Some recent photos

Here are a few Christmas-related pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Nicole, Missi, and Adrienne

Drew, a.ka. Santa's Helper, passing out gifts on Christmas Eve at the Hillier Christmas

Sam and Drew on Christmas morning. Could my kids get any more stereotypical (the little princess daughter and the GI Joe son)?

The ladies at the Foglio Christmas party

Visiting Santa at Bridgeport Village

Drew and Sam with Santa

Drew and Taylor

Jesse, Jeff and me

Breaking my blog silence...

I have been meaning to post something on my blog for several days now but I’ve just been caught up in the hubbub of Christmas and haven’t taken the few minutes required to post something up here. As a result, this will be a slightly longer blog post. It’s been so long (over two weeks!) it’s hard to know where to begin…

FAMILY:
We had a very nice, albeit slightly hectic, Christmas. We were in Portland staying with Missi’s mom and we traveled to Salem on Monday afternoon to have Christmas dinner with her mom’s side of the family. The kids seemed to be excited about the gift of a puppy, and we’re all looking forward (with perhaps a bit of fear and trepidation) to January 12 when Zeke will come join our family. I’ve attached a picture of Zeke below. He is the puppy on the left. I got some great stuff for Christmas, but I think my favorite gift was the “12 Days of Christmas” that Missi gave me. I could write a full blog post on just this gift, but ask me about it some time.

In other family news, my sister Julie got engaged a few days ago. Her fiancée is a great guy named Brian who she met during college. They are thinking about a May wedding in Vancouver, Washington. We’re very excited for both of them. My parents spent Christmas in Chiangmai, Thailand, but I was able to talk to them briefly on Christmas Eve.

SCHOOL/WORK:
I finished up the semester feeling alright about my exams, although it’s tough to say how accurate that feeling was as I haven’t received my grades yet. Taking exams was certainly much less painful this time around than it was last year. I am continuing to work a bit throughout my break, but my hours are pretty limited and my work is extremely flexible with my schedule.

OREGON DUCKS:
The Las Vegas Bowl was extremely disappointing. The Ducks just flat-out didn’t show up to play and nobody (perhaps except Jonathan Stewart) really seemed to care or put any effort into it. Here is a really disheartening article about Belloti’s complacency following the game. At least the basketball team is doing pretty well (12-0, ranked #20 in the country). I’m looking forward to taking Drew to the USC game and going with Missi to the UCLA game, which will potentially be a showdown between two undefeated teams.

EXTRAS:
Here is a good article on the Christmas season.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time this Christmas break learning how to use iMovie. I made a ten minute long DVD for some family members. What a sweet program! Makes me love my Mac even more.
I traded in my Treo 650 for the (allegedly) improved Treo 680 and so far I’m really regretting the decision. My phone keeps freezing up and it won’t hot sync to my computer. I’m getting very frustrated with the situation.
Other miscellaneous highlights from this break (so far):
1.) Seeing my buddy Aaron when he came to Portland. He is a really great guy and it was a treat to hang with him. We had coffee together one day and then dinner with another good friend the next evening. He is preparing to enter the Air Force JAG and if I was a single guy I’d be thinking real hard about following in his footsteps.
2.) Hanging out with my buddy Jeff. We watched the unspectacular Ohio State-Florida basketball game together, and while the game wasn’t too exciting, it’s always great to spend time with him.
3.) Visiting with my grandparents. I had lunch with my grandmother at her nursing home and we spent an evening at The Farm with my other grandparents. Both were really great times and made me appreciate even more the fact that they are all still alive.
4.) Christmas party at the Foglios. Although the power went out for about 90 minutes, we had a great time enjoying a chocolate fountain and being with some of our closest friends. Amazingly Jeff and Mike both sported very festive sweaters like I did (see below). Apparently great minds think alike.
5.) Visiting with Missi’s cousin Jake. Jake is a West Point grad currently serving in the Army. He returned in September from his second tour in Iraq and it was really interesting to hear his take on the situation and catch up with he and his wife, who currently live in Tennessee.

The newest member of the Wilson family is on the left.

That feels good...

Whew! So I’m done with finals. Provided I pass all my classes, I am actually halfway done with law school. It seems like just a few days ago I was sitting in orientation and trying to figure out how to read cases. Now I’m a mere 18 months or so away from being a “real” lawyer. Now there’s a scary thought.

I had three exams and I felt pretty good about all of them. The exam that I took yesterday (American Legal Biography) was probably the most difficult, and the main reason I say that is because he asked one question that I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what the answer was. But other than that question I think did OK (The question, if you care, simply said “Dillon’s Rule.” You were supposed to recognize what the rule was, what case gave us the rule, and what judge applied it. The answer was that Dillon’s Rule holds that municipal ordinances are to construed narrowly and the judge was Matthew Deady).

