M. mellow

2009-01-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

Politics, like University of California administration, seems dominated by two personality archetypes; the bright-eyed, excitable newcomers eager to make a difference (usually students trying to get facilities or funding for student groups) and system-weary, jaded or cynical administrative types whose principle preoccupation is the survival of office politics. The fireworks that ensue from the

2008-12-25T23:12:00.000-08:00

Who wrote all this?Not having posted here in over a year, I went back to read over some of my old posts. I'm a little amazed at some of them, really, not so much in their content (I am still who I've always been), but in their expression. I think my ability to express myself in writing has deteriorated considerably over the past year, as most of my writing now is purely 'professional' in nature

2008-12-25T22:21:00.000-08:00

A failure of direction(warning – extremely stream-of-consciousness and a total downer. Abandon all hope, ye who enter blah blah blah. To my friends, especially - don't read until well after the holidays. This is depressing stuff. I'm venting because I have to. Please don't ruin your holidays.)I’m never what I should be. My father’s one of those slightly taciturn types. Oh, he’s not the

2007-10-12T14:33:00.001-07:00

It's raining :)

2007-06-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

I am remembered -_-My time as a regular with the Stanford Wushu Club ended when I set off for law school five years ago. Especially since my falling out with my former coaches there, I figured that my time there had ended for good. But membership in a college club is like that - they're inherently generational, and life moves on. I did a lot of work there. I put my heart into the place

2007-05-12T01:45:00.000-07:00

Warm and fuzzyJust dropped off a care package for friends in Berkeley, who're in the middle of their spring semester finals. Otter pops, apple cider, cough drops, and heat packs. I'm happy :)

2007-05-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Birthday Blabber: Response to a friend's existential argumentThere’s no avoiding talking about God every so often. Even with an atheist. Or maybe even especially with an atheist. I currently identify as agnostic, because my mom is Christian and my dad is an Atheist, and yet much of what I learned about what the Bible has to say, I learned from my dad, who loves a good story, and told them to me

2007-04-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

Consumer GoodwillWow. The teahouse near work has added salads to its menu, and I ordered a personal favorite: Insalata Caprese (fresh buffalo mozzarella with basil and roma tomatoes). At about $7 for an entree salad, it's a fair price especially considering that this is in Palo Alto. And they gave me the whole cheese - imported from Italy, basil as strong as I've ever had it, and about 3 Roma

2007-04-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

TrivialityFilled up to a half tank this morning. One side effect of higher gas prices is that managing a "perfect pump" is considerably harder than it used to be. Back when local prices were around $2.35 a gallon on average, I managed a perfect pump perhaps once out of every two fill-ups. The amount of manual-temporal precision required now that local prices average $3.60 a gallon, however,

2007-03-31T22:37:00.000-07:00

Feast and FamineHaving been at my job for almost two years now, I've made it past a few of the professional growing pains. One aspect of becoming acclimated to the work is getting use to - or at least, learning to expect - the feast and famine nature of work as a litigator. The work schedule is driven by the discovery, pretrial, and trial schedules. When it rains, it pours. Nearly any

2007-03-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

Personal truth for an Enneagram 1:Why value honesty? Honor? Sincerity? Fairness? Humility? Why value the things that hold you back from taking what you want out of life? Why even indulge in the doomed attempt to live up to an impossible paradigm, a standard which sneers at the inevitable failings of your mortal efforts and so parsimoniously dismisses all appeals to cosmic justice by saying,

2007-03-26T13:27:00.000-07:00

These young'uns, deys funnyJust over a week ago, I was hanging out with some of the current generation Cal Wushu folks. I mostly just sat around and watched their antics, feeling more than a little too old to fully join them in their scarcely post-adolescent youth. They're a funny bunch.Present: two girls, at least seven guys. Four of the guys are intermittently wrestling each other and acting

2007-03-11T01:36:00.000-08:00

On another noteBig Oil sucks unwashed barbarian butt.I make good money, yeah. But after mortgage payments and gas, I'm half-tempted to mug the derelicts on University Avenue for the change in their paper cups.Okay, I would never do that, please excuse the hyperbole. It's just that I'm sure most people's apprehension of what life as an attorney is like doesn't include subsisting on instant

2007-03-11T00:47:00.000-08:00

We invent things. Karma. Destiny. Fate. Luck. Divine provenance. All to explain the things we can't control, as though the existence of some explanation, any explanation, makes it all easier to bear somehow. It's easier when it's not your fault. It's easier when you don't have to bear the responsibility.Does it fix things? No. But not everything can be fixed. Sometimes, it seems easier

2007-02-03T18:49:00.000-08:00

Driving with tongue in cheekThe Friday morning commute placed me behind two fun specimens: a bright red Hummer H1 with Greenpeace and "Save the Whales" bumper stickers, and a baby blue Prius with I <3 OPEC vanity plates.

