Cursed With Ambition

Hunting Season Story

My dad and his younger brother, Peter, made plans to go to the Davy Crockett National Forest in east Texas for a bowhunting trip. The area where they were to hunt is deep in east Texas, where the Trinity and Neches Rivers meet. I was too young to hunt with a bow and besides that, their trip was going to cover a four day weekend and I had school so I didn't get to go.

They loaded up all of their gear, which included homemade blinds, camoflage netting, bows and arrows, provisions, camping gear, racks of green and brown clothing - they even had a boat so that they could access areas along the river more easily. They really went through a lot of effort and expense for this hunt.

During the days of their trip they hunted hard and had come up empty. They got up well before dawn every day and trekked many miles by boat and by foot to get to the most likely places to find deer. It was the last day of their hunt and they got up extra early, made sure they were perfectly camoflaged and had their blinds set up in just the right places. My dad made his way to his blind that morning in the dark, hoping that this would be the day, knowing that he'd done everything he could do to ensure success.

Now, for those of you who don't know - bowhunting is especially difficult. The main reason is that the deer has to be very close - within 30 yards or so - for you to have a chance to kill it. Modern compound bows are much more accurate than older styles. But, you must be able to strike the animal in an area that's about four inches around to kill it. Otherwise, you just wound it and it runs for miles and you'll never find it. Deer are skittish creatures, always wary of their surroundings. The slightest movement or sound will set them off running with their white tails in the air. Plus too, you have to be sitting in just the right place where the deer will walk by. If they pass just slightly further away you won't have a shot. My dad knows all of these things and has killed deer with a bow in the past.

It just so happened that the deer season in Davy Crockett Forest coincided with squirrel season. In south Texas, where I'm from, squirrel hunting is considered a low sport. But in east Texas the hunters aren't as snooty.

Sure enough, just past dawn, after my dad had been motionless in his hidden perch for a couple of hours, he sees a squirrel hunter through the trees several hundred yards away. He thought to himself that his hunt was most likely ruined since no deer would come around with this guy walking around. He hoped that the squirrel hunter would pass far enough away that he wouldn't be disturbed any further. That was not to be. The squirrel hunter wove his way through the trees straight for my dad's blind, almost like he was drawn there. He got close enough that my dad could make out his denim overalls and mackinaw hat. Dad said the man reminded him of Elmer Fudd. When the fellow got about forty yards away, he stopped, looked around and then set his gun against a tree. My father watched curiously, then in horror as the man first took off his hunting jacket and unbuckled his overalls before dropping trow and squatting to take a dump right before his eyes!! Dad said he tried to look away as the east Texan made his steaming pile, but he was only partly successful. I suppose it was like the scene of a car wreck - it's hard to look away. My father never told me if he saw the guy wipe his ass or what he wiped it with.

Dad was relieved when the guy stood up, dressed and gathered up his gun. Unfortunately, the man started walking straight for my father's deer stand! He told me later that several things went through his mind. "I didn't want this man to see me. I mean I just saw him take a shit. He had a gun and I didn't. I thought he might shoot me if he saw me out of sheer embarrassment." The squirrel hunter got within twenty feet of the base of the blind before he looked up, saw my father and stopped.

Their eyes locked. We'll never know if there was a moment of understanding that passed between them, man to man in the wilderness. The squirrel hunter from east Texas asked my father, "Seen anything?" To which my dad simply replied, "Nope."

Belated Thankfulness

Inspired by others of you who were thoughtful enough to mention that Thanksgiving is, indeed, about counting your blessings, I have decided to offer up an impromptu list:

1. My family - my greatest asset
2. My friends - best in the world, bar none
3. My health - yes, I haven't exercised since September (until this morning!) but I don't have any debilitating diseases, I have the use of all of my limbs (all five) and faculties (unless I've been drinking) and I can still go outside and run and throw a football.
4. I don't live in Haiti or New Orleans
5. My parents didn't sell me into prostitution when I was eight
6. The Hot Neighbor (I think she's been working out - damn!)
7. Kristen Davis
8. Mermaids
9. UT Football and Vince Young and Ramonce Taylor and Mack Brown and the cheerleaders
10. That I did not get pulled over on Wednesday night in Victoria

Early November Story

Early November reminds me of a high school story:

My uncle Bob owned some land about 20 miles outside of my hometown. The property was beautiful - it had some frontage on the Guadalupe River and also had two picturesque creeks with limestone banks that ran through it. He had a mobile home out there that served as a cabin. It was early November of my senior in high school and the weather was autumn-like. I asked my uncle if I could invite some friends out to his land to stay the night. He gave me his permission so plans were made.

