerous clutches and threw them in the garbage. After a second and third screening of my questionable bag, they let me have it back, right before the gate door closed on my plane. I made it! No sweat - I bought some more toothpaste and shaving foam once I arrived at the Cleveland airport.

I checked in to a hotel downtown, went out for a lovely meal, and then went back to the hotel to wait for my Rosa to show up. It had been nearly six weeks since we had seen each other. I decided to kill time by ironing my clothes which were a bit wrinkled after their crammed journey in my roller bag. Somewhere in the middle of ironing a sleeve, I got a call from Rosa, who was just arriving downstairs. We finally saw each other! She came tumbling through the front door of the hotel with three packed bags (most of her earthly possessions). She was more beautiful than I had ever seen her. We both just kind of looked at each other for a minute; it felt like one of those moments in the movies. After a longer hug than ever, I helped her bring her bags upstairs. It was nice to finally see her again.

Friday I had an enjoyable series of interviews while Rosa slept in and went to lunch with her Dad. When I was finished, Rosie and I drove in to Westlake, where we spent a few minutes with her mom and sister. We did a little shopping and enjoyed some Panera with Rosa's mom. After that, we headed over to Westlake High School and arrived right at halftime. I forgot how fun high school football games can be. They are fun, especially in the midwest! The Westlake High halftime show is impressively professional. The band is one of the top ranking bands in the country, and the flag girls and cheer girls are incredibly coordinated. The only thing missing was fireworks. It was exciting not only to watch Rosa's sister Julie bang on her drums, but it was neat to picture Rosa in the band and in charge of the flag girls. It was one of those rare moments where you get to go back in time and see your spouse before you met. So cool.

Saturday brought a beeeaautiful long sleep-in. We woke up somewhere between 11 and 12. It was blissful. It's one of the first times in a while I woke up feeling like I was done sleeping - it's been a while since that's happened. After some hanging out and a bit more shopping, we headed to dinner back near Cleveland in Brooklyn. The family went out to dinner in honor of Rosa's sister's birthday. It was so good to see everyone together!

The next day brought more plane probs. Our plane into Atlanta was delayed, and I missed my flight to Charlottesville by about 40 seconds! Luckily, the Olsons came to my rescue and picked me up in Richmond when I took a substitute flight. When I made it back to Charlottesville, I hopped in the car and drove to Baltimore to pick up Rosa, who had been waiting there for several hours. I can't tell you how good it felt to arrive back in Charlottesville that night. Finally! Rosa and Dave in Charlottesville. Yay!

I'm glad Rosa and I were both able to be in Cleveland for the weekend. I owe lots of thanks to those that hosted me, and Rosa's family, and of course the Olsons for coming through in the clutch. Life is finally back to normal. *sigh*

Monday, September 25, 2006

SNN

Drew Snyder of the Snyder News Network just released a review of UVA Law blogs. Here is what he has to say about me:

"Not to be confused with the former New York Giants quarterback of the same name, Brown describes himself as a Mormon, peer advisor, and the host and producer of a podcast on a cappella music. He keeps his frequent but short, a nice combination. He seems like a pleasant guy."

Gee thanks, Drew!

Noteworthy in the news

Noteworthy appeared in another Daily Universe article last week. Way to go, ladies.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

I [heart] NY

GREAT trip to New York.

I got up at 5:30am on Friday, and headed to the Charlottesville airport. After a quick dry airport bagel and some tart Dole OJ (no spinach in any of these!), I hopped on a 30-person propeller plane, headed for LaGuardia, departing at 7am. Even though it wasn't even time for breakfast, LaGuardia was already delayed (surprised?). Luckily, we only had to circle around for about 10-15 minutes before we were able to land. I later found out that by the end of the day, with LaGuardia's normal delays, plus the huge rainstorm, flights were backed up over 3 hours!