2006-08-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

FromageExcerpts from conversation (approximate):"American cheese barely qualifies as cheese. Some American cheeses barely qualify as a diary product. It's mostly vegetable oil with some food coloring and a little skim milk. I'm not even sure it's cultured.""Not to mention the lack of culture. It's bland, unmemorable, decidedly plasticky in texture...""It's essentially a condiment. Unlike

2006-08-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Cynic's-Eye View onTeenage angst:"What's the rush? Give it a few years, you'll have real reasons to be cynical soon enough."

2006-07-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

Brayne-fahtHope is like oxygen. Without it, you're as good as dead. Too much of it makes you stupid, then sends you into conniptions. If you're lucky, your friends will take enough of it away for you to regain your senses and your health. And because you're out of your mind, you won't appreciate it until after you've stopped being giddy, defensive, and hostile. (Don't forget to thank them

2006-07-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

More Wisdom from the Storied Mr./Ms. Anonymous "This life is mine to lead. However sad, tragic, or lonely it might turn out to be, it's too good a story not to tell."- Anonymous

2006-07-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

Moonbow It hadn't been the longest day at work, but it had been long enough. I'm driving home from work at 10pm, the open sunroof shearing a wisp of spring breeze from the rushing air to blow lightly through the cabin, which ruffles my hair amidst the soft glow of dash lights and picture-perfect moonlight. We crest the top of the hill and I take my foot off the gas, coasting the last

2006-07-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Entitlementhttp://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/07/03/christian.movie.rating.ap/index.html"House Majority Whip Roy Blunt and other lawmakers are demanding explanations after hearing complaints that the movie "Facing the Giants" was rated PG instead of G due to religious content."This incident raises the disquieting possibility that the MPAA considers exposure to Christian themes more dangerous

2006-03-14T15:51:00.000-08:00

PingThere has been a lot to talk about but no time to write about it. A lot's happened with wushu and with work, which is also to say that not much else has happened elsewhere life for lack of time. But there are two blips on the radar that merit mention, if only briefly, because they insisted on resonating somehow, even with the mind weary and preoccupied with work.Two different women in whom

2005-11-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow now begins.I passed the Bar Exam. Results came back today, in all their starkly dispassionate minimality. My relief is inchoate; I think it'll finally hit me tomorrow.

2005-09-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

Great Friends, & One VarmintI drove to the teahouse yesterday, to catch up with my beloved law school support group. An evening of pure joy, spent catching up with lots of younger friends who kept me going through my years at Boalt. Many smiles, much laughter, & warm hugs. You know it's a comfortable group when even the guy-guy hugs aren't awkward.I felt a little silly calling ahead before

2005-08-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

FrivolityI gotta say, I love BoA. Yes, she could easily be singled out as a singular exemplar of manufactured, formulaic Kpop. Yes, she's been called the Britney Spears of Asian pop. (I disagree; she's much more tasteful. She wears clothes. I can't say the same for Britney.) Yes, her stuff is really peppy and sugary and too cute for some people to stand.But it fills a niche. I need peppy,

2005-08-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

Foul SpiritsOkay, now that I've had a chance to vent my wounded pride, I suppose I should admit that I don't necessarily come across as a very nice guy. I'm bitter, melancholy, I hold grudges, and am prone to voicing florid but empty threats about my taste for retributive cruelty. I don't pretend not to be driven by fits of negative energy, but even if negative energy is all you have, you can

2005-08-29T23:22:00.000-07:00

Verdict: Guilty by Association “Hey, have you heard this one? Why did the research scientists replace their lab rats with lawyers? Because…” *cutoff*: “Because scientists get less attached to lawyers, because lawyers breed faster and move slower, and because there are some things that rats just won’t do.” It’s pretty much a given that if you go through law school, you’ll