I don't remember if it was a Friday or Saturday night, but we secured some alcohol, in whatever ways high school kids do, and a group of ten of us or so made our way out there. We started a small bonfire out in front of the trailer and lit the wood burning stove inside. We sat in lawn chairs around the fire and drank beer and told stories. People came and went. Someone had brought a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold tequila. James (of MathJames fame) had gotten ahold of it and went about having one of his first of many experiences with tequila.

Word had gotten out that "the guys" were having a party at Ojo's uncle's cabin. At one point there were probably twenty to twenty five people there. As the night wore on the girls all left and there were eight or ten guys left who were going to stay overnight. We were still drinking and talking when someone looked up and asked, "Where's James?" None of us had seen him for a while, so we set about trying to find him. I found him sitting Indian-style in a thicket behind the trailer. He was just staring straight ahead into space when I came upon him. "James? What are you doing?" There was no reply; but he did slowly turn his head and look at me with glazed-over eyes. "Little help here!" I shouted. We got James up out of the thicket and took him inside and put him to bed on a cot in one of the bedrooms.

We resumed drinking and talking around the bonfire. Pretty soon, there were only two guys left outside, Justin and Steven; and they were getting pretty tanked. Most of the guys were spread out on the living room floor in sleeping bags in front of the wood burning stove where it was warm. I had just laid down when Justin and Steven came stumbling in the front door, giggling. They went into the bedroom where James was and tried to roust him. They got him up, steadied him and led him by the arm back outside. I dozed off.

My next sensory perception was people yelling, "FIRE! FIRE!! FIRE!!!" When my eyes opened I saw James standing above me. And I saw flames around him - and me. I flashed to my feet with a quickness, grabbed up my pillow and in one motion brought the pillow down on the flames in an attempt to snuff them out. What I didn't realize was that my pillow was saturated with gasoline, so when I raised my pillow up to strike another blow it burst into flames. I was holding a flaming pillow above my head. I threw it to the ground and began to stomp on it wildly. Most of the others who had been on the floor beside me had also jumped up and stared stomping at the flames. One guy, who was passed out, remained on the floor among several stomping seventeen-year-olds. Several things happened all at once - bystanders who weren't stomping at the flames came into the fray to pull James out of the fire. Others grabbed up our hapless friend, who probably would've slept through the whole ordeal and burned to death if we'd let him. I witnessed the fire spreading on the floor and crawling up the walls and up some curtains that hung nearby over a sliding glass door. At that moment I had a vision of my friends and I standing outside in the cold, staring at the smoldering, blackened hulk of my uncle's cabin while I kept saying over and over, "How am I going to tell them about this?" I began to stomp with renewed vigor. Somebody's mom had forced them to bring a small jug of water, which sat all night on the countertop, untouched. The jug was passed forward, fire brigade style, and dumped at precisely the right location to reach almost the entire base of the flames. The fire was out.

Stunned, I looked around the room. Those of us who had been stomping were panting. Others looked on with mouths agape. I looked at the floor - there were huge splotches of melted carpet covering the floor in front of the fireplace and splatterings of melted spots fanning out across the entire floor. I thought I saw the blackened tips of the curtains and smoke stains on the walls.

"What the fuck happened?" I demanded. James answered, "I burned my hand."

James did, indeed, burn his hand pretty badly. I had to wait for my answer to how the fire happened while we tended to his wounds.

Apparently, Justin and Steven thought it would be funny to get James up and mess with him because he was so drunk. That part was reasonable enough, even for high school guys. I mean, what's more fun that playing with a drunk guy? What wasn't reasonable though, was their idea to have James, "Stoke the fireplace." They had sent James inside with a mayonaise jar 1/3 full of gasoline, with instructions to "Get the fireplace started." James tiptoed around our sleeping bodies on the floor, mine included, opened the doors to the fireplace and reared back to throw the gas on the glowing embers. Well, he didn't make it that far. The fumes caught fire right away and lept up to the jar James was holding. He dropped it, of course, and the gas spread out over the floor, which is how my pillow got saturated. The fire spread out over the pool of gasoline and that's when the shouts went up from Justin and Steven, who were giggling and watching the whole thing from the doorway.

Postscript:
James had second degree burns on his hand and forearm. He complained about it for an hour or so and tried to tough it out by sticking his hand into an ice chest, but eventually some of his friends took pity on him and took him into town to the emergency room. James rode the whole way with his hand out the window in the cold November air for relief. There was no scarring.

