Shitty Blog Survivor

So there's this game called Shitty Blog Survivor. Last year's winner explained it to me thusly:

"Here's what happens: Jeckles gives us some fucked up tasks (like take a picture of yourself wearing 50 items of clothing-or naked...making up a Shitty Blog Survivor song AND singing it...what else did we do? OH, the Scavenger Hunt!). Then either Jeckles or a panel of "judges" gets to grade how well we did on our tasks--the lowest score (or actually, whoever Jeckles wants to pick) gets booted off the Island.

If you don't complete a task, you get booted off the Island.
If you piss Jeckles off enough, you get booted off the Island.

Mostly he just makes the shit up as we go along. More fun that way."

SO... if you think you can hang, please come sign up to play. If we don't get enough players, they won't let the rest of us play. So get on it.

Heads up

Beautification Nazis

So my city decided to pass an ordinance to punish the people who keep junk cars in their yards. OK, I'm all for that, but they have decided the fashion in which they are going to do this may include jail time of 60 days. Yes, these hardened criminals may have to go do time in the big house for violation of this ordinance. We won't have room for the drug dealers and the meth heads, but by God, those evil junky car owners will not be free to roam the streets of our fair city anymore! We are putting our foot down and showing them we will no longer tolerate this insanity and this scourge which is sweeping through the streets of our little burg, ruining it, I tell you!
The supporters claim that it will keep small children from playing in these junk cars and dying when they get locked inside. Apparently that happens a lot. Never mind the drug dealers that are selling meth to our junior high kids. That's minor, really, in the grand scheme of all the junk car deaths I guess. They claim it's making our city look bad. Really? I thought it was all the empty businesses and the trashy houses and yards that were doing that. I guess this junk car thing fits in with the trashy yard thing.
If you really just have some shithole of a car sitting on blocks in your front yard with grass and trees growing through it - yes, make them get rid of that. But they are also talking about cars in peoples' back yards. Where other people can't even see.
Why am I up in arms about this? Because I have a car that sits in my back yard. It's a 1965 VW bug that I am working on restoring and I love it. It is one of my most prized possessions. I own it and I own the property on which it sits and I will be damned if some jackass will make me move it. I can't even get city water - they sure as hell aren't going to tell me what I can have on my property, especially when you can't even see it from the street.
It's also a sore subject with me because we recently had a bridge collapse because a fire truck that was too heavy drove over it. They kept driving - didn't even go back - and they saw it happen. Besides the questions that in itself raises, the city says it will take 6 months to fix. Bullshit. Thousands of people a day drive that street - me included because it's on my corner - it is necessary that it be fixed immediately, it's a major thoroughfare in this town. They don't have the money to fix a bridge, they don't have money to get stray dogs off the street, but they can afford to tow all these junk cars and then throw people in jail.
OH - and businesses are exempt from this junk car thing apparently. Hmmm... makes you wonder who the city is really working for - the citizens or the business owners. Methinks it ain't so much the citizens....
Whatever. This is the stupidest thing the city has done in a while.
Don't get me wrong, I want to see Enid beautiful, too. I just think there are other ways to go about it. They have been a bit Nazi-ish lately and it's getting old quick. I think I already told the story about them saying they were going to demolish a house because it needed new siding - yeah, they really did. There's a difference between trying to enforce codes and keep your city clean and infringing on peoples' rights and property. There just is, and the city hasn't figured that one out yet.