2005-02-23T00:39:00.000-08:00

M. Mellow’s week: 2/5/2005-2/15/2005 It’s just past midnight at the teahouse on 2/15/2005, the day after Valentine’s Day. The closing routine is underway, and having finished stacking the chairs on the tables, I’m sweeping the dust and crumbs of the day’s patronage into the dustpan. It’s been a most remarkable week – or rather, nine days or so, for so many reasons, both good and bad. For

2004-12-31T22:22:00.000-08:00

A Conversation with the Past(The nature of this post springs from an old comment I posted back on an entry from The Last Embassy, titled “Conversations with the Past.” before I started blogging. Most of my conversations with the past involve some amount of self-loathing introspection.)I’m doing some schoolwork… research while out on a Hawaiian cruise on New Year’s Eve. Such is the way of things

2004-12-31T01:06:00.000-08:00

No Horizon It’s still sprinkling here off the coast of Maui. Our ship set sail late at night, several hours past sundown, and, as I have done on cruises before, I walked to one of the forward observation decks to watch what I could of our departure. Hawaii’s population is fairly small compared to that of my home region. The lights speckling the shore looked cozily sparse compared

2004-12-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

In My Element Actually, I probably couldn’t be more out of my element in such a beautiful place surrounded by nature. I’m very much a suburban boy. But standing in a waterfall is something I’ve always wanted to do. I mean, really – it’s like an orgy of rain, and you know how I am about rainfall. (When I go back and re-read some of my previous entries, it amazes me how preoccupied I

2004-12-28T22:18:00.000-08:00

What, Me Surf? I stepped off the pier into Lahaina, Maui at about ten in the morning. Lahaina strikes me as something of a tourist trap, but hey – this occasion finds me a vacationing tourist in dire need of a break, and I’m more than willing to be captive here for a while. The day starts with a little shopping, a little bumbling amateur photography (I do hope something halfway

2004-12-27T17:08:00.000-08:00

Hawaiian Trivia Poi: A Hawaiian dish made of breadfruit or taro root, beaten to a thick paste and mixed with a few other ingredients that I can’t remember. It had a taste somewhat reminiscent of refried beans, slightly sweetened and flavored with dates. One of the guides said, “Actually, it’s wallpaper paste. We just like to tell tourists that it’s food, and then watch them try to eat

2004-12-26T19:46:00.000-08:00

Fresh Water Our ship stopped at Hilo, Hawaii, but not for very long… the ship moored at about ten this morning and set sail to leave at six. That was one of the things about this trip that bothered me the most, upon reading the itinerary – we wouldn’t have much time to explore much of anything. But it was a good day; the short trip inland brought us to Akaka Falls. We didn’t stay very long,

2004-12-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday, Jesus Seasons greetings to the Savior from an agnostic. I’ve always been a little standoffish towards religion, and I suspect that’s largely because I feel like I haven’t been exposed to its better face. Though at times I’ve been intellectually in love with the scientific, I’ve never quite been able or willing to abandon the idea that there is a supreme being out there. If

2004-12-24T02:21:00.000-08:00

Third of Fourth, thanks and goodbye It’s been a while, but I’ve done this many times since then. A soft landing, and then a quick snap into a broad, stable stance, left arm stretched far, right hand holding the broadsword in the hidden ready position. A moment’s pause precedes a coil and a whipping, guarded turn, sword and empty hand flanking me. A split second of rotation is followed by the

2004-12-19T01:37:00.000-08:00

Kind Gift I got a gift yesterday from Shysmile and Chivalrous... a daily 2005 calendar full of legal anecdotes and lawyer jokes. It might seem like the kind of throwaway gift to get a law student, knowing little else about him... something you might expect from a distant aunt or other family member only peripherally aware of what you're up to in life. But not so. It was chosen quite

2004-12-15T01:17:00.000-08:00

The Unbearable Lightness of Being… just about anyone, really. Getting back into life, one day at a time, degree by degree. I’ve been having a bad time lately, but I’m no solipsist, and the sorrows of loneliness certainly aren’t mine alone to bear. Relationship trouble abounds in just about every neck of the woods. A little slice of the twentysomethings demographic, a cross-section of

2004-12-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

so many roads and so many paths I have sampled the life of the laborer the way of the scholar the mantle of the leader and the sackcloth of the pariah in my short years though I find my hands weathered and sinews hardened by the art of the pen by the way of the blade and the steps of the spire all my knowledge and all my might avails me not. for all my wits and all my vaunted strengths I stand

