24

I used to love the show "24" starring Kiefer Sutherland.  The premise of the show was that each season was one 24-hour period in the life of anti-terrorist agent Jack Bauer (Sutherland).  Each episode showed one hour in this day and through various cliffhangers and improbably (if not impossible) plot twists, his day just seemed to get worse and worse until--by the end of the day--truth and justice had prevailed.

24 hours ago, I was hating it.  I had two briefs to draft and file by today, I felt like I was coming down with some sort of cold (most likely) due to stress and lack of sleep, and I really wasn't sure how I was going to get everything done.  Labor Day weekend?  Was I really even going to make it that far?

Newport Harbor...the view from our table at lunch...

Fast forward 24 hours (minus the plot twists and turns) and things seem to be falling into place.

• I caught a flash of inspiration on one of my briefs.  The client loved my idea and I saved us all several hours (at least) of tedious work.
• I found just the research that I needed on the other brief and sent it off for the client's comments. He/she loved it too.  Not too shabby since I had been told that we had no chance in Hades of winning on this on, but somehow, I felt like I was able to craft a winning argument.
• The court ruled in my favor on a third brief that I had filed last week.  I was going to have to drive down to San Diego to argue this one this morning, but the other side agreed to accept the judge's ruling which requires them to pay my client over $3,000.00.  Not a lot of money, I know, but it's better than a kick in the pants.  And it's always nice to win.  ;-)
• I got a good decent night's rest.  (A rarity for those who know me.)
• Both briefs got filed this morning.  On time.
• My sore throat disappeared after I took my mom's advice to gargle salt water.  (#motherknowsbest)  (There might have been a Jamba involved in there too somewhere...)
• My boss took me to lunch at his favorite restaurant in Newport Beach.  The above picture shows my lunchtime view.
• At lunch, we laughed hard and out loud about "Triple Threat" associates.  We also laughed about "Bad Form."  They are a couple of inside jokes that I think will make me laugh for a long time.  (If you see me sometime, ask me about it...)  Laughter really can be great medicine.
• I got an invite from a friend on FB to play some game called Dragon Crush(?).  (Just kidding about that last one...even though it really did happen!)
• And finally, I got back to my desk after lunch, only to get a call from one of our legal vendors apologizing that they had overbilled me personally for some services and would be refunding me the difference--nearly $200!  Yay!

Yes, things are not perfect.  For example, Summer is almost over (where did it go?) and in college football, Utah State lost last night to the Utes....  Tomorrow or the next day or next week, I will undoubtedly have more challenges and struggles.  But what's important is not that we have trials and challenges, but rather how we respond to them.

Happy Labor Day!

Blackout!

This is my view right now as I sit on my porch overlooking the ocean. The lights went out a few minutes ago. My town has probably never been this dark. An orange moon stands vigil over incoming fog while a few street lights below blink red.

It's cool out tonight and for that I am thankful. Especially after enduring the heat of Arizona and parts of Utah as I traveled last week. 

I managed a run tonight. Nothing spectacular, just my regular "Walmart 10k" course. Sometimes routine is good. 

There must be a parliament of owls living near my house, because I saw two if them during my run. 

I'm lucky I saw them because they looked like white shadows gliding gracefully and silently through the night. I only noticed them because they were so much lighter than the dark shadows surrounding them.  Right now, in this darkness and without any streetlights, I'm sure that I would never have seen or heard them. 

Bambi and Thumper

There is a lot of wildlife in our area, even though I feel like we are solidly in the suburbs. The other night, I turned a corner and almost hit a deer that was standing in the middle of the road!

It's funny because twenty years ago, while I was on my mission I'm the Dominican Republic, I don't remember a single day where the power didn't go out at least once--often for hours at a time. It was a part of life I'm the D.R.  Now, the power goes out and I barely know what to do with myself. 

It's nearly midnight. I guess maybe ill just go to bed...

Typical Tuesday

My Tie Yesterday

One of the things about my job is that my schedule is not always my own.  It can change at the drop of the hat and is subject to the whims of clients, colleagues, judges, partners, and family demands.  I often wonder how I can anything done given the myriad of different things I find myself doing on any given day.  Yesterday was an example.

I got to work and began working on an emergency motion that had to be filed before noon in federal court. As I crafted my strategy for the document and began drafting it, it dawned on me that everyone had overlooked a key weakness in the opposing party's position.  The defect meant that we did not even have to file any document with the Court.  I called my co-counsel to explain my strategy and then we called the judge's clerk.  The clerk agreed with us and confirmed that we did not have to file anything.  I just saved my client and the Court a bunch of time.  Case closed and chalk one up for the good guys!

