What a long strange trip ....

One year ago I was, inter alia:

1) "studying" (read - panicing) for the July 2008 bar exam; and

2) supressing my bitterness and anger about my (soon to be ex) wife's 'sudden' decision to move to Texas.

A lot of my blogging then was laced with that bitterness and panic and most of my faithful readers seemed to rather enjoy my angry prose. It seems that as my anger has subsided, so has my readership and kudos. I don't know if it was the FML flavor of my blogs or the underlying disposition that no matter what, I was not going to roll over and take it.

Whatever it was my life is tempered and calm now. No drama. Really, I mean no drama. Nada.

We are all moved into the new apartment now and have unpacked enough of the boxes that we can walk from room to room, see the furniture, eat dinner at the table, and relax a little.

For all the moving I have had to suffer through in the past year this move was different. Everything really just fell into the right place at the right time. I am rather accustomed to having things just fall into place in my life and I suspect I have reached a turning point.

So it seems I have no bitterness, no anger, no jaded outrage to share with you. All I have is a smile, a warm heart, and the calm that only comes with knowing that someone has your back no matter what comes along.

Bar preparation is progressing and I start the essay course this coming Sunday. I am excited and determined, happy, and I wouldn't change a thing....

Clap Clap V2.0

I received my scores from the February 09 Bar Exam and I was 15 points away from passing, closing the gap halfway from last July.

I enrolled in Bar/Bri's EssayAdvantage and PerformanceAdvantage courses via iPod in order to get the more 'hands on' writing instruction for each tested subject. This way I am modeling my essay writing on passing essays rather than mythical "model answers" that were written over several months instead of an hour.

"Everyone takes Bar/Bri" is a mantra long repeated in the halls of law schools and bar exam centers from coast to coast, and I want my essays to look like the essays written by those who pass.

I have a reasonable study schedule in place and already have all the substantive law lectures reviewed. I am still focused from last time and daily my focus is sharper.

I am absolutely determined. I'm not sure I can say that about July 2008. I was still responding to my sudden life changes and, quite honestly, I was being a bit dramatic, and a complete asshole.

As fun as it was, I'm not going to rinse and repeat what has almost worked. I have a new system, new materials, a fresh start and renewed purpose.

I am calm and happy actually. The only stress was money related and that issue is moot.

I took five minutes and revisited why I was taking the bar in the first place and my perspective was refreshed. I'm happy and I know it.

Clap Clap

Whatever it takes...

I was a casualty of the 33.5 % overall pass rate for the February 2009 California Bar Exam.
But don't tell me "I'm sorry" or "That sucks" because its nothing but a thing.

When I started this "thing" I pre-determined I would finish. No matter what. And I will Whatever it takes.

For the last couple of months I have been listening to all the substantive law lectures in my car driving back and forth to the office so I already have reviewed 'The Law.'

Thanks to the very generous (and often unwarranted) support of my Mom I am enrolled in a extensive (and frankly expensive) intensive essay writing program. I know the damn law. I just haven't been able to produce the writing model in my essays that gets the passing scores.

The nice thing about the essay course is its delivered via iPod so I can do it twice or even thrice before July. Whatever it takes.

I am not distressed, or even disappointed. I did the absolute best I could do in February - not something I can say about July 2008. I prepared as strongly as I could have and I fought all three days. I got my teeth kicked in by some of it and I knew it then but I fought on. Whatever it takes.

I am not sad or depressed. I have the strongest and most supportive group of friends and family in my life - the likes of which I have never before experienced. They remind me that there is a big picture and there is life after the bar exam. There is even life during bar review.

I am calm, determined, focused, and intelligent enough to know I cannot simply repeat the incorrect writing style over and over and expect passing results. I am fixing the problem (not so much what I write, but how it is delivered - "a clear, concise, lawyer-like manner"). Whatever it takes.

I will pass the bar exam. Whatever it takes .....

Dust on the Bottle

It as been said that wine is sunshine, held together by water.

A glass of cabernet makes that statement real. A bottle makes that statement inadequate.

Not because you are drunk, mind you. Because you are intoxicated. There is a difference.

Wine is more. Wine is the expression of dreams. It is the expression of hope for something that does not yet exist. Wine is the final product of an emotional equation, the calculus of which is not written in any book of science.

