Mackenzie's Weblog

Affirmed!

Well, the first case I argued in the Wyoming Supreme Court is now out.  The court affirmed, which is exactly what I argued it should do.

It's a pretty minor case, with a simple issue and there wasn't that much to it.  And I didn't write the brief, so I figure I had a 2% contribution to its overall success.  Still, it's nice to have a published opinion out there with the words, "Argument by Mr. Williams."

I'm still waiting for my other two cases: one went before the court without oral argument in August and another I argued in October.  They're both completely mine.  Plus my last case is on the argument calendar for February, so I'll get to do that one, too.

I really love this stuff.  Even though I love nearly everything I've done in school, I think I might be particularly suited to appellate practice.

Friday Catblogging!

Here we are, continuing our theme from last week:

In other news, I did indeed make it to New Orleans, and I did manage to stay here for a bit (after a short detour into Texas for a couple days). Depending on how the airline responds to my requests to get something from them for everything I've been through, you may be able to read all kinds of stories about it and how I hate it and will never fly with it again, etc.

In other news, I'm nearly finished with the last little bits of obligations from last semester. I should be finished today, with any luck, then will be able to spend some time relaxing. Of course, I miss my cats, but that's nothing unusual. Also, because of all my little trips and having to get some work done, I haven't gotten much reading done. That'll change, though, soon.

Have a great weekend!

What I'm Reading:

Breaks Uk Edition by Richard Price

You Might Think

If you're a regular blog reader, you might think I'm in New Orleans by now, basking in the warm glow of the southern sun.

You'd be wrong.

I just spent the night in a Dallas hotel.  I'm not prepared to blog about it just yet because I'm waiting to see how the airline finally treats me (and more--like where my luggage is) before telling the full story.

More will follow.

Friday Catblogging!

. . . Reprise!

Yes, I did indeed find the memory card. Of course, I found it while looking for my lost pen. It's the one filled with blue ink for correcting papers. Don't worry, I'll switch to a pencil if necessary.

Anyway, here are a few really cute cat photos that show just howadorable creatures with brains the size of walnuts can be.

I'd say that's enough for now. I may bring more next week--or I may wait a bit. Who knows?

What I'm Reading:

The Breaks by Richard Price

Have a Great Weekend!

Bad News

I know I promised an amazing Friday Catblogging today.  Expectations were built.  Anticipation was cultivated.  Drooling was induced.

Unfortunately, I can't find the memory card from my camera that has the photos on it.  If I find it soon, I'll post the pics.  Otherwise, perhaps next week.

Sorry.

Travel Travails

As unfortunate as it is to be stuck in Wyoming, as it turns out, things could be a lot worse.  For one thing, I'm not one of the thousands stuck at the Denver airport.  I could have been if we'd made it there before my flight was cancelled.  Even then, of course, I know enough people in the area that I probably could have gotten picked up yesterday morning.  But still, it's better to be home with the boys.

Another good thing is the rescheduled flight.  I managed to get a ticket out for Saturday.  At the time, Wednesday morning, this seemed like it was really too far away.  I wanted something for Thursday, or Friday at the latest.  As it turns out, though, Saturday is probably best.  The airport still isn't open yet.  It is supposed to open at 1/3 capacity at noon today, then slowly open more runways as it can.  If I'd gotten a ticket for Thursday, and quite possibly Friday, I probably would have ended up getting pushed back again, and then probably to after Christmas.  I've heard stories of that happening.  So I think Saturday is probably best, as much as I hate to admit it.

But enough gloom: up in a while, Friday Catblogging!

Curses! Foiled Again!

I was supposed to go to New Orleans today.

Blizzard in Denver.

All flights cancelled.

Now I'm going on Saturday.

And I'm bummed.

Back to the Stone Age -- Not!

I can't figure out why fountain pens are so shocking.

First of all, they're not hard to use.  You don't have to dip in the ink, write in any particular direction, anything.  They pretty much write like a ball-point.  The biggest difference is that you have to be a bit more careful taking care of it and not tossing it around.  That and they're far superior writing instruments—they're just better and more pleasant.

Second, it shouldn't be that big of a deal to write with a fountain pen in Europe (though the UK might be as ball-point centric as the US).  Generally, fountain pens are still really big there (see comment on superior writing), so I'm a bit confused about why it's so shocking.

