Mackenzie's Weblog

The Bar, Part IV (The Final Chapter)

Part I

Part II

Part III

After the Bar, I went back to work.  Things went along as usual for a while until I made the mistake of mentioning something about the wait on the result to one of the court clerks.  She then told me the precise dates the court was scheduled to get the results from the Bar.  I could have lived very happily without that information.  The three-day weekend before the result day, which was the Tuesday after Labor Day, was particularly harrowing.  Finally, the day arrived.

So I waited.  And waited.  And a bit more waiting.  I definitely did not want to bug the clerks (never, ever bug a court clerk, JA, or anyone else in a court—consider them extensions of the judge), but my boss went ahead and asked.  Apparently, it wouldn’t be until late that the results arrived, and possibly they were delayed until the following day.  Not the funnest.

By about 1:30 or 2:00, I figured that even if the results came in that day, they wouldn’t go out until the next day.  You see, in our jurisdiction, the Supreme Court Clerk personally calls every person who passes to let them know.  The rule is, if you don’t get a call that day, you’re getting The Letter.  I wasn’t sure how long it would take to call everyone, but I was fairly certain that our clerk didn’t want to be calling at all hours of the evening.

So, having resigned myself to another night of not knowing, I went back to work.  That is, until about 3:30 or so when the clerk poked her head into my office, put a Snickers bar on my desk, and said, “Congratulations.”  I’d passed.  I gave her a hug and shared my good news with everyone else in chambers and with the court.  I was offered the rest of the afternoon off, and I took it.

There was a little flurry of phone calls that afternoon, what with everyone seeing if their friends passed and all.  In my case, it was a little hindered because the people sitting in both Colorado and Wyoming had about another month to go before they learned whether they passed either.

But it was still a nice occasion.  That evening found me relaxing on my front covered porch with a glass of wine and some brie and crackers.  It was delightful.

The Bar, Part III

Part I

Part II

The next day wasn’t quite as long.  The MBE is a six-hour exam (200 multiple-choice questions), while the Wyoming essay section is a four-hour exam (10 essay questions).  The down side was that there was no break.

I arrived fairly early to find lots of people there.  There were many people who were taking Colorado’s Bar as well as Wyoming’s, and they made their first appearance.  After checking in, I took my laptop and my little packet of goodies from the day before to a free area in the big room.  The setup was fine, with enough space and power.

Those of us using computers for the exam (the Wyoming Bar uses ExamSoft) had already performed several steps to have the software on our PCs.  Or at least most of us had.  There were a number of people who had problems with their computers, and I think some of them had the problems because they did not follow all the prefatory steps as instructed.  Either way, my PC worked fine, if a bit slow due to being underpowered—a perennial issue with my little laptop.

The question packets were the same as those given to the handwriters.  Consequently, there was a lot of scratch paper attached to each question.  I seem to recall finding that occasionally useful for briefly outlining my answers, but given the time constraints, that was a rare luxury.

As far as the topics go, I was ready for pretty much anything.  There were wide rumors that the exam tended not to have Water and Oil & Gas questions in the same sitting, also that it tended not to have Commercial Paper and Secured Transactions in the same sitting.  Both these rumors were proved wrong, as we had all four subjects.  Others included CrimPro, CivPro, Family, Trusts and Estates, Torts, Evidence, and Contracts (If I’m wrong, anybody with a better memory can correct me).  As I’ve mentioned, I’d already decided to skip any Oil & Gas question, but it turns out the question was really easy.  Of course, I still didn’t think I could have done as well as the other topics given my deliberate lack of preparation in that subject, so I skipped it anyway.

I was glad to see that the questions pretty much duplicated the practice essays.  Each subject is fairly broad, but the practice essays seemed to focus on a few aspects of each topic.  So while I knew the overall topic fairly well, most of my studying had been on a few parts of each topic, and I was a bit worried about getting a question outside that comfort zone.  No worry necessary.  Each real question essentially tracked the practice questions on that subject.

For the most part, I found the questions relatively straightforward.  There was a significant variance in difficulty.  The CivPro question was primarily oriented on personal jurisdiction, and was fairly textbook.  It didn’t take that long to write.  The Torts question, however, was an absolute beast.  The fact pattern raised all kinds of crazy stuff, and it could have kept anyone occupied for the better part of the entire test time.  As a result, when I decided the order I wanted to answer questions in, I put Torts last.  By the time I got to that question, I had a pretty good amount of time left, and just went crazy on that question until I ran out.

