Brick Con 2007

Brick Con = Northwest Lego Convention

Katy and I went there this weekend. It took place in Seattle, and was SO FRIGGIN AWESOME!! It was at the Seattle Center (same place as the Space Needle and some museums and carnival). So here is the down low for the Brick Con; there were two big rooms, one full of creations by builders, and another full of merchants. The merchants had lots of bulk legos as well as lego brand sets, some tables for kids to build stuff, and BrickArms, a company that makes their own new pieces, based on a war theme. We of course checked out the bulk section (fill a bag for $5).


The display room had SO much cool stuff!!



First was a whole lot of flat legos making pictures such as a star wars poster, a beer advertisement, a poster of the V For Vendetta guy, and much more! (see picture for a Van Gogh - here is a link to the real thing for comparison http://www.latifm.com/artists/image/van-gogh-vincent-cafe-de-nuit2.jpg)



There were huge cities with trains, off shore drilling rigs, street cars, starbucks (of course), a huge train station, sky scrapers, and trailer parks. Actually there was at least one Starbucks in every display - even the Knights Vs Skeletons and Space displays! It was kind of a reoccuring joke there.


We also talked with some guys - one of them made this HUGE castle, complete with rooms inside, a large throne, dragons, and an army. The castle came apart into around 5 pieces so it could be carried around without a forklift. There was also the Titanic, complete with Lego Lionardo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet on the tip; "Im flying". It was about 20 feet long or so - HUGE!!


There was a working clock made out of legos, a 10 foot tall totem pole, and life size sculptures of Legos. There were towers, mecha-godzillas, Aliens, dozens of pirate ships, legos that used artificial intelligence to draw, move, and organize. There was a skeleton army, a 3 foot Milenum Falcon (from the set I think), a tower taller than me, and lots more.



There were events such as racing where they roll vehicles of participants down a ramp and see whose car goes the farthest, and whose driver goes the farthest. That was amusing because some vehicles were actually meant more to launch the drivers than actually roll far. There were also speakers from Denmark, and discussions with other builders.


Basically, it was fun, and it got us REALLY wanting to build, but we will have to wait until we have some time. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post as much as we enjoyed Seattle. By the way, Seattle Center is AWESOME, especially if you take the monorail down to the mall - all Seattle is open to you!

Dreams

My mom has a thing for dreams. She really truly enjoys hearing about them, and I had one recently I wanted to share. Now normally, I dont think very deeply into dreams, but this one had too many aspects that reflected reality, so I will share those with you as well.

The dream had two parts - the first part was fun but meaningless, like most of my dreams. It involved me as a character of the TV series "Heroes", and I was fighting the bad guy, Sylar. Then with no transition that I can remember, I was suddenly on a boardwalk walking next to a beach by myself. Many of my family and friends were there at the beach, but I couldnt see any of them. Suddenly, there was a tidal wave - a small but realistic one where it's all white wash, but it just sweeps over the beach - and, not knowing what to do, I laid down on the sand next to a palm tree and held on. It receded quickly, but was soon followed by another, larger wave, this one and the rest more like the one in the picture. I acted in the same way, and laid down holding on to a palm tree. After this one subsided (again, rather quickly) I looked around to see where my family was. Only a few feet away was my mom with her camera out, trying to take a picture of this 100-foot wave about to crash over us. She was using her old camera, which seemed to take forever to take pictures, so she was struggling trying to get a shot. Just before the wave hit, she had to put the camera down so she could put her shoulder into the wave - the 100 foot wave - so she wouldnt get washed away. And soon after that wave disappeared, she was still there. Suddenly, another wave came from the right, then another from behind, where the city used to be visible before the wave covered it up. Then looking to the left I saw My sisters and Father running on a slightly elevated part of the beach, just as a very fast and menacing looking wave rushed out from the city streets behind them, but, despite the fact that it was nearly 100 feet tall as well, it went right past them staying on the lower portion of the beach. At this point, I had gained some courage, and was also taking on the waves standing up. Finally, after too many waves to count, I woke up.

What does it all mean!? Life hits you and everyone around you with wave after wave of challenges and hardship. Everyone is affected by challenges. Some affect everyone, some only certain people. You are never alone, and even if your family is partially split up, and far away with their own challenges, they will get through theirs just fine. Their successes and your own during challenging times will increase your confidence and allow you to take these challenges standing up, thereby not getting sand in places you dont want it. Also, dont forget how important it is, even when you are faced with a 100 foot wall of water, to stop and enjoy the scenery and the sites. After all, when is the next time you will get to see a huge wall of water that close up?