Then I turned my attention to my two other federal court filings that I had to complete before noon.

At noon, it was time to start preparing for my 2 p.m. hearing on a motion I had drafted.  I sent the Court's tentative ruling on my motion to my client and conferred briefly with my co-counsel up in Los Angeles County.

A little after 1 p.m., I headed over to the courthouse for my hearing.  I had about 10 minutes extra, so I decided to swing by the County Recorder's Office to get a copy of my son's birth certificate.  When I walked into the Recorder's Office, they told me it would take 15 minutes to get the birth certificate.  I told them I had to be in court in 10.  Luckily, it only took 5.

Not necessarily a model of efficiency...

I think I can type a lot faster than the average person who uses the self-service computers in there.  It also helped that I paid cash for the birth certificate ($23).  I can only imagine how much time it would have taken to get a check processed (write the check out...show ID...etc. etc.) or for them to run my credit card (do they even take AMEX--you know, for the miles!).  You know how painfully slow government bureaucrats can be!

Then it was off to court.  I got a couple of funny looks from the homeless people lining the Civic Center Plaza as I stretched my legs by sprinting back to courthouse--files (and birth certificate) in hand.  I did notice that those homeless people might not have had much other than their shopping carts and their bags of aluminum cans (that they turn in for recycling), but they all seemed to have matching blue tarps to protect those shopping carts from the rain we'd had the night before.  Funny how new and uniform the blue tarps looked, but I'm sure they worked great.  I wonder if my tax dollars paid for those tarps?

As I walked through the metal detectors into the courthouse, one of the sherriff's deputies complimented me on my tie (see above).  He asked me where I got it.  I'm not really noted for my fashion sense, so I have to enjoy these moments when they happen.  (The tie was made by "Chaps" in case you're wondering and I have no idea where I got it or who I got it from.  I'm assuming I didn't pick it out for myself if I was getting a compliment on it!).  I took that as a good omen.

Not my judge, but you get the idea...

It took over an hour before the judge called our case from his busy docket.  I always enjoy hearing the other cases and it gives me a chance to gauge the judge's mood and thought process before I have to argue.  In this case, there was a fascinating back-and-forth involving a woman who tripped and fell over a hidden stump in a planter box at a local Costco.  Whatever you may think about frivolous lawsuits and whether or not someone should be able to file a lawsuit if they hurt themselves because they leave the sidewalk and hurt themselves while taking a detour through a landscaped planter box, the exchange was fascinating.  The judge was 100% right on the law.  The attorney not so much...

 The judge didn't comment on my tie, but did grant my motion.  I wish I could say that it was because of my brilliant oratorical skills--but it wasn't.  Since the judge had agreed with my written logic, I knew enough not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  I think the only words I might have uttered were: "Thank you, Your Honor" when he granted my motion.  He was obviously a very wise and astute judge!  ;-)  I'm glad I won because my clients had surprised me by showing up to court.  I walked my clients out and headed back to the office.  It was now after 3 p.m.

Pho Bac...It's way better than it looks!  :-)

I actually stopped to get some lunch and then got back in the office--almost in time to leave for my son's Little League baseball game.  The game was at 5 p.m., but he only has two games left in the season so I felt like I needed to be there.  Don't worry, I made good use of the 30 minute drive time to the game by calling co-counsel on one of my matters to do some strategic planning.

At about 5:45, I left S.'s baseball game to go to R.'s baseball game.  The only problem was that R.'s baseball game was 20 minutes in the opposite direction.  I managed to pass the time by making some phone calls about the Scout activity that we had planned for that night.

Remember my prior posts about Little League baseball?  Well, I'm not sad to say that the season is almost over for both of my Little Leaguers.  But R. got on base and scored a run in the 6th inning of his game last night when his team came from behind to go up by two runs 6-4.  They ended up winning!  Yay!  R. was on cloud nine!

This type of play happens all too often in Little League...

The game didn't finish until 8:30ish (making 3+ hours of Little League in one night), which meant that we missed R.'s Scout meeting.  He was supposed to get interviewed for a rank advancement to Tenderfoot.  Looks like that will have to happen another time.  By the time we got home, it was after 9 p.m. and I had been through another 12+ hour day.

I put the kids down and then was faced with a quandry...do I crack open the laptop to do some more "homework" or do I go for a run.  The question became academic when I crashed and collapsed into bed.  I think it's the first time I've gone to sleep before midnight in a long time.  I have no idea why I was so exhausted...it was all just pretty much a typical Tuesday.  Can't wait to do it again?  :-/