That afternoon, I had food and a couple drinks with a couple friends, went home early, and slept.  The following Monday, I closed on my new house, which I’d been in the process of buying during my studying period.

Tomorrow: I am a lawyer!

The Bar, Part II

Part I

My memory of the time leading up to the Bar itself is a little bit fuzzy.  My employer had allowed (made) me to take the week leading up to the exam off from work.  I spent that week doing essay questions.  I seem to recall that I tried to slowly wind down the studying in the final few days, taking a bit more time off from studying, etc.

The first day of the Wyoming Bar Exam was the MBE.  On showing up and checking in, each person got a little bag of goodies to use while taking the exam.  It had things like pens and pencils, a granola bar or two, a couple pieces of candy, a small clock, tissues, etc., all in a see-through bag so we could have it in the testing room.  It was a nice touch.

We all know the multiple-choice drill, and this was pretty much what I expected.  That is, it was until the afternoon’s power outage.  That was fun.  We were all herded into the hallway and cautioned not to discuss the exam.  The proctors did a bit of circulation, too.  Thankfully, in Wyoming there aren’t a ton of people to keep track of, maybe only 50 or so were taking the MBE there.  (There were more people taking the Wyoming Bar, but those taking Colorado’s Bar as well sat for the MBE in Colorado that day.)

Once the power came back on, we returned to our seats and resumed.  While our little break could have been a major distraction, and perhaps it was for some, I thought it was nice to get a second afternoon relief period.  When I’d taken full six-hour practice exams, my second-half score had always been significantly lower than my first-half score.  I attributed that to being tired and, at a certain point, my motivation to do well being subsumed by just wanting to get the thing done with.  So I thought it rather fortunate to get another break, even if it was only 20 minutes or so.

At any rate, the rest of the exam was uneventful.  I even finished early.  I felt fairly good about my performance, but only because I’d done well in the practice exams.  The MBE is the only multiple-choice test I’ve taken where my feeling after the exam has little relevance to my actual score.  But I felt that even if I’d bombed compared to my practice exams, I’d still get a passing score.

That night, I went home and, tired as I was, looked over some of the state-specific material again.  There was some specific water law stuff that particularly needed some refreshing on.  As it turns out, this was a good thing to review.

Part III tomorrow.

The Bar

This is a big week for recent (and some not so recent) law school grads across the country.  That’s right, it’s Bar Exam Week.  I think I’ll take some time to reminisce, even though my sitting was only a year ago.  I’m not sure I’ve put the story all in one place before, so here we go.

I didn’t take the classes.  Or get the audio lectures.  The books were it for me, and I had no choice of provider.  Bar/Bri is the only state-specific bar review program available in Wyoming.  When I got the books, that was the entire package—no sheet on how to study, no sample study schedule, no tips, nothing.  That was disconcerting.

Given the lack of guidance, it is not surprising that my studying was ineffective to begin with.  I ran into some friends at a local coffeeshop, for example, who told me that the state outline book I was reading was really for people really struggling with a subject or who were taking the bar for the second time.  Good to know.

Eventually, though, I refined my strategy significantly.  This strategy can be summed up in two words: practice questions.  I did, admittedly, look at the basic subject outlines.  But the vast majority of my time was spent doing practice problems.  In part, my approach was dictated by my schedule.  I started working as an appellate clerk about two weeks or so after graduation, so I was working full time, commuting 45 minutes each way, and studying for the bar, all at the same time.

I worked mostly on the multistate test first, going through the Big Book of Questions from cover to cover.  At the end, there were a few sets of mixed problems.  I wasn’t happy with any of my results at first, though I seemed to be slowly improving.  To top it off, the questions were grouped by subject, so that gave me an even better idea of what to look for.  I considered that unrealistic.  When I finished with the book, I didn’t think I was doing too well until I took some practice exams under either half- or full-day conditions.  At that point, I felt much better because my scores were handily sufficient to pass the multistate exam.