2004-11-10T01:22:00.000-08:00

Flowers in the Dark A bouquet of flowers in ribbons and cellophane lies on a shelf in the dark. The street lights shine in from beyond the window, through the light rain just past midnight. The flowers are mostly white in color, but they reflect a pale orange in the dim light, blending into the black of the shadows cast by the surrounding furniture. Calla lilies, stargazers,

2004-10-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

Everything’s All Right… It was the beginning of Flyback Week, a week with no classes at my law school. The purpose of flyback week is to give second- and third-year students an opportunity to attend job interviews abroad. Having already accepted a job offer, however, I had this week more or less free and I was looking forward to some relatively relaxed time to myself. So I had

2004-09-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

Angel Dream I think my new desktop wallpaper inspired an interesting continuation off a dream I had about two years ago. The wallpaper depicts two angels locked in battle, blade to blade, over a fantasy cityscape. One angel is classically heroic, muscled and fair-haired, the other is bald and vaguely sinister-looking for the shadows cast across his back. Both dreams were fuzzy and

2004-08-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Another Golden Afternoon Advisory: contains marginally geeky content. Reader discretion is advised. I’m back at Boalt for my third year of law school. Just before I moved back to the East Bay, though, I had the pleasure of catching up with enji for a day. We don’t get to hang out much, certainly not compared with before, and one-on-one time is becoming increasingly rare and

2004-06-06T02:19:00.000-07:00

Sad Splat Was tooling down 280 North, headed towards the city at the speed of traffic, with j-pop on the car stereo and a welcome stillness in my thoughts. I catch sight of a pair of moths fluttering in the distance, a courting pair. (Hey, insects court too, didn't ya know...) We normally think of attraction and affection in the context of higher species; these soft-bodied invertebrates may not

2004-04-05T03:47:00.000-07:00

Another Bittersweet Moment 3am and I can't sleep. Perfect time to blog. This journal is perpetually in danger of sliding off into oblivion, but I suppose it's a good thing I don't post much. I don't do much but whine anyway. So it's time for another pseudo-whine perhaps, tangentially related to the subject with which I'm probably the most familiar: unrequited love. But this one has a happy

2004-03-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

Vacuous Mirth Well, not really. Relatively frivolous posts like these aren't my style, but I like to think I'm not so stuffy that I can't just be simple and silly sometimes. Life's too painful to bear being taken seriously all the time ;) Magister Mundi sum! "I am the Master of the Universe!" You are full of yourself, but you're so cool youprobably deserve to be. Rock on. Which Weird Latin

2004-02-19T01:47:00.000-08:00

love our leaders especially when they say things like this: from http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/18/bush.marriage.ap/index.html "I strongly believe marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman," Bush said during an Oval Office session with Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. "I am troubled by activist judges who are defining marriage." "People need to be involved

2004-02-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

Speed Bump One of the many things that makes professional school different from undergraduate school is the age range of the student population. Lots of people here seem to have impending 25th birthdays. That can be a bad one if you don't see it coming. I'm not yet thirty, though I will be once I graduate... but since most people think of thirty as one of the more dreadful birthdays (i.e. no

2003-12-24T23:42:00.000-08:00

Uncharacteristic I don't usually blog about anything political here. Those are the kind of thoughts I like to keep to myself, partially because I don't find many people who agree with my political beliefs (I'm very much a moderate; I'm only an extremist when it comes to criminal punishment, and even then, only jestingly), and I don't like starting unnecessary arguments; political debates, in my

2003-12-24T11:50:00.000-08:00

M. Mellow was off the grid I'm convalescing at home at the moment. That's overly dramatic, of course, but this second year of law school has been very busy, such that I've been writing and studying about 14 hours per day for the past two months, weekends included, and I had no energy left for blogging. Given my limited readership, I'm sure my absence has hardly meant anything but to a few

2003-07-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

Section 2 of 4. Hurry now The sword sweeps across and tucks, the trailing flag makes a rippling sound as the blade comes to rest along the length of my arm. I pause for a moment, extended in stance. What seems like three seconds of waiting is probably more like one... if we unconsciously keep time by heartbeats, that would explain it. Niceties of motion - the tempo is something that