I was pretty pissed at Justin and Steven when I found out that they were pretty much responsible for fucking up my uncle's trailer. Justin and I had words and I eventually rushed him. He is 6'6, I am 5'10. Needless to say, it wasn't much of a scuffle. We got over it and everyone remained friends.

My uncle wasn't too pissed about the trailer. The damage wasn't as severe as I first thought, although there were several huge melted spots on the carpet. I think he even let me have friends out there again after that.

The Death of Blogging? -or- Prelude to Something Wonderful

Sweet Jesus!  Blogging has taken a back seat to just about everything else.  Although, who am I kidding?  The only "everything else" is the ramp up to final exams and the end of semester crunch.  Right now I'm taking a break from studying Secured Transactions.  Sec Trans is the class this semester (and there's always one) that I know virtually nothing about, despite the fact that I attended all but three classes during the fourteen-week semester.  Problem is, this shit is plain boring.  It's a semester long course on Chapter 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code if that tells you anything.  Plus, the professor, God bless 'im, took about three times as long as necessary to explain anything.  My attention span in a lecture just can't abide that kind of slowness.

It's about 5:30pm and I've been at the library since 10:30 this morning.  I've made it through classification of collateral and attachment of the security interest (about 1/6th of the course).  Next up is perfection of the security interest.  (Whoo Hoo!!)  Needless to say, this little break is an attempt to hide from my books and outlines.

So let's see, posting has been anemic here at CWA.  But it's also been slow over at Secret Comics, Landscape, Eyes and Menometro too.  WTF?  Are our blogs dying?  Good to see that Billy's been keeping the torch lit, however.

It's not that I've had no material either.  I've been wanting to post:  Guppy - The Epilogue.  But, I thought better of it. Several times.  I've gotten in trouble over CWA before so I'm a little skittish.  Who knew people actually read this crap?

There's also the matter of the likelihood that VY will win the Heisman and UT will be playing in the Rose Bowl, barring the unthinkable.  There's also Snake Diggity (now possibly known as Sand Daghity?) updates to pass along.  (He's doin' fine - albeit sometimes ducking for cover when the air-raid sirens go off.) 

Then there's all manner of wildly fascinating law school stories to relate.  For example, I just finished my trial notebook for my Civil Pretrial Advocacy class with Judge Wooldridge and argued my Motion to Compel Discovery Responses in his court!!  Just like a real lawyer and everything!!  Isn't that exciting?  Well, ok, but there is this - there's been all sorts of drama with my drafting group trying to meet with our professors in my Commercial Real Estate Transactions class.  Intrigue!  Deceit!! 

Allright, allright, maybe not.

Hell, maybe this is the death of blogging.

I guess I've got no choice now but to get back to perfection.

Lone Star Mock Trial Tournament: Epilogue

From Wednesday afternoon until Sunday afternoon I was in San Antonio (or in transit to or from) for the Lone Star National Mock Trial Tournament hosted by St. Mary's Law School.  Our team consisted of Sissy, Mitzi, Gobi and me.  We beat the University of Maryland, Emory University and one of the St. Mary's teams.  We lost to the other St. Mary's team  and to Florida State in the semifinal round.  So, we finished in third place, by our reckoning.

Best Lines of the Lone Star Mock Trial Tournament

1. Q:  Isn't it true that the main function of the DPS is to stop speeders?  A:  (leaning forward to the mic)  That is a common misconception.
2. Q:  What are you going to write on there with?  A:  A marker.
3. That was a homely bunch all the way around.
4. It was that fat dude who asked for the break.  It was like he was telling the judge "I'm hungry!"

After reading these over, they really aren't funny at all.  Yet, we laughed our asses off about them over the weekend. 

One of the following must be true:  A)  We have completely lost touch with reality because of law school, B)  We have become super nerds because of law school, C)  You had to be there, D)  These really are funny, but just don't seem so right now, E)  The experience sucked so bad, these lines were as good as it got.