I got in to my hotel very early, before it was even check-out time, so someone was still in my room. Considering I had come in jeans and a ballcap, and I hadn't shaved, and my interview was at 2:30pm, it was time to start worrying. The lady at the counter said she'd put a rush on the room, and she expected it would be ready somewhere between noon and 1pm. Trying to put my self-inflicted delay out of my mind, I decided to take a walk around midtown. I had fun walking around Broadway and half of midtown Manhattan. What a fun place! I'd been to NY before, but never with enough time to just walk around. I stopped at a hopping breakfast place, filled with locals - always a good sign. One of the greatest bagels I've ever eaten! I love NY bagels! Worked on my moot court reading, took some notes, skimmed through the NY Post on the table, and enjoyed being indoors while it was raining outside.

I made my way back to the hotel, where I attempted to dry off again, taking advantage of the free wireless internet in the hotel lobby. I caught up on some emails, checked in with my lovely wife, and felt proud of myself for working on schoolwork while I was on a trip (never happens). After trying to ignore the ticking of the clock, I decided to go grab some lunch.

Luckily, by now it had stopped raining - for the moment. I walked past several franchises whose names I knew, but thought it would be better to find the local greasy spoon where all the locals go. I was walking aimlessley, watching the people on the street, enjoying the fact that every four conversations I overheard was in a language I didn't even recognize. I suddenly found myself behind a group of gruff men, all with thick accents in loud voices, wide collars and dark suits, hair in desperate need of a barber. They all walked into the same place - a loud place with a thousand people bees buzzing around in their lunch hive. This place literally served everything - burgers, fries, Chinese, sushi, steak, Turkish food, cold cuts, hot sandwiches, nuts, gummi bears, beer, soda, you name it. I settled on a slice of New York pizza. Chicken. Buffalo chicken pizza, incredible sauce, crispy crust - oh my goodness! If Rosa had been there to enjoy it with me, it would've been heaven.

Back to the hotel - room was ready! Yess!! Ironed my clothes, showered, shaved, and reviewed my pre-interview paperwork. I walked the 2 blocks over to the firm's office. Wonderful interview! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I found a nice collection of people who seem to be genuinely friendly, and seem to honestly enjoy their work. Great time.

After that ended, I had my mind set on either heading to Central Park, or catching a Broadway show, or taking the subway down to Ground Zero, or something really tourist-y. Unfortunately, the rain was coming down like I've never seen. Pouring! (in Spanish, by the way, they don't say raining "like cats and dogs," but rather raining "like swords and needles.") I decided to just chill in my hotel room. I ordered some delicious room service, and enjoyed a lovely New York hotel room that someone else was paying for. Fantastic.

The rain did end up stopping, though too late to really do anything. I threw my shoes back on, and just went for a walk around midtown again. So awesome. I made my way down to Times Square, grabbed some hot chocolate from Starbucks, and bought one of those who-knows-what-meat-this-is in a pita quick bites from a cart on the side of the street. Somewhere in the middle of thing, I wondered who I would sue if I got food poisoning. Luckily, it was only a passing concern, and didn't... come back up. So to speak. A great night, fell asleep early, in my manhattan paradise.

The next morning, I was up at 5:30am again. Made it to LaGuardia in plenty of time to find out that my flight had been canceled! They found me a seat on a plane to Charlotte, NC. In Charlotte, my flight to Charlottesville got delayed. Then it got delayed again. Ten minutes before take-off, they announced we'd be going out of a different gate in a different area of the airport. Yikes! We all made it, and I made it back to Charlottesville safe and sound.

A wonderful weekend in New York, drinking in Manhattan, listening to foreign accents and foreign languages, hanging out in a schwanky New York hotel room, enjoying visits with some great attorneys, ideal bagels, killer pizza, room service, lamb? in a pita, crazy taxicab drivers... it was just ideal.

The only thing that would have made it better would be if I could have shared it with Rosa. It occurred to me that if we live there, our apartment would be about the size of that hotel room. Hahahaha! Crazy place to live, but it's possible...

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

I'm so proud of you. Now take a hit.

