Cursed With Ambition

Lawdar

Lawdar - noun  The ability of lawyers to recognize other lawyers without any overt clues.

Used in a sentence:  Ojo and Billy created a new game where they use their lawdar and wager points based on a guess of whether or not a particular person is a lawyer without having any prior knowledge or clues as to whether the person actually is a lawyer.

My First Firm Xmas Party

Went to my first of many firm Christmas parties on Saturday night. The GF was in town to go with and I was looking forward to showing her off. (Is that wrong? I mean can I be blamed for enjoying being in the company of an attractive woman? Maybe I can just be blamed for saying it out loud. At any rate, I know what the whole trophy wife thing is all about and that's not me. I'm lucky because I get the benefits of the trophy wife thing without all of the demands for a white Beemer, $25K engagement ring and surgery involving silicone. So I'll wrap this up before the aside overtakes the whole post. Needless to say, I'm shamelessly trying to score some points here - lord knows I need 'em. Hi Babe!)

We were set to arrive about an hour after the party started, not by choice but because we had somewhat of a wardrobe malfunction. The GF lost the shirt she was going to wear. When she discovered that the shirt was missing she flew into a rage and I pretty much wrote the night off at that point. Hell hath no fury like a woman who loses part of the outfit she was planning for weeks to wear to her boyfriend's first firm Christmas party. I was shitting bricks and praying that she found it because I had carried her stuff into my house when she arrived two nights before and I thought I might've let it fall outside or something. Anyway, she recovered well - she had something else to wear and she looked awesome. And to her credit, she was chipper soon enough and we had a good time. Oh, and she found the shirt at her house when she got back home today. Whew!

We found the street the party was on and were trying to see the numbers on the houses. We could see this house up in the distance that had a GINORMOUS amount of Christmas lights and outside decorations in the front yard. I mean none of the street lamps, which are photosensitive, were on because of the nova-like brightness coming from this house. The GF giggled and said immediately, "That's it. I know it." I said, "No. Can't be." But secretly I knew she was right. And she was. They had not one, but THREE of those inflatable lawn snow globes - one with a working carousel going around inside it. I shit you not. There were pretty much lights covering every square inch of the house and yard - lighted candycanes and miniature Christmas trees lining the walks, lights dangling from every eave, nary a bush wasn't weighted down with hundreds of lights. Even the backyard was lit up. Before we got out of the truck the GF said, "I bet it's even worse inside." "There's no way," I thought to myself.

The GF was still laughing about all of the yard decorations when we got to the front door. Once inside I made the introductions and said hello to everyone I knew. Then we made it to the kitchen where the alcohol was set up. Before everyone starts thinking that this is the "Ojo got ripped out of his mind and did some hilarious stupid shit at the firm's Christmas party" story, allow me to disappoint - they weren't serving alcohol. I found that out a few days before the party and I still don't know exactly why. My two theories are: 1) Liability - the person throwing the party is a lawyer after all; and 2) he's a deacon at a Baptist church so it may be a religious thing. Whatever the reason, we were allowed to bring whatever we wanted. Some of the girls in the office made sangria. The GF and I brought a couple of bottles of wine. We brought one red and one white. A couple of people made commens about the La Crema and it became obvious in a big hurry that we should've brought two bottles of that one. It was the GF's pick of course, I don't know shit about wine other than there's a handful that I know I like. Anyway, at this mostly dry party our white wine lasted about thirty seconds. It became sort of an inside joke between me and the GF.

Once we each had a glass of wine in hand we looked around for the first time. Let me say this - the GF was right for the second time. The density of Christmas decorations in that house fairly defies description. I have never seen its equal. Door mats, door knob hangers, dish towels, window sill sitting elves, ceramic Christmas villages, animated Santas, fiber optic angels, plush Christmas toys, pillows, toilet seat covers, pull chain ornaments and pretty much every Christmas themed trinket that Disney has ever made. All I know is, if Christmas spirit can be measured by the volume of decorations you own, these folks have more than Father Christmas, Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Jack Frost, Bing Crosby, Frosty the Snowman, the cast of 'It's a Wonderful Life,' Joseph, the Virgin Mary, the ass she rode to Bethlehem on and the Magi combined. At one point we were led outside to see the boxes of MORE decorations in the garage. We walked through the laundry room to get there and I actually looked BEHIND the hot water heater, fully expecting to see a Goofy Christmas figurine or illuminated sugar plums.

We had a good time at the party. It was nice to see everyone outside of the office environment. And nothing bad or embarrassing happened. I guess there's always next year.

All Roads, Vocab. and New Member of Hate List

All Roads Lead to CWA

The following internet searches have recently led to this blog:

1. Jewish realtors
2. securityfuck
3. Limas sweed interference
4. flying invertevrate
5. practice mbe
6. kelso contracts stcl (4 times!)

