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.

On time

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

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.

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!

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!

Alito is confirmed

Alito is confirmed: the story here.

Pretty cool that Alito was confirmed while I was sitting in my constitutional law class.

I love this guy. Believes in supporting the family as the fundamental unit of society. Brilliant, brilliant man. Supports individual liberties, and balances them with social need. Has given his life to public service, and will be a superb Supreme Court Justice.

A little more about him here.

yee-haw!

So today was a perfect day back! I got my tuition paid, I completed all my final registration requirements, I saw all my old buddies, it was all grand. I had my first class at 8:25am (yikes), which was Accounting. We spent half the time talking about the FASB, and I felt like bragging about my Dad working for them. I already understand my Wall Street Journal a little better! Property class was pretty interesting as well. My teachers are doing their best with what could be otherwise boring subjects. Things look promising.

But the biggest development of the day: I GOT A JOB! I got a phone call from the recruiting attorney at Manning, Curtis, Bradshaw, & Bednar, and she offered me a job, which I accepted on the spot. Rosa and I had talked it over beforehand and decided that if I got an offer from them, I should just take it. So I did. Hooray!

The firm is small, and I'll be their only summer clerk. I'll get lots of hands-on experience, and hopefully get some good skills. Now I just have to focus on this semester... back to tonight's homework: reading the Constitution!

Sweet vacation

Rosa and I just got back from our vacation in Utah. Even though it lasted two weeks, it went by like two snaps.

The first week, I spent a lot of time on the computer, working with my team to finish my moot court brief. I also sang in my mother's lesson in Church, and Rosie accompanied me. We had a joint birthday-party for Mom, Dad, Rosa, and Mark, who all have January birthdays! I had a job interview with a small firm, Manning, Curtis, Bradshaw, & Bednar. It was just lunch and a short interview, but I had a good time. The people there were really friendly, and I think it went well. We visited Provo a couple times, helping the BYU a cappella groups prepare for the International Championship of Collegiate A cappella, which we then attended that Saturday. Our groups, Vocal Point and Noteworthy, took first and second respectively. Both will advance to the Semi-final round at Stanford this March. Before going to see the ICCA show, we got together with some of the other Noteworthy alumni, and held the first meeting of the Noteworthy Alumni Association. It was so fun to be with all our old friends! Everyone is still so passionate about the group! It'll be fun to see where things go with the NAA in coming years. I can already tell that these ladies will be able to do so much for the group! We also had a fun triple date with Mark & Laura and my parents, when we went out to see The Nerd, which is one of the funniest plays ever made. One of Rosa's friends from her BYU acting class played the leading role, and it was absolutely hilarious. It was a great week.

The next week proved less eventful, but still extremely enjoyable. Rosie and I sang a duet in Sacrament Meeting, I had another job interview (with Kirton & McConkie), we missed my Dad on his birthday (he was in CT, getting trained by the FASB), we had visits from old BYU friends and old mission buddies, and Noteworthy came to spend the weekend at our house for a Winter retreat. So freakin' cool. It's fun to hear them all sing so well, but it's even more fun to see them really capture the vision of where the group can go.

The trip home was eventful yesterday. We left home late for our flight. When we finally made it to the airport, it was just in time to discover that I had left my wallet on the counter! Mom drove it to us in extreme haste, and I made the plane with literally seconds to spare. Three flights later, we landed in Charlottesville, but our luggage didn't make it. Luckily, this morning it was dropped off, and all is well (except for some broken zippers!).

This would've been more interesting in installments along the way, as opposed to a big sudden unloading of stories, but at least it's all there. Today is the first day of class! Off I go!

zzzzzz...

I've been editing my team's Moot Court brief for several hours now. You know your life is dull when a bathroom break seems like a fun change of pace.

Happy New Year!

So it's a little after 6pm, and we just got home from church. You see, there are three wards that meet in our building, and there's barely enough parking for one. The ward that comes from very far away (over 45 min) gets the middle of the day spot, so the other two wards swap between really early and really late. So the last four months, we've had church at 8:30am, but we just switched today to 3:10pm! It's weird when you come out of church and it's dark out. We have to remember to turn on our porch light before we leave for church! But at least we get to sleep in... :)

So anyway, happy new year! We thought about not staying up last night, but we got invited to our neighbors' place. We enjoyed a bit of Dick Clark (and Ryan Seacrest) and Martinelli's. 2005 was an excellent year. I graduated from college, went on tour with Vocal Point, started law school, and of course GOT MARRIED. This next year isn't looking as eventful, but maybe that's good. I need a rest after last year. Although who knows. I always seem to get into some kind of mischief.

So Happy New Year to all and to all a... something clever.

i'm "published"!

www.casa.org

ho ho ho!

Christmas weekend was a mighty success.

Christmas Eve was filled with family traditions: open-face crab sandwiches, martinelli's, scriptures about the birth of the Savior, etc. Oh, and of course we put out cookies for Santa.

Christmas day, we went to church, enjoyed a lovely Sacrament meeting presented by the bishop's family, and I accompanied a violinist on a special musical number of "O Holy Night." Oh, and I accompanied all the hymns because the organist emailed me the night before asking me to save him since he wasn't in town and forgot to ask me! It was no big deal. Then when we got home, we changed back into our PJs and opened gifts. We were very blessed. There were definitely too many presents for just the the two of us. Our friends and family were very generous to us. The biggest surprise of all was Rosa and I got some studio equipment, so now we can record our own music!