Now that I’m finished, I’m definitely ready for a break. I haven’t been sleeping enough; I haven’t been exercising enough; I’ve been drinking too much coffee; and most importantly, I haven’t been giving enough attention to my family. Missi’s birthday is tomorrow and so we’re all looking forward to that. I’m going to work a bit during the break, but probably only 20 hours per week or so. I also need to work on writing a brief for the National Appellate Advocacy Competition I’m in, but I’m going to take a few days off before I dive in on that. I’m looking forward to being back up in Portland this weekend to seeing friends and family.

With those formalities out of the way...

Now that I've posted the requisite "Wow, I hit 100 posts" entry, here are a few bits of randomness.

1. I mentioned about a week ago that Missi got my a Treo 650 for my birthday. I was pretty happy with it, but it had a few issues (like freezing up at inopportune moments), and Palm just released the Treo 680, which is supposedly an improvement. Given that, I exchanged my 650 for the 680. I really love the idea of a "smart phone" - a PDA combined with a phone - and I think the Treo 680 is going to be great. Here is a comparison of the two that I found.

2. If you have some spare time (like around 8 - 10 hours probably), I'd recommend reading the official report from the Iraq Study Group. I haven't read it, but I've perused it, and I might try to read the full 160 pages over the Christmas break. I'm hoping that it will provide lawmakers with a roadmap out of the mess that is the situation in Iraq.

3. I'm 2/3 of the way done with exams - Evidence and Con Law II done, just American Legal Biography next Monday. I also have to turn in a big paper, which is very close to being done. Fortunately I have several days to finish the paper and study for the next exam. I'll be glad when next Monday at 11:31 rolls around.

I’ve joined the “century club”

Wow, I actually hit 100 posts. That’s pretty crazy. I think I’ve been blogging for a little over a year so that averages to about 2 posts per week. I’ve enjoyed the experience and it will be fun to look back in a few years to see how I’ve documented this period of my life. I hope that it has been enjoyable for the few people who view my blog to get a “glimpse of me.”

As you may know, I can track who actually views my blog (you can see it too – just click on the little hitcounter box in the right hand column underneath the links), and it’s always interesting for me to see how many people has viewed my blog and where they are logging on from. I can usually guess who is logging on from Rizal, Philippines, but when I get a visitor from, say, Germany, I never have a clue who it is.

I always enjoy the comments I get from blog readers, so don’t be shy about posting those. Thanks for checking it out!

Nice sunrise

I just finished my Con Law II exam so my brain is a bit fried, but I got to school early this morning to study and I snapped this picture of the sunrise. It was a nice way to start off my day...

John Wilson, circa 1993

Ha ha ha...check THIS out! I have no idea where this came from. I just found it on the floor in our house. The kids must've dug it out of something.

Yikes

My first exam is tomorrow (Evidence) so I'll keep this brief...

My parents emailed us to say that a big storm was headed their way, but I had no idea it was this big. At least 109 people dead!? Please pray for the people of the Philippines.

An odd, but pleasant, tradition

At this law school, there is a tradition that at the end of the last class of the semester the professor makes a few closing remarks (i.e. "Thanks for walking with me down this winding path of Constitutional law...") and then all of the students applaud. I don't remember this ever happening at undergrad, but it's a nice recognition of the teacher's efforts. I remember one class last year where the teacher actually got a standing O. I wonder if any other law schools do this?

Birthday recap

I'm breaking my exam-period blog silence to post a few thoughts and to recap my birthday. There is so much more I could write about - Thanksgiving, the Civil War, how I hate studying for finals, etc...but I'll keep this one brief.

- My birthday was yesterday and I had a really nice day. I had class in the morning, followed by Missi and Sam meeting me at my office with lunch. They brought Cafe Yumm, which is always great (sidenote: if you live in Eugene and haven't eaten at Cafe Yumm, you NEED to. If you don't live in Eugene, well, you're missing out). I worked throughout the afternoon and then we had some friends over for a birthday dinner. Missi did a great job of cooking my slightly-obscure choice of birthday dinner - yakisoba and bulgogi beef. For gifts, she and the kids got me some great shoes and a very cool Treo 650. I'm sort of a geek for little electronic gadgets like this so I'm pretty excited. Our friend Monica brought over an ice cream cake from Cold Stone, which was really great. Over all, it was a very good birthday.

- There is a lot that could be said about the Ducks collapse on the football field. To be honest, I don't really have the time or energy to relate all of my thoughts, but in general it was just a really disappointing season. Go here or here to read two of my favorite Duck blogs writting by Oregonian writers.

- If you want to read a really great newspaper column, check out Bob Welch's columns in the R-G. He's a great guy and a great writer. And, after playing against him in a Turkey Bowl, he's a darn good flag football player.

