Eight years!

Today marks my eight year wedding anniversary!  By no coincidence, it's also the eight year wedding anniversary of my wife.  So really both of us.  Cuz we got married.  Eight years ago.  Yep.

It's been a crazy awesome eight years, too, and I can't even begin to think of all of the stuff that we've been through.  It's had its ups and downs, but I gotta say with absolute certainty that these have been the very best eight years of my life, because I've had my wife to share them with.  OK, that's not totally accurate of course.  I knew my wife before I married her.  So technically I've been with her for like a decade.  But the life that we created with each other as husband and wife is pretty darn awesome, if you ask me.

Other than the rocket-fast eight years thing, life is now plodding along fairly slowly.  No one wants to buy my house, still.  That's just the way it's gonna go, I guess.  Still, I have faith that everything will come together.  It will.  I've got all the time in the world.  My future job isn't going anywhere.  All will be well.

People continue throwing houses at us for after we move.  That's a rather hilarious side effect of moving to a small town.  Everyone knows that you're the only one that's planning on moving there, and suddenly everyone that wants to sell their house has your home phone number, and will stop at nothing.  Hey Lars -- you should buy a house in Benson.  People throw them at you.

One final interesting side note: this week is the first full week of classes at William Mitchell.  SUCKERS.

Stuff and things

This weekend has actually been fun and fairly relaxing. I've been able to spend some time with my family and such, because I've got a brief respite in my studying before the big storm starts...tomorrow. Yes, I could be studying more today, but sheesh -- I need a couple of days with the family.

Yesterday we all went to the zoo. We had a blast. The weather was perfect, Gwen was super into seeing all of the animals, and it was so nice to just hang out with my girls and not think about the stupid bar exam. speaking of stupid, I saw these stupid ostriches while I was there:

Shortly after the picture was taken they started eating the fence. Look at them, with their evil little beady eyes and their vacant expressions. They're planning a global takeover, just as soon as they get through that fence. Oh, how I hate them.

Anyway, it was super fun to hang out with the fam.

Tonight I'm gonna do some golfing with T-Rav and Rhyno. It's gonna be some much needed awesomeness, and I'm gonna SUCK, because this will actually be my first time out this year. We were going to go to Centerbrook, but since the old codger that runs the place is such a jerk on the phone and wouldn't make any tee times past 5:00 (dude, it's Minnesota, it's summer, and you're open -- it stays light until 9:30. You're a par 3 golf course. Also, learn some customer service skills.) we opted for Brookview instead. It should be fun as long as it doesn't storm.

Back to the studying grind tomorrow. That sucks, but what can ya do. It'll all be over in less than a month now. Sheesh. More like 2 1/2 weeks.

Tired

Pashooooooooo...

It's been over a month since I've written anything. That's no good, but I assure you I have my reasons. See, I've been studying for the bar exam, and it's sucking up a lot of life. My bar review class meets essentially every night, and I'm still working full time of course. I don't get any time off of work until July 16th, but at that point I get 2 weeks off. I anticipate that my days will be full of studying at that point, however. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

My bar review course has been interesting and a bit grueling. Most of it is lecture, but there are always practice tests to complete, and some of them are actually turned in for grading. I've been told that the Barbri program tends to exaggerate when they grade practice exams -- exaggerate on the underside in order to motivate students to work harder. There have been two so far that have been graded, and my grades have certainly been crappy on them. Ugh.

One point of fun and relaxation thus far came last weekend when Kerry and I met a bunch of our friends for the triumphant return of Phish to Alpine Valley. The show was an absolute blast. The boys were completely on fire -- their playing was tight, the sets consisted of a bunch of songs that made Kerry and I very happy, and everything went off without a hitch. I really couldn't have asked for anything more. It even occurred during a lull in my classes, so that was fantastic.

I'm pretty tired this morning. It's early, of course...currently 6:46 but I've been up for a little while now. My daughter tends to wake up early. I was up late last night watching Clerks 2, and it was incredibly well done. Super funny movie, and very very true to the original. Makes me want to watch the rest of the Jersey movies. Well, not Jersey Girl. I still haven't seen that, but I've heard it's crap so I haven't had any motivation.

Well, that's about all I've got at the moment. I'll try to pop in again soon. Stay classy, Minneapolis.

