Horton Hears a Who

I stink at drawing. I have some minor musical talents, but I'm totally bankrupt in the visual arts department. This is made all the more apparent by the mad skills of my family.

My wife is a great artist. My sister-in-law is an artistic superstar in embryo. My brother can draw circles around anyone (figuratively... and I suppose literally too).

My cousin Dave though. He's amazing. He was a legitimate, professional cartoonist for a while - some of the funniest cartoons I've ever seen. Unfortunately, cartooning doesn't pay all that well. Fortunately, he went into a career in animation. Have you seen Ice Age and Ice Age 2? Dave did Sid the Sloth, among other work. Not bad, eh?

Anyway, check out what Dave's working on now.

Ludlow St.

This post is brought to you by all those people who keep asking about how small my apartment is. The answer is: it's small. I haven't measured it, but it can't be more than 500 sq. ft.

These are the photos the renters sent to us before we moved in. The place looks substantially the same, except the bedspread is white, and there's different clothes in the closet. And the basketball game on the TV set has switched to baseball.

Yes, that's a DVR box up on top of the TV. We're basically addicted to DVR now.

It's green apple mania in our living/dining/everything room.

Turn around from that other shot and you see this kitchen. This is a really big kitchen by New York standards.

It's genius - the dishwasher fits right under the sink.

Queen size bed - not bad. And an air conditioner, which is nice for muggy northeast nights.

The reverse view of the same room.

My closet. Nothing too exciting, except for the sheer magnitude of it (remember where we are).

Lots of storage behind these mirrors. And we have one of those cool toilet seat lids that closes softly on its own.

More of the bathroom - an exciting finale to an already bland blog post.

If you want any more info about our apartment, you'll have to come visit. We have a lovely fold-out bed, and we're happy to fold it out for people (like Esther, who's coming to visit next weekend!).

101 meals in 10 minutes or less

The New York Times recently published an incredibly useful list of quick meals. Check it out.

I know I know

...I'm a bad person. I've been having so much fun this summer, and I haven't taken the time to share about my experiences. Rosa and I are really enjoying New York - my job is fantastic, her classes are cool, and the city is amazing. And our apartment is tiny. I'll get some pictures posted up here real soon.

In the meantime, you can check out another blog I actually have been updating. It was created by my old Vocal Point buddy Jimmy Dunn, and I'm a contributor now. Enjoy.

We made it!

Rosa and I made it to New York! We moved in to our summer apartment here on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. It's... cozy. But cool. We live in a pretty new building, secure and everything, right on the edge of Chinatown. Most of the signs around our building are in Chinese. Some are in English. And some are in Chinglish, if you know what I mean. We have stores called Lucky Good Times Grocery, and Happy Fun Sign Company. But seriously, we're having a great time.

The people at church seemed really nice today. A few lawyers in the batch, and of course people Rosa and I know from BYU. It's a small Mormon world after all.

Speaking of Mormons, Mike Wallace did an interview with Mitt Romney today on 60 Minutes. Great piece, if you ask me. Romney's a good candidate - I hope he holds up through the primaries. Of course there are a lot of Giuliani fans here in New York. And with Hilary as the senator, I think she's going to get a lot of votes out of this city.

Most of our stuff is all put away. We took our car out to my cousin's house out in Brewster, then took the train back to the city. We're officially car-less. Public transportation all the way, baby.

Off to bed... I start work in the morning. I've got a welcome breakfast, and my "summer sibling" has already invited me out to lunch. I'm sure the work gets harder after that. Wish me luck!

Celebrate good times! (come on)

Hooray!! I just finished my huge paper and submitted it online. That means three things of great importance to me:

1. I am finished with all my exams and classes for my second year of law school. I'm done.
2. I have finished my writing requirement for law school, so next year while all my fellow third-years are writhing in pain at this time, I'll be at the beach.
3. I can hit the road (seriously, like in 20 minutes) with Rosie! We're off to Manhattan for the summer!

I feel like a million bucks.

Rosa and I decided tonight that we won't leave tomorrow for NYC, but instead we'll wait until Friday. It's 2 in the morning - I'm still finishing up my paper, and there's still more to clean in our house. I start a new job on Monday, yet it seems so far away...

Happy Anniversary, Rosa!

This post comes 8 days too late, but I've finally uploaded our pictures into my computer. In honor of our second anniversary, Rosa whisked me away to a local bed & breakfast called the Foxfield Inn. It was a delightful place.

We had a wonderful time. Thanks, Rosie!!

Noteworthy: International Champions!

Congratulations are in order. One of BYU's newest singing groups, and one of the youngest a cappella groups in the country, Noteworthy, just won the final round of the International Championship of Collegiate A cappella. Rosa and I went out to NYC to enjoy the weekend with these amazing women and their families. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Their win marks only the second time in the ICCA's 11-year history that an all-female group has taken the championship title.

And because last year's champs, Vocal Point, also came from Brigham Young University, that's two years in a row for BYU! Go cougars!!

