Souplantation

Went to Souplantation for dinner tonight. I love that place. It has every food I love but rarely eat and all in one place. Beets, sunflower seeds, cornbread, honey wheat bread, sourdough bread, whipped butter, honey butter, baked potatoes, chili, clam chowder, jello, and frozen yogurt. The place is amazing. If it had Dr. Pepper instead of Mr. Pibb, it would be heaven (except for the whole salad thing, of course).

A moving story 2

In preparation for moving, we wanted to get rid of a lot of furniture, both to make moving easier and because we had limited storage space. After a half-hearted attempt to sell it on Craigslist with no takers, I called DI to set up a pick-up. We decided to get rid of our huge entertainment center, massive big screen tv, overstuffed chair, kitchen chairs, nightstand, and computer desk. Over the phone, the DI lady told me the movers could not come up to the apartment, so I would have to take it down to the sidewalk. I informed her that I lived on a street that was all apartments and I didn't really want to take a bunch of furniture down to the sidewalk and leave it all day. She understood my concern and told me I could call the day of and get a three-hour window for when the DI truck would arrive.
So, Thursday morning rolled around and I called up DI to get my three-hour window. The lady said I was third on the list, which meant the truck would arrive around 10. With this information in hand, I started hauling everything down -- first the computer desk, then the chair, then the nightstand, then the kitchen chairs, and then the tv. That's when the fun began. Within three minutes of my putting the tv on the sidewalk, a truck pulled up and the driver hauled it away. He also took all of the chairs. I have no idea how he knew there was stuff on the sidewalk, but I'm not kidding when I say he was there within three minutes. Then, as I stuffed the first part of the entertainment center into the elevator, I noticed a family from the neighboring building carting the nightstand away. As I rolled the entertainment center out to the sidewalk, our building's maintenance man said he was moving into a new apartment and would love to take the entertainment center off our hands. Since he's really nice and I like him, I said sure and helped him load it into his maintenance truck. The meter maid who was writing a parking ticket for a car parked in front of the fire hydrant lamented, "Man, I should've gotten here earlier!" The only thing left was the computer desk, and just then the DI truck turned the corner onto our street. I told the driver the story and he laughed. He said, "I just like to think the people who got it needed it." With which sentiment I heartily agree.

Signs of the apocalypse?

Wow, it looks like we left L.A. in the nick of time. In the two days since we've been gone, there's been an earthquake with the epicenter just south of our old apartment and a rapper was shot at the mall we used to go to! Holy mackerel!

A moving story 1

Our move from Provo to L.A. three years ago was a disaster. We loaded our stuff into a U-Haul trailer we pulled behind my Blazer. By the time we'd gone an hour and a half, the Blazer's engine was not sounding good. We barely made it off the freeway into a truck stop in Parowan and a tow truck took us to a mechanic. The mechanic diagnosed the problem as "complete engine failure". The repairs -- which basically meant getting a new engine -- were going to be more than the Blazer was worth, so we sold it to him for $300. Lorein's dad brought their station wagon up to tow us to Vegas where we would get a moving van. The station wagon overheated outside of St. George, though. We somehow made it to Lorein's aunt's house in St. George where we stayed the night and got a U-Haul truck in the morning. But the U-Haul place didn't have the size we wanted, so they "upgraded" us to the 27' truck. It was HUGE! Although I will say it at least held all our stuff quite easily.
Well, as we made this move, we were determined that things would go better. I mean, we were only going from L.A. to Temecula, which is like 75 miles away. We also put into practice all the lessons I have learned from helping people move, the biggest one being HAVE EVERYTHING PACKED UP. I have been to a lot of moves where you show up and the people are still packing. It makes you want to say "I'll come back tomorrow when you're ready." Anyway, we had everything packed and were hoping to get out of L.A. by 11 so we'd miss any semblance of traffic. Some of my friends arrived at 9 to help out and we had the truck loaded by 10:15. After some light refreshments and a final look-around, we headed down to the truck at 10:45. Perfect timing.
Except I got into the truck and the key wouldn't turn. Not that the engine wouldn't start, but the key itself would not budge. I tried everything. I turned the key over. I pushed the brake as hard as I could. I put on my seatbelt. I locked all the doors. I turned the lights on. Nothing worked. I sat there with my head in my hands thinking this could not be happening. Not again. Finally, I had to call the Penske emergency hotline and they sent out a mechanic. The mechanic got there after about an hour and was stumped. He said he'd never seen anything like it. He took nearly the entire dashboard apart. He asked for one of Lorein's bobby pins. He made a lot of exasperated sighs. I realized we were probably going to have to get a new truck and re-load it. I couldn't believe it. But then -- miracle of miracles -- he got the key to turn and the engine started! The mechanic said he had no idea what he did, but I jumped in the truck and never turned the engine off until I dropped the truck off that night. We unloaded our stuff at my parents', a storage facility, and at my grandma's, and got gas all with the engine running (the whole time we were getting gas, I was praying the truck wouldn't explode). When I dropped the truck off, I turned the ignition off and then turned it back on just to see what would happen. It started right up. But at least we made it, and yes, we did spend the rest of the evening in the hot tub.