Vocabulary in the Early Practice of Law

1. I've definitely been overusing the word, "pursuant."
2. I've also been failing in my quest never to use the words, "heretofore," "aforesaid," "aforementioned," and "hereunder."  (Forms!  What're you gonna do?)
3. Highly used:  debtor, grantor, creditor, pro hac vice and the phrase, "I'm recently admitted to the bar, so..."

New Member of the Hate List

So I was eating lunch and reading the Houston paper yesterday when I stumbled upon a story about a billionaire couple's divorce.  I could say a lot about the article, but what really caught my eye is that this David Saperstein is the "mastermind" behind Houston's Safeclear program. 

"David, 66, became a billionaire building a company that reported on traffic snarls. For the past three years, he has been Mayor Bill White's $1-a-year traffic czar, setting up the Safe Clear program and consulting on other mobility issues."

How exactly do you make a billion dollars reporting on traffic snarls? 

And then, in the same newspaper, I read this story! 

So let me get this straight - dude with political connections starts a company that provides information that any commuter could provide, makes a billion dollars, lives an absurdly lavish lifestyle and creates a system for the city of Houston where tow truck drivers can automatically tow your car from freeways if you break down, all at your own expense.  Then, poor dude from across town has his car break down, gets towed from freeway through billionaire's program, loses his car because he can't afford the fees and now his little girl might not get any Christmas presents?  I'm sorry, but if this sounds right to you I really hope there's a hell and that you're going there.

Oh, an Mayor White?  Instead of paying this guy a billion dollars to tell you about traffic snarls I am going to provide you with the same information right here for free:  Between the hours of 7 and 9 am and 4 and 6:30 pm there's a shit load of traffic on the following roads in the city of Houston:  all of them.  There's also a lot of traffic when there's a wreck and these happen frequently on all roads; mostly because of poor signage and stupidity.  Also, there is increased traffic during the noon hour during the work week and on Friday evenings on highways leading out of the city.  The reason there is high traffic is that there are too many people and cars for too little space.  There are two solutions to Houston's traffic problems:  mass killings (which incidentally, if you elect this option I'd be happy to serve as chair of the steering committee without compensation) or viable public transportation. 

There.  I just saved you (and the taxpayers) a billion dollars.

Back on Task

Many thanks to Harmless Error for snapping me out of this football palsy I've been in for the last couple of weeks.  How I went from Law School Blogger to Baby Lawyer Blogger to College Football Blogger I don't know.  But, in my instinctively male pursuit to please the opposite sex, here's a post more on point:

Life at a Small Firm

1. The practice of law involves moving more furniture than I thought it would.
2. I'm glad I get to choose how to decorate my own office and don't have to deal with some strict corporate-style set of rules.  The Mazzy Star poster next to my framed law license has gotten some weird looks though.
3. How many other baby lawyers out there have relapsed into the Westlaw/Lexis addiction and cost their firms thousands of dollars?  Show of hands?  Anyone?
4. How soon is it okay to install a wet bar in your office?  Soon I hope.  I am really looking forward to inviting clients into my office and clinking a couple of ice cubes into a tumbler while asking what kind of scotch they prefer.
5. There are small firms and then there are small firms.  Some small firms are classified as "boutique" firms because they specialize in a very specific type of practice (med mal defense, construction litigation, criminal defense).  They are higher up on the food chain and probably have a large book of solid business or referrals that sustain them.  The other type of small firm has a "general practice" and takes just about anything that walks in the door.  My firm is the latter.  And let me tell you - taking walk-in business sucks (insert huge hairy ungulate here) balls.  Since I'm the FNG I get to listen to all of the bullshit intake.  The stories I could tell.  I am getting good at drafting "I Am Not Your Lawyer" letters though.

Glad I'm Not You

1. For the first time in 4 years, Thanksgiving didn't mean the impending doom of final exams.  I spent all weekend with the fam, watched all the football I wanted (actually I worked my ass off replacing the roof on my dad's garage but that doesn't really matter for my purposes here) and made my way leisurely back home.  For you poor suckers who are still in law school - my heart goes out to you.  If you are reading this before Dec. 20th then that means you are probably fucking off to avoid studying.  That's cool.  Just keep in mind that that frail quiet chick who sat in the front row in every class is studying her 250 page 8 point font 1/2 inch margin outline for the 15th time.  Right.  Fucking.  Now.  But hey, if you fuck this up (especially if you are a 1L) it only means that you'll be making about seventy thousand dollars less in salary after you graduate.  PER YEAR.
2. For those of you who are studying for law school finals right now, here's a bit of advice:  Do some exercise.  Rather than procrastinating by watching TV or screwing around on the internet instead of studying, go to the gym, jog or even just walk a few blocks to the convenient store to pick up some more peanut M&M's and Diet Cokes.  Then take a hot shower.  You'll be refreshed.  Blood flow is underrated.
3. And in case I forget to mention it again before grades come out - if you do screw up on your exams, don't kill yourself.  You are not alone.  I didn't do as well as I wanted to and most of the other students I knew didn't either.  So you'd be just like me, which actually isn't all that bad.

