“This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.”

Here's a summary of what grad school has been like so far for those who are interested. I thought that law school would be memorizing laws and rules. But mostly we are just given questions with no answers. Like, when is someone too crazy too be responsible for their actions? What is cruel and usual punishment? etc. At the end of this summer I will be 50% done with law school, and it's been fun so far. Working full time has made it harder than I thought it would be, but it's going well. Most of my classes from here on out will be criminal law classes. Criminal law is all I'm really interested in, so hopefully I can work at a District Attorney or public defender's office when I'm done.

My classes this semester are Criminal procedure (you have the right to remain silent) Rules of Evidence (objection! badgering the witness!) and a policy class on the death penalty. The next year I will be taking Adjudicatory Criminal Procedure (Aka Bail to Jail), Forensic Science and Criminal Procedure (CSI!), Drugs and the Law (drugs!), Negotiations (10? I'll give you 5 for it), Mediation ( Can't we just work this out amongst ourselves), and Computer Crime (I'm Chris Hansen, with Dateline NBC. What are you doing here?) Also, I like parentheticals(parentheticals).

It's kind of sad that by the time I finish law school I will have been in school for 25 years! And at that point I will have to start fresh at a new job that I will know nothing about. I think the Chinese have it right, when they start training people for jobs at 13, but hey at least I know about the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and how to do calculus. I can't tell you how much I use calculus in my daily life.

But I'm really lucky to be able to study something that's interesting to me, without having to borrow piles of money to do it. Here are two articles that I read for class that do a good job of showing that our legal system doesn't provide a lot of answers, just lots of hard questions.

Fatal Distraction - how our legal system treats people whose children die after being left in a car.

How I convinced a murderer not to die -A death row inmate tries to donate his organs.
* be warned, both articles have heavy subject matter & language.

Cracking each other up

Before Britt left for California, we had a couple of funny moments:
1) on friday night, britt woke up in the middle of the night, and thought that one of the cats was on the bed (they weren't). Half asleep, she kept patting my head and trying to figure out which cat I was ( i am niether) . The head patting woke me up, and i said "what are you doing?" Britt said "everything is ok!" and went back to sleep.

2) i went to sit on the bed and eat a piece of toast (toast!!) and drink a glass of cranberry juice. I went to move one of our giant pillows, and spilled juice all over our bedsheets, white carpet, and onto my suit and white shirt that were on the floor. the only thing I could think to say was "that was the worst possible outcome in that situation!" britt thought that was so funny that she didnt mind the juice stains.

ok these were both funnier if you were there in person.

The day that I die.

*Edit - I almost didn't post this because it's morbid. Don't read if you don't want to.
*Edit #2 - You can't vote in the poll at the end if you are reading this in RSS.

Humans have always been obsessed with death and mortality. Fear of dying led the Egyptians to spend millions of man hours building pyramids, and sent explorers across the world looking for the fountain of youth. It's probably why people at my school donate millions of dollars to have their name on a building. I don't think you can worry about it too much, or you'll never do anything. So how do you think you will go? If I had to rate the likelihood of the cause of my death it would go like this:


1) The Citibus on 23rd street. This thing comes barreling at me every day on my way to work and is always like 2 inches from hopping the curb and taking us all out. Plus the drivers are always texting.


2) A crazy student at work. Financial aid is a high pressure environment. Especially when you work at the most expensive school in America. Most days we have someone cry, swear, and yell at us. We have some truly crazy people that come in. One of these days, someone is going to take the whole office hostage.



3) Metro Crash. The negligence and incompetence that goes on at DC metro is pretty well documented. The infrastructure hasn't been updated since the Nixon administration, and I spend an hour a day on those trains. Sooner or later it's gonna catch up with me. There's even a law firm for it.

4) Eugene. Eugene went to my high school for a year, but then he was institutionalized. Somehow he found my number, and calls me every year or so. He thinks all people from California are inherently good, and that people from areas where he had childhood trauma are bad. He torched a van from Pennsylvania just for having Pennsylvania tags, and got arrested after a low speed chase. He feels like he got away with it, because he convinced the police he did it because he thought the owners of the van were vampires. I've told him I live in California (obviously) but he actually bags groceries less than a mile from my house. If I were to run into him, he might snap.