Southern Fried Jazz in the Woods

I happened upon a wonderful musician on MySpace about a year ago. I listened to her stuff over and over and had one of her songs on my profile and bought the CD which I have also listened to over and over and even my kids love it. Her name is Datri Bean and she plays what she calls Southern Fried Vintage Jazz. If you know me, you know I love anything southern and fried, LOL. Anyhow - she was out on the west coast so I have never been able to see her but she is going back to Austin and has a show in Missouri next month and I sent her a message asking when she might get closer to Oklahoma. She said she could do a house concert, where I invite 30-40 of my closest friends and charge a cover and she plays a concert for us. SOOOO....
Friday April 20, 2007 at 8 p.m. we will be having a Southern Fried Jazz in the Woods concert out at Springwater Ranch [my parent's super cool log home in the woods]. Tickets will be about $12 each and it's BYOB. Bring your blanket and lawn chair - it's outdoors - and enjoy an evening of sittin' on the front porch drinkin' sweet tea jazz music with us. Message me if you're interested in buying tickets and for directions.
And let me add this - Enid rapper Infamous taught me a lesson about music - If you don't like all music, you don't like music at all - so even if this isn't something you normally listen to or buy, I bet you'd enjoy it anyway. Music all says the same thing, just in different languages.

Good times. Good times.

Saturday we decided to make a trip to OKC to see Charlie Robison at the Wormy Dog. Thankfully, no one went to jail. It was a good show and we had a good time. But I did almost get into it with these cutesy college girls. We had been standing in our spot close to the stage since an hour before the show and about an hour in, this gaggle of too-cute skinny bitches pushed their way through. I put my arm out and politely told them they were not going to push their way in front of all these people that had been standing there so long. OK, so it wasn't really polite. It was more like ghetto mama. I figured they may be cute and young, but I had a lot more weight behind me so I figured I might win. They just sucked. There were a couple of other girls standing next to me and they were pissed, too, and eventually after smushing up against everyone for a while, the skinny bitches moved on to get in some other peoples' space. They shoulda got there earlier if they wanted a good spot, stupid bitches. They were all "we're all here to have fun, honey" Mmm hmmm. And I was here first so have your fun behind me, hooker.
My friend, Sherry, drove up from Dallas to hang out with us. My sister, Amanda, and our friends, Keith and Grant came, too. The summer I was 18, my summer job was to babysit Grant - he was 10. This was my first experience at hanging out with Grant as an adult and it was fun, he's a good guy.
He blogged afterward about what a good time he had and how he realized the importance of good friends and surrounding yourself with good people. He's right on. I learned quite some time ago that I just don't have time for people that suck. I want postive, smart, kind, funny people around me and I pretty much tend to stay away from those that aren't at least one of the above. Jeff, you fall into the smart and funny categories, kind and postive not so much all the time ;). By the way, Marty said that you said you had a good time last time you hung out with us at the Wormy Dog. DUH. But don't expect any more of that fancy dancin'. Beer soaked floors and slick bottomed cowboy boots don't exactly mesh...
Anyway - my sister was telling me that her finace asked why the hell we always go see these bands no one's ever heard of. Because they don't suck, that's why. Most bands that you see live sound nothing like they do on the CD. The sign of a good band is when they kick ass in person and sound even better than a studio mixed CD. We listen to a lot of "red dirt" music and follow a lot of the red dirt bands. People ask me what red dirt is and it's kind of hard to explain. It's not really country but it does have country roots and a lot of times country themes, but it often times sounds more rock than country. Red dirt isn't necessarily a type of music, but an attitude about music. Some people have commented on the voices of the singers and I was thinking that it's not the singer, it's the song. Red dirt songs say something. It's about being true to yourself and not selling out. It's about not being a copy cat and singing cookie cutter music just to make people happy. Plus there are some damned good sing along lyrics and they're easy to drink beer to. :) Next up, Jason Boland March 31.

Whew.