"Police: Son's Reward for Doing Homework was Smoking Pot. "

Unbelievable, yet it's true.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Starbucks sued for recalling coupons

“Lawyer whose Starbuck's email coupon was not honored decides not to do anything.

Just kidding.

This is America... he is suing for $144 million."

Monday, September 11, 2006

9-11

Nine Eleven. Happy Anniversary. I can't believe it's been five years already.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Vocal Point 2006-07!!!

Vocal Point has chosen a new lineup for 2006-07:

JJ Haines
Ben Henry
Ryan Innes
Jeremiah Jackson
Micah Lorenc
Buck Mangum
Brad McOmber
Michael Sackett
Chase Weed

James Stevens returns as director.

The three members returning from last year, JJ, Ryan, and Buck, are motivated, incredible singers. Jeremiah and Chase have both been in the group in the past, and will contribute greatly to the sound and the vision. I can induce that the four new members are incredible from two pieces of data: 1) I know Michael Sackett is the bomb, and 2) they had a lot of people audition, so the four they chose must be of the highest quality.

I'm psyched. I'm officially going on record as saying that these 9 are going to have an incredible year. Booyah.

Read the official announcement on the Vocal Point website.

Monday, September 04, 2006

LABOR day

Labor day was instituted in the United States in 1887 by Grover Cleveland Ohio as a reaction to various labor movements of the time. It was something that was already happening in other countries (that's what May Day is all about, by the way), and our country followed suit. As is typical of America, we chose not to celebrate it on May 1, like everyone else, but chose our own random day. I guess it's like the standard vs. metric thing. We'll do it our way. Anyway, the purpose of labor day is to not work.

BUT. Some people work on labor day. As just one example, we at UVA Law have classes today. No one's sure why, but it probably has something to do with the total number of Monday classes in a semester. If you shave one off, even for a national holiday instituted to give people a day off, it has to be made up somewhere. Heaven forbid we should just cut that one day from the semester. We wouldn't be getting our money's worth. A friend of mine recently did the calculations and figured out that each student at Virginia Law is paying approximately $70 per class on average. Seventy bones. That averages to like a dollar a minute. That's the same price of a mid-level recording studio. I could've been recording music for three years instead of going to school. And when I finished the three years of recording, at least I'd have several albums to show for it. What do I have now? A boatload of debt. Although at least I have much greater earning potential. The one way we get back at these professors for keeping us in on labor day, and for making us pay a dollar a minute, is by going out into the world and earning way more per hour than they do. Mwuahahahaha.

Don't let me lead you astray - although our ultra dedicated faculty here at the law school are working hard on labor day, there are some who aren't. Like those who run the university's data systems. It's not like it's important or anything. Even though we have classes today, no one can add or drop any of them since LawReg is down. YET AGAIN! This thing is always down. It's the law school's biggest joke (besides the new "let's not focus so much on drinking" philosophy). Here's the email we got from them today:

The University is closed today for Labor Day. Unfortunately, the data import from the University's system crashed and we are unable to contact anyone. Consequently, we are re-booting LawReg as it was at 6:00 p.m. on Friday. As a result, LawReg will not open until 10:30 a.m. today, Monday, September 4th. Any changes to courses that were scheduled to appear this morning will not appear until Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.

Hilarious. The university has the day off, but not the dumb law students. They want their $70 worth. And when the university's registration system fails, at the key time known as the beginning of the semester, "we are unable to contact anyone." I realize they're on vacation, but is there NO ONE who can help us? What if the school were burning down? We called 9-1-1, but we no one is answering. It's labor day. Heaven help us.

I'm going to go dance around a may pole and celebrate.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

another Seussical review

This is a review of the TThS cast (not Rosa's), but it still raves about the show in general:

http://www.clippertoday.com/link.asp?smenu=74&sdetail=16663

Friday, September 01, 2006

Great interview quotes

Interview week was stressful indeed, but there are always a few bright moments that deserved to be shared. The Virginia Law Weekly collects the best quotes and publishes them all here.

Seussical in Deseret News

Read the brief article here.