Blog! I have a blog!

I just remembered that I have a blog. Well holy moley. I'd better get on that, it's been months.

So it's December, apparently. The year is rocketing by as it tends to do. The biggest bit of news that I have these days is that my lil' boy turned ONE. He's a year old already. It's funny, I'd probably written 700 blogs about Gwen during her first year of life, and I've probably written 5 blogs TOTAL in Joey's first year. I've been busy. (And yes, I know that I could easily figure this out by LOOKING, but I like to make up statistics. Did you know that 95% of statistics are made up right on the spot? ;^) )

It's apparently winter again. Everything is covered with snow. I'm once again the lazy last guy on the block to put up Christmas lights, but I plan on getting that done on Sunday. Ahh, plans. Other than that Kerry and I are jetting off (read: driving) to the big city (OK, SLP) because she needs to work at the nature center and I need to play some D&D. It's a crushing need.

For the D&D nerds out there: I'm about to take my players through the notorious Tomb of Horrors, as re-released for 4th Edition. It's going to be awesome. I'm excited for the notion of an adventure that forces them to use their minds. I know it's not really the way 4e works, but I'm thinking of giving xp bonuses to those that figure out the puzzles, because some of 'em are doozies. To add injury (no insult here, there's just going to be injury) I'm starting them on their trek through the garden of graves at level 7. It's ok, there are 6 of them, and they're pretty good in a fight. They need a challenge. Heck, a couple of them are still level 6. Hee hee.

In other news, for some reason I got suckered into playing Fantasy Football this year, and it's been a catastrophic failure. I actually got in a bit of a row with the organizer for comparing it to D&D, which really made me laugh. Like...hard. But that's all done with. I won the argument. It's D&D for the a*****s that used to beat up kids that played D&D. It's also not my thing, I'm currently 3 and 9. Obviously my bad statistics (see above) have hurt me in a game that uses...real statistics. Whatever, fantasy football is what it is, and I'm having fun with it -- I guess that's what's important.

That's about all that's new. I'll try to blog more, blah blah blah, but really, I won't. Work keeps me busy. I'm thankful for being a noob lawyer that actually has a job -- many in my graduating class don't. :(

Talk atcha later.

Fall

Hey there, Ostrich Haters. How's the fall going for you? Well, it's not technically fall yet, but the weather of late has seemed to indicate otherwise. Although, today is beautiful, sunny, and in the 70s, so...yeah. Whatever. I'm talking about the weather and it's lame.

What should I be talking about, then? How 'bout my favorite passtime and yours: Dungeons and Dragons! Actually there's not much to tell there, other than that we had an awesome session a couple of weekends ago, and we're gearing up for another one this coming Saturday. I'm amped as always! I think that my players have stopped worrying about being in any danger after their recent exploits, so I've got to take it up a notch.

That's always difficult to do, though. There's a delicate and fine balance that a DM has to achieve, whereby providing sufficient challenge to the players so that they don't get bored, and not presenting too much challenge resulting in a TPK. To provide some different types of encounters I've started including a lot of stat check type things, and I plan on using more traps.

In non-gaming news, it's my lovely and darling wifey's birthday this week. She's turning 34, looks 23, and any references to "rule 34" in response to this post will be summarily ignored.

I was thinking about stuff, and it dawned on me that next month I'll have been a lawyer for an entire year. Here's a fun exercise for you kids playing along at home, too: Check out how many blogs I wrote before I was a lawyer. Now check out how many after. Ugh. It's waaaaay different having a job that I actually care about. ;)

Can't wait to see all 3-4 of you readers for D&D this weekend!

Been a while

I think this may very well be the longest I've gone without blogging. It's not that I don't want to do some sharing of life events, it's more that most of my readership (if not all) already knows everything I've been up to.

Kerry and I were lucky enough to be able to take a vacation this year, and we drove out to Colorado. It was amazing -- we ditched the kids with my parents and really had a great time together in the mountains. I'm a big fan of taking relaxing beach type vacations, but I also love road trips to cool places.

