68%

So this summer I've been busy. Like, 'no fun' busy. Frankly it stinks. I've been working all day, then doing the extra stuff at night so I can try and get ahead in the hunt for a job post-law school. For a few weeks this meant the law journal write on competition, which was no fun. For the past 6 weeks its meant studying for the U.S. Patent Bar exam. This is the test you need to complete to be able to represent others and submit things to the United States to get a patent.

Well, I took the test yesterday, after putting over 200 hours into studying, and needed 70% to pass. I got 68%. That's a hard thing. All that time and effort, just so I can take the test again sometime in the coming months. Fun.

Anyway, the results are 'unofficial', so I'll wait until the final results come in the mail before I sign up again.

Caddo Mills TX

Continuing my account of crappy little Texas towns comes Caddo Mills, TX. I was actually kind of excited to check out Caddo Mills because it's quite a bit bigger than the other towns I've gone through so far. Whereas Nevada and Josephine had basically no stores/businesses in town, Caddo Mills has a nice gas station, a subway, a grocery store, a used car dealership and a small little 'downtown.'

This is a sweet firetruck for sale at the car dealership. I didn't check on the price...

Unfortunately, once I began driving around a little, my hopes for this little town disappeared. This is a crappy little town. I would rather live in Josephine or Nevada. What makes this town crappy is two things.

1) A really trashy side of town, separated by the main road from a nice-er side of town. I wouldn't really call it nice. Decent maybe? Houses on both sides are run down, weeds growing everywhere, and everything needs a new coat of paint. What distinguishes the nicer side from the trashy side is the use of brick on the nice side. Wooden houses, or aluminum trailers, just don't hold up without constant care.

2) A dilapidated downtown. This was just gross and severly disappointing.

It looks OK from here. But once I got even with the buildings they were all closed and in severe disrepair.

So what did this little drive teach me? That having more people in your town doesn't make a lick of difference in the quality of the town. Some people make it a priority to take care of their town, some people don't.

Why we're broke

I don't usually have time to watch the Daily Show much lately. And by lately, I mean the past 3 or 4 years. But I still really enjoy it sometimes so I turned it on last night and Ted Koppel was on, talking about China.

I thought the comments a nice mix addressing multiple reasons for current and forthcoming economic problems in America. As far as Koppel goes, I think he screwed up by letting his opinions get in the way of his reporting, and paid a price - which is unfortunate.



The only thing I feel needs to be recognized is that Koppel and Stewart talk a little about the cost of the war, but make no mention of how much we spend on Social Security, Medicare, or U.S. Foreign Aid programs, all of which I'd be fine cutting out to pay for the war (not that I think they're totally bad, I just don't think government has any mandate to be involved in them. but that's another subject.)

Josephine, TX

So I continue to study for the Patent Bar. I take it the 19th, and basically it's making my life miserable. So in one of these miserable moods I decided it was high time to highlight another Texas town: Josephine. I figure any town named for some dude's daughter has to be alright in my book.

To start off the journey, since I wasn't in a real great mood, I decided I'd do better if I had my usual drink of choice. (By the way, if anyone from Sobe wants to sponsor me, I'll gladly do ANYTHING you want. )
Sure enough, I immediately felt better. I then proceeded down a dirt road for the Josephine Cemetery. I think you can kinda tell something about a town from the way they keep their cemetery... how a community chooses to remember its dead. Anyway, so I head out to the middle of nowhere to this cemetery,
almost hit a tractor, then get to the cemetery, which pretty much looks like this:
But you know, sometimes there's reasons you feel like going someplace you've never been.
I don't know who this dude was, but maybe someday I can find out. Anyway, there's nothing like being in a cemetery in the middle of nowhere to clear your mind. Absolutely beautiful out there.
I always feel bad when I come across an infant's plot. Anyway, back to Josephine.