5) Law school. School is stressing me out. Not sure how many more outlines I can read.

What do you think?

It's a hijack!

With Britt out of town, I'm taking over this blog. Consider it hijacked.

The Cruise!

All cruise pictures HERE !!!

It's hard to think that last week I was lying in the sun, on a boat, sipping on a strawberry something-or-other. Sigh. Joe's very generous parents offered to send us on a cruise! We went last weekend, and had an amazing time.

We flew into Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday, then drove to Miami to stay the night (Note: never, ever rent a car from the Hertz in the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Consider yourself warned.) We were able to stop by the real-life condo that was used in a TV show we love (Dexter). Since the show is now filmed on a set in L.A., this condo is obviously now private property...but we were able to sneak in a few pictures!

We were really excited to see a Grand Lux Cafe nearby, (we've been to the restaurant in Vegas and L.A.) and enjoyed WAY too much food that night! Calories don't count on vacation, right?

Using bookit.com, we paid for a "Three Star Miami Beach Mystery Hotel with a Spectacular
Pool", and ended up at the Habana Libre. Our favorite part was the red light and mirrors in the elevator.

The pool WAS pretty spectacular, but we decided against a morning swim.

We spent Friday morning in South Beach, and enjoyed the views and weather.

Joe gawked at a few of the nice cars cruising by.

We also went to the Red Bull traveling Can of Art exhibit.

We boarded the Norwegian Sky cruise ship Friday afternoon, and were impressed with our room and view.

After a welcome BBQ, we waved goodbye to the condos lining the port. Joe yelled: "Bye! We're going to the Bahamas! Have fun in AMERICA!" and made all the drunk people laugh.

That night we had a fun time playing bingo,

and watching this lady that I kept thinking was my mom.

We disembarked (cruise term, you know?) in Nassau the next day, and were encouraged to take a tour with one of the locals. For $30 we got to see most of the island in two hours; it was great!

Some scenic shots:

This is the highest point of the island.

Final stop: The Atlantis. The open-access parts reminded me of a Vegas hotel...just in the Bahamas.

 

 

After our tour, we went exploring on our own...we got some conch fritters and fresh coconut milk at a cute stand on the beach,

and got a kick out of The Bahamas' Senate building parking spots:

Back on the boat, we enjoyed this lovely view from our room,

then laughed A LOT during the "(Not so) Newlywed Game Show" that night. The couple married for 56 years won :)

Sunday was supposed to be spent on the private cruise ship island, but the weather would not allow it. Instead, we enjoyed relaxing on the deck. You can't beat that view!

 One of our favorite meal-time treats were fresh crepes:

That night we took some photos around the boat:

After we got off in Miami the next day, we zipped down to Homestead, FL to see the Coral Castle before our flight. The Castle was built by a man as a monument to his true love. You can read more about it HERE. It was very impressive to see in person!

A huge THANKS to Barb and Lew for making all of this possible! We have a few other trips planned this year, but nothing for just the two of us. It was very neat for us to do something so special, and we would have never thought of it on our own.

And the winner is...

Matt, knower of all things Oscars, won our Oscar pool for the second year in a row. Our group likes to guess each winner, then assign points to our votes (1-24, for 24 categories,) depending on how confident we are for each category. Matt kind of did awesome and got 20 out of 24 categories right, and a VERY impressive 271 points out of a possible 300 points.

Since Matt lives far, far away, we'll just re-use the pictures we have of him winning last year's prestigious award.

Way to go Matty. We miss you!

Up Close and Personal

Our good friend Paul called last night and asked if we wanted to join him and his wife Katie at the Wizards/Magic game. He forgot to mention we would:

have courtside seats,

 

 

and legroom like this,

and views like this,

and be a few feet away from CNN commentator John King.

It was an awesome night, even if the Wizards lost. By a lot. Thanks Paul!