Sick

Yep, it's the day after a day off, and I'm sick.  Staying home from work today.  Actually, my child and wife are both also sick.  Before anyone starts shunning us based on a swine flu scare, let me assure you that our symptoms don't necessarily fit into that category.  Gwen has had some mad diarrhea for the last several days, but seems to be getting better.  I've got a rather traditional "every muscle in my body aches" type thing going on, complete with a fever (albeit a low one).  Kerry is puking, but then again...it's morning.

Did I mention that Kerry is pregnant?  That's right folks!  I'm gonna be a daddy again!  The baby is due in early December, which means that if it's early like Gwen was, it'll probably be born in November.  We'll see.  Either way, it's gonna be a Benson Baby!  Not sure if that's where it will be born, but that's where it will live.

Graduation was surreal, and it passed in a blur.  I have no idea about anything that the speakers said, because I seriously could not pay attention.  It was 2 1/2 hours that felt like 10 minutes.  I now have a J.D.  Woot!

Work really sucks these days, and I have a feeling that people are going to be on my case for missing today.  My boss left work sick on Friday with a freakin' skip in her step and a smile on her face, though, so whatever.

Last week was rather hellish, with my ridiculous schedule.  Not sure if I mentioned it already, but I went to work at 7:00 am, stayed for one hour, took off for BarBri in St. Paul from 9:00 to 3:00 pm, and then drove back to work from 3:30 to 5:45.  That constitutes working a half day.  Not fun.

This weekend we went to the parents' lake cabin, and we had a good time...mostly.  I have three very obnoxious cousins that suck a lot of time and energy out of my parents, so it's hard to really spend any time with them while said cousins (ages 3, 5, and 8) are there.  Luckily we had arrived fairly early on Friday night, and they didn't get there until Saturday afternoon.

While I was at Target the other day, I scored the Karate Kid trilogy for $13.  That was a deal I couldn't pass on.  The third movie sucks liquid monkey butt, but the other two are icons of my youth.  I watched the first last night.  It was fun.

This week (aside from today) the schedule has returned to something resembling normal.  I'll be going to bar review during the nights and gettin' hassled by the man during the day.

Whoa

So, last night I went to my last final ever, for Juvenile Justice. It went pretty uneventfully, and before I knew it the prof had come back into the room and told all of us that we had one more minute to wrap everything up. So, I did, turned in my exam, and that was it. No fanfare of trumpets or rush of doves, no thunderclaps or flashing lightning or mules or laser beams.

Heck, there wasn't even a whimper. Just kind of a sigh. I walked out of the room and into the hallway, and I was done with law school. It still hasn't really hit me yet, I feel like I've still got studying to do this weekend. Perhaps that feeling comes from the fact that I have a bar review class starting immediately on Monday. But that's totally different, and doesn't even take place at William Mitchell.

Kristian and I went out to the bar afterward. It was a place called Dixie's on Grand Ave, and I'd never been there before. It was pretty nice, but now that I don't have any reason to be on Grand Ave anymore, I doubt I'll go back. I didn't stay very long, because I had a 7:00 AM meeting this morning (a meeting that I ended up not having to go to).

I walked back from Dixie's and realized that it was on the same block as the Grotto lot. This needs a bit of back story. The Grotto lot is a parking lot near (read: several blocks from) William Mitchell, where the first-year law students are allowed to park. I parked there for much of my first year, and walked from there to school.

Well, last night I decided to complete the circle. I walked through the Grotto lot as if I had parked there, and walked back down a dark Summit Avenue toward the bright lights of William Mitchell, where my car was waiting. I drank in the building with my eyes and breathed heavily. I know that a lot of Mitchell students hide their school pride, but to quote Kristian, "We've had to eat bucket after bucket of [poop]." I'm very proud of my time in law school -- I've got a massive sense of accomplishment to bolster my already obnoxious ego.

Now there's just a bar exam. Here I come, biznatches!

I accidentally the whole computer

So yeah, I somehow destroyed my computer at work and made it a repeated BSOD mess. That was fun. It was probably a failed hard drive -- either that or I downloaded 400,000 viruses. Either way is possible, I suppose, but it was an old machine.

So I basically went ahead and lost everything that I'd been working on, but what can ya do. My machine was reimaged and I'm back on the attack, cuz inside out is wiggity wiggity wiggity whack.

Everything is coming to a head in the life of Ben. Tonight, I get to go pick up my cap and gown, because I freakin' graduate this weekend! Holy heck! Before that, of couse, I have one more final to tackle. It just happens to be the only in-class final of this semester, and also the lamest. The prof grades harshly, and I haven't had enough time to study. I wanted to take this afternoon off, but unfortunatly it appears that I'm fresh out of vacation, so that blows.