Face your challenges head on, enjoy life, and dont forget about your family. I love you guys.

Hooray!

I passed the MPRE! I walked out of the test (in August) feeling very hesitant, but I did great! Also, I want to do a shout out to my peep over in Idaho. She passed the bar!

Yup, we are totally rockin it!

I also have a few job interviews coming up... wish me luck!

and a side note: Hooray for no Biz Org today!

Hooray for pork chop dinners!

Hoo... ray.

How to piss off postal workers

I had a job application that I had to send overnight, so I put it in a manilla envelope, sealed it, and headed to the post office. I had just gotten off work, and only had 15 minutes to walk/run across campus to get to by car, and then drive like a bat-outa-hell to get there a few minutes before they closed. I was the second to last person in line before they locked the doors. I finally got to the front of the line, asked for delivery guaranteed by Friday, and he told me I needed to use express mail, which had it's own envelope. Now for some reason they made the express mail envelope an inch smaller than a manilla envelope in all dimensions. I started to try and fold the corners of the envelope without folding the materials inside, and in the mean time gave him my credit card to pay for the postage. I decided that I should just rip open the manilla envelope and put the materials directly into the express mail envelope. So I first opened the metal clasps holding the middle of the manilla envelope and then ripped open the seal... and blood started pooring out of my finger and onto the envelopes. I had cut it on the metal clasp! So now I got several people in the back running around looking for a paper towel and a bandaid, and now there was blood on the envelope that he had just put postage on. This meant he had to issue a refund and then buy the postage again... which he didnt know how to do, so he needed help. In the mean time someone else had carefully picked up the bloody envelope and put it in a hazardous material bag. But of course they needed the old postage to issue the refund, so they needed to get it out again and get the postage off it. Finally, about 20 minutes after they closed, they finished my "simple" transaction which should have taken only about 2 minutes. Sorry, no pictures to post of this event!

Rest of Vacation

So after we left the hotel in Boise we stayed with Petey and Meghan in small town Idaho. Internet was harder to come by than at the hotel, so I haven't posted anything until today. Katy and I first waited at the Airport for Petey to arrive, as she was flying in from Spokane after visiting family. While at the airport, we of course took advantage of the free internet.

If there was nothing else, Idaho would be awesome simply because of the 75 mph speed limit! I mean come on! Speed is great.

The four of us when fishing, and Katy had fish on the line, but each time they escaped at the last moment. But Meghan landed 3 of them, and she gutted them and cooked them, and then everybody else ate them. Not really fair, but she is damn good at cooking, and she doesn't like trout. Fishing was fun, but alas I forgot my camera - what a bad blogger I am.

On the way in we saw Bliss Idaho, another small town Idaho community, which reminded me of the saying "ignorance is bliss", but I think "Bliss is ignorant" works better in this instance.

The rest of the time was mainly spent at their house talking, eating, drinking, playing games like Katamari Damachi, Munchkin (a fun card type game that is kind of a spoof on Magic the Gathering type games), and playing with their 3 cats and dog. Last night we also went out and saw "Stardust", which we all LOVED and was really a great adventure/comedy. As Bill and Peggy said, it is like a modern day "Princess Bride", although nothing can take the place of the Princess Bride.

This will be the last post since tomorrow we will make the 10 hour drive back to Salem (this time taking a better route), and I start both school and work at the Department of Justice on Monday.

Vacation Day 3

Today we finished up our day on the Oregon Coast and made the grueling 10 hour drive to Boise. It was very pretty most of the way, but we decided to just haul ass and get here so we could relax tomorrow morning. If we wanted to stop and go frog hunting, here is where we might have done it.

Along the way we decided to take a short cut. I noticed two things about this shortcut; 1) it is not as straight as it looked on the map, and 2) the road is much more closed than it looks on the map. Oopps!

This picture was taken in Sisters OR, where they were selling these awesome old coke bottles. Ahhhh... the pause that refreshes!

If you ever make this drive you will notice that the trees get smaller and the rocks get bigger as you go along. The rock roots probably steal all the water from the trees so they can't grow as tall.

At one point we stopped at McDonalds - to eat more homemade BBQ sandwiches! I havnt eaten McDonalds since undergrad and I dont plan on starting now!

And this is a picture of rush hour traffic in the middle of nowhere central Oregon.

And of course, no modern day road trip is complete without an ipod, chips and dip, and a red liquorice straw.

