Tip: It’s a really bad idea to sit on your lazy arse all winter and spring and then one day decide to carry all your worldly possessions up and down stairs and into a truck as fast as you can. Really bad idea. Everything hurts. And the truck is still not completely loaded. Moving. It is not a good thing. Being moved (the part that comes after the actual moving) is good. And, actually, I’m looking forward to the the 32-hour drive. But the moving? The loading and unloading? No. Thanks.

But enough whining. What I really wanted to tell you is that I took time out from the packing and all that yesterday to have coffee w/Monica from Buzzwords as she was passing through the area on her way to greener pastures. It was terrific to finally meet her! Although we went to different schools and only met for the first time yesterday, we’ve exchanged email and blog comments throughout our law school adventures, making her one of my closest friends from law school. That may sound odd but we just clicked on so many things—we both want to be public defenders (although she’ll be clerking for a while first), we both think law school should be all about public interest, and we’re both moving to crazy, obscure, rural places to start our legal careers (she’s going to Alaska, I’m going to Montana). Oh, and she saved my bacon in fed courts by convincing me to buy the Chemerinsky supplement. Thanks, Monica!

I might go on, but I’m exhausted. I should probably point out that this is probably it for me here in D.C. We’re pulling the plug on the internets and after that? I just don’t know. I’ll be updating whenever I can from wherever I can, but where I’ll be staying for the next month at least is not jacked in to this wonderful web so updates will likely be less regular than usual. Hence, this is the perfect opportunity for all of you who read the imbroglio but don’t have a blog of your own to start one immediately and start filling the void left by my absence.¹

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here three years, harder still to believe we’re leaving and going so far away, and harder yet to believe I’ve finished law school and have to take the bar exam in, oh, let’s see, 55 days. I should probably get on that studying thing—you think? At least I will be listening to some excellent MBE prep CDs on my drive—multitasking, you know.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Adios, D.C. I know I’m going to miss you. [tags]moving, bar exam, blogging friends[/tags]

1. Oh, ok, so it’s not a void at all, but surely there’s at least a crack there, a hairline fracture or something… ↩

1. If you have an old mattress and box spring in D.C. that has long outlived its useful life, be prepared to pay $80 or more to have it hauled to the dump.
2. If you need moving help, the going rate is about $20/hr/person.
3. Craigslist kicks ass and I will miss it. But perhaps I needn’t despair. There’s no Craigslist Billings, but there is a Craigslist Montana.
4. The amount and variety of completely useless and pointless junk (and paper) I am able to collect and tuck away in all manner of places is truly amazing.
5. We pick up our truck in the morning. I must go pack.

[tags]moving[/tags]

“I’m warning you now, this is the most disturbing recording I’ve ever heard in my life. But people need to know about this. Our war on drugs is a failure, and the national media is following a code of silence on related humans rights abuses.” ⇒

“I’m not here to say she was right or wrong but I am wishing she stuck it out with the blawg for a bit longer. . . . I wish you the best Peachy wherever you are.” I second both of those sentiments! ⇒

A story for you: Last time I was in Chicago I visited L’s sister, M. She works in a big law firm on a very high floor of a very tall building and her office has one wall that is all windows. As we entered the building she waved her building pass over the scanner as usual, but otherwise we somehow managed to avoid the attention of security—they were occupied w/other people and didn’t seem to even notice us. M. remarked how unusual that was. “They’re usually very careful about checking IDs and issuing guest passes to the building,” she said. We shouldn’t worry about it, she added; we’d only be there a few minutes so it would just be a waste of time to make sure we were properly checked in.

My friends and I had fun being tourists yesterday. The day included a visit to the Iwo Jima Memorial and the Arlington Cemetery. The access road to both is also the final few hundred yards of the Marine Corps Marathon. In the pic at right you can see the little hill that all runners must climb right at the very end of their 26 miles. Before I “ran” the marathon last fall everyone told me to be ready for this huge hill. And, of course, when I saw it after run/walking 26 miles and nearly 5 hours (yes, I was very very slow!), this little hill did, indeed, look like a wall. Yesterday was the first time I’d seen it since the marathon and it’s kind of funny to think how hard I worked to get up that hill back in October. That aside, the cemetery was actually much nicer to visit than I’d expected. It’s huge and full of places for quiet contemplation and also great views of the river and the city beyond. Plus, it’s a sobering reminder of the role of the military and others who have served their country over the last 200 years.¹

Those two big sites were followed by lunch in Crystal City at a dive bar (what’s up w/no free refills, people!?), a long, long walk around Georgetown and Washington Harbor, and finally dinner at Rakku in Dupont Circle. Good stuff.

You all wanted this blow-by-blow of my tourist experiences, didn’t you? No? Whoops. Sorry. [tags]tourism, dc, monuments[/tags]

1. It’s not just soldiers who are buried there—anyone who has “served the nation” can be buried there, theoretically. There’s even a section for Supreme Court Justices!↩

“Someday there will be a company that not only has inspiring advertisments and products, but will actually have a philosophy that is consistent, that returns the generosity it received by feeding and nurturing the environment in which it exists. A consistent Apple, with integrity, would stand up for free speech on the Internet, not try to destroy it.” ⇒

“A California appeals court has smacked down Apple’s legal assault on bloggers and their sources, finding that the company’s efforts to subpoena e-mail received by the publishers of Apple Insider and PowerPage.org runs contrary to federal law, California’s reporter’s shield law, and the state Constitution.” ⇒

We’re moving out of this city in just five days. We have only four days before we pick up the moving truck. One of those days is a holiday and the other two are weekend days, so anything we need to buy or do with a business needs to be done today. We are not packed yet and I have friends visiting from Colorado so I’ll be spending at least today and tomorrow doing some last-minute sightseeing. I’m looking forward to that but, holy cow! where did the time go?

Oh, and that whole roof imbroglio? It remains completely unresolved except that we have an estimate for a new roof at $5,000-$6,000 (which is what I thought), and confirmation from a professional roofer that roofs made of this strange “woodruf” stuff are nothing but trouble. So we’re still waiting to hear whether the seller will deal on that. If not, we’ll have to start our home search over again. Awesome.

Moving is always like this, isn’t it? Such big changes can never be simple. Oh, speaking of which, does anyone want to come over Tuesday and help get the big stuff in the truck? I’ll buy you lunch! Huh? Oh, come on! You know you want to!

“Will the researchers lose their grants or get blacklisted? Will the DOJ seek to fund a study specifically designed to undermine this data (incorporating any necessary methodological flaws)? Will the FDA follow its prior form, and issue a press release denying the study ever happened? Or will this information simply be deleted from every federal publication that otherwise documents new health research?” ⇒