Then I turned to Wyoming law.  After reading the outlines, I worked on the essay questions, again going cover to cover.  All my practice here was done on my laptop with a timer to match testing conditions as closely as possible.  In Wyoming, we’re given 11 questions from something like 17 subjects (I forget the exact number) and we’re allowed to skip one question.  After looking at the oil and gas outline (difficult, but comprehensible) and the practice questions (complete gibberish), I decided that would be the subject I’d skip if it showed up on the test.

One interesting note about the Wyoming essay practice questions: some of them were wrong or incomplete.  I noticed a CrimPro question that was flat-out wrong about a particular search and seizure point.  I verified this by looking at the case I was thinking of, which squarely held the opposite of the sample answer, and was still good law.  A friend of mine knowledgeable in some aspects of family law noticed another error in that section.  One question on civil procedure involved an out-of-state defendant who wanted to contest personal jurisdiction, but he’d already shown up and defended the case on the merits.  The sample answer made no mention of the defendant having submitted to personal jurisdiction, which is a pretty basic rule.  The point here: be careful, and if you notice something wrong in an area that you are familiar with, verify it and let your friends know.

So, how did I feel about my study strategy?  All about the first test day, tomorrow.

Friday Catblogging!

I wasn’t originally planning on shaving my cats this year.  My new house doesn’t get nearly as hot as my old one, so I figured it would be unnecessary.  Sebastian, though, appeared to be pretty miserable during the hot part of the days.  He was lethargic, and spent a lot of time on his back with his four legs splayed out.  Jupiter is actually fine, given his weight loss, because he can cool down by lying on the bathroom floor, which is a nice cool stone.  That option hasn’t been available to Sebastian.

So I shaved him last weekend.

As usual, he wasn’t really happy with the procedure.  But I think he’s more comfortable now.

Have a great weekend!

Cinema

So I saw The Dark Knight on Tuesday evening.  I really enjoyed it, though it was quite long.  My big disappointment was that they didn’t show the Watchmen trailer.  But that’s ok—I downloaded a hi-res version of it, so I can watch it from time to time, at least until the next one comes out.

In other news, we had significant rain yesterday.  This may not seem like news, but it definitely is.  We haven’t had any serious rain for about a month and a half prior to this week.  But with Frontier Days comes afternoon showers, which should continue and increase into the autumn.  I’m happy about that, lemme tell you.  Anything to bring down the temperature.

Yesterday I got off work at noon—it’s “Cheyenne Day,” part of Frontier Days, and the local state offices closed at noon.  I didn’t do much but go to the store and get a few things, then watch a bit of TV on my PC.  I didn’t even have dinner.  That is, unless you count the entire package of ice cream sandwiches I ate over the course of the afternoon and evening.  The heat made me do it just to cool down.  Of course, I could have just chewed on ice cubes, but that’s no fun.

I hate the heat.

Yee to the Haw

Last night, I went to the first Frontier Days event I’ve attended in about 13 years or so.  It was the “Professional Bullriders” event, and it was in the evening.  I owe a friend of mine for inviting me.  (For those of you who don’t know, Cheyenne Frontier Days is a huge, week-long rodeo event with lots of other things going on. It’s currently in its 112th year.)

Generally, bullriding is the most popular rodeo event.  I remember back in the day when I used to go to the CFD events more often, i.e., high school, it was interspersed with periods of bronco riding, calf roping, etc.  Most people couldn’t wait to get back to the bullriding.  I suppose that’s part of what motivated someone to form a bullriders-only circuit.

But it’s not quite the same when all you see is bullriding for a couple hours. I think there’s a value in scarcity that was missing when we were treated with a couple hours of bullriding.  After a while, one gets bored watching the same thing.  It probably didn’t help that it started late, at 8:00 pm.  We left early—at 10:00.

Anyway, it was a fun time, the first time I’d gone to anything rodeo or Frontier Days related in many years, and I had a great time hanging out with my friend and her parents.

Tonight: The Dark Knight.  It’ll be awesome, and I’ll get to watch the Watchmen trailer on the big screen.

Friday Catblogging!

Flashback edition!

I just saw the new Watchmen trailer.  Holy crap, it looks unbelievably awesome.  I’m going to The Dark Night next week, so I’ll get to see it on the big screen.  I can’t wait.  I’m so looking forward to this movie!

Final Fantasy XIII. Hah!

I’ve absolutely loved the Final Fantasy series, ever since I was a kid.  In fact, I still have the original game for the NES, and a working NES that I could play it on (though I haven’t in a very long time).