Anyway, this is all a fancy way of suggesting that everyone should try fountain pens.  They rock.

Congratulations!

At our law school, the semester is over, as of yesterday.  I assume most schools are on a vaguely similar schedule.

The winter break is a funny thing.  It's a significant moment for all law students.  1Ls have finished their first semester, a big accomplishment.  2Ls are officially halfway done with law school, another accomplishment, and a pretty big milestone.  And we 3Ls are about to begin our last semester.

So congratulations to all, at my school and others. You don't need me to tell you to celebrate, so have at it.

Friday Catblogging!

Today it's the Double-Decker, Prepare for Cuteness edition. Since I was home preparing for finals, paper-writing, etc., I had plenty of chances to observe the boys in their natural environment. The following photos are pretty typical of their wintertime arrangements.

But get ready--next week I will post pictures of such enduring quality, so unbearably cute, that you'll instantly go into a diabetic coma. I'm not posting them this week because I want to give some lead time (and also warn you to tune in next week). But it's good, and you won't want to miss it. I'll be blogging from New Orleans next week, but there are only two cats there now (the rest are still in Texas), so I'm not sure how many of my 2007 catblogging posts will be NOLA-specific.

As for my reading, I'm not moving asquickly on the book I have as I would like. I had some law review proofs to review, I'm still working on grading papers, and there's another thing that's been taking some of my time--and pleasantly so. I'm not ready to blog about it just yet, though the careful reader could probably get a hint or two from other places on the blog.

What I'm Reading:

Breaks Uk Edition by Richard Price

Have a great weekend!

Make it Stop!

The wind has been blowing strong here in Laramie for about 2-3 days nonstop.  Apparently, there's some sort of attempt to make up for the not-very-windy summer.  It's really starting to get on my nerves.  Further, I'm a bit anxious about the weather turning nasty this weekend.

Bugger.

mmm...gaming...

I just watched this video of the upcoming came Mass Effect.  I've been looking forward to this game for quite a while now, and the video only makes it worse.

Of course, right now, it's only an X-Box 360 title.  I still believe it will, before too long, come out on PC.  Of course, that's mainly because I don't want to be forced to consider purchasing a console system only for (to begin with--though there would be others) one game.  I've done it for a series of games (PlayStation 1 and 2 for the Final Fantasy games), but they're more expensive now.

We'll see how things work out, I suppose.  For now, I'll just wait for the (I hope) inevitable "Mass Effect Coming to PC" announcement.

Even Spammers Can't Get Me Down Today

As regular readers will know, I occasionally get some comment spam on the site, and I've been trying to strike the appropriate balance between keeping them off the site and allowing legitimate comments.

I've failed several times.  Most recently, I had to restore comments from my most recent added reader that I only discovered through conversation, and just today I noticed two in the junk pile from regular and highly-respected readers.  It's frustrating.  I may need to do something drastic in the future, such as a CAPTCHA solution, but I hate do do that as I find it irritating.  Even so, it may be better than losing comments.

Anyway, since I missed two comments, I'd like to respond personally to show that I wasn't just ignoring them.

Stella: Great minds think alike!  I'm glad it wasn't just my fried mind giving me visions of fish.

Goofy: I have a several-year-old Dell Inspiron 1150.  It originally came with a Celeron and 512MB RAM, but I've since upgraded to a Pentium 4 and (as you know) 1GB RAM.  I'm running WinXP Pro.  It's other stats are pretty unimpressive, with integrated video.  The current HD is a 40 GB, 4200 RPM IDE HD.  I don't expect to get a huge boost from replacing it, but I think it would help with starting applications and, to a certain extent, some casual media things.  And, of course, probably more storage space (40GB is the size of my media player--and it gets full before I can put all my music--from my desktop--on it!).  At that point, the processor will definitely be the bottleneck, and there's nothing I can do about it then.

1.5-Ton Cuteness

This makes me want to get a bovine of some kind.  And no, I'm not just saying this to impress you (you know who you are).  It's just unbearably sweet.

Sadly--despite living in Wyoming--I know nothing of these 'pastures' of which the article speaks.

Whoa. Time.

I'm taking the day off, not grading papers, editing law review proofs, nothing.

So now I can't figure out if I should watch a movie, read a book, play computer games, cook something, clean my house—all the things I've been neglecting.

I think I'll do it all. Maybe start with a movie.  And knitting.