So, after the cap / gown pickup tonight, I've got to hit the books hard again. Blech. After the final, it's time to party down. WAIT. Aww crap. I've recently been informed that I have a 7:00 a.m. meeting on Friday. Seriously, that kind of thing is just lame. Ahh well. I'm counting down the months.

Eh, I guess I don't have a lot to talk about, but it feels like I've got a crapload going on. It's all been mentioned before, though.

Ben is a Bad Blogger!!!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written anything -- quite possibly the longest lag between posts in the history of this Stupid Ostrich. There are a number of factors that have contributed to that. I'll try to touch on each in turn.

Work has been crazy. If you look at things like mortgage rates, you'll note that they're very very low. This has caused an avalanche of people who think that now is a great time to refinance. For the most part, they're absolutely correct. However, there are things that they'll have to keep in mind: It's gonna take a while. Seriously, if you apply now, you probably won't get a call back for at least two weeks. Refinances are the mortgage world's bottom-of-the-barrell, and the fact of the matter is that everything else (namely purchase) comes first. Crappy customer service on the part of mortgage lenders? Probably. But it's the best we can do in this situation.

Everyone in my department is working overtime, and most are working Saturdays as well. I haven't yet come in on a Saturday -- it's just not something that I can do. Why? Because of the second reason for not blogging: School.

WOW! I had my LAST CLASS of law school EVER. I'm currently in the midst of my last finals week. EVER! It's a very surreal feeling. Every time I get back to the building, I feel the last four years of my life. Although it often seems like I'm one of the very few, I'm actually quite proud of my school and the trial-by-fire that I went through to walk its hallowed halls over almost half a decade. Stop calculating that. Four years of law school plus a bunch of orientation and school visits before that equates to almost a half of a decade.

My last final is next Thursday, and that's it...until the following Monday when I start my bar review course. That's gonna be a bear. Due to the work mess I've had to rearrange my schedule considerably, because this so-called "night" class meets during the day on nine separate occasions, including the entire first week. Therefore, I get to...drum roll...come in at 7:00 AM every day, work for one hour, come back to work after class at 3:30, and work until 6:15. That counts as a half day of work. Believe me, it's tempting to just not come in. 'Course, in the incredibly unlikely event that they fired me, I'd have to disclose that on my bar application, and yeah. I don't wanna.

Still trying to sell the house. Anyone want a house? I love my house, but it's time to leave it and move on to bigger and better things.

I'll try to be a better blogger. I'm sure life will be full of zaniness over the course of the next few months, and my diligent (all four of you) readers will be chomping at the bit to read all about it.

Too old for rock and or roll

Ugh. Wow. I'm sore today.

So last night, I went to the Triple Rock Social Club with my cohorts Ryan and Travis. We saw, among others, the band Valient Thorr. I probably blogged about them from the last time we saw them...we were introduced to them because they opened up for the Sword a while ago. I'll let you read all about it on Travis' Blog.

For some reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to spend some time in the mosh pit. As T-Rav mentioned, it was a very friendly and helpful pit. I still managed to get elbowed in the face twice, and I seriously thought I was going to have to come in to work and explain a shiner. Thankfully that wasn't the case -- my eyes are quite normal. Well, they're bloodshot, but other than that they're normal.

We had a ton of fun at the show. I have a couple of V.T. albums, but still can't recognize more than like one song. They were very energetic and fun to watch, though, and their music made me pump the ol' fist a time or two. You know, before being knocked to the ground and whatnot. I must say, I still don't know what he's talkin' abowwwwwwwwwwwt.

It was really good to get out to a show, as I haven't seen any live music in a long time. It was fun to hang out with the guys, too, because I don't spend enough time with my friends. I'm generally kind of a social butterfly, and being cooped up in a classroom has really hampered that. But hey, on this coming Monday I'll go to my

last
law
school
class
ever.

And that's something.

One week

It has come to my attention that I only have one full week of law school left, ever. Holy crap. That actually went really fast. It's amazing how quickly four years can go by, but it's even more amazing how fast time starts rolling along once you have kids.

Speaking of kids, I'm going to be an uncle again. My sister and brother-in-law just found out that it's a boy, as well. That's pretty cute. Even cuter is Gwen's cousin Charlotte, another 2-year-old, talking about the little brother in mommy's tummy. Hee hee.