We took off from Benson one Friday morning and drove straight to Estes Park, CO in one shot. It was about 14 hours of driving, give or take, and it seriously seemed like about 2 hours without the kids in the car. We just took in the scenery and arrived at our destination with little fuss.

We spent a few days in Estes park, mainly hanging out in Rocky Mountain National Park or checking out shops in town. Then we headed back by a northerly route, making fun stops at Mt. Rushmore, Wall Drug, and finally camping in Badlands National Park. It was a fun time with great company.

We get to take another road trip this weekend to go and see Phish again. It's going to be a blast, and I'm ecstatic. I can't wait to hang out with friends and see awesome live music.

The job's been going well. I'm keeping busy and learning a ton still. I can't believe that in a couple of months I'll have been here a year. It's freaking insane. I love the job, love the town, but wish we had more friends here. These things take time.

Last weekend, I went to a birthday party for Corey's uncle and had an impromptu reunion of my college band Alterego. It was awesome. The four of us hadn't played together in over 10 years and Chad hasn't even touched his drums for the last 2, but we were pretty much spot on with our performance of the three songs we chose to perform. So fun.

That's all I know. I'll try to blog more. Heh. Bye!

OK seriously

I suck at blogging this year. I really do. My first excuse (and really, that's all it is) is the new job. Yes, I have more responsibility now. There is, however, still down time, and I should really update the world on my life. Because seriously. The world needs to know. Don't you?

Life in the old town is...well, it is. Honestly, it's kind of like living in a fish bowl. Everyone knows who I am, who my family is, and what I'm up to. You'll notice that I didn't even mention said town in this post, because there are only a few people here, and google is good at finding things. Anyway, it's good to be back here, but there's definitely a culture-shock style adjustment.

The job is going well. I can't get into specifics, due to the lack of privacy on the internet, but I'm doing lawyer stuff. I've been to court, and although the first time was terrifying, I'm confident that I'm in the right place, doing the right thing. For essentially the first time in my life, I'm happy with my job. I probably already said that.

My family is doing well. Gwen is super into dancing now. Kerry found a pair of old ballet slippers from when Kerry was a little girl, and gave them to Gwen. Gwen now wears them at all times, and is freaking adorable.

My Grandpa recently celebrated his 90th birthday. We had a party for him at their church, and well over 200 people showed up. He gave a speech (well, so did all of his children, but we'll focus on his) and he said that he was talking to his doctor. The doctor said that getting to 90 was a great milestone, and Grandpa said, "Now what?" The doctor said, "Well...try for 100!" Funny.

I've happily been playing a lot more D&D, which is awesome. I have the coolest friends in the world, because they're willing to truck all the way out here to play every other session. That's been awesome, and as a result I'm playing the most D&D I've played since back in the epic days of 2001 - 2003 when I had a weekly session. I'm all geared up for another session this weekend, and it's going to be a blast as always.

I had gotten out of playing WoW, in favor of my shiny new PS3. Monday night, though, I had woken up with Joey at about 3:00 am, and couldn't get to sleep until 4:30 because I was thinking about WoW. I actually got out of bed at 4:00 and downloaded the latest patch, so that I could play last night. The problem was that by the time 9:30 rolled around last night, I was all set to play, but I was tired as heck. I still played about an hour, though, and it was blissful.

Settling In

Another day, another dollar. So, I woke up to the realization that I've been at this lawyerin' thing for a full quarter of a year now. I started with the firm back in October. You'd think that by now I'd have a little confidence about what I'm doing, but that's not the case. Friends and colleagues tell me that it takes a good year to start to feel comfortable, and I believe them. A word to law students: They don't teach you anything in law school about being a lawyer. Even the stuff that really seems like you'll need to know in the future can be rendered close to useless, depending upon what path you take.

That said, I know that I'm more comfortable now that I was at the outset, and I am confident that I will be able to learn everything I need to become a good lawyer. On to other, more fun topics.