Vacation Day 2

Ahhhh the Oregon Coast ~ such majestic beauty right on our doorstep.

ok first, a few things I forgot to tell you about yesterday; we saw the "D" River! It's the world's shortest!

We woke up this morning, had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and then drove back up to the first lighthouse we saw yesterday (Yaquina Head lighthouse), about an hour and a half drive back north. We stopped and took a look around since we had more time. Next to the lighthouse was Quarry Cove, a cove that used to be a quarry, but was transformed into a perfect habitat for nature to take hold once more and thrive. It wasn't exactly thriving when we saw it, but it was cool none the less, and a good effort to correct one of man's many injuries upon nature.

We then started making the drive back towards town, we stopped at Yaquina Bay lighthouse which is the only surviving lighthouse (in Oregon?) that is made from wood and has the quarters attached to the lighthouse. It was supposed to be haunted, but after some investigation we found out that the haunting was fabricated back in the 1890's. What a bunch of punks!

Yesterday was the Devil's Punchbowl, today was the Devil's Churn (tomorrow maybe we'll find the devil's teapot). The churn was a fissure/crack in the wall of the cliff that gradually became larger and is now about 50 feet across and narrows to a point about 350 feet inland. We saw it at high tide which is supposed to be when it is at its most violent (except for storms), and it was impressive, especially considering how friggin calm the ocean is up here. I sat right over the churn on a cliff about 150 feet inland and it was just freaky seeing the ocean churn itself into large swells, then come at me only to combine with wave ricochet off the sides to become like an unpredictable storm that I knew would not come closer than a few feet away. Gotta love nature.

Next we went tidepooling, first near Devil's Churn, then at Bob's Creek (no joke) where the creek ran into the ocean. I found this HUGE crab that nearly snapped my fingers off! Look at the picture! I mean come on! is that the scariest thing you ever saw?!

Then after some milling around some old fun beach towns, we headed over to a lighthouse that we knew was haunted (meaning that at least some people thought it was, although maybe not us). By this time we were exhausted, and because of the long hike just to get to the lighthouse, we bagged it and went back to the hotel (after a root beer float of course).

Then after a nap, we were ready to hit the beach. We rode bareback on the beach during sunset, I mean how romantic is THAT!! Of course most people ride horses, not bikes. I have to recommend biking during low tide on a beach to anyone who is looking for a fun workout and doesn't mind spending some time cleaning their bike afterwards. I rode through the waves in about a foot of water, and the sand was all sturdy enough to ride on as long as it was at least somewhat damp! I mean come on! SO GREAT!!

Now we are cuddling up to the History Channel and more homemade BBQ beef sandwiches. fantastic! Tomorrow will have far more driving than stopping, but hopefully fun regardless. See you then!

Vacation day 1

We left Salem this morning with a car full of stuff and a plan - to drive to the coast and stop where we wanted - ok not so much a plan as a general idea. We had a map and a book called "Oregon Curiosities". Within the first hour we saw one of the curiosities, rather accidentally. It was some guy's yard with a giant martini glass, a yellow submarine, and a flag-painted-car in a tree... hmm, interesting.

And then we made it to the beach! It was rainy and stuff, but we still had fun. We had lunch at Moes - hooray for clam chowder sourdough bread bowls!!! Then we decided to stop at a lighthouse, but it was closing soon and there was a line to get it, so we went tide pooling next to it instead and saw some marine life including a star fish, crabs, and harbor seals!

Next was the scariest part of the day; the Devil's Punch Bowl!!!!

It's really just a cool cave that the ocean carved out that caved it. But there were squirrels EVERYWHERE! The picture shows two of the circling their supposed prey. It was lucky we had some blackberries to feed them or we would have never escaped!

Then we got to the hotel in Florence OR. We brought some home made bbq beef, mashed potatoes, and leftover onion rings from lunch, and I had a fantastic sandwich! Here is our romantic dinner from our hotel room; Good times!

We then drove to the sand dunes and ran around and had fun there (man is it a workout to run up those huge piles of sand!) There were some guys there who had sandboards and were boarding down the sand like a snowboard!! That totally looked like fun! There were some places to rent them, but I dont think that'll be this trip. Then we went back to the hotel, swam in the pool, and sat in front of cable TV.

See you tomorrow, when we go haunted!

Time for a vacation!