2003-06-26T23:07:00.000-07:00

Heat makes for grumpy research assistants We've just had something of a heat wave here in the Bay Area, and I'm not a fan of heat. It turned out to be a day spent in the library as well, and I'm none too fond of libraries, either. I have trouble concentrating in libraries... I'm one of those people who needs a certain quantity of ambient background noise in order to stay focused. (Well, to

2003-06-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

Home is where the heart is I've done some traveling, but never for an extended period of time. The total number of days I've actually been outside California could probably be easily crammed into a single year with lots of room to spare. That said, I have several places right here in the Bay Area that I could call home. Home isn't where you spend most of your time - if that were true, a lot

2003-06-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

Section 1 of 4. Things I think I've learned. Hands down, sword at rest position in left. Deep breath. Relax, turn slightly right. Who knew relaxing could be so much work? It is, but it isn't. However hokey and cliche'd the old yin-yang philosophy may seem, it's stayed around because it made sense. There's a lot of ridiculous mysticism that surrounds the martial arts, but this isn't part

2003-05-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

Birthday Solitude It's really quite easy to be alone in law school, if you want. Particularly if you don't drink and spend lots of time trying to keep up with the reading. My birthday's this weekend, and although I'm not generally a fan of solitude... for the first time in a long time, I think I'd like to spend this one alone. I need a moment in time to pretend that I'm the only person in the

2003-03-31T22:06:00.000-08:00

Small Wishes I wish a cup of hot chocolate really could cure everything. I wish life were that simple. I wish that I had more time now, to spend with the people I love most. I wish that I could have saved myself the experience of grade school. I wish that I could feel safe again, warm again. To know in my heart of hearts that everything will be all right at the end of the day. I wish

2003-03-08T23:31:00.000-08:00

"And yer out!" The Supreme Court recently upheld California's Three-Strikes Law. (3 strikes and you're out - on one's third conviction for a felony and certain classes of 'serious misdemeanors,' there is a mandatory sentence for 25 years to life.) This has gotten most of my law school, including many of the professors, into a (mild) uproar, evinced mostly by indignation, disgust, and a certain

2003-03-01T12:43:00.000-08:00

Only Human You might notice a recurring note in a lot of my entries... "only human." I end up using that as an excuse for a lot of things I see in life... I don't use it as an excuse for myself, because it's a flaccid copout for taking responsibility for one's own actions, motivations, and character. I end up using it for most other things, though, because anyone with a sense of humility knows

2003-03-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

High Impact Friendships can get stale, especially when you feel taken for granted. Friendship is reciprocal; you understand the other's quirks and faults, and forgive them because it's so nice to feel appreciated, or to serve as a confidante, or just to share your free time in good company. Friendship isn't selfless, though... I have thoughts on altruism and selflessness, but I'd have to say

2003-03-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

Demon Spawn You can try to define true love any way you want, but chances are, the words are going to fall short of the true definition. You could attempt to write a Hugoesque treatise on it and still not manage to quite capture it. You could try to craft a terse, Gumpian morsel made of economized wit and poignancy, but fail to do justice to the flood of emotions love entails. If love were easy

2003-02-14T02:43:00.000-08:00

What? Me Bitter? So technically, it's Valentine's Day now. Never one of my favorites. I know it's not really meant to be an evil or spiteful holiday, but I hope you'll all excuse me for holding the bitter perspective on it. Besides, I know I'm not alone. Women have expectations, men have obligations, and single people have neither, which is quite possibly worse than bearing either of the

2003-01-10T22:09:00.000-08:00

Broken Friend I noticed a small tear in my favorite broadsword. I guess it's time to retire it. Very sad. Really, very sad - that sword has a lot of sentimental value to me, and it was a really good one, too. :( It was light enough not to tire my arms. The point of balance was near to the grip, making a light sword feel like it weighed even less. And yet, the distribution of metal was

2003-01-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

Dude, use your head! Dolphins aside, human beings are the creatures on this planet with the greatest capacity for intellectual thought. Just how much credit do we give ourselves for this? Probably a bit too much. After all, people do relentlessly stupid things all the time. It's part of the human condition. The blessings of intelligence and brilliance are no proof against folly; even such

2003-01-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

Dry Tears I cried, but didn't today. There's a political cartoon out there, with a happy little dog behind the terminal. The text: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." On the Internet, you can hide behind emoticons. I smiled today when I wasn't smiling. I laughed without mirth, and felt false joy. It wasn't dishonest or malicious, either; it was my better self typing away in the