Josephine is a better kept town than Nevada, TX (which I highlighted 2 weeks ago), tho it's actually about a hundred less people less. The lawns are all immaculate, they have a nice city park, multiple water towers, and I happen to know that for the 4th the police department was hosting a BBQ and stuff in the city park. I saw no signs of commerce, but I get the feeling that people who move to Josephine are looking for a quiet place where everybody knows everybody, where people will work hard to take care of their homes and their land. I give Josephine a thumbs up.

Last Place on Earth?

Just about the last place I think I could ever be found would be at a Jesus Rock concert. OK, so the actual name was Celebrate Freedom, but it was one of those big Baptist sing alongs, with much preaching and rock n' roll in between. We listened to some preacher talking about some woman that had an abortion, and we reveled in the amount of of merchandise that the money changers were swapping at a church event (that's a dig from the Bible ya'll!), but the highlight was the band - we only got to see one, Sanctus Real. They were actually very good.

p.s. I only went because of a girl.
p.p.s. Of course I put my hand up and waved a little with the crowd. You know, so I could get the spirit an' such.

Rome?

I'm too exhausted and it's too late for me to post much about this. All I can say is that I believe America to be on the slow but sure road to extinction when we refuse to eliminate pedophile rapists. No doubt other people will think its a sign of civilization that we don't kill vermin like this. To those people I reply that you are destroying the morals of this country. But hey, what's that matter. It's not as if declining moral codes ever caused the fall of an empire... oh wait.

I haven't read the entire opinion yet, but from what I have read it seems that the majority's main argument is that social mores have shifted such that killing crap like this would be "cruel and unusual." While the mores may have shifted, I also think such behavior as a Nation is self-destructive and sad.

Nevada, TX

So I'm pretty dang busy this summer - and I feel like the rest of it is already filled with obligations. This makes it tougher to find adventures and stuff going on, but an idea popped into my head to highlight some of the Texas towns I pass on my way to and from work. This week's town is Nevada, TX.

Now, you're probably saying, Nevada TX? and pronouncing it incorrectly. You see, it's pronounced Ne-VAY-da. Yup, and it's a real winner.

Here's the sign, and I think the population is maybe a little on the generous side.
Most of the town consists of doublewides or really nice 1-2 acre mini-mansions. Quite the wealth disparity. I'd guess the majority of the town works the surrounding fields doing corn or wheat. Here's a picture of the biggest store in town.
Other than that, the nicest building in town is the Baptist Church.
Nevada seems like an ok small town that's been down on its luck for years. Right now its at the edge of Metropolitan Dallas' expansion, so real estate prices are probably jumping or poised to jump significantly in the next 5 years. Maybe then they'll have more of a city park than this:

Chipped Tooth

So about 10 years ago I was playing basketball in the MTC and nicked my tooth. It was on the backside of my front big tooth - I could feel it but nobody could see it. Well, with time it apparently weakened the tooth, because on Thursday it chipped off. After some frantic phone calls, a very generous dentist offered to fix my tooth Friday morning at 9:30. Turns out my great-grandfather was his stake president at BYU eons ago. Anyway, my tooth is more or less better. Not perfect, and I can still tell a difference because its my tooth, but its not noticeable unless you're really checking out my teeth. Here's a pic of the chip before and after the 'reconstruction.'

Running Down Deer (literally)

So a little while back I read an article in Adventure Magazine about Navajo running down deer on foot. I thought that sounded pretty sweet, so this week I did a little more research about this.

Sadly, the old ways have largely disappeared and are replaced with people on ATVs and crap like that, so there wasn't exactly a club of people who do this sorta thing. Anyway, my research led me to these 2 related things:

1) New York Times article from way back when.
2) Running After Antelope

Neither of these sources sound totally legit. Still I think a really hungry man might be able to do something like this. Or a really crazy one.

Suburbia

A trend I've seen lately around Dallas and Salt Lake are neighborhoods where you can live in a condo upstairs and they have shops down on the ground level. I think they look nice and trendy - a place I could see myself living in should I remain single for several more years. It'd be nice, to have shops and restaurants in walking distance. But I don't think it would make for a good place to raise a family - for all sorts of reasons.