Grandpa Carter at UCLA

My Grandpa Carter (who died when my dad was a teenager and who I, obviously, never met) attended UCLA in the 1930's. We have some old pictures of him around campus, and I met with a person in UCLA's alumni department my first year to try and figure out where they were taken because we wanted to take pictures of me in the same spots. Of course, we never did it until today, after I graduated. So, without further ado, here they are . . .

I really liked taking this picture. It was pretty neat to realize I was sitting exactly where my grandpa had sat 70 years ago.

We even got people on both sides of him (although my intruders are dressed much more casually than his)! Interesting to note that UCLA got rid of the steps at the base of the pillar and changed the brick steps. I wonder why.

This was the hardest location to pinpoint. The building behind us has an addition (I think it's an elevator) that is obviously much newer than the rest of the building. I think that addition is blocking the arched double window in Carter's picture. The windows on the long side all look the same, though.
My favorite thing about this picture of Carter is that it, like the one with him on the library steps, came from some magazine called "Undergrad" (that seems to have just done stories on the goings-on at a bunch of different colleges around the country), and so includes captions. I love how the caption calls his girlfriend "comely", which I think the writer meant as a compliment but which is pretty much an insult today. I mean, nowadays, you kind of have to go with "smokin' hot". It's also funny that the mag calls her a "professor", which she most certainly isn't.

Graduation

I graduated from UCLA School of Law last Friday. While it was great to have so much family there, the ceremony reminded me of why graduations are no fun. Here's the thing: I've never been to a great graduation ceremony, nor have I ever heard anyone talk about what a great time they had at one. They're all way too long with too many speakers who take up too much time and you always have to sit in the sun. Why can't we just do away with all but maybe one speaker, read the names, and go home? That would be a great ceremony.
Here's a summary of the speakers and their themes:

- Dean Schill: basically talked about how much of a bummer it was to graduate into this crappy economy. Thanks for the pick-me-up Dean Schill!

- Ned: Ned's my friend (and teammate on our intramural champion football team), but it pretty much seemed like he hadn't planned anything ahead of time.

- Student Speaker: his opening line was, "One hot summer night, I lay in bed with my partner as the moonlight filtered through the window, delirious and blissfully unaware of the problems around us . . . "; um . . . TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

- Prof. Stark (Prof. of the year): great speech; very funny.

- Keynote speaker (D.A. of San Francisco): I'm sure she did well, but we were all tuned out by this time and I honestly can't tell you a thing she said.

Carter sums up how we all felt about the speeches

I will admit I liked at the end where the Dean had us all stand up and he said something to the effect of "By the power vested in me by the Regents of the University of California, I now confer upon you the degree of Juris Doctor". That was cool and made it all seem real.

Thanks to all who came! (Justin is taking the picture)

Noooooo!