2002-12-31T10:56:00.000-08:00

Leavin' Stuff Behind I've been practicing martial arts for about a decade now. Regarding wushu, specifically - about nine years. Depending on who you ask, that's either a lot of time, or not very much time - such is the state of the sport, where some of the best practictioners are tiny children who are barely in high school, let alone college, and where some of the world's best are mostly

2002-12-30T20:16:00.000-08:00

Wish Fulfillment A lonely almost-holiday. It's not New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day quite yet, but I've been alone most of the day in a quiet, empty house. It's a pretty big house. Lonely time is ok given the circumstances, though - I've been getting over a slight cold since finals, and most of the last week has been spent largely in bed, just recuperating from the semester. Not that I'm

2002-12-04T22:55:00.000-08:00

O Christmas Tree... I passed the Great Hall on the way back to my room and beheld a 15-foot Christmas Tree bedecked with lights and handmade ornaments crafted by an adorable group of children who had been here at the I-House this afternoon. Such a beautiful sight :) It was one of those moments where some unseen force - some spiritual manifestation of Life - takes you by the hand and leads your

2002-11-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

It's not for everyone It's been a while since last it rained like this. I love it :) Yesterday, I was running home along the sidewalks of Berkeley, just south of the campus perimeter. I don't quite know when it kicked up the way it did, but it was a classic, if short-lived, rainstorm... the wind gusted almost spastically, causing the torrent to frequently careen one way and then the other,

2002-10-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

Visit Home I just spent a week back at home from law school. A week's not a whole lot of time... so many things on the agenda, not the least of which was relaxation. I'm told that the difficult stretch is these next six weeks... the approach of finals heralds more than just the associated weight of books and stress involved with the finals themselves. There's a whole lot of other things that

2002-10-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

The Lovelorn Some people have never experienced, and will never experience, love, either of the body or of the soul. Some people just aren't fortunate enough to have experienced romance. At least, I think they're the unfortunate ones. I happen to be one of them. But of course, that requires that you equate love with romance... Some of us experience different sorts. Most

2002-10-07T22:17:00.000-07:00

Uneasy Truce My demons and I have an interesting relationship. Well, perhaps not really... I figure that most people who have demons, have an interesting relationship with them. They are my enemy; they feed off my soul, they thrive on my pain. When they believe that they have the upper hand, they push the advantage, striving to force me into the downward spiral that seems to be the lifegoal

2002-09-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

Geek Speak Professions have jargon. Abbreviations and lingo seem necessary - we get too tied up in lengthy and technical phrases otherwise. It'd be impossible to get any work done if we spent all of our time enunciating the proper or plainspeak names for the concepts we spend so much of our time discussing. Of course, that same lingo describes to the outside world what you do by association..

2002-09-30T01:47:00.000-07:00

Edgy Perspective Looking down the blade of a two-edged sword. That's what it means to have a blessing, or a curse. Everyone has blessings of a sort, but every blessing, no matter what kind, seems to have some effect on your psyche. It definitely colors the way you look at the world. The way you see things. The joys you take, the needs you have... all these things make up who you are in a

2002-09-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

Flicker of Simplicity Most of my waking hours these days are filled with books. Lots of books, tomes packed with legal cases and bits of odd hair-splitting analysis. I've always spent a lot of time around books... back as an undergrad, I found that I was one of the few people who ever actually did the reading for all of my classes. Granted, I didn't know any better at the time. It seems I've

2002-09-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

Gratitude Since most blogs work in reverse chronological order, the order of my posts is going to look a little strange. Nonetheless, if you're a friend of mine and you happen to read this, know that this one's for you in particular. My posts are unfortunately and probably going to be characterized by the tendency to be pensive at best, and by the display of varying degree's of P.O.'d-ness much

2002-09-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

Drunken hall talk Two guys were just talking about a weekend barbeque in the hallway. They seemed more than a little out of it, with their talk laden with Spoonerisms. One of the better zingers: "What kind of brarbeque do you have?" "We've got a grass gill." "Are you going to put skrewers on the grass gill?"

2002-09-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

This might be fun... I'll try it for at least a while. I've avoided keeping one of these mostly in the belief that, not only do I not have much to say, I don't have much time to be saying it, either. But as acts of bravery go, I guess that being out here, along with everyone else who has knowingly or unknowingly introduced this blogging thing to me, doesn't constitute anything that should give