- There's some white stuff on the ground this morning, which is definitely exciting for the kids. Not enough to cancel school, but it's still fun (and CERTAINLY not as much as my sister sees up in Alaska).

- Last note, and this is something of a "teaser." The Wilson family has decided to add a new member to our family. No, this DOES NOT mean we're pregnant (that's for you AZ!). It just means that Christmas morning will be very, very exciting for our kids. Go here for a glimpse.

See you in a few weeks…

I’m heading into my most difficult four week period of the year – those leading up to and including my final exams. Therefore, I’m going to take a break from blogging and I’m sure I’ll add some more in early-mid December once everything settles back down. Have a great Thanksgiving!

A short trip to Bend

I left Thursday evening around 5:30 and I drove over to Bend. Nothing quite like driving 2+ hours in the dark after a long day. A deer ran out in the road in front of me but it wasn’t really too close. After arriving in Bend, I had a great dinner at the Pine Tavern with my boss and then did some reading. The next day we had our hearing and I was back on the road to Eugene by 12:30. Somewhere around 17 hours within the city limits of Bend, and the majority of that was spent sleeping.

Here are a few pics taken from the road.


The Three Sisters


Just a dusting of snow on the Pass


Self-portrait taken at 70 mph using the camera's timer

We may have an answer!

Yesterday I posted something about the possibility of quantifying the number of raindrops that would fall during a five minute period in a one square mile area. The topic generated a surprising amount of reaction, and I knew that if anyone could make an educated guess about the answer, it would be my friend Charlie. He has an engineering background and his mind works in ways that fascinate me. That, combined with the fact that he is in Business School right now (where they use tons of statistical analysis), led me to believe that he could actually figure it out. Here is what he sent me:

My estimate is 2.63 trillion rain drops/square mile in 5 minutes when it is raining at 1cm of accumulation per hour, would be a light/moderate steady rain.



Here’s a spreadsheet you can play with to see how many drops accumulate when the severity of the rain and the drop size distribution changes. I got my drop size distribution here: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/IgorVolynets.shtml

This is, after all, the same guy who calculated the total amount of time it would take for the EMU to pass out all of their student football tickets and the points-per-minute ratio on our Property exam. He has a mind like a computer (if we could somehow just get him assigned to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or figure out how to get us out of Iraq I have little doubt he'd come up with a plan). Way to go Charlie!

Three thoughts for a Monday

1. I was up in Portland over the weekend, had a great time although I spent all day Saturday doing school work. It was good to spend time with our good friends Jesse and Nicole on Friday evening (we went to Solo and Kell’s) and I couldn’t ask for a better situation than the fact that Fred and Maggie let us stay with them whenever we’re in town. On Sunday, I packed up the car and drove back to Eugene. Once home, I realized that the one bag I left in Portland was the most important – my school bag, and especially my computer. I essentially hopped in my car and headed back up to Portland, but my amazing mother-in-law and step father-in-law agreed to head south with the fruit of my forgetfulness. I met Fred and Maggie in South Salem where I retrieved my stuff. I don’t have anyone to blame but myself for the mistake, but it resulted in almost 4 hours of driving on Sunday afternoon/evening. Thanks to Fred and Maggie for saving me about another 90 minutes!

2.Did you know I am now a professional blogger? That’s right, I’m actually getting paid to blog for my school. I have to post 2-3 times per month and they refer prospective students to the blog. Kind of crazy that I’m actually receiving money for espousing the virtues of a school that I love!?

3.Here is a theoretical/scientific question for this rainy, stormy season: Do you think it would ever be possible to figure out how many raindrops hit the ground in a one square mile area over the period of five minutes? I was thinking that you could somehow take a 1’ x 1’ box and figure out how many drops hit in during a period of 5 minutes and then extrapolate that figure over the square mile. How could you figure out how many drops actually fell? You could figure out the average volume of each drop, then take the total amount of water collected and divide it by the average size of drops. The equation might look like this:

(Total volume of water collected/average size of each drop=total number of drops)

You would of course, have to take into account wind factors, the variety of different sized drops, etc…But do you really think it’s possible? My head is hurting.

Some new pics

Family pic at the PSU game

I suppose I could spend today’s entry discussing last night’s election results, or Rumsfeld’s resignation, or any number of current events, but it dawned on me that it has been quite a long time since I’ve posted any pictures. The primary reason is that it takes quite a bit of time to post pictures. I have to upload them to a site like Flickr or Photobucket, and then manually link to the images from this blog because no one seems to have a good system to post multiple photos to one’s blog. Anyway, without further adieu, here are some pics from the last few weeks and months. Hope you enjoy them…

Missi and I (photo by Drew)

Halloween Night

We've got Spartan Spirit!