My week was pretty eventful, I guess. I spent some time in Juvenile Court for a class, observing things like CHIPS hearings and petty traffic misdemeanors. The traffic judge cracked me up when he brought the hammer down on a stupid kid. It was hard not to start laughing in the courtroom. I'll refrain from posting any details on the web, but let's just say that this kid was stupid and leave it at that. Kids often are. Heh heh.

I started playing a little Starcraft again over the last couple of nights. That's a game that I personally have been playing for 9 years, and has been out for 11. I'm flabbergasted by its staying power, and that Blizzard has kept the online play available. Great game, though. I love it. It has an easy spot in my top 3 favorite games of all time.

That's about all I've got. I have a busy weekend ahead of me, but my brain is still wanting some release. I've got a bunch of songs rattling around my head that need to be written. There's something very Jabberwocky about them, and yet not. Several crazy riffs in 7/8 and lyrics about pinkeye are parts of them. If I'm able to find some time, I'll record some demos. Fear this, and expect some very interesting rock that may or may not be filed in the Captain Beefheart bin.

Week update

Gads, it's been a hectic one. There's hardly been time to breathe around this joint. First off, work is in super uber turbo mode, because mortgage rates are ridiculously low these days. Anyway, that's work. Work is work. And it's worky.

Beyond that, school is school. And schooly. I had a presentation to give on monday, about dangerous children's products. It went well, and I'm glad it's over. Then, yesterday, I took the day off to do my second Land Use midterm. The awful thing took me 14 hours to complete.

See, I dispise take-home tests. A lot of people think they're better, more fun, easier...whatever. They're always more difficult. They're always more of a pain. The reason behind this is simple: When the whole class has the opportunity to take the thing home, the professor invariably makes it take a lot longer than a two-hour in-class exam. (See above 14-hour comment). Second, there are always uber lame gunners who will go completely overboard on a take-home exam, so the curve is hosed anyway. In the immortal words of my good friend Kristian, "D's get degrees". I'm sure he's never had a D in his whole life, but considering the apathy that's taken over our fourth-year-law-student brains, it seems like a good set of words to live by.

Speaking of Kristian, we (Kerry, Gwen and I, although Gwen was sleeping) went over to Kristian and Megan's house on Saturday night for the "Great American Light Beer Blind Taste Test". It was a lot of fun. We tasted and rated such wonderful beers as Mich Golden Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light, Bud Light, Stroh's Light, etc. There were 8 beers in all. I think that Kristian is secretly a salesman for Mich Golden Light. I like beer. I like them all. I'll just state once and for all, for the record, that Miller Lite is my Domestic Pilsner of choice, simply because it doesn't give me a headache or gas. A taste test revealed (unsurprisingly) that there were other beers that I liked the taste of better. It was a fun time, and something that we're going to repeat with some Domestic Heavies.

I started listening to the audio version of the first book of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, because he's doing the last book (well, now 3 books) of the Wheel of Time. I gotta say, this guy can write. The premise, in a nutshell, is that 1000 years ago there was a prophesied hero that would rise up and conquer the dark lord, but unlike a billion other epic fantasies, this prophesied hero lost. The bad guy took control, and now the land is a place where ash falls from the sky and flowers don't bloom. So far, it's a heist book, and the main characters aren't the typical fantasy cut-outs...they're a gang of theives. There's no epic quest, there's an epic job. However, the real selling point for me is how effing cool the magic system is in this book. That's all I'll say on that. You'll have to read it to find out. ;)

Been a while

Wow, It's been quite a while since I've written anything. I have little in the way of excuses for that, other than that I've had a crapload of things going on. Let's see, where to begin.

Work has been busy as all get out. That's a good thing, of course -- busy means that my job is still necessary, and job security is a good thing in today's market. I guess there's not really anything interesting to say about that. Busy is busy, and work is work.

I spent a grueling week after vacation completing my bar exam application. That was a huge chore. I had to track down every little bad thing I've ever done in my life and disclose them. That time that I pushed Jimmy Nelson down after kindergarten? Yep, that's on there. OK no it's not. There's no such thing as Jimmy Nelson. Well, I'm sure there is somewhere, but I don't know him and never pushed him. Whatever.

I had to remember every single place I've been employed in the last 10 years, and account for all periods of unemployment. That was lame, because 10 years stretches back into my college days. I actually called the Morris radio station and Subway and had 'em look up employment dates for me.