Manny Ramirez suspended 50 games for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs

I'm shocked. I'm honestly numb. I'm dumbfounded. Everything was going right for the Dodgers. They have the best record in baseball. Last night, the broke the record for longest home winning streak to start a season, a record set in 1911. And now Manny's suspended for 50 games.
I have a lot of different thoughts about it. To begin, I'm conflicted because I really like Manny and feel like I will totally embrace him upon his return on July 3. But then I remember how much I made fun of Giants fans for embracing Barry Bonds during his whole steroid scandal. Do I really want to be like a Giants fan? But then I think about all the differences between this case and Barry's: Barry went out of his way to take steroids and evade detection whereas Manny's positive test supposedly comes from prescribed medication he was taking for "personal health reasons" (of course, those personal health reasons could be that he couldn't keep up the pace anymore and needed some extra oomph; I mean, he is an aging slugger who hasn't yet really seen a decline in his production, which is the stereotype of the steroid user). Plus, Barry denied and denied and denied in spite of mounting evidence, whereas Manny has come out with a plausible excuse, accepted responsibility, and decided not to appeal the suspension. If Manny's story is right, he didn't even take steroids and it's a case very similar to J.C. Romero who bought a supplement at GNC that contained a banned substance that the supplement did not include on the label. In other words, Manny wouldn't be guilty of cheating, but guilty of idiocy for not making sure the medication wasn't banned, and nobody's ever accused Manny of thinking things all the way through. Furthermore, there's never been any suspicion of Manny using PEDs.
So, I guess in the final analysis, and barring further revelations, I don't believe Manny's a cheater. I think he's dumb for not checking his medication against MLB's banned substance list, but I don't think he did anything to purposely attempt to improve his game through illicit means. It sure screws up the Dodgers' lineup though. I guess Ethier will move up to third, but who's going to hit clean-up? Loney doesn't even have a home run yet, and Martin is still struggling. Kemp strikes out too much. At least they're in a weak division and they will probably be able to stay in the mix until Manny gets back.
This just in: early indications are that the medication Manny was taking was a sex enhancer. I suppose I would say "personal health reasons" in my statement too.
Further revelation: it appears now that Manny tested positive for a female fertility drug (hCG) that steroid users often take when coming off of a steroid cycle in order to re-start natural testosterone production. Bummer. Maybe he really is a cheater.

I'm done

So, I had my final final this past Thursday. In other words, I am done with law school. It's pretty weird. It's also a little anti-climactic since I'm done with school, but I just have to start studying for the Bar Exam in a few weeks. Still, it's crazy. It's hard to believe we've been here 3 years. The weirdest thing, though, is how things have truly come full circle. I mean, when I was applying for law schools, part of my personal statement concerned whether the Dodgers should re-sign Jeff Weaver. They didn't. But then they just gave him a minor league contract before this season and called him up to the majors on, you guessed it, Thursday. Talk about eerie.
On a related note, we were really worried I was going to graduate jobless, especially since this recession has pummeled the legal industry, but last week I got an offer from Army JAG. While I haven't accepted (and won't actually incur any military obligation until I take the oath of office, which can't be before December since I have to pass the Bar first), it's good to know I at least have something. Now, for those of you who gasped when you read I am thinking about joining the Army, let me go through the pros and cons:

Cons
5 months of extra training including a modified boot camp
Possibility of deployment
Low salary

Pros
Every JAG officer I talk to absolutely LOVES his or her job
No billable hours
Generous housing stipend (tax free)
Free medical benefits
No billable hours
Food stipend (tax free)
I get to shoot a really big gun
Work 9-5
No billable hours
Chance to see the world
Retirement benefits
Tax credits
30 days paid vacation
Chance to work in multiple issue areas
Did I mention there's no billable hours?

So anyway, while I haven't yet decided that is what I want to do, it is our only offer as of the moment. And it's a pretty good job.

Watermelon Crall

My sister Mary Ann has pretty much been calling me everyday to post some pictures of Carter, so I'll oblige.

It's the start of watermelon season and Carter is loving it! He crawls around the house with a slice (much to our chagrin) and was excited when we let him have some in the bath (he normally takes a bath in the tub, but he was playing in the sink and got mad when we tried to take him out). Unfortunately, he hasn't yet totally learned that the good part is the red stuff, not the green stuff.