A Good Excuse for the Times I am Accused of Not Listening

I will leave Kelsey the honor of describing all of the fun parts of the weekend. I've been up since 4:40AM and can't really remember anything other than the endless amusement park from hell that today has been.

Remember when I said that after medical processing I would either be in JAG for sure or learn something new about myself? Well play that PBS "The More You Know" theme because I am just chock full of new knowledge. First thing's first- I am extraordinarily healthy. My blood pressure is rock solid and I can go silly-looking calisthenic exercises in my underwear all day long and I have astoundingly good bladder control.  If anything, I thought that some moles on my back might give me problems, but NOPE- not one question about them. In fact, of all of the invasive and embarrassing procedures that I had the pleasure of waiting in line for Disney-style over a seven hour period, the only one that gave me any trouble was the least embarrassing and least intrusive of them all: the hearing test.

I was shocked, given that I have been successfully hearing things for my entire life and I have never had an issue with... not being able to hear something. Apparently, this is because my left ear is SUPER-OVERPOWERED and can hear gnats breathing in a meadow a hundred miles away, while my right ear has tricked me into thinking it works by processing basic information and then letting my left ear fill in the gaps. To be sure that this was truly the case, I went for a $100 ear-flushing (which was almost comically unpleasant) and took the test again. Same results.

Now, this does not mean I am out of the running for being in JAG, but it does serve as a reminder that there are still many things left that might end my journey early. This is potentially one of them. The doctor at medical processing recommended me for a hearing waiver, which he said he thought I should have because being a lawyer does not require the best of hearing (so long as you can hear what the judge is saying, which I can because, as earlier mentioned, I have never been aware of a hearing problem before today). We'll see how that goes. My JAG liaisons think that everything will be fine, but they don't get the deciding vote.  I will keep the blog updated. If I can't be a JAG, that will be really unfortunate, but it'll be better to learn early so that I can start looking for prosecutor/public defender jobs somewhere.

In other news, I also found out that the paper I wrote for my death penalty seminar has been accepted for publication in a law journal. I am still waiting to hear back from other potential journals, so I won't say where it is being published yet, but it will be published somewhere. If that was a karmic tradeoff for my disqualifying hearing condition, then I would say it was a Pyrrhic victory. Then again, I don't believe in karma.

How I Write My Blog Nowadays

Step 1: Check date of last blog post.

Step 2: Feign incredulity that the last time I wrote was so long ago.

Step 3: Check phone for pictures I have taken since the date of the last blog post.

Step 4: Try to remember why I took those pictures and what I have been doing the past two weeks.

July 4th was an excellent holiday, as always. I had somewhat of a long weekend (Kelsey did not, she had to work Friday and Saturday) since I had Thursday off. I did go into the office on Friday, but halfway through the day the assistant to the Special Counsel came in and asked me (and the one other intern who was there) why we were there. So I left. Kelsey and I mainly watched Game of Thrones and shopped at Costco. On Sunday, Kelsey threw a Wimbledon party and we ate cucumber sandwiches and scones and strawberries and cream. After that we went to get lunch with Brian and Kay during their stopover at Union Station (we didn't eat- too much hand-whipped cream. As a side-note, whipping cream by hand with only one whipping-thingy is time consuming. I'm sure everyone else already knew that.). After lunch, we went to a surprise party that Josh put together for Steph W. It had to be a surprise because if Steph had known it was a party she would have brought all the food and drinks regardless of us telling her not to. Hence the party's theme: a "Niceness Intervention." I'm not sure it worked.

This weekend Kelsey and I will be going down to North Carolina for Tyler and Bitsy's wedding. As luck would have it, my medical exam for the Navy was scheduled for Monday near Richmond, so I got Kelsey a bus ticket back (a nice bus, with wi-fi) and she is letting me borrow her car to drive from NC to Fort Lee, which is considerably closer to NC than it is to DC. The Navy has gotten me a hotel room, which is nice, and told me to be up at 5:30AM the next morning to be prodded all day, which is... less nice, but understandable. So, on Monday I will either know that I am medically qualified to be a Navy JAG or I will learn about a disease or disorder that was otherwise unknown to me that disqualifies me. Good information to have, either way. 

Now, onto the lone picture that I found on my phone:

I suppose I took this on my way home from work last week because they were demolishing a building and I thought it looked cool. Thank goodness I got a picture of this instead of, you know, all of the actually interesting things I did over the past 11 days. I would have stolen Kelsey's pictures, as usual, but her phone lost them when she loaded music onto it. 