So when I read this article it made me think about the direction America is moving with its housing. Are we going to become a country where the suburbs are dominated by crime? Will there be no place for kids to ride bikes and run amok?

Random bits

So instead of studying tonight I played around with Picasa for a bit, making that eyeball photo up at the top of my blog. Basically I filtered out all the other colors but the blue in my eye. Here's the instructions. I think it's cool, so it'll stay for a bit.

In other random bits:
1) I've been thinking a lot lately about the differences in people. I generally make no qualms about my dislike of morons, and I think everyone in America can become as successful as they push themselves to become. But sometimes I think we push people to become more than they want to be, and I'm not sure we should. Example: Should we push a pizza delivery man to quit his job and go to school? If every pizza dude did that, who'd deliver my Papa Johns? All I'm saying is that while we should obviously push, help and encourage loved ones and those seeking advice/help... but that in a capitalist society there are different levels of workers, and we can't all be at the top. In a perfect United Order type society, those distinctions would disappear. Unfortunately, we're not there yet.
2) Life is fragile.
3) I'm exhausted.
4) While I'm enjoying watching the Celtics-Lakers, basketball, and particularly the NBA is a joke. I'll be happy to recant this when someone can adequately respond to this quote: Michael Wilbon recently wrote in The Washington Post - "The larger point here is that nobody has ever known what is and what isn't a foul in professional basketball. … It's as subjective as anything in sports, calling a foul. You can't get a consensus from people who've been in and around the game for 100 years."

Dirty Harry

So I think I was born just a few years too late to truly appreciate the Dirty Harry movies. Every time one's on, I usually just get bored - a common problem with my generation, but eh... whatever.

Nevertheless, I think Clint Eastwood's a great actor, and while I don't pretend to know much about his politics & lifestyle, what he says in this article resonated with me. Be warned, he uses a foul word or two, but I just love that he says that Spike Lee should "Shut his face." I also like the fact that he disagreed with Arnold about putting a toll road through a National Forest and got booted from the California state park commission. In short, while I don't pretend to know enough to whole-heartedly endorse the man, Clint seems like a guy who sees the world a lot like I see it, so without further adieu the link.

Indiana Jones rant

So I've taken some time thinking about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After pondering it more, I have made up my mind: don't go see this movie. In fact, don't go see anything George Lucas has a hand in making in the past 15 years.

I don't really have a problem with Harrison's acting, the Shia, and I was actually really excited about Karen Allen's return. But I do have serious problems with the plot. Here, let me compare it to something everyone understands: If you liked Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace you will like this movie. Why? Because both were written by the same idiot and both destroy character's and themes we've loved for years. If on the other hand, you thought more of the Phantom Menace than I, I don't know why you're reading my blog but you will like the new Indiana. Who wrote both? George Lucas. (hold up, I'm filled with desire to spit after writing his name. ok, I'm better now)

In my opinion, Stallone should have written this movie. (I'm joking... kind of.) Why? Because Stallone gets the characters he's resurrected. Rocky Balboa was great because it made you remember Rocky, what he was, and then you see what a broken down man he's become, how badly he wants to go out on his terms, and a great fight. Rambo was incredible because it took a killing machine jaded by time and corruption, had a sweet battle, and pulled no punches about what was happening and why. Even Live Free or Die Hard did a good job reviving a character long out of the limelight by giving him a plot equal to previous movies.

George Lucas fails because he thinks we care about some freaky Crystal Skull myth. He doesn't get why the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies rocked. Here the plot stinks, and guess what? As fun as it was to see Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones with no plot stinks. Pop in one of the first 3 movies. Or if you feel like going to the theater, go see Iron Man.

Turner Falls

So I was invited to a campout up in Oklahoma by some people from the local singles ward. My bro. Jeff and I decided to go and check it out - a little place called Turner Falls.

(Prior to going we had checked out the wikipedia page, and both of us wanted to throw up. The thought of camping 'round here generally makes me want to throw up... but we do what we can.)