Bar Passage Hangover

1. Something that I did not expect was this feeling like I filled up on salad and bread so now I don't even want the delectable main course.  Or like orgasm during foreplay.  What I mean by that is that I worked so hard during law school and studying for the bar that now that I'm actually practicing law (or some first year bitch associate form of it) I'm having a hard time sinking my teeth into it.  Part of it is that most of what I'm getting fed is shitty work.  But the other part of it feels like I kind of blew my load before the real shit began.  Don't get me wrong, I got a chubby when I saw my new business cards that said "Ojo Rojo, Attorney At Law" and I still salivate when I get a potential client on the phone or in my office.  But there still seems something anticlimactic about this.  Aybody else feel that way or is it just me?

* The food and sex mixed metaphors in the preceding paragraph were intentional.

More College FB

This has gone from a law school blog to a college football blog, but WTF.

College football needs a playoff system.  Now it's just embarrassing.  I don't know what mountain needs to be moved to make this happen but someone needs to move it.  I think it should be the NCAA.  They are the only governing body here who appears to be in any position to effect this necessary change.  Here are my global thoughts:

Why do we even need a champion or a ranking system?  This is actually a much better question than it seems.  Why can't competition on the field of play be good enough.  Who says that people are entitled to know who's the best team at any point during the year or even at the end of the year?  Oh, I know, every competition culminates in a championship.  So is the answer to the question simply, "tradition?"  Arguably, the conference championships supply the sport with it's needed champions, albeit with and without a title game.  Why does it need to extend beyond that?  Why can't there be something innocent and magical about College Football that transends the need to have a clear cut Top 25?  My answer is, "I don't know."   But I'll leave these questions to others because selfishly I want a champion just like everyone else.

The effect of the current system:  When you have a National Champion crowned using the current system the competition extends to programs that don't even play each other on the field.  We go from having a competition involving a game, two teams of 11 and a field measuring 100yds by 33yds to a competition between programs that resemble corporations more than they do football teams.  In this way Florida is competing against Michigan.  Louisville is competing against Wisconsin.  It's about politics and whether more people watch TV in the Southeast than the Midwest.  It's about how many luxury boxes your stadium has and how good the food is in the press box.  It's about how many rich alums contribute to the program, how nice the locker rooms are and whose coach has the better on-camera presence.  It's about all these things because when there's no clear evidence as to who's ranked No. 2 or No. 13 or No. 117, the voters have nothing else to look to.  And the only clear evidence exists between the sidelines.

The solution:  First of all, the NCAA needs to come in and take control of the situation.  They need to take a "my way or the highway" approach.  Some teams may decide to go their own way or form their own governing body.  That would be tragic.  It would be like the NFL and the AFL co-existing, but worse.  As long as the NCAA had the top 40 programs on board everyone else who matters should follow suit.  After everyone is signed up with the NCAA, the very next thing is to cut the total number of Div. I-A teams from its current 119 schools to around 60 or so.  This eliminates the "Boise State factor."  Gone would be teams like Akron, Miami (Ohio), Fla. Int'l, Ball State, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, North Texas, etc.  Next would be to dictate that every conference would either have a title game or not.  Presumably not since with a playoff each week is precious.  Once all of these poser schools are eliminated there would only be the following conferences:  Big 10, Big XII, Pac 10, ACC, Big East, SEC and maybe one other conference that doesn't exist yet to cover any stragglers.

Playoff format:  There would be a sixteen team playoff.  Each conference champion gets an automatic bid.  They can use whatever combination of polls and computers they want to select the other teams.  This creates the situation of bubble teams and "Selection Sunday" and whatall like they have for the basketball tournament.  Some worthy teams are not going to make the playoffs.  At least it would be teams 17-20 and not 3-5 who are on the outside looking in like it is now.  Final exams at most universities occur during the first 3 weeks of December.  That would mean that this past weekend would have been the end of the regular season if 2006 was the first year of my system.  The first round of the playoffs would be the weekend closest to Christmas every year (can't you just see new traditions being born?!).  Higher seed has homefield except for the semifinals and final.  That means for calendar years 2006-2007 there would be college football playoff games Dec. 23rd and 30th and Jan. 6th and 13th.  That only puts the season one week longer than it is now, gives three weeks off for final exams (assuming the NCAA would want to recognize this farce), would allow for the same number of regular season games as there are now and could move the last weekend of the season to Thanksgiving weekend instead of the weekend after to either give the players an extra off week or ending the playoffs a week earlier.