I had to get some notarized documents written by people that were willing to actually say that I'm a good guy.

[Wow...I just stood up from my desk and obliterated a box elder bug...they're all over the place. They're currently down one.]

This week I had my "senior summation" at school. I ordered my cap and gown, checked to be sure that I'm ready to graduate, and made sure that all of the loose ends are tied up. It was the first moment that it really started to sink in that I'm really going to graduate. Holy carp. Yes, carp. Bottom feeding fish. Holy carp. That's some craziness right there.

Other than that, life's been really good. Last weekend was the triumphantly awesome debut of A Flock Of Kobolds' Fantastic St. Patty's Day Revue, and I don't have to tell you all how awesome that was -- most likely you were all there, if you're reading this.

Annoyed

It's monday.  That's about the best way to describe it.  There's a serious feeling of lack-of-motivation going around.  That said, I had about the most productive monday that I could imagine.

It started off with not going to work.  That always makes for a fantastic day.  Unless, of course, you have a midterm to do.  That was my case today, of course.

I have this ridiculous Land Use class, you see, and rather than one final, this dude has two midterms and just has a paper due at the end.  This may sound like a nice way to go about things, but it has the potential of being 30 pages of writing in 10-point font, and there's just no way that that's cool.

In addition to that, the guy is just a horrible teacher.  Nearly every sentence of my notes ends in a question mark.  That doesn't make for a lot of useful material.

So, I downloaded the test last night at about 5:00 pm, and had 24 hours to complete it.  I worked on it until 10:30 last night, and when I woke up this morning and started work on it again at 8:00, I uttered an expletive and deleted everything I'd written.  See, I figured it was all wrong, based on reading it.

Later in the day, I decided that some of it was right.  I managed to throw together what I figure is a fairly decent midterm, and thankfully I was done with it by about 1:30 in the afternoon.  This is nowhere near the end of my productivity.

See, there was other homework that I had to do for tonight, and I totally got done with all of it.  So that's pretty darn rad.  I've also begun an outline for a paper that's due sometime in April.  The outline isn't due until a week from today.  Normally, I would start something like this the night before it's due, but I'm sitting here at school with absolutely nothing to do.  It's been a series of extremely slow days on the jabberboard, and nobody is doing anything interesting on facebook either.  Therefore, I've been super productive because of the specter of absolute boredom.

After doing the homework this afternoon, I actually completely most of my Bar Application.  That's a big weight off of my shoulders, although the most difficult-to-attain bits of it are still not done.

So here I am.  The problem is that I'm surrounded by first-year law students.  Most of them have left, which is like blessed relief.  There are incredibly and undeniably annoying.  I pray that I was never such a dumbass as all of the people that were at tables all around me.

Seriously.  It takes a lot to annoy me.  I have a toddler.  In fact, today there were two toddlers at my house, because Gwen's cousin was over, being babysat  by Kerry.  They were not quiet, by any means.  Yet with all of their toddlerism, they did not even begin to approach the level of annoying that was achieved by a 1L study group.

Well, that's that.  Now I've written a blog, too.  I seriously can't think of a single other thing to do.  Until tonight.  Then it's time for a beer.  Maybe a beer and some WoW.

--BW Out.

Stress

Arrgh. It's been a week since I've blogged. Actually, it's because I've had little to nothing to talk about. Not much has changed since last Tuesday.

I'm under a bunch of stress lately, but that's nothing new at all. Work sucks, but that's nothing new, either. I just keep my head down and do what I have to do, and the rest will sort itself out in five months or so. :^O

Speaking of five months or so, I've got a bar exam application to fill out, and it's quite daunting. I need to have the names of every employer I've ever had for the last ten years. That doesn't sound like such a long time, but it is. I've had a few. Not nearly as many as some other people I know, but still enough to be an annoyance.

Furthermore, I need to supply a record of every time I've been caught on the wrong side o' the law: Yes folks, this means speeding tickets. The time frame on this one is ever. So yeah, I have speeding tickets out there that I can't even remember getting. I have no idea where to even begin looking for that information, and I'm kind of hoping that it will miraculously fall into my lap in a fate sort of situation.