When Square (the developer/publisher) moved from Nintendo to the Sony Playstation, I was caught.  See, I had bought a Nintendo 64 in anticipation of the next Final Fantasy series.  Oops.

Now the announcement comes that Square is moving from Sony to the XBox 360.  I don’t have a 360, but by the time Final Fantasy XII is released, I’ll bet I could pick one up on the cheap.

Truthfully, I don’t know that I’ll go for it at all.  Maybe I’ll wait to see if it comes out on PC, as several other FF games have.  Though I have fond memories of my faithfulness to the franchise, I just don’t know that I want to continue.  It may also depend on reviews, which is itself revolutionary for me—I’ve never cared before when it comes to this series.

Either way, I’m rather glad it’s not on the PS3.  While having my first Blu-Ray player might be cool, I don’t really have a TV that makes it worthwhile, and it’s considerably more expensive.  The 360 has the benefit of acting as a media extender for my PC, so there’s a lot more value there than just one game, which is good.

I’ll have to keep an eye on this.

Thievery

I order a lot of things online, and I always have.  I’ve never had a problem with not getting anything.  Until yesterday.  I ordered something online (a drip-hose for watering) and it was apparently taken.  UPS says it’s delivered (location: porch) and it was not there when a friend stopped by my house around 3:30.  A separate package was, but that one was delivered about 40 minutes after the hose.

It is irritating to not be able to trust that my packages are safe.  Obviously there’s money involved, but it’s only $15, so that’s not the biggest problem.  It’s more the inconvenience.  I’ll have to figure out something else for getting my shipped items.  I can get a few things from local stores, but it takes more time, and many, many things are not available around where I live.  Major pain.

On the beet front, I got a lot, so we’ll see what happens.  Right now, I’m also looking at what to do with all the parsley I received.  I’ll try adding it to everything for a while and see where that gets me.

Stock Parts

Little time for blogging lately.  I made chicken stock in the last couple days.  It’s fantastic.  I love saving all the castoff parts and having something delicious and very useful at the end.  If you have even a little bit of freezer space, I don’t think any other culinary practice is so useful for so many things.  I’ve also got nearly enough of the inside parts to make dirty rice, too, so that should be delightful.

I still don’t have my bike back, but it should be today or tomorrow.  I’m looking forward to it.

And I’m supposed to be getting beets today.  As a kid, I was never fond of boiled beets, but I’ll be looking for recipe ideas to see what else is out there.  If nothing else, I love the greens.

Friday Catblogging!

Sebastian in the morning:

Nothing much else to report.  I’m awaiting my bike, which is cool, and planning the few accessory purchases I’ll need: a rear rack and panniers to haul stuff, for example.

Have a great weekend!

New Wheels

So a friend of mine gave me a new/old bike a few weeks ago.  It’s new to me, but old to him, and it had some issues, like flat tires and no pedals.

I took it to the bike shop yesterday for an overhaul.  It looks like it’ll cost less than $50 to get it in workable condition, though I may need to get a new fork at some point.  The suspension on the old one is shot.  But it’s fine for now—it’s not like I’m a rider that needs a high-quality bike.  Higher on the priority list is cargo space.

One thing I’m worried about is a bike rack.  I think, with the addition of pedals, the bike won’t fit in the back of my car.  I hate the idea of spending money on something that I’ll only rarely use, i.e., to get it to and from the bike shop once or twice.  (I doubt very much that I’ll need to transport it anywhere else.)  At the moment, it looks like I’m just going to scour the internet and local shops for the cheapest bike rack I can find.  If anyone has any ideas, particularly for a homemade solution, I’m open to suggestions.

In other news, my blender died last week when I was trying to puree a potato-based soup (radish soup, if you’re interested).  Unfortunately, a Blendtec blender, even their entry-model—currently heavily discounted—is quite firmly out of my price range.

Instead, I went with a KitchenAid immersion blender.  I think that style will actually be more useful for my typical blending tasks, and it came with some food processor-like attachments, which will broaden its uses in the kitchen.

I feel like quite the consumer this week.

The More You Know

Balsamic vinegar in the eye is not much fun.  That is all.

“I’m being nibbled to death by Cats!