The Bowls:  No one should expect the purveyors of college football bowl games to go quietly into the night.  Here's how they would be preserved:  all of the teams who did not make the playoffs would be eligible for bowl bids.  The second tier bowls would happen anytime between the end of the regular season and the end of the playoffs.  Each playoff game would be a bowl.  The different bowl games would rotate being the quarter finals, semis and final.  Under my system there would be 15 playoff games.  There's way fewer than 15 first-tier bowls as it is so there's some room for negotiation here.  The non-playoff bowls would resume being what they started off as:  a reward for the team for a successful season and an exhibition of sorts at a site that normally doesn't have access to DI college football.

The Loot:  Everyone knows the main reason why the current scab bag of a system has been allowed to exist - money.  If you can solve the money issue then you solve the whole thing.  The biggest problem is that there are a lot of people who have their hands in the pot:  the NCAA, conferences, individual universities, bowl game producers, television networks and there are probably others.  The first and most obvious problem is that teams who make the playoffs and go deep would stand to earn a humongous payday while those who missed the playoffs would have none.  This is where the NCAA steps in.  Since there are only 60 or so teams in Div. IA, meaningful sums can be redistributed to all member universities by the NCAA according to a predetermined shedule.  Obviously, the team that wins the championship should have a much larger payday that the other finalist, the semifinalists and so on so that the incentives remain in place.

A playoff system would not necessarily bring in more revenue because the interest level is already about as high as can be expected.  There would be more revenue in any system where it simply adds more games to the schedule, but more games aren't necessary if the regular season is cut by two games.  So we could be talking about the same amount of money on the table, with the same people getting it as now.  So we're not talking about the whole plan hinging on someone who currently makes a ton of money off the current system to simply walk away just because the fans want a better system.  The only difference is the oversight and management by the NCAA, which is probably already happening to a degree.  In short, everybody wins.

Holding Forth

On the Longhorns and College Football

1. Sorry to see Chizik go to ISU.  He seemed to be a really tough customer, which was reinforced by my friend Billy, who knew him some from his days at Stephen F. Austin.  Although he had issues with the secondary all year and the defense arguably lost the games against K-State and A&M, I still felt like it would be hard to get someone else who would be an improvement.  Not sure how this one's going to turn out for the program yet.  Largely depends on who they get to replace him.  Maybe Jerry Gray?
2. No big surprise to see the Jevan Snead transfer rumors.  Too bad the kid isn't more committed to the University than himself.  He's got to do what he thinks is best and if he's not on board with the program then we probably don't want him back anyway.  I thought he did okay when he played, but I wasn't as high on him as most people.  He could've pulled it out at K-State, but didn't.  That last second INT against A&M was meaningless other than being insult to injury - literally.  Still, if he does transfer, which I fully expect he will, this hurts the program.  We've got a solid recruit coming in next season as a freshman, but I'd still like to have someone who's a little more proven backing up McCoy.  All in all, I don't blame him for transferring.  He could've easily been a career backup to McCoy and never gotten a look for the NFL.
3. I'm pretty satisfied with the explanation this story provides about Colt's injuries and what happened during the A&M game.
4. The Gator Bowl?  The Alamo Bowl?  That blows.
5. Alabama firing Mike Shula was a huge mistake.  They didn't give the guy nearly enough time to resurrect the program considering the depths to which it had fallen with all of the scandals and whatnot.  I agree with the Amato and Coker firings.  Never had confidence in either of those guys, although Coker, along with Jeff Van Gundy, totally makes the all-corpse coaching team.  Tulane should pick up Dan McCarney.  The fact that many head football coaches at public D-I schools are often the highest paid government employee in the state in which they coach is a shocking testament to our screwed up values.

Darts

1. I've started playing darts seriously again.  One of the attorneys I work with is the captain of a league team and I've been playing with them for several weeks.  Since my darts were stolen several months ago I had been borrowing some darts from a friend.  After weeks of intense research, I finally pulled the trigger on a set of Unicorn World Champion darts, 22g with the Phil Taylor signature grip.  For those who are nerdy enough to care, I also got a new Metroline Ultra dart case in the red diamond pattern fabric.  I'm also using red anodized aluminum shafts in size "short" and fantail Marathon flights.  I chose the fantail pattern because it's got the best surface area to circumference ratio without being something really off the wall.  Here's the league standings and stats.  Our team is Grand Central.