I'm still (of course) trying to sell my dumb house. (It's not a dumb house in actuality. It's a very nice place, and I've loved it for like 6 years now. Still, I want to move. It's all part of my life plan, you see, which first and foremost involves graduating from law school and NOT working for the place I currently work.) To add insult to injury, there were spray paint marks in the yard of our vacant next door house. The guy that lived there died last year. OK so looking at that link I can see that it was actually the end of 2007. So a little over a year ago. Yeah, well it looks like that house has finally gone through probate and whatnot, been foreclosed upon, and will be going up for sale soon. For sale by some buttwad bank that only wants like three cold chickens and a nickle for it or something. I hate the world right now. I hate the market. Buy my house.

There's weird banging going on at work right now. It sounds almost as if someone is crawling around in the heating ducts. That would be kind of awesome, in a Die Hard way.

I've been watching the X-Files again lately, which rules. However, the only season that I own is season 4. It's very cool, but I now really want to start the entire season from the very beginning and watch it all again. Seriously, I love that show.

My weekend was awesome as well. I played some D&D, went skiing with some friend types, watched the Superbowl with some friend types, ate some cheese balls, drank some beer, drank some mead, drank some fine wine. All in all, it was a good and revitalizing weekend.

New stuff!

Woohoo! New president! Win!

In other news, I downloaded Mega Man 1 and Simon's Quest (Castlevania 2) for the Wii, and have been playing them with much glee. As mentioned before, I love old video games. They make me feel...eleven. Also, they're just plain fun. This subject has been detailed before, but it's worth mention.

This semester is a definite problem for my motivation. (How's that for a subject change with no warning?) Last semester was also a severe problem for my motivation. However, somehow (according to my grades, anyway) I still managed to do well. I think that the professors of high-level classses generally don't like to fail students, but dang, I really thought that I would have done worse on my Creditor/Debtor class. Pleasant surprises are good.

Kerry and I have decided that we need new tattoos. We've discovered (after much recommendation) a place called Electric Dragonland. Kerry's going there today to check some stuff out and schedule either consultations or appointments. The place is by appointment only, no walk-ins, because they're insanely busy and have to operate by a schedule. I know what I'm gettin', but I'm not tellin'.

As a segue from that thought, we started watching the first season of Miami Ink last night, and it's freaking awesome. Tattoo parlors are interesting places. I don't usually get into reality TV shows, but this one is fun. Buncha punks.

Wii, Weather, Wife, Weecordings.

Wii fit is fun. I've gone from having a "wii fit age" of 32 to 34 to 28. Hurrah! I'm younger now! Woot! Of course, I've now started school again, so I don't have all the time in the world to worry about fitness, when I have a ton of other crap to worry about. Such is life, of course.

Class started last night, and I had perhaps the worst two drives of my law school careers. The drive there wasn't all that bad except for driving 5 mph the entire way to St. Paul. Miraculously, I was actually on time to class. Wonder of wonders.

The drive home was full of suck, though. I actually watched an idiot in a volvo come screaming down an entrance ramp onto 94, lose control, spin and fishtail for a while, then plow into the snow bank on the side of the road. Other cars stopped for him, and I could see that he was ok (if shaken) before I drove away. Perhaps he'll think twice about driving like a dillhole from now on.

The accidents and spinouts continued all morning, and roads were sucky. They're better now, though, so that's good. We won't be getting more snow until...aw crap! Tonight!

So my wife called me at work today, and left a message on my voice mail. It said, "Call me right away. It's an emergency." Of course, I panicked. Then I called her and listened to her sad tale. She had gone out to my car to start it and make sure it was ok for my drive tonight. Then she somehow locked her keys inside it, while it was running.

The problem with this scenario is that she had dropped me off this morning. Therefore, I didn't have a car at work with which to bring her a key. I actually borrowed my boss' car and drove home to play the role of the knight in shining armor. Or, at least, the knight in shining Civic. Either way, the crisis was averted. Sorry I laughed so hard at you, honey.

We had a Kobolds practice on Sunday night. (OK, the actual band name is "A Flock Of Kobolds", but that's a lot to type. Perhaps we should have a discussion on that tip, gentlemen? ;D) It was super cool. I must admit, we sound hella awesome together. We've got this Irish thing down. The Irish thing and some other strangeness. We've even worked one original tune, and I've written some more so there is more coolness on the horizon. I'm already chomping at the bit for more, and my fingers haven't stopped hurting from Sunday.

Headache

So, I've had a headache for the last four days. It's completely due to stress. The problem is that it's still not gone. That's pretty typical for me, also.

See, last night I had my last final of this semester! WOOOHOO I'm on break! So that's pretty awesome. The problem is that even though my main stressor is out of the way, my reaction to stress (the aforementioned headache) has not yet caught up. So, unfortunately, I have a headache that hurts so badly it has brought me close to vomiting. Yikes.