I took the MPRE today, so hopefully that's done and I wont need to take it again.
Katy and I are now going on a trip together! A little honeymoon type thing. First is the Oregon Coast and a haunted lighthouse, then possibly McMenamins Edgefield hotel, brewery and restaurant, then a drive to Boise stopping to see some state parks and fun stuff, and then some time in Idaho with Petey and Meghan. Then we come back and I start school.

also, here is a picture of our new Kitty!! Yoshi!!

Latah Suckas!

The lucky bat

I ate dinner at my in-laws the other day (the good kind of in-law, not the kind they make movies about). It was great food, homemade manicotti! Afterwards, we were all sitting on the couches talking about various topics, including how much I love my new job. I was sitting on a couch chair with my back directly up against the window, which had its blinds pulled up to the top. All of a sudden, a small bat climbs out from in between the window and the blinds, where he had apparently been roosting! Katy yells "oh my god! A bat!" and points. The bat flies down and lands on the arm of the chair I was sitting in! Now for those of you who don't know, I LOVE bats! I am fascinated by them, so when the bat landed next to me, all I could do was stare at it with great interest. I had to resist trying to catch it with my bare hands (rabies or some other disease would have made it an UNlucky bat). It then flew off again and landed on a shelf. Bill, my father in law, went and got some leather gloves, and I picked it up, took a picture with it, and let it outside where it flew into the neighbor's yard.

At work the next day, I found out that my supervisor had requested that I return in the fall as a paid law clerk, and got the approval! I would like to thank the little lucky bat for granting my wish. There is a downside though; After use my two other wishes, my soul belongs to him. Well, they do say nothing is free.

Books

So I recently finished the 6th Harry Potter book and am anticipating the release of the 7th. I am also looking forward to the release of the next movie, which is hopefully going to be great.

I just started reading the first Clan of the Cave Bear book, and so far it is pretty good. I saw the movie a long time ago, and can already agree with Katy that the book is much better.

I also want to read the Golden Compass books before the movie is released... in December I think. That is a book that Katy highly recommends if anyone is interested.

There are just too many books that I need to read... why is there not enough time to read some more Michael Crichton books, Kurt Vonnegut books, Dan Brown, Gregory Maguire (or any at all), and many more. Is it weird that I really want to read "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking and Origin of the Species by Darwin? Why do I want to read these as well as a few other odd books? simply beacuse they had such an important impact.

Its hard enough to keep up with current events and not to mention law school readings without trying to read all these books. So hopefully I will get a few out of the way this summer.

Good luck to all you with similar reading desires! (this seems to be a fairly common affliction)

sitting here

So Im sitting here trying to figure out what to write for my externship journal. The externship I mentioned is unpaid, but I get credit for it. In order to get the credit, I need to submit a 2-3 page journal for every 8 hours I work. Thats a bit much if you ask me. I worked on pretty much the same project for the last 16 hours, so I have nothing new to write about. hmmm...

I decided to write about an interview I listened to between my supervisor and a victim of medical fraud. A rather interesting but depressing case.

Katy is on a roll right now when it comes to cooking. She has cooked several pounds of chicken and is going to use some of it in a large pot of chicken soup, and some of it making several yummy chicken casseroles. Cooking in bulk like this creates leftovers for weeks! I love it!

The weather up here right now is crappy and it makes me sad. I got outside and mowed the lawn just before it started raining again, but it has been raining all freakin weekend. Of course it was nice and sunny all week until now. Stupid Oregon weather.

Im done for now.

First Post - my new job

Here it is! My first Blog. I figured that I really do not talk to people enough, and even when I call my family, I generally cant get ahold of all of them, so somebody is left out. So here I am telling everyone what is up with me.

Honestly a big reason I didnt start a blog until now is that life was rather boring. Every day I went to school and work and did nothing exciting. There, that is my blog for most of the last 6 months. In March, I had a great wedding celebration/reception with lots of friends and family. Those pictures can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8211004@N07/

I recently got a great externship working for the Oregon Department Of Justice, in the Civil Enforcement division, Financial Fraud and Consumer Protection section. It has really turned me back on to being a lawyer. For a while I was considering utilizing by MBA more than my JD, but I think I will search for a job in an enforcement type area such as this. I have been able to draft legal documents, file documents with the judge, interview victims, and research topics that interest me greatly. The people I work with (both the other law clerks and the Attorneys and the staff) are all very nice, intelligent, and just fun people. It is a relaxed atmosphere where nearly everyone just works 8 or 9 hours a day. There is also alot of collaboration within the office. Just generally a great place to work.

well, I think I'll save some for later ;)
till next time, I bid you
adieu