Joey, whose official nickname is "Bubs" now (although he'll answer to Bubsy, Zubs, Zubsy, and other variants) is growing at an exponential rate. The lad is huge. I think he's gonna be a bruiser. He could surprise me there, though. I was a little blubber baby as well, but I turned out short and relatively lean. I also turned out generally terrible at sports. We'll see.

Gwenner is basically completely potty trained now! It's amazing -- she just decided that she was able to go on the potty, and now that's what she does, every time. She's a very good and very smart little girl, who astounds me daily. It's amazing to come home and sit down for a conversation with my little girl. She's a chatterbox with a frightening command of the English language. She's also freaking adorable. I'm biased, but it's still true. :)

I got a new toy for Christmas, in the form of a shiny new PS3. It's freaking awesome. As a father, however, my video game time is limited, and I'm afraid that I'll have to give up on WoW for a little while. At least until Cataclysm is released. Although, as an addict, I still feel the pull to play. Perhaps I can devote 1 of my gaming nights per week to WoW. Woo! Justified monthly payment!

As far as PS3 games, I've acquired three that will soak up a lot of my time. The one I'm currently in the midst of is GTA 4, and it's a beautiful and engaging installment of the series, very true to its predecessors. Rock Star seems to have taken out a lot of the more outrageous things that made their way into GTA: San Andreas. Missions where you fly jetpacks to pick up alien goo may be fun (and seriously, GTA:SA is one of my favorite games ever) but they kind of detract from the gangsta feel of the game. GTA 4 is another romp in Liberty City, and so far has provided me with a lot of fun and a minimal amount of swearing.

I also picked up Dragon Age: Origins, a game that virtually every one of my friends has played or is playing. I'm very excited, because I've heard nothing but good things about it. I know that one's gonna be a time consumer.

My brother-in-law got me Assassin's Creed for Christmas, another title that I'm extremely excited to play. It's gonna be a good few months for gaming.

Date night

So, this is a fun perk about living in the same town as my parents. Yesterday, my mom called me and asked if Kerry and I were doing anything, and if we wanted her to babysit. We didn't have any plans, but we were more than willing to make some. Heh. It's very backwards for the babysitter to call and ask if you want to do something.

Kerry and I then went to the lovely Demarce theater and saw Couples Retreat. It was pretty much exactly what you'd expect from the trailer -- a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. However, there was one scene in the movie that featured some rap-like cover of D'yer Mak'er. (Aside: By placing that link, I have found out a number of things. The pronunciation of the song's title is "Jamaica", a nod to its reggae feel. Huh. Didn't know that. Also, the person that "covered" it is Sean Kingston, and it's just a sample in a song called "Me Love", which was last night and still is lame. Ahh, Wikipedia...thanks for fillin' me in.) While that song played, a bunch of high school girls behind us (who had swooned heavily during the New Moon trailer) started singing along. I was like, "NO! No you little dweebs do NOT know this song! GRR!" Then I realized that I'm just old. Sigh.

Other than that, all is well around here. Just waitin' on the wifey to pop out child #2. Then I get to re-experience the thrill of not sleeping ever, and see what an effective lawyer I make.

Update

SO...wow. A lot's been going on. We sold the house, as I've probably mentioned. The closing is tomorrow, and the buyers take possession on Sunday. Therefore, we're gonna motorboat down to the cities (that's figurative...literally going to the cities in a motorboat is probably possible with the amount of waterways in this state, but I'm not about to try it) and load up a second truck full of all of our stuff, thereby clearing out the house for its new owners. I'm gonna do my darndest to never sell a house again, because it's a huge pain.

We're also negotiating a purchase of a home here, but I'm going to play my cards close to the chest on that. This is a very small town, and everybody's business becomes public knowledge almost instantly.

Let's talk about that, shall we? This town, the town that I grew up in, hasn't really changed much. Sure, there are a couple of buildings where there weren't before, people have remodeled, and the traffic lights now actually have left-turn arrows and lanes, but other than that, things stay pretty constant around here. It's quiet, it's friendly, and it will be a nice place to raise the kids.