Craig and Kobayashi, the champion hotdog-eater

The Ladies...

The Fellas...

Drew and his soccer buddies


P.S. Sorry for the weird formatting on this post. I can't figure out why Blogger does this to me...

I wish I had an "audio blog" right now

I kid you not...I am sitting in my office on a Friday afternoon and the security guard who sits in the lobby of our building is trying to teach himself how to play saxophone. He just purchased a new tenor sax on eBay and he brought it back to show off. He is now sitting at his little desk trying to squeak out some notes. He has never played sax before so his sound, ahem, is not quite perfected. I only wish I could somehow capture the soulful sounds of the tenor sax and upload them onto the web so all of you could enjoy the melodious strains. Maybe someday...

What a day...

My schedule for Thursday, November 2.

5:45: Wake up, get ready to go to basketball, get suit ready
6:25: Leave the house
6:45: Arrive at the REC for basketball games
7:00 – 8:20: Basketball league (I play in the Legal Ballers Association league. Our team was 1-1 on Thursday)
8:30 – 8:45: Shower, change into suit and tie
9:00 – 10:00: Go to part of class (American Legal Biography – discussing Chief Justice Earl Warren)
10:15: Make it into the office, begin prepping for hearing
11:30: Head to courthouse
12:00: Facilitate negotiations with lots of folks who had received citations
1:00 – 2:30: Appear before Magistrate in a weird, convoluted hearing (ask me about it sometime – my defendant appeared in court intoxicated)
2:30: Head back to office, leave to school
2:45 – 4:20: Attend class (Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Legislating Morality – it’s a really sweet seminar-style class. Today we talked about the collateral consequences to a conviction, i.e. disenfranchisement or the loss of parental rights).
4:30 – 4:45: Talk on the phone to Missi
5:00 – 5:45: In library study room, prepping for Moot Court argument
5:45 – 6:10: Eat dinner, graciously provided by the Moot Court Board
6:15 – 8:30: Continue prepping for appellate argument for Business Law Moot Court competition
8:45: Give oral argument in front of 3-judge panel
9:10: Finally head for home
9:30: Get home, change out of suit, begin working on big paper
10:00: Check email, get good news about results of moot court competition
10:10 – now (11:00): Continue working on paper and take a break to write this blog entry

Very busy week...

This week has to be up there for one of the busiest of the school year, if not my whole entire law school career:

1. Working on a big paper (25+ pages) with a draft due on Friday.
2. Hearing at work on Thursday. I'm scheduled to appear in front of the Magistrate Judge on something
3. Giving an oral argument on Thursday evening as part of the Business Law Moot Court Competition. I turned in the brief last week and haven't even thought about the argument yet.
4. I've got a Law Review hard edit going on right now that is due early next week.
5. All of my other normal class work.

Oh yeah, finals start in just about a month. This isn't going to be a fun month.

Two interesting links

It’s been a few days since I’ve blogged, and I wish I had something more exciting to post than this. I’ve got some great photos from Friday night (Halloween party) and Saturday (Ducks game), but I haven’t had the chance to download them onto my computer.

So, this will have to do:

This is a very cool thing that will bring out your inner abstract artist (Click to change colors)

Here’s something else that’s really amazing (You need Macromedia Flash for this one)

Tour of the new courthouse

I took a “self-guided” tour of my new “office” yesterday. In just a matter of a few weeks, the new federal courthouse will open in Eugene to much fanfare. Apparently this building received as large of a budget as the new courthouse in Los Angeles. It’s a huge, sweeping building of stainless steel and glass (it’s affectionately referred to as “Starship Enterprise"), and I guess it was designed by a famous architect who recently won the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for architecture. When you walk through this building it definitely feels more like you’re walking through a museum rather than a courthouse. There is a lot of art scattered throughout and the design is really striking.

Anyway, my co-worker and I had to take care of something in the new courthouse so we walked over. There were some rudimentary signs directing us where to go (“BADGES →”) but inevitably we got lost. Much to our surprise, we walked through an unlocked, unmarked door that led directly into the prisoner’s holding cells and the door locked behind us. Travis and I wandered around for awhile trying to find a way out, to no avail, when there was a booming voice that came over the loudspeaker, “What are you guys doing in there?” We explained that we had just taken a wrong turn and then a voice answered, (laughing) “I guess you’ll have to do your time, then.” Apparently the US Marshals thought it was pretty funny to play a joke on two unsuspecting law clerks. We made a comment to the effect that we were guilty of the crime of stupidity and then they came to let us out.

If you haven’t done so already, make sure you check out The Zimel Zoo. Our best friends are slowly making their way across the country in an RV (with three young boys!), and they’ve been posting regularly as they travel cross-country.