Shadowbot

Law School and Kids: No, Seriously.

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:12:18 -0500

This is an essay I wrote for the Perspectives collection UK Law sends out to incoming 1Ls. I tried to cover up the scarier parts.

My wife and I have two children. When I started school, my daughter was almost three, and my son was five months old. He would wake up every night around 1 AM, and it would take at least an hour to get him back to sleep. She started late on her terrible twos, and they were just coming into full swing when the fall semester started.

I was terrified that having kids would doom me in law school. I couldn’t count on a good night’s sleep on any given night, and my evenings and weekends were already full of doing things with them. And I certainly had a few “what was I thinking” moments over the course of my first year. Dealing with raising children and learning the law at the same time is difficult. But overall, I did better in school for having kids.

When you have kids, you have two things that other students don’t have. First, you have a reason to be efficient. Because you know your time to study is limited, you make the most of the time you have. You may only have two hours a night to read casebooks, but you’ll learn to get it done in that time because you have to. More importantly, you’ll always have a reminder as to why you’re in law school. When you come home from a day in class, you’ll come home to kids who need you to provide for them, and for whose benefit you’re spending so many hours studying. These two aspects of having kids while in law school will help you keep your focus. Since everyone in your class is already pretty smart (no, really, you’ll be surprised), the ability to keep your focus where it needs to be is one key to success.

Having said all that, here are three bits of solid practical advice, which I’ve gleaned from experience.

First, UK Financial Aid will give you more loans if you ask for them. The amount you spend every month to maintain a family is much more than a single, childless student spends, but you have to file a budget appeal to make up the difference. It’s not a painless process, but it’s worth the time to take care of it up front, instead of trying to figure out how you’re going to pay the day care in December. There is also a specific form you need to fill out if you pay for child care, since UK will give you additional loans to cover child care costs, above and beyond your amended budget.

Second, Kentucky has free health care for children for low-income families, which, if you quit a job to come to school, you probably qualify for. For example, if you have a family of four and your income is less than $42,400, you qualify. Health insurance for our kids was a huge part of our monthly budget, and this goes a long way to lessen the burden.

Finally, you absolutely have to save time for your kids. It would be really easy to let law school take over your life, especially if you have a significant other who is willing to watch the kids and give you all the time you “need.” When you go home from a day of school, put the law books away for a few hours, and eat dinner with your kids. Play with them. Give them baths. Read them stories, sing them songs, and kiss them goodnight. Then the law books can, and must, come back out. But keep them on a schedule, and give your kids the time they need. That way, they’ll be ready to give you the time you need when exams roll around, and you’ll not feel guilty for taking the time to rest and prepare as well as possible.

Sun, 24 May 2009 09:49:36 -0500

“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.”

— Justice Black, New York Times Co. v. U.S., 403 U.S. at 719

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:25:15 -0500

“Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new; Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it’s supposed to nurture.”

— Judge Kozinski, 9th Circuit from White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., a case in which Vanna White sued Samsung for creating advertising that depicted a robot version of her. Awesome.

Housekeeping update

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:59:42 -0500

I've finally spent the time required to iron out the bugs here that were preventing me from posting. I'd really like to say that this means I'll be posting here again. We shall see.

Ender In Exile

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:42:41 -0500

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

I'm honestly not sure this book needed to exist. While it does tie up all the dangling plotlines from the Shadow series, the book as a whole doesn't really have any driving conflict. It's more just "here's what happened to Ender in the immediate aftermath of the Bugger War." There are two seeming conflicts in the book, but they both seem manufactured, just to give Ender something to do.

Thrilled as I am to have another Ender book, I think it would have been better if the Bean stories had just been wrapped up in a novelette, or even better, at the end of the last Shadow book.

Perhaps the main conflict I'm missing is an internal one within Ender, where he has to confront the killer inside, but that conflict was wrapped up pretty nicely, I thought, in the actual Ender's Game sequels.

View all my reviews.

No son! Wrong one! Wrong one!

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:23:26 -0500

This is a disturbing development. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

How the Monkees serve as proof for alternate universe theory

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:49:31 -0500

Friday morning, I woke up feeling awful. The virus had worked its way through my family, so I knew it was coming. Imagine a bad flu without the stomach symptoms: a tremendous headache and body aches, and some weird disorientation.