Five Down, One to Go

I'm done with my classwork for the semester.  I still have papers to grade, but the immediately-required stuff is done.

Now I can clean my house for the first time in far longer than I like to think about.

Late to the Game

I've been playing around with Google Earth lately.  I know, I'm late to the game.  I've found every house I've lived in since I was, at most, 9 years old and almost every school.  It's pretty cool.  I've even discovered (through looking at MackenzieMom's house and the surrounding area) that the satellite photos around New Orleans appear to be pre-Katrina.

But there's something else that occured to me, too.  It's hard to find things sometimes.  I mean, just looking at this overhead view removes a lot of landmarks and really makes things look different.

I have a new respect for Superman.  I mean, it's gotta be tough trying to find everything from a thousand or so feet in the air.  Every skyscraper, grocery store, and brownstone house must all look the same.  That presents a lot of challenges.

So good on ya, Superman.  You must have some SuperGPS goin' on.  It's that much more Super-ness.  So make a better movie next time, will ya?

Apparently, Giving Up

Who re-elects a senator caught with $90,000 of marked bills in his freezer--something he still has not denied and has yet to explain?  Why, Louisianans, of course.  Apparently the old joke is true--they really do have the best politicians money can buy.

Ernie has pointed out, and quite correctly, that this vote more or less shows the rest of the world that Louisiana doesn't really want any outside help.  I think the tone of his post probably perfectly captures how a lot of people feel--MackenzieMom at the very least.

But it's really not about whether he's guilty or not.  To remind everyone, he hasn't even been indicted.  He has, though, been kicked off his committee.  I can understand constituents want to give him the benefit of the doubt.  I can also understand how black voters might not trust or believe the FBI--there are plenty of historical reasons for African Americans, especially in that area, to mistrust police.  Hell, maybe this guy is a latter-day Jefferson Smith.

None of that matters.  The big point is that after these accusations, Mr. Jefferson will be unable to get anything done in Washington.  Even as a member of the majority party, even if he has friends and contacts, these charges make it nearly impossible for him to function.  I can't quibble with the idea that maybe he served the area well up until the charges--I don't live there and I don't know.  But this election shouldn't have been about past performance.  It should have been about what will happen in the future, about finding someone who could really help the area recover.  It's not a personal attack or a referrendum on his guilt, this vote about Mr. Jefferson, it's just an acknowledgement that when he goes back to Washington he'll be politically impotent.

What I don't think the voters appreciated is the fact that ethics were such an issue in this last election.  Not so much in Louisiana, apparently, but many of the Democratic politicians stressed the corruption that has enveloped the Republicans in recent years.  This means that Mr. Jefferson's own party will be extremely wary of him.  Not only that, but if and when an indictment comes out of this whole investigation, they will have no choice but to turn on him and rip him to shreds.  He'll become the token corrupt Democrat who will allow Democrats to show the world that they're hard on corruption no matter where it is found.  They'll have to do it regardless of their personal feelings on the matter.  It's a recipe for disaster that goes far beyond simply electing a politically useless man.

As I've heard children told when they are about to suffer their behavioral consequences (and I've thought to myself from time to time--just not on this scale), Louisianans made a poor choice.

News Flash: Rich are Richer, Poor the Same

Yes, I'm working on my paper (at 7 a.m. on a Sunday), but I just had to share this NYT article by Ben Stein.  Apparently, the (inflation-adjusted) income of the bottom 60% of U.S. citizens hasn't moved since 1979.  But the income of the top 0.1% has gone up quite nicely.

Apparently Mr. Stein was surprised by this.  I'm not.

Leave a message.

Can't blog now. Writing paper. Leave a message.

Note: finished last week's book, and have comments. May not get to them at all, considering. But will try.

What I'm Reading:

Breaks Uk Edition by Richard Price

Playing Politics

There's an article this morning in USA Today that provides a great vehicle to discuss something I've been thinking about for some time.  I've mentioned it to some of my friends and family, but haven't blogged about it.  The article discusses some possible presidential candidates, and focuses on the Democratic ones.

Naturally, two of the most talked-about candidates -- both in this article and in the general buzz around the internet -- are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  I think either would be a fine choice, though it seems like Obama could spend some more time in the Senate getting some experience.  The biggest problem I see with the candidates is that I think there are still too many people who would vote against them for being a woman and an African-American, respectively.  Sadly, I just don't think the country as a whole is past getting hung up on that just yet.