Monday we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Very fitting, I suppose. And we tried to get our studio equipment to work, but it's not as simple as you'd think. There are still some kinks we're working through, but we hope to have it all up and running by the end of the week.

Today I spent several hours moving a home teachee from one apartment to another. Down a couple flights of stairs and up a couple more. If you ever want to remember how out of shape you are, just help a friend move in town. Yipes.

Rosa's actually out right now with the sister missionaries. They're visiting a Spanish-speaking family that doesn't know any English. When they called, I wonder if they thought she spoke Spanish since her name is Rosa. Hopefully it works out okay!

Hallelujah!

I have seen the beast, and yet I live to tell the tale. I have been down to the most bottom pits of finals darkness, and I emerge into the light of day, a greater man for the experience. And my eyes are killing me.

No seriously though. I finished my last final today! Yay! I'm a free man! Minus the other things I've contracted to do over the break, I'm basically responsibility-less for the next month. I'm like a kid in a candy store at this point. I can finally hang those pictures I meant to hang when we moved in. I can finish sorting through my files. I can sort my sheet music. I can put my first semester books on my shelf! Now they're just for looking at.

My last test was civil procedure, and even though I feel like it rocked me, I don't feel so bad because I heard many people with the same feeling. I also have a next-door-neighbor who felt bad about his first year finals right after he took them, and now he's the Notes Editor for the Law Review, and has a clerk position on the Court of Appeals. So the moral of the story: you never know until you know.

And until I know, I'm not going to think about it for a second. I'm going to bed now, and I'm not setting my alarm. Good night and good luck.

Just one left!

We've been getting packages lately. That's always nice, especially when it's gifts from people who care about you. The FedEx and UPS guys are the modern Santa, sans the chimney.

So I knocked one more out today. Contracts is over. I really enjoyed that class; it's amazing the difference a professor can make in your feelings about a subject.

Now I'm on to civil procedure. Before I've had 2-3 days between exams, but this time I only have one. The test is on Wednesday. Wish me luck!

Joy to the world!

A couple months of work culminated in our all-music Christmas Program in Sacrament Meeting today. And, except for one error in the printed program (by yours truly), the whole thing went off without a hitch! In fact, it was way better than we had anticipated. When you plan a good program, you're usually destined for success, but that success is multiplied when you have the Lord on your side. The Spirit was very strong today and bore witness of the Savior to so many people who were present, including me. What really struck me today was the reminder that we all have to be shepherds in our own field. The other big thing is that music can be a very powerful tool for accomplishing the Lord's work.

People were very kind and gave us lots of positive feedback. I guess no one could hear the total lack of sleep in my voice on my solo. Don't tell anyone I slept less than 4 hours last night. I guess putting on a Christmas Program in the middle of finals isn't exactly the smartest thing to do.

But luckily I got a little nap time in after church (I have no children). And now I'm going to bed, only to face the infamous Contracts final tomorrow. Wish me luck!

cholesterol rising

My parents very kindly sent us some Omaha steaks and burgers. So Rosa and I each ate a steak last week and boy, were they good.

But we had a storm last night (I use the term "storm" loosely), and the power went out. We assumed we'd have power back within a few hours, so we just lit some candles and hung out. Once 10pm came and we still had no power, I decided it was time to save the steaks, so I ate another one. This morning came, and still had no power. The people across the street had their lights on, darn it, but we didn't. Rosa's work had power too, so she went to work today, and I? Yes, I had another steak.

Now before you judge, just remember: these are really good steaks! At this point, they're mostly thawed out, and we just barely got the power back like an hour ago (that's a total of 24 hours, folks, with no power, caused by an afternoon storm of about one inch of snow). And I guess we can't let them re-freeze now that they're thawed, so Rosa is right now cooking up everything in our now thawed-out freezer, so that when the freezer gets cold again in an hour, we can stick all our meat back in there.

That might be more detail than is necessary, but the point is: I had an excuse to eat two steaks in about 12 hours. And the other point is: Charlottesville is ill-prepared for "disasters" such as a little snow and teeny bit of ice.

In other news, I took my Criminal Law exam yesterday. People always kindly ask, "How did it go?" The answer is you never know. Since everything in law school is a huge competition, all exams are graded on a curve. So really it doesn't matter how I did; it only matters how everyone else did. And we'll all have to wait until late January or February to find out.

And a happy 235th birthday today to Ludwig van Beethoven.

One Down, Three to Go

So I just finished my torts final. Yay! My first law school final is over. I was getting really nervous this weekend, and this morning especially. But it wasn't too bad after all. The test itself was everything I expected it to be, plus an hour. FOUR hours total. I basically sat down and started typing, and finished about 22 pages later. But at least now I've got one exam under my belt.

Criminal Law final is next. Another "100% of the semester grade" test. It's not as exciting of a subject as you'd think. It's more of a philosophy of punishment class. My professor is one of the country's leading experts on the subject, so he's totally out of touch with what first-year law student life is like. He's a very nice guy, but he's like 700 years old, so he was lecturing over our heads for an entire semester. Hopefully I can figure out what he wants by Thursday at 1:30.

Not much else to report. Just me and the books. And my lovely bride. Happy Monday!

Make your own e-snowflakes

I thought it was silly, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.

http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/