So hopefully tonight's wonderful session of Dungeons and Dragons will help to alleviate this monster migraine. If not, then the flow of beer should help in that regard. Heh heh. Nothing in the world like medicating with alcohol.

Last night, I tried to record another flock of kobolds song. The problem was that it was too late for me to figure out that I needed to adjust my microphone levels. Everything was clipped, and I didn't feel like doing it over again, so it's back to the drawing board on that one.

The recording experience made me realize something, though. I'm absolutely obsessive about recording in one take on garageband. It doesn't matter to me if it's the first take or the two-hundredth, I just have a thing about having one giant line from the beginning of a track to the end. Seriously, if you're one of the lucky A.F.O.K. recipients of .zip files (which, based on my known readership you almost certainly are), you should look at the vocal lines. It's funny.

The problem with that is obvious and twofold: 1) If I make a mistake, I have to do the whole darn thing over again to fit my mad obsessive compulsion. 2) I inevitably make a mistake that I can live with but don't correct for the sake of one giant string of uninterrupted sound.

Oh well. That's the way I roll. As a result, I played the song "Factory Girls" by Flogging Molly all the way through a few times last night. All for nothing, because as mentioned before, I just deleted the whole thing and went to bed. HAH.

Oogh, I'm tired. I had a 7:00 A.M. meeting this morning. These things are the bane of my existence. If I were only allowed to change one thing about work, it would be this 7:00 a.m. crap. If I were allowed to change more than one thing, it would be that and all the other crap. Heh.

What up, player?

I have ONE final left tomorrow, and studying for it is getting old. I've got such a complete and total lack of motivation for school right now that powering through my studying is becoming a real chore. I can only imagine how hard it's going to be in May, when the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and it's my last set of finals ever. (Besides the dreaded Bar Exam, of course.)

One good thing about next semester is that I've successfully registered for classes that are basically fluff. So that rules. I'm excited for some good old fashioned slackin'. Coming from a guy whose current semester allowed him sufficient time to write a novel in a month, saying that I have fluff classes next semester is saying a lot. Hopefully it's actually true. Heh.

On a totally different note, my friend Lukas was interviewed on NPR yesterday, regarding the mortgage industry. If you didn't get a chance to check out the interview, here it is. It's very interesting and informative, and it (*gasp!* I know that this next sentence will be shocking) actually makes me happy about my current job. I don't have to do any cross-selling, nor do I get any incentives for getting someone into a product that they don't need. Woot for credit unions. (I still don't bank here, though, because I don't poop where I eat. LOL.)

During my finals week, my limited spare time has been spent sneaking snippets of the Twilight series. I'm forced to admit that I really liked the first book. It's the teen girl in me, as previously discussed. The second is equally gripping, although for much different reasons. Most of it is kind of irritating me, honestly. Vampires rule, werewolves drool.

On the subject of the undead and lycanthropy, it's freakin' D&D time on Friday! WOOOOHOOOO! I'm super excited for that shizzle. I've got quite the crew coming over to throw down. I've since moved my keg of porter into the basement, so it's a nice temperature and easily accessable by players that want to get rowdy. (Taking that sentence out of context would be funny for the use of the word "player". Like "playah!" Yeeuh. Unfortunately IN context it denotes a player of the lovely game of Dungeons and Dragons. Aww yeeuh, thugg life.)

Weathery goodness

As per usual, the weather wasn't nearly as bad here as people were hyping it up to be. There was supposed to be this terrible blizzard that hit yesterday. Still, that doesn't mean that the weather is nice at all. I had a very slow drive in to work this morning.

Yesterday we had another open house, to which no one showed up because of the weather. There was freezing rain going on, and the no-show was kind of expected by yours truly. Oh well. We'll see how things go on that tip after the holidays.

Last night the snow was falling pretty fiercely, and I entertained a hope that work would be cancelled this morning. No such luck. Oh well, I didn't really expect it to happen. This morning's drive (as mentioned earlier) sucked, though. Snow plows hadn't hit Highway 100 when I left, and therefore traffic crawled. Luckily, I had left very early and thus ended up at work early.