However, something's gotta be done about these @#$%@ trains. True, there's no rush hour around here. There are trains rolling through town every 15 minutes (it seems) though, and that has about the same effect. I'm going to start lobbying for a bridge. They're relatively simple in form and function, and despite the fact that some of our Minnesota bridges fall down tragically (OVER THE LINE!) the idea has still been around and functioning well since antiquity. Please, people. Build a bridge.

Other than that, life is good. For the first time in my LIFE, I can truly say that I love my job. Things are lookin' up.

I still can't believe that I passed the bar exam. My brain keeps telling me that I need to start studying for it again. I don't. WOOOHOOOO!

The,space,bar,on,this,new,computer,doesn't,work,very,well,either.

Things are moving fast

So, I'm noticing that I'm terrible at blogging lately. It's something that I haven't had a ton of time for these days, because there's a ton going on both at work and at home. I'll try to fill you in...

My work informed me that my last day is going to be September 30th. This is something that I expected, and is a part of my plan. Still, having that official end date makes things suddenly crazy, because there's a ton that I have to do before the big move.

I'm starting with my dad on October 5th, and will probably find out about the bar exam right around then. (GULP). I'm nervous as all get out, but even if I didn't pass the bar there is still a lot of work I can do whilst studying for bar exam number two. (Ugh. I sincerely hope that I don't have to go through that again.)

I've had some opportunities lately to do the things I used to know and love. I played some D&D with friends last weekend, and it was a lot of fun. I went to the Reniassance Festival one day last weekend, and hope to go again this coming weekend with my in-laws. Last night, I brewed some beer (it had been MONTHS!) with Ryan. That was a ton of fun. I've played a couple of rounds of golf, and although my game is still fairly terrible, it's been a lot of fun to get out and play.

The house still hasn't sold, and that's a huge pain. We're going to drop the @#$%% price yet again, and make some improvements on the basement. Not much we can do at this point. We entertained the thought of putting in a bathroom, but it would be cost prohibitive. Therefore, we'll do what we can.

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.

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.

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.

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. ;)

Captain's Log: Supplemental

Here’s a fun moment from my day. I tried to fax one sheet of paper to a fax number. I entered said number onto the keypad, 9-1-800-xxx-xxxx, and hit start. Then I went to lunch.

When I returned from lunch, there was a ream of paper on my desk, and my coworker was laughing at me. It seems that I was on “copy” instead of “fax”, and inadvertently asked the computer to print approximately 918,000,000,000 copies of my one sheet of paper. Thankfully she got to the machine and hit cancel.

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.

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.

Too Much Information

So yesterday I was at work, taking a little break. I was taking said break in the can, as I am wont to do. Yep. I'd just settled down, when I heard the door open and in walked a mystery someone who sidled up to the urinal next to the stall.

The stall doors were some sort of weird measurement when they were in stalled in my office bathroom, and the result is that there's a 1/2 inch gap in the door through which one can see the sinks whilst sitting on the toilet. Through this window to the world, I saw my company's CEO as he strode from the urinal to the sink.

He then proceeded to grab one of the cans of spray air freshener from the counter top, after which he unleashed a huge stream of the aerosol into the air, over the stall wall, which in turn rained down upon me like a cold, fresh-scent-of-vanilla rain.

At that point he realized that there was someone in the stall, and that he had just doused that person (me) with air freshener. He got completely flustered, and said, "OH! OH NO!" Then he actually peeked in through the crack and saw that it was me in there. He realized right after that that it was the wrong thing to do, which increased his fluster by about a thousandfold.

"OH! Ben! OH! I'm so sorry!" he cried, his voice echoing through the men's' room. "I'm so embarrassed! Oh no! I didn't know anyone was in there!"

This continued, as I saw the CEO in the hallway about a half hour later. He continued to profess his embarrassment. The retelling of this story to my wife caused a near-tears experience, so I figured I'd go ahead and share it with the world. Dearest CEO, you have no need to be embarrassed. I'm pooping on your dime.

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.