Whew! What a whirlwind few weeks...

It’s hard to believe that two weeks has passed since I last posted a blog entry. I feel like the days have just been flying by lately. Here is a recap of the past few weeks:

- I’ve been spending a lot of time interviewing for post-law school jobs. This has meant multiple trips to Portland, flying to Seattle for an interview, writing dozens of follow-up thank you letters, etc…I am thankful in that I have several pending job offers from various firms, but I am still waiting to hear from several other employers. I am attempting to hold off on answering the firms who have extended offers to me until I hear back from all of the places I am interested in. I am not generally one prone to hyperbole, but this whole experience has been among the most stressful I’ve ever encountered. I think the stress is a result of several factors: First, this is a high-stakes game. This decision will determine where we will be living next year, and has potentially long-term consequences. Second, there are multiple “pressure points” in play. In other words, as I receive pressure from the firms who want an answer, I need to gently apply pressure to those firms who I haven’t heard from yet. I will be really, really glad when this whole ordeal of a job hunt is over.

- had to take a Federal Taxation midterm last week. It was my first midterm of law school, and I feel OK about how it went. It was a good preview for the unpleasant finals season that we are about to enter (i.e., late nights at the law school studying).

- Halloween was fun for all of us. Drew was a soldier and Sam dressed up as a bunny. I’d post some pictures, but our trusty ‘ol camera is dying a slow death. Missi and I dressed up as Eugene-specific characters. There are some really, really bad TV commercials down here for local car lots and we dressed up as the stars for those commercials. She was the “Kiefer Kia Princess” and I was “Larry Massey” from Massey Auto Wholesale. If you want to see some of the genius of the Massey commercials, visit this site. We trick-or-treated just around our neighborhood with the kids and some of our friends who live nearby. Although we didn’t get a chance to attend the always-awesome law school Halloween party (Sam got sick), we did go to a really fun Halloween party at our friend’s house.




- I’m deeply involved in a complex fraud case that our office is taking to trial in about three weeks. This means a lot of projects are being handed my way. Yesterday I was writing jury instructions and preparing verdict forms.

- I’m not sure if you’ve noticed it yet, but the Oregon Ducks have a really, really good football team. It has been pretty awesome for Missi and I to attend the games against USC and ASU over the past two weekends. Missi and I were on the front page of The Daily Emerald, the University's daily paper a few days ago. Here is the photo that appeared: see if you can find us.



- Drew’s soccer team plays in their final jamboree this weekend. The team is undefeated and I think the goals-for/against ratio is probably about 159 – 8 for the season. They are so good that they could win every game by about 20 goals if we (the coaches) wanted them to. Usually we have to “pull back the reins” just to avoid running up the score.

- Looks like Missi may be in Austin next week for a few days. She has a flight voucher from American Airlines for "bumping" her from a flight and she is trying to use it to visit Amber-Rose for a few days.