I've probably mentioned it already somewhere in the world of the Ostrich, but when it snows around here, people that have been living here their whole lives suddenly become complete toolsheds. This affects people in various ways. First, there's the overcautious type. ONE snowflake on the road and Mr. Overcautious decides that going above 10 miles per hour is a very bad idea. Ugh. Then, when the weather actually gets to the point where driving is dangerous (case in point, this morning) you have Mr. Moron, who weaves in and out of stop-and-go traffic going 70 mph over the ice, thinking that his F-150 makes him invincible. Ugh. Sometimes people deserve to get in a car accident, and sadly it never happens to the people that deserve it.

I watched the movie Wanted last night, and it was exactly the type of movie that I wanted to see. Lots of action, very little of which was actually plausible, veiled beneath a rather weak plot about an age-old guild of assassins. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I also watched the first half of Pineapple Express with my wife. It was ok, but we turned it off because she got tired. There were some hilarious parts, but the "oh, he's high on weed" joke lost its luster rather quickly. Stoner movies just get kind of boring. So do stoners.

I have one final left to take this semester. It's coming my way on Thursday, in Workers' Compensation. I don't expect it to be so bad -- many of the themes of the class tie in with a bunch of other stuff I've taken, and a lot of it just makes sense. The rest is fairly simple math of the third-grade variety. That's about my speed. Shouldn't be bad.

One down...

Well, I finished my long paper. This is the thing that I was ranting about back in October. The final draft was a lot less work. I could have put more effort into revisions, I suppose, but I figure that I had a solid paper in the first draft and that with some minor changes all is well. One class down, three to go.

Finals are suddenly upon me. I have my first on Tuesday night. It's a take-home, which I've opted to go to school to do. I'm weird like that. I'll find a nice, quiet nook and type away, rather than try to accomplish the daunting task of doing a final with a bawling child in the background. (Or a cute wife -- honey, you're distracting. ;^D)

Before that, though, it looks as if I actually get a weekend. Woot! I don't have my Saturday morning class tomorrow (or EVER AGAIN, except for the final on the 13th) so I get to have a Friday night that's blessedly free of homework. With my exciting social life, that begs the question, "which movie will I watch?" Again, woot.

The last final is on the 18th. That sucks, because it's the last possible day for a final to fall on. It almost feels like I'm being cheated out of winter break because of my lame finals schedule, but everything will be fine. It will go quickly.

After that, I slide into the very last semester of my law school career. That's a whole lot of crazy right there.

30 K???

So I started NaNoWriMo as kind of a larf, not thinking that I would actually be able to do it.  To my complete and utter shock, I'm basically on pace.  I just cracked 30,000 words today (with a goal of 50,000 during the month of November).  I don't mean to toot my own horn here, because seriously (as I'm sure I've mentioned) the book is kind of crappy.  But there it is.  I'm 3/5 done.  OK maybe I do mean to toot my own horn a bit.  It's not the best story, but it cracks me up as I write it.  Also, I'm writing a novel, going to law school, working a full-time job, raising a child, and...um...playing World of Warcraft.  (OK you shouldn't count that last one as a feat).  Ladies and gentlemen, I do this all without cocaine!  Now, admit it:  I'm awesome.

The whole book thing is probably the reason for the complete and total lack of blogs this month.  You know, I can only write so much.  I look at a blog and say to myself, "Jeez, that's 200 words that could have been in the book!"  I'm a huge dork like that.  Heh.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot going on.  The first open house went well -- we had 5 parties come through while we were out.  I spent the time over at Rhyno's place with my lil' girl (who flat out refused to even think about napping, but sat quietly with me for maybe 30 seconds and talked about the Vikings) and two cats (who cowered in fear and anger under the guest room bed.)  Hopefully one of those 5 parties went away with a really good impression of the house and will buy it.  We'll see.  In these days of housing market doom and gloom, I'm still optimistic.

I'm starting to get into my usual panic about school.  Finals are approaching rapidly, and as usual (and even more so during fall semester, it seems) I feel like I haven't learned a stinkin' thing over the course of the last few months.  I know it will all come together like it always does, but I'm looking at a light at the end of this long, dark and dismal tunnel, and all I can think about is fearful panicked thoughts about failing all of my classes.  Realistic or not, fear is still fear.

Hmm...seeing as how I'm currently sitting in class, perhaps I should pay attention.  That brings up a different point, though.  I'm in a class that meets once a week.  For the last four or maybe five weeks, there has been a guest professor.  How is that even remotely cool?  Our professor is doing nothing.  It's a bunch of dag-gummed malarchy if you ask me!  With several other made up old-timey sounding curses!  A pox on the man, by jove!

/Ben out.