So we take off for Oklahoma. Right when we got off the highway we see this... so of course we took pictures. It's some sort of dirt storage thing... I guess.
Turner Falls was nice enough. Here's a shot of the actual falls:
While the falls were nice, and it was fun to get to know some new people, I'm thinking perhaps the best part of the trip was seeing the Big People in Gainsville. I discovered the RoadsideAmerica.com website this week, and I'm officially a fan. Brilliant!









And then we saw the mighty Red River. As many of those reading this have probably never actually seen the Red River before, I decided to include a picture.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good little adventure!

Enough is Enough

First Earth, now Jupiter! What's next, the Sun!?! Global warming is a problem not just for humans, animals, and plants, but of every lifeform in the universe. If we don't stop Global Warming in the next 5 years, our Sun will burn out in 6 billion years! If we don't do something about the Hummers and the SUVs out there, the entire universe may collapse in only 10 billion years! What about our children then? Now is the time for change. YES WE CAN!!!

*picture taken from NASA website.

Done?

I'm finally done with my Law Review packet. It was really hard to feel like I did a good job when I'm working full time and I've been trying to cram it into the evenings. But hey, I'm done, and now to enjoy the summer while studying kinda sorta part time for the patent bar. It feels really good to be done with everything intense for the first time in over a month.

Hey, so there's some really sweet movies coming out this summer, including Indiana Jones this weekend. But there's two others I'd like to point out.

This movie: Baghead, looks absolutely terrifying. At first, I thought it look retarded. Nope - scary as all get out.
This movie: Henry Poole is Here, I think looks like a really good, under the radar movie.

Reply All

So... I feel bad for people who can't figure out the difference between the Reply and the Reply All options. Admittedly, I've made the mistake before, but I'm excusing myself and anyone else who might occasionally mess up.

No, I'm calling out the repeat offenders. To these people I say, go back to your Community Center Computer Class and ask them again how to use email. And don't include me in your life.

By the way, my job rocks. But I'm exhausted trying to do this Law Review/lemming thing and work full time. Definitely not my best performance.

Back in Big D

So I'm back in Dallas, went to the single's ward today. Studied a bunch yesterday. Good times.

I did take my road bike out yesterday for about an hour - first time riding my roadie since August. So there I am riding around, trying to get used to the road bike feeling (at first it feels like you're going to fall over the handlebars), and I decide to ride around a bunch of the places I used to ride to. Well, all the countryside and fields that I used to ride around are now neighborhoods with huge houses.

Goodbye country, hello urban sprawl.

1L no more

So I took the last test of my first year in Law School today. Phew. Only 2 more years to go. Luckily, I get to spend the summer relaxing at my parents, sorta.

You see, while I'm in Dallas I'll be working in Greenville, which is about 40 miles away, so a nice 45 min - 1 hour commute each way.

Plus, the next two weeks every spare minute should be spent on my 'Journal Packet'. This is the Law School crap that professors use as sounding boards for their theories - if I do well on this packet I'll have the privilege of editing some professor's hot air, or maybe have the chance to write some of my own. For some reason people care about this crap, so I guess I will too. Why? Because I want to be a lemming, that's why.

Plus, after the Journal packet is done, that leaves me with 10-11 weeks to study for the Patent Bar. This is so I can officially submit things before the U.S. Patent office. Anyone with a scientific background can take this, but I figure getting it done with now will probably help me get a job someday. They say I need to dedicate at least 150 hours to this. I plan on doing at least that since it has a 50% pass rate.

So life's going to be busy this summer, but at least I get Momma's cooking!

Hail Alert!

Fox just interrupted a commercial to warn me of "Nipple Size Hail"!?!?
Who says that?
Oh, while I'm writing, I have a new idea: A test of competency to be able to use the 'Express Lane' at the supermarket. In other words, I had a wretched experience following an overweight woman riding a motorized shopping cart who A) Didn't follow the 20 items or less and B) Didn't know how to use the Debit card machine. So I propose that we begin testing people. It's a 1 time test - if you fail, you're sent to a stupid person line forever.