Yet we can find the formula readily in our history, our poetry, our fiction, and perhaps in our heart.

First, lets exclude the mass production $6 a bottle variety of vino. That swill has no place in any meaningful conversation. If you want to get sloshed you can get cheap vodka as easily as Boone's Farm berry wine. Its not the same animal.

Next, lets go ahead and acknowledge that I am, inter alia, a snob of sorts. My coffee and my wine, my steak and my beer, and even the ties I wear, all have strict minimum standards.
Now lets see why that is so.

We all find a dream around 6 or 7 years old. We articulate some great thing we wish to do or be or see as we transit this existence. We do so without knowing the iconoclastic reality of this world and we, for a moment, have a purpose. If you stop and truly remember you will agree with me.

A vine is deliberately placed under stress. To coax the very best out of a grape it is tortured almost. It is starved in dry soils. Water often in abundance is deliberately withheld. All to prevent the berry from becoming lazy. Can you imagine a wine that had a marked sense of entitlement?

If you have never tasted the juice from an oak cask containing a small batch of family grown Zinfandel out of Amador County then I truly feel sorry for you. If you have, you know that the sparkle in Mr. Boitono's eye is distinctly identifiable in the glass. His smile is the warm introduction that covers your palate. And in the afterglow you suddenly see hundreds of years of growth, birth, death, and re-growth. You taste the ancient soil.

Wine is not water. It is tears. Good wine simply will not exist absent a struggle. Such a wine would be passionless, limp and impotent.

And in the end, in the bottle, in the glass, wine is happiness. Wine is peace. Wine is the final answer to the questions that we do not quite understand. It all just makes sense at the bottom of the bottle. But only if that bottle contained the passion and failure of its maker.

Wine represents the quality of the human spirit that will prevent our complete demise - we carry on. We pick ourselves up in the face of a purported failure and we get back into the thrasher. We endure crushing criticism from those that claim to look after our well being. We slowly morph and change and liquify.

We sit dark and cold as time passes, protected perhaps, yet we know ultimately we must soon face our demise. We label ourselves to preserve our faces as if to say "I was here." We cork our emotions at the risk of loosing them entirely.

I am passionate about my wine because it tells my story. I am selective about my wine because I refuse to settle for mediocrity. I savor my wine because I know that one day the bottle will be empty.

And when that day comes frankly I hope my glass is full to the rim with a sweet late harvest Zin that I can sip on into eternity.

There is a reason that the fable tells the story that the water was made into wine. In wine we find our reasons, hopes, desires, and limits.

If all this were true would you really want some cheap ass bottle of crap to represent you?
Rhetorical question. I had enough Cabernet tonight that I already know the answer.

Los Dias Diez, Dios Mio

I managed to make it until 10 days before, before I started to think that I can't stop thinking about. Yep. That's right. Its bar exam results time again.

I bet my few remaining loyal readers have truly enjoyed my complete lack of drama this time around. Or perhaps you have missed the chances to realize maybe my life sucks more than yours?

I have been rather busy since "February" so I apologize for not blanching words in this blogiverse. Let me share.

Immediately following the bar exam Daun drove out to Ontario with the kids (read: critters, pups, shit makers, trash eaters, bastages, etc) to pick me up. We spent the day at Disney. It rocked.

As soon as we got home I had to shower and shave, put on my badge and gun and like the song says I was off to the rodeo. I did see Johnny with his pecker in his hand and although I'm not sure if he really is a one ball man, he pissed me off. Fucking jerk. Get on my nerves.

So all weekend on duty and it was over. The final tally was the largest ever and more than $75,000 was/is being donated back into our local community.

Then it was Luke Days Air Show. Thank buddha everyone finally realized I really am 40 and not 27.

Then the FTX and then an in residence course and then and then and then.... dude where's my car?

We just found our new home. We get the keys in a week and start the (yay) moving process. Piss me off... I hate moving remember?

So Friday the 15th is a big day. I get to strap on my Glock and wander the NRA Firearms Law Seminar all day. (OK, I carry my Glock everyday but not everyone knows that right?) Then we get to pick up a big freakin truck to move everything.

And somewhere in there I get to go online and enter the numbers and press click and see what the screen says.

And then I get to find out what the next 71 days of my life have in store for me.

At least its not 40 below.......
11:30 PM