Long time since an update
| Time for a marathon >>> |
August 30, 2009:
Wow, it's been an entire summer since a blog update. Here's a brief summary of what has been happening in the world of Carey, and I'll try to do at least weekly updates from now on (of course I've said THAT before).
Work:
- I was captain of a 100-day county-wide fitness challenge team at work. Our team of 10 people was in the top 25% for weight-loss (out of hundreds of teams), and we just barely missed top 25% for exercise minutes. We did not win the grand prize drawing, but we did have the most successful team in our office and got a mention in our office newsletter.
- Nearly the entire summer was spent working on a 450+ page response to the DOJ's June 4, 2009 findings. You can read the "findings" here, and our response here. Since it's for work I can't really expand any more on what has been made available to the public. But you can correctly assume that, on a personal level, I agree with everything in our response. But you can also assume that I'm biased in that respect.
School:
- I took two classes (7 hours) over the summer: Torts and Statutory Interpretation. I did not do as well as I had hoped in either class, but only by a little. I enjoyed Statutory Interpretation a lot.
- I just started 4 fall classes at UH Law, taking 10 hours total: Anti-Corruption Law, Family Law, Professional Responsibility, and Digital Transactions. I had originally planned to take International Commercial Arbitration, but Anti-Corruption Law just sounded a lot more... fun. There are a couple of the classes that I already don't like, but I won't say which ones because this is being posted publicly and my professors might see it. I've started to take the view on school that "the bottom of the class is still a lawyer," so my two primary goals are 1) doing the best I can and 2) finishing school as fast and cheaply as possible.
Road Trips:
- The first road trip I took this summer was with Pam over to Del Rio, then down to Laredo, then back. You can see the fun photos here. Generally, the trip is more or less explained in the captions to the photos. Pam went on this trip with me to give "my way" of road trips a try, but she didn't like it much. She would much rather go on a road trip like this, but with a final destination in mind. I think of a road trip as the actual "destination," in that, it's what you want to do on your vacation.
- The second road trip I took was with my friends Erick and Austin. We did a county-counting trip in Northern Louisiana. Just like with the last road trip, the photo album pretty much says it all.
Miscellaneous:
- This year my "summer of Carey" (being a pseudo-bachelor while Pam is in New York) was not quite as thrilling as it was in previous years. I guess the longer you're with someone, the quicker you miss them when they're away. In any case, I overdid it and I probably won't be having any cigarettes for quite a long time.
- We bought a new car and traded our 1992 Dodge Grand Caravan in for Cash for Clunkers. After test driving the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Mazda Mazda5, Hyundai Santa Fe, and the Mitsubishi Outlander (most of them twice), we decided on getting the Hyundai. While it has the worst gas mileage of the bunch (which was one of the things we were looking for), it had the most standard amenities. Since we're going to be using the vehicle as a "backup" vehicle and for road trips only, I don't expect it will get so much use that reliability will be that big of an issue. After the first fill up, however, I felt a little bit of buyer's remorse, but I love the USB port for the audio system so much that it makes up for it (none of the other models had that). We bought it for a walk-away price of $19,000 with the rebates and discounts (MSRP of $24,100).
- Right now there is a torn-up, non-working, Street Fighter II console that Austin bought sitting in my garage. We drove all over town (about 170 miles worth) trying to get it from point A to point B. The sucker was larger than we thought, and it didn't fit in my Santa Fe or Austin's apartment. He's not torn it up, so when he moves into a new apartment this month, we should be able to transport it and get it through his front door easily enough.
- Pam and I started doing the Grocery Game again. They basically take all the guesswork out of when to use coupons and stockpile because of good deals. If you decide to sign up, be sure to use me ( cj @ this domain ) as a reference, because I get free months for every three people I refer. So far this month we've bought about $600 worth of groceries for $270. Now that our stockpile is growing (we have tons of cheese, cereal, and granola bars), we'll have to buy less and less every week. Everything we buy is at least 50% off, we're just buying it before we need it to save money, because that's when the deal is.
- Played a game of in-person Diplomacy with some of my friends, ended up in a four-way tie between the England/France (David/Austin) and Turkey/Austria (me/Daniel) superpowers. We're now playing a game on playdiplomacy.com, but the turns are going rather slowly. It will probably be 3-4 more weeks before that game is done.
- Threw a surprise party for Pam when she got back from New York. She was pleasantly surprised. See photos here.
- Went on another Super Neighborhood Bike Ride with David.
That's all the big stuff. I'll try to be better with updating in the future.
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Entries from 2009 (click to view)
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Entries from 2006 (click to view)
Entries from 2005 (click to view)
Entries from 2004 (click to view)