Pick Your Poison

Yesterday was registration day; my LAST registration day.  Believe it or not, registering for classes is a painfully complex, gut-wrenching choice clusterfuck.  By now I've pretty much developed a formula for picking my classes, but the process still takes me six shitty hours and lot of grief.  The process basically involves priorities.  Here are mine:

1. Whether the class  fits my ratio of Bar classes to blowjob classes.  (A Bar class is one that prepares you for the bar; i.e. the subject is tested on the Bar Exam.  A blowjob class is one taught by a professor who does not take attendance, does not require recitation and gives good grades.  The subject of a blowjob class is usually something like Amateur Sports Law.)
2. What is the professor's average GPA over the last four semesters.
3. Whether my study partner, P.C., is going to be in the class.  (That way, I've only got to do half the work and I have somebody to freak out with when it comes time to study for the final after not having read a single case for the class during the entire semester.)
4. Whether the exam date for the class fits in with my at-least-three-days-between-exams ideal.
5. What time of day the class meets.  (Anything before 9am is bad; anything after 7pm is also bad.)
6. Whether the class fits a schedule that allows me to continue to work 20 hours a week at the firm in something other than 2 1/2 hour increments.
7. How many cute girls are also registering for the class.  (They tend to like the Estate Planning and Family Law classes.)
8. Whether the professor is cool.  (Usually, if they teach a blowjob class they are cool.  Sometimes one will teach a Bar class and doesn't take attendance or has a high GPA - that would make them cool.)
9. Whether there is an outline existing for the class that is high quality.  (Now that I have the Law Review Outline CD, the choices have greatly expanded.)
10. Whether the class is for a grade or pass/fail.  (Why would I take a blowjob class that did not give me a grade?)

Believe me, working from this I need an algorithm to keep track of all of these factors and get the perfect schedule.  But, alas, the perfect schedule does not exist.  That's why I'm having to take Civil Trial Advocacy from Professor Murphy.

Master Yoda, J.D.

The attorney I work for is in his seventies and has probably forgotten more about the practice of law than I will ever know.  He has some serious guru-like qualities.

A part of my job is to read boxes of paper about a case and then have a meeting and give my boss a synopsis of the case.  He will often ask me questions and get my opinions on the case.  This morning we had just such a meeting that, I shit you not, went something like:

Padawan Ojo Rojo:  "...and the claimant's two business partners eventually kicked him out of the business."

Master Yoda, J.D.:  "Yesss.  Former business partners, hmmm?  A valuable source of information they can be.  Hee hee hee."

After that I tried to bang a gavel from across the room using the force and then tried to use a JeDi mind trick to get the hot paralegal to go to lunch with me.  I failed.  I have much to learn.

*note to Guppy - I didn't really try to get the hot paralegal to go to lunch with me.  I was just trying to be funny.

Halloween Story

When we were kids we went trick-or-treating in our grandparents' neighborhood with our cousins.  Their neighborhood was pretty nice and our parents knew a lot of the people who lived there because that's where they had grown up.  Anyway, one year we went up to a doctor's house and rang the doorbell.  (The doctor is a urologist and the only living man who has ever put his finger up my ass, but that's a different story.)  The pee-pee doctor came to the door and dutifully gave us all some candy.  As we walked away from the door, my brother Jake (the one who's in Iraq now) said, "Man, I didn't get none but one!"  Doctor Pecker was still standing in the open doorway of his home, seeing us off and he heard what Jake said.  Our parents were standing in the street and were horrified, of course, at what their little ingrate had just done.  All of the adults were embarrassed - the doctor because this kid made him feel like a cheapskate, the parents because it looked like they were raising an ungrateful glutton.  The doctor called Jake back to the door and loaded him up while the parents protested, apologized and admonished Jake.

The irony of the situation is that Doctor Willy was giving out full-sized candy bars.  Not miniatures, not chicken-shit no-name stuff either.  These were full sized KitKats, Three Muskateers, Milky Way, Nestle Crunch - you name it.  The idea was one per kid.  Jake was too young to get the concept that even though you only got one piece of candy, it was still a lot better than a handful of those crappy peanut butter taffies.

Improving the World's Slang Vocabulary

Last night we did a mock negotiation in our Commercial Real Estate Transactions class.  We paired off in groups of twos; one buyer, one seller.  At the end of it, each group reported to the professor the details of their deal. 

I was in the last group to tell how we structured our deal.  After hearing what everyone else had done, I knew I "lost" the negotiation (based on incomplete and faulty information though, dammit!). 

Professor:  "Group eight.  Let's hear how you guys did."

Ojo Rojo:  "Well, I represented the buyer and I have to say, I pretty much got doinked on this deal."

Professor and class:  "AAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAHA!!"

Professor:  "What was the word you used?"

Ojo Rojo:  "Doinked."

Professor:  (giggling)  "How do you spell that?"

Ojo Rojo:  "D-O-I-N-K-E-D"

Professor:  "I'm going to use that word all the time.  In fact, I'm going to use that word on someone before I go to bed tonight.  Doinked.  Heh heh."

Happy I could add to your slang vocabulary, professor.

doinked- v.  past tense - to get screwed or fucked; especially in a deal.  To endure some misfortune, usually at the hands of others.