The last couple of weeks have been insane.
We were gearing up for another week of the divorce trial when the attorney ended up having to go ahead and ask the judge to recuse, so we go back to court in April with a new and hopefully more impartial judge. We were also trying to get our office ready so we could move into it and be open for business by Tuesday [yesterday] at the latest. Well, that didn't go exactly as planned...
Some dipshit at Lowe's told us we needed to use oil based paint to paint the concrete floor. What they failed to tell us is that if the concrete is cold it won't dry. So there were were with a very wet floor for at least a few days. Then it rained and the moisture just made it stay wet longer. We finally were happy with the dryness and bought some area rugs - we went to the carpet outlet in Stillwater because they had better prices than anything here, and then when we got home with them we noticed the paint was peeling off the floor. So today I went back to Stillwater and traded the rugs toward some carpet, we're just going to carpet it and be done with it. Last night Jennifer and I laid linoleum in the back room - that was one for the blooper reel. I had to roll on it to get the bubbles out and at one point Jennifer's pants literally fell down. But the floor looks good today, so all's well that ends well. ONG sucks ass by the way. They have been yanking us around on getting the gas tuned on. "We'll be there sometime after 8 a.m." Really? Thanks, that's great. You're very helpful.
We did a lot of shopping for the office so at least it wasn't all wasted time. Tomorrow we will put the carpet down and move in the furniture and we may actually be an operating law firm by Friday. Woo hoo!

Thank God it's FRIDAY and other small victories

WOW. Today was freakin' weird. We've been in trial for the last two days on a very intense divorce case that I have found myself very invested in as I've worked on it for a year now and become friends with the client. It's really very sad because he didn't want a divorce, but she was having some issues with her mental stability and he just wanted her to get help, but it has now snowballed into an all out sticky custody battle. I sometimes refer to it as the Viva Las Jesus divorce because at one point she was hearing voices and had some demonic cleansing done on her house and well, I just thought the whole thing was bizarre. We have two court ordered psychological reports that say she has issues yet we are having to fight our asses off for this one. I say we - I mean the attorney. I'm not actually up there fighting, I'm quietly and madly taking notes and biting my tongue. I can't say anything because I'm not a lawyer and it's probably a good thing because if I were and I had license to say something, I would be saying a lot of shit and probably be in trouble a lot. So for the last two days here we are and the attorney is presenting this case and we are getting objected to right and left and the judge is interjecting his impressions and opinions and it finally gets to be so much today that the attorney had to ask him to recuse right in the middle of the trial. So of course it went to "chambers" and we vacated the court room while they worked all that out. For those of you that may not know the processes that go on in a courtroom, asking a judge to recuse means asking the judge to remove himself from the case. This is a small town and this attorney will have to practice in front of this judge for the rest of their career so this is a pretty gutsy and insanely difficult decision to make - one that would make you sick to your stomach to think about. So as I am packing up our stuff and am out in the hall, my hands were shaking at what I had just seen happen. Stuff like that doesn't happen very often and it was a big deal. The client walked out and commented that it only showed the incredible amount of integrity to do that and I was hoping to God he was right and that the attorney wasn't in there flushing their career down the loo. It turned out that they all talked and she explained our views of it and the judge apologized and it all worked out OK, so onward with the rest next week. WHEW!! He also told her he thought she was a great attorney and that he respected her for that because he knew that could not have been easy for her to do - so that was great that the judge was so cool about it.
In the mean time, I went upstairs to the big courtroom to watch the master at work. They had closing arguments in a big front page rape trial that has been going on all week and I really wanted to see Mr. Jones' closing; they are movie quality, after all. Yeah, he fascinates me and I love to hear him speak to a jury. Closings took two hours and ended a bit after 7 and at 8:30 I got the call at home that the jury was back and it was NOT GUILTY! WOO HOO! I didn't work on this one, but I know they worked like hell on this one and it was awesome to see this man go free because, well, I just thought he was innocent and deserved to get his life back.
I finally got home and I tell ya, I just felt absolutely drained after this week. Worked til 2 a.m. Wednesday then had two full days of courtroom drama and I was TIRED. Will have to work on Sunday to get ready for Monday but at least I get a bit of a reprieve. That business today with her having to make a decision like that and watching all the getting run over today made me really rethink that whole I-want-to-be-a-lawyer thing. It made me wonder if I would be able to pull that off. I guess you do what you have to do when your client is relying on you, though.
I'm gonna miss the office when I leave and I'm going to miss Mr. Jones and his cases. My last day is Friday and I am really not ready for it to be here so soon. I'm excited about the new one, but still a little nervous about it and hoping I made the right decision.