A review of the show appears here, and the ladies got a quick nod with a lovely photo here. And check here for Meridian Magazine's recent article about the group. Congratulations, ladies!

Big nerds

Rosa and I spent our Saturday night at a Nerd Party. A couple of our friends passed the CPA exam, so their spouses planned a nerdy accountant party in their honor. The invitation looked like a tax form, and everyone was encouraged to dress in their nerdiest clothes. The party even included a test of accountance terms. I'm sure my accountant father would be proud of the fact that I knew terms like GAAP, FOB, SEC, and especially FASB.

This is what Rosa and I looked like at the party. Rosa actually won second place for nerdiest girl costume. That's my girl!

A few years back, my sometimes-nerdy brother gave me this Compaq shirt: "Department of Redundancy Department." I can't say why I kept it so long, but I'm glad I did - it was the trophy piece of my outfit.

For more awesome nerdy photos of our nerdy friends, check out the Walters' blog: http://babywalters.blogspot.com/.

Good news

Yesterday's trial was the most work I've put into anything in school, maybe ever. (My senior linguistics thesis was a close rival.) When all was said and done, I was very proud of our team. I felt we tried the case well. As it turns out, our jury came back hung. Boo. Three in favor of conviction and three against. Since I had been on the prosecution side, this wasn't great news.

But after I heard the explanations from the jurors, I felt much better. One of the three in favor of acquittal was the boyfriend of the defendant. So I don't necessarily value his vote as much. One of the others in favor of acquittal was 90% sure he did it, and I felt like if we sent them back to deliberate further, she would've been convinced the other 5% necessary. And the last person in favor of acquittal was mostly worried about why we hadn't presented more witnesses and a few other issues that were likewise outside the factual scenario given to our class. So basically her only concerns were details beyond our control. So overall, I had cause to rejoice. I feel we did well, and the professor's feedback was quite positive. Most importantly, I learned a TON through this totally hands-on exercise. And even more importantly, I'm DONE with that class this semester. Sweet!

In other news, right after our trial ended, I received my MPRE score in the mail - I PASSED!!! Yay!!! I'm ethical! My score will be sent to the New York Bar Association in the next couple of weeks. I'm one step closer to being a lawyer.

Happy Easter!

This photo brought to you by the Parmas of Texas. Their new daughter Bria is just adorable, isn't she?

Church was fantastic today - very spiritual, very Easterly. So rejuvenating! Plus the ward choir performed and did a great job. And get this - I was sustained as the new organist! Yikes! I hope my 6 months of organ lessons from high school come back to me soon...

After we got home from Church, we found out the Easter bunny came to our house. We got a couple of Easter baskets full of candy, just like the one Bria's got here.

Then we spent the afternoon having Easter dinner with the Forbes, Olsons, and Hartshorns. We had an Egg Bashing contest, which basically means two people rolling hardboiled dyed eggs on the floor toward each other at high speed. After a horrible losing streak at the beginning, Rosa came back and won the whole thing! What did she win? More candy! Yay! Some delicious desserts and fun games rounded out a lovely evening.

Tomorrow is my big "trial" - my final exam for Trial Advocacy class. I'm going to try to convict this obviously guilty armed bank robber. Wish me luck.

What?!

Okay maybe I'm just an ignorant boy from the west, but I gotta confess that when I moved to the southeast, I did not expect to scrape ice and snow off my car on a random morning in the middle of April.

But maybe that's just me.

catching up

The bad thing about having a blog is that it gets outdated very quickly.

The good thing about having an outdated blog is you can just spend a couple minutes writing something new and you're suddenly all updated.

New York was awesome, as always. I checked out the apartment where Rosa and I will be living this summer - Lower East Side, kind of on the edge of Chinatown, funky little neighborhood. It'll be cool. I also met many of my fellow Weil Gotshal summer associates - turns out there are A HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE of us. Several delicious meals, some schwanky non-alcoholic drinks for yours truly, and more information about the firm and the summer program. It's gonna be a rockin' summer. I can't believe I'll be getting paid to do so much cool, fun stuff.

General Conference Weekend was so rejuvenating and refreshing. I can't wait for the transcripts to be available.

Today I'm going to jail. Fortunately, they're not locking me up. Not this time, anyway. I'm going there with the local Federal Public Defender to interpret for him in an interview with a Spanish-speaking inmate. I did this a couple weeks ago at a different jail, same PD. It's not as easy as I had hoped (I don't keep up my Spanish as well as I could), but it's surprisingly rewarding. I don't get many opportunities to use my Spanish to help anyone, so this is a nice little chance to apply my Spanish in the real world. Wish me luck.

Happy Wednesday everyone.

Pre-Orientation Orientation

I'm off to Manhattan this weekend for a big firm Orientation. Well actually, orientation takes place in May, so they've called this the "Pre-Orientation Weekend." It's basically a big excuse to fly everyone to New York for a couple nice dinners and a learn little more information about the summer internship program. I'm going because (1) my fellow UVA Law students are all going, (2) I've heard it's a fun weekend, and (3) it's a good opportunity to start getting to know a few people from the 100-person summer program. Plus, who can turn down nice dinners and a free cool hotel in New York?