I used the last of my cat food yesterday (to feed the cats, natch).  The boys are demanding food.  I’d better get some at lunch if I don’t want to be turned away at the door.

Extra geek cred for anyone who can place the title quotation.

Friday Catblogging!

A day late.  With all the Independence Day festivities, I forgot to post yesterday.  Usually, I just post before work, but with no work my schedule was thrown a bit.

Anyway, here’s Jupiter hanging out at the bathroom threshold.  Not only is it near the coolness of the stone tile, but it’s conveniently near the place moths often like to hang out.  That gives him the chance to unleash his furry paws of moth death every once and a while.

I had a pretty fun holiday; I went to a little barbeque at a friend’s place.  I made a rhubarb-apple-custard pie.  I had some rhubarb from the CSA, and I pretty much always have apples on hand because they’re my preferred snack.  Here’s a photo, though it’s the last one I made, not yesterday’s pie:

I like making pies.  I know a lot of people have some epic fails when it comes to the crust, but it’s not bad, and it doesn’t take long, once you get the hang of it.  The secret: don’t overblend the butter and flour, and keep the whole thing cool so the butter doesn’t melt.  I suppose the same goes for shortening crusts, but I would never use shortening.

Speaking of recipes, I got a bunch of mint through the CSA last week and I’m at a loss about what to do with it.  I brought it to the BBQ yesterday for mojitos, but that’s about it.  It doesn’t help that I don’t generally like minty-type flavor.  If anyone has any ideas, I’m open to suggestions.

Have a great weekend!

The Wine Post

I really love a good wine, but it’s hard sometimes to keep up on what’s good, especially at a reasonable price.  This is especially true since I really don’t have the finances to indulge this hobby as much as I would like—at least not unless it comes at the expense of something else I like to do.

A recent article series at Slate discussed wines at various price points.  The first in the series (wines less than $15) included a list of importers with a recommendation that anything imported by someone on the list was a pretty safe bet.  I tried that recommendation for my last dinner party, finding a couple bottles from someone on the list.  It was really an excellent wine, and very inexpensive.

I think the importer trick is brilliant.  It’s so much more efficient to let someone else do the selecting for you.  The only difficulty I had was finding something from the list in my local liquor store.  Most of their wines are instead imported by a huge company that, I don’t think, keeps quite the eye on quality that these smaller firms do.  But I did find one, and there are other shops that I can try in the future.

Here’s the list.

Allergic to Air

I noticed a while ago that I didn’t seem to have allergies this spring.  I thought that maybe there was some allergen in Laramie that was missing from Cheyenne.  That may still be true, but over the last week it has become clear that at least one allergen remains: cottonwood.

I had some leftover Drixoral, my drug of choice, and that worked well for a few days last week, but then I ran out.  I thought I could do without it (my symptoms don’t seem so bad this year), but that’s clearly not the case.

Unfortunately, the ghetto Safeway near my home and workplace does not carry Drixoral.  It’s one of those drugs that I have to take the “I’m-not-a-methhead” oath in order to get, and the store doesn’t have a pharmacy.  So I tried the generic Zirtec equivalent.

24-hour allergy medicine would be great, but they don’t have a good track record with me.  Claritin does nothing as far as I can tell.  I’m sad to say that the same appears to be true for Zirtec.

Maybe I can’t complain when my immune system is so good that I haven’t actually been sick in 2.5 years.  But sometimes I wish it weren’t quite so overzealous.

Movies

From my friend Janean comes this list of “Entertainment Weekly's Top 100 Movies of something or other...The last 25 years maybe?”  The ones I've seen are in bold.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997) BLAH
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998 )
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988 )
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990) GOOD
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)
20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler’s List (1993)
22. Rushmore (1998 )
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988 )
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
30. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996)
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999)
40. Speed (1994)
41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988 )
46. Children of Men (2006)
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993)
51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988 )
53. The Truman Show (1998 )
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983) 
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)
61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)
71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006)
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)
81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004)
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)  (This one’s actually the only half movie here.  I started watching, but I had to turn it off before the end.  I disliked it that much.)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

I have some serious problems with this list. Some of them I can see, but most of the newer movies just don’t belong on the list.  Seriously, how is Terminator 2 supposed to be better than Breakfast at Tiffany’s?  Or The Apartment?  Or Chinatown?  ‘Nuff said.