Were I still working at the library, I'd have called in sick without a second thought. But this is law school - there are no sick days in law school (or so I'm told). Anyway, I drove to school (about an hour and a half later than usual), stumbled to the library, and very slowly made my way though my notes for Civil Procedure at 11:00. I made it though class without incident, but I was burning up by the end of it. Class ended at 11:50

Here's where the alternate universe stuff comes into play. Watch the timing.

I really, really considered skipping my second class (Torts) and going home. I spent that last ten minutes of CivPro making the decision to stay. But it was close.

After CivPro, a group of us went to the Intermezzo for lunch. While I was waiting for my sandwich, about 25 minutes past the hour, the song "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" started running through my head. I was humming it when they delivered the sandwich I only ate a few bites of.

After lunch, I worked through Torts from 1-2:15, and instead of hitting the library to study afterwards, I went straight to the car, and headed straight home. My iPod was set to shuffle everything.

The walk from the library to the car takes about 10 minutes. About 25 minutes into the drive, what should come on but the Monkees' "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You". THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER I MADE THE DECISION TO LEAVE SCHOOL. Had I left early, as I considered, the song would have come on almost exactly when it spontaneously popped into my head in the Intermezzo! It's proof! There was a parallel universe created when I decided to stay at school instead of leaving, and the song crossed over to provide me evidence. Perhaps, even, to tell me that I made the right choice, or that the choice I made was significant enough in some way to cause a universal rift.

I plan on publishing a paper on this, if someone wants to volunteer the physics. But the facts speak for themselves; res ipsa loquitur as we discussed in Torts class that day.

I would still have known that if I had skipped class, so the quality (however you might judge it) of this little post is probably not the parallel universe split issue.

Sinestro has thoughts...

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:01:09 -0500

Yup, I'm a gonna keep doin' these until I don't think they're funny. That may be a while; they're a good outlet from hard studying.

Prowl chimes in on my Criminal Law course

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:44:10 -0500

"Hell," I said to myself, "this class is going to be a lot harder than I thought. It would have been nice for him to point this out sooner."

How I spent my summer vacation, Part 1

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:45:30 -0500

A quick note: If I don't start posting what I've written of this, I'm never going to get caught up writing it. So here's the preliminary info about why we wanted to embark on this god-forsaken patio project.

We had this house built and moved in December 2003. Since then, we've been talking about what to do with the backyard. Another house we came very close to buying had this immaculately sculpted and landscaped backyard. It was a tiny, tiny yard (about half the size of our single-tiny backyard), but it seemed so much bigger, because it was useful. There were places to sit, flowers and pretty plants, lights, and a number of other things that would have made it a great place to relax on a Spring evening.

The backyard in the house we ended up building, on the other hand, is kind of an eyesore. First, our house sits higher than every other house on the block, and our back door is 3 feet above ground level, which means that every time we stick our heads out the door, our neighbors can see everything we do (ask Lori sometime about me running outside after the dogs, completely naked, before I remembered that), and we can see everything they do. Due to the elevation of the house, the yard slopes down quite a bit, both back from the house and from the right to the left side, with a dramatic dip in the rear left corner.

I've kept it mowed, and cleaned up after the dogs, and briefly attempted a garden, but that's the extent of what I've done in the backyard. I had a hammock for a while, but I broke it. I had help, both from other folks and beer.

So, cutting to the chase, we decided to carve out that depression in the rear left corner and put in a patio. It'll be a cheap job, we figured, and shouldn't take all that long. If you ever find yourself saying these two things before starting a construction project, stop and do a little more research. Your job will neither be inexpensive nor brief. More on this as the story progresses.

And finally, the last bit of background before I get started into the story: my last day of work was August 1, and my orientation for law school is was August 23. The time between is the timetable goal for the whole project.

Character analyses from The Dark Knight

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:46:08 -0500

When it came out, I spent a lot of time talking to coworkers and friends about The Dark Knight. We did an entire podcast on the film at About Heroes. But I've been really enjoying the character breakdowns written by Scipio at The Absorbascon. For example, from his most recent writeup, of the Joker:

And that includes his carefully crafted persona. Hanging his head out the car window like a crazy dog, "I just do whatever comes into my head," playing the unpredictable lunatic. Did he convince you? That was all part of his plan, too.