TV update:
Top Design is getting really good. I'm glad Michael's gone. I really like Goil, but I think Andrea's going to win.
The Grease finale is this weekend. We obviously voted for Laura; and I'm surprised to say this, but we also voted for Max. I never saw it coming, but now I really like him. Plus, Austin is just creepy.

Okay, enough of that. I'm off!

Wherein our hero turns 26

At 1:07am this morning, I officially entered the second quarter century of my time on this fine earth of ours. Many people don't make much of birthdays, but I think re-visiting the precise place in the universe where you were born is a cause for celebrating.

Let's examine my life in numbers:

• 26 --> years I've been breathing through my lungs
• 15,192,777,600 --> miles I've traveled around the sun
• 819,936,000 --> seconds I've been alive
• 10 --> length of my hair in feet if I had never cut it
• 39,760 --> dreams I've had
• 7 --> dreams I remember today
• 3 --> countries I've visited
• 33 --> states I've visited or driven through (not counting airports)
• 6 --> songs I've written
• 1,250 --> Sundays I've spent at Church
• 5 --> schools I've attended
• 20 --> years I've been a full-time student
• 1,093,973,400 --> times my overworked heart has beaten
• 3 --> freakin awesome siblings I have
• 11 --> beautiful nieces and nephews I have
• 409,968,000 --> breaths I've taken
• 8 --> full-length concerts I've personally produced
• 3 --> appearances I've made on TV
• 4,500 --> gallons of water I've drunk
• 0 --> fluid ounces of alcohol I've drunk
• 6 --> real jobs I've had
• 4 --> times I've gotten extremely ill
• 0 --> bones I've broken
• 200 --> "it's a boy" announcement cards my father had to re-print when he realized I wasn't born on March 21
• 9 --> holes of golf I've played
• 3 --> speeding tickets I've gotten
• 0 --> times I've been arrested
• 1 --> wife who woke up early this morning to get me Panera bagels
• 117 --> blog posts I've written

One awesome life: priceless.

One of those Sundays

Church today was like a big, tall glass of refreshing water. So refreshing.

the MPRE wrap-up...

I took the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam this morning. I come from the entitled generation, so I'm used to being an ace on standardized tests. But this one wasn't as easy as I had hoped. But I still think I passed.

The majority of students take this test in the fall of their third year of law school (their 3L year). So why did I take it early? (1) I just wanted to get it out of the way. (2) Also, I'm in Professional Responsibility class right now, and preparing for this test was like an early final exam review.

The MPRE is graded on a curve. So the bad news is that my competition for the test is fellow second-years who are overachieving, overprepared (like me, I think). The good news is that my other competition is third-years who are taking the test a little late. The other good news is that I'm not competing against only fellow UVA Law students (like on my every semester final exams); instead, I'm competing against all students across the country. This, I think, helps my cause.

I'll find out my score in five weeks. As I said, it's based on a curve, with 50 being the lowest, 150 being the highest, and 100 being a median score. A passing score in New York, and I'm not kidding you, is 86. Eighty. Six.

In the end, although I didn't love my performance on the exam, and although I'm competing against a few other 2L gunners, I believe I did well enough to beat out the national average, or at least beat out the bottom 35th percentile.

Knock on wood.

I L-U-V the OBX

Woohooo!!! Rosie and I just got home from our week vacation in the Outer Banks. Yes, we realize this is totally childish and collegiate of us to take a week off for Spring Break, but we just had to. Soon we will be sucked into the whirlpool known as Real Life, and spring break will no longer exist to us. So we had to take the chance while we could.

We spent the week at a beach house in Waves, North Carolina, which we split with our friends the Rufeners and the Wardens. The Rufeners have two adorable kids and a dog, which made it feel perfectly family-ish, and the Wardens are tons of fun too, so it was just a blast. It was kind of like my family's yearly vacations to Monterey Bay, in Cali, in that we played tons of board games, had organized meal times, made a trip to the aquarium, had an ocean view out the living room window, found sand in the weirdest places, and were many miles away from civilization. It was not like my family's yearly vacations to the California beach, in that no one knew how to play cribbage or Rummikub. But don't worry, Browns - I taught them.

In all, it was a marvelous trip. For early March, the water was expectedly cold, but we got lucky on the weather - mostly in the 50s with lots of sun. Fun at the beach.

Yay for Spring Break! Boo for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam I have to take in the morning. The MPRE is required before you take the bar, so I thought I'd get it out of the way before my third year of law school hit. My vacation comes to grinding halt right now as I head back to my Bar/Bri study book.

Pictures to follow (of the beach trip, not of the exam).

More press for symposium

The Law Weekly just published an article about our symposium:

Eight distinguished corporate law experts descended on Caplin Pavilion last Friday to participate in the Virginia Law & Business Review’s first annual symposium. The topic of the day was “Corporate Governance: The Impact of Institutional Investors.” The symposium began with ...[continue reading]