So, what to do?  Well, I think there's a good way to knock this barrier down a few notches, though not in time for the next election.  Here's how it works.  To begin with, it's all about being publicly and vocally vague.  By that, I mean the candidates should continuously talk about how they're thinking about running, form their exploratory committees, and all the rest.

But they should have no intention of running in 2008 -- and they should, at the last minute, announce there will be no candidacy.

The point is to get people talking about it, to get them to face the possibility that a woman or a black man could be the president.  You see, I think there are a lot of people whose minds will never be changed, but there is a whole other block of people who just need to get used to the idea.  Creating buzz allows that to happen.

I don't think you'd have to worry about people backsliding (at least not because of ethnicity or gender) because to do so would slide the person dangerously close to racism and sexism.  Nobody -- even people who are -- don't like to think of themselves as racist or sexist.  I think this would serve to hold attitudes a bit.  Of course, people could always come up with pretextual reasons for leaning against a candidate, but those are probably the people whose minds won't be changed anyway.

Dinner Time!

I had a very interesting dinner tonight.

To begin with, I had been reading about brining for some time.  I decided I'd make a go of it.  I made a mix with onions, garlic, peppercorns, green chilis, peppercorns, and quite a bit of salt.  I boiled it for a few minutes, let it cool, and put a turkey breast in it.  That was yesterday.  Today, I cooked it as I usually would a turkey breast (mmm).

I have to say, I think it made a difference.  Now, I don't think it necessarily made a difference in flavor.  I didn't really taste the pepper or chilis or cayenne pepper.  But I will say it was probably the wettest turkey I've ever had.  I had juices positively flowing down my knife when I cut into it, and it was tender and delicious.  I don't think I'd add all the different spices to it, but I'd definitely brine turkey and other poultry again.

What else did I have?  I made some delicious mashed potatoes.  This may be old-hat to some, but I love throwing in a few cloves of garlic with the potatoes and cooking it longer.  Then I mix it all, along with some butter and milk.  It is good.

But that probably wasn't the most unusual part of my meal.  I've been thinking for a while about making wine.  Even in my area, anyone can get some great concentrate, etc., from some mail order places.  But I decided to start a bit smaller.  Namely, I decided I'd make some wine from Welch's Concord Grape Concentrate.  Not only that, but I used bread yeast instead of wine yeast.

The results are interesting, and not entirely unpleasant.  I started this batch about three weeks ago, and I had the results with (and a bit before) dinner.  Overall, I have to say it's not bad.  What it comes down to is a wine that is pretty sweet, with (as you can imagine) a strong concord flavor.  It is really about the same as a very fruity wine of any other variety.  I liken it to an immature pinot noir or beaujolais nouveau, just with a distinctive flavor that is very different from those two.

I may have to do it again to see how I can tweak the flavor.  I'll also probably work on some 'real' grapes to see what I can do.  Overall, rather fun.  Even though it's just grocery-store-concentrate, it's nice to drink something I made.

Tomorrow: leftovers!!

Friday Catblogging!

Well, I'm still pretty slammed, as you might be able to tell from the pretty-sparse posting. I have a ton of schoolwork to finish up before I can breathe easy.

Nevertheless, I did manage to finish the Mark Twain biography. It took longer than I'd hoped because of all my tasks, but I kept plugging away at it. It was quite good, and gave an interesting portrayal of one of the greatest writers in U.S. history. Some might say the absolute greatest, a viewpoint I have sympathy with. There were a lot of great stories with funny turns of phrase, and there were a lot of touching events, like deaths in his family--most notably his wife and his daughter Jean. The latter died only four months before Twain himself. Overall, it is a very worthwhile read.

So, I move on to another book, though I probably won't finish it before this semester's work is done. I had the chance to see Randall Kennedy speaknearly two years ago. At the time, I bought this book and another of his, Race, Crime, and the Law. I finished the latter in short order, and only now am I getting to the former. I think it will be interesting.

And now, what everybody's been waiting for, Catblogging. I was home during my Thanksgiving break, so was able to snap a couple cute photos. Here are three of Jupiter lying next to and leaning on Sebastian. As always, click the thumbnail for a bigger shot.

Have a Great Weekend!

What I'm Reading:

Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Randall Kennedy