If you've talked out the film with the folks around you, and you'd like a new perspective on it and the moral dilemmas its characters face, check out the following:

Meet the new boss

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:48:54 -0500

It's me.

As of 4:00 PM today, I have left my employment with the Lexington Public Library.

I've got mixed feelings about this. I will really miss many of the people I worked with, and hope to see them again soon (plans are already in place for this). However, if I never have to set foot inside the Central Library again, that will be fine with me. It's amazing how much an abrasive working environment can really dampen everything else in your life.

There's a lot more I could say about both sides of this coin, but as of right now, I have no interest in looking back. Law school starts in 22 days, and that's where my attention is focused now. (That and on Transformers Animated and Universe, of course - my officemates got me a huge TRU gift card that's already burning a hole in my pocket.)

A Prime Collection update

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:49:07 -0500

It's been a while since I updated my Prime collection on Flickr; it's been since before Botcon, in fact. I've added eight to the collection since then, starting with:

Music Label Convoy, G1 Colored Version

I picked this one up at Botcon through an advertising deal with BigBadToyStore for About Heroes. It's yet another G1 Prime, but this one has a newly molded head, based on the 20th Anniversary model. The head itself rotates, too, which is nice. The accompanying iPod speaker trailer is now in Warren's room.

Animated Deluxe Optimus Prime

I found this guy in Cincinnati on Botcon Saturday, when some of us ditched the con for a while to go on a toy run. We actually found him (and others) when we went south, back into Northern Kentucky. I really enjoyed the text on the back of his box, claiming that one of his special features is that his axe transforms into a bigger, more different axe.

Cybertron Deluxe Optimus Prime

Not long after I did my write-up of Bendy Prime, Teresa of Puppylove posted images of the Cybertron version of the figure, which I'd passed on initially. Her photos sold me on it, and I tried to find it at Botcon, but didn't. A few weeks after the con, Teresa contacted me about it, saying she had a line on one if I was interested, and while I was, I just couldn't do it that soon after Botcon. But lo and behold, she got it for me anyway, because she's a wonderful person. She shipped it to me along with my order from her Etsy store (I got the kiddie Shockwave print for Warren's room). I think we may have encouraged each other a bit too much with this figure, because since then, she's gotten every main variant of it.

Animated Deluxe "The Battle Begins" Optimus Prime

I ordered this one from HasbroToyShop, and got him nearly a month after it showed up in every store in town. Good thing I used a coupon to make the wait worthwhile. The best thing about this figure? He's the only one of the myriad versions of Animated Prime that has a show-accurate axe.

Animated McDonalds Optimus Prime

Yup.

Animated Bumper Battlers Optimus Prime

Okay, this one is actually really cool, because this is the only Animated toy under $40 that includes a sound chip, and it actually uses David Kaye's voice.

Henkei C-01 (Japanese Classics) Convoy

Omar brought this one back from Japan for me. He's awesome, and so completely different from the American version. Really. I promise.

Animated Voyager Optimus Prime

This is, I think, my favorite Animated Prime; it's mainly because this figure feels significant, as opposed to the other Prime figures which feel so thin and slight. Any I love how his faceplate doesn't hide when you put it down, it just becomes his chin. It's very, very cool. This is another one that I ordered from HasbroToyShop, but ended up canceling that order and just getting him at Target because it was taking so long for HTS to ship him. And, I got to use the McDonalds happy meal $5 off coupon. Oh, you didn't know about that? On each happy meal bag is a coupon for $5 off $20 of TF Animated toys. I've eaten a lot of happy meals lately.

And that brings me up to date. I think I'm going to pass on the gigantor-class Animated Prime, so these will probably be the last additions to this particular collection for a while. Sure, that's it. Because I'm sure Hasbro won't release hundreds of repaints of each. They don't do things like that.

New Camera

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:40:49 -0500

For my birthday, I got my first digital SLR, a Nikon D40. I've not really had time to play with it much, but straight out of the box, it takes some gorgeous photos.

For the middle two weeks in August, I'll be home all day while Lori and the kids are at school, during which I hope to shoot every damn Transformer I own. Nala's not the only one who can play the Flickr inventory game.