Brief Stop in Annapolis

The DC summer is finally here. Gone are the predictable nice days with clear skies and highs in the 80's, and we have given a warm welcome to the insane and manic days of much intermittent storming and soup-like humidity. As I have functionally lived in a swamp since starting at William and Mary, this is not new to me and I have come to enjoy the extremes that may pop up on any given day. This past Thursday, for example, I experienced the loudest thunderclap of my life, followed by three minutes of torrential downpour, followed by sunshine, followed by a light drizzle.

I am relatively immune to the weather at my internship since I work in a room with no windows. My investigations are still a constant source of entertainment. This past week I found someone who I thought would be my first legitimate whistleblower case to refer to the official investigation division. I spoke on the phone with the complainant for an hour, verifying all of the information that he said he had and would send to me, before writing up my first case referral memo. The next day he sent me all of the promised documentation, and as it turned out it all evidenced information that was the exact opposite of what he had told me on the phone. I understand complainants misconstruing things to put themselves in a more favorable light, but when someone literally tells me that they have a document stating "A" and then they send me a document that says "B," I am just downright confused. I mean, I appreciate his help in closing his own case, I suppose.... Much of internship this week was taken up sitting on Scotusblog and waiting for the final opinions of the year to come down. I correctly predicted the dispositions of three of the big four cases (I did not see Fisher, the affirmative action case, being remanded- though I think the end result will still end up being what I had predicted).

For a date night Kels and I decided to get out of town and go see a musical in Annapolis, which is only about 40 minutes away from DC. We got free tickets to see [Title of Show] (that's the name of a musical, not a placeholder), and drove in on Thursday night. We were afraid that we might be a few minutes late due to an inability to find parking, so Kelsey called the theater and was told that an actor had just fallen and broken his leg so the show was canceled so... problem solved. They told us to come by anyway, and were very apologetic and nice and gave us free tickets to any of their shows in the future. They also gave us a tour of the theater and recommendations for dinner.

Downtown Annapolis reminded us of Williamsburg, with its very narrow streets and multitude of touristy businesses. 

On Friday I got foodtruck lunch with Jake and Alex and then I went out after work to celebrate with my friend Kacey (aka Kiki) due to her graduation from police academy. My smallest (yet fiercest) friend from college now carries a gun around DC and has the power to arrest people. I feel safer already. I was told that I could not bring her donuts on the job as that would be "frowned upon." 

Saturday we went to see "The Heat" with Emily Goo. Goo did not know that this movie was set in Boston, but when she realized that, it became her favorite movie ever. Kelsey and I thought it was very funny, too. Afterwards we met Jeff and Sara in Chinatown for some tapas. 

Today was another day of stormy-sunniness. Davia's birthday was this week, and since birthday brunches are the trend (I don't think I started that, as much as I would like to take credit) we had her birthday brunch today at Founding Farmer's!

Obligatory group photo.

After brunch, Kelsey and I walked around for the city a bit and went into one of the few remaining Smithsonians that we have not yet visited- the Renwick. This one had exhibits of American craftsmanship and was very well curated- we were captivated by a video showing all of the different ways wood can be joined together in furniture-making. 

I am an excellent alarm clock

I spent the first couple of weeks at internship reasonably underwhelmed with the work. All of the attorneys wanted me to help them with things, but I had to work with them very closely in order to do that. Sometimes I couldn't find anyone, so I just worked on revising a death seminar paper that I'm going to send out for fun (for publishing) in a month or so. This week, though, it appears that all of my demonstrations of semi-competence paid off as my bosses decided just to throw cases at me and let me go for it. My biggest accomplishment so far involved telling a woman that we were going to close her case and having her thank me for helping her. Thanks, negotiations class!

Also, while walking home from work on Friday I saw this truck, and thought it had a great slogan.

Geeks never have imaginary friends, because the geeks themselves were imaginary to begin with.

This weekend we got to leave the city behind and head to Woodberry (for the first time in over a year) to go to Zibby's wedding. When talking abstractly about her wedding back in 2004 (before she even knew who she was going to marry), Zibby asked me if I would jump out of a cake playing bagpipes at her bachelorette party. While that specific plan did not work out due to jobs, logistics, and the absence of a big enough cake, I was able to do something that I felt was a reasonable substitute. 

On the morning of Zibby's wedding, at 8AM, her family secreted me into their house with my kilt and my pipes. We quietly went up the stairs and I stood directly outside her bedroom door. I filled up the pipes with air as silently as possible, and then, when her parents gave the signal, I started blasting Scotland the Brave. Now she'll never forget exactly when and how she woke up on the day of her wedding. 

We've matured so much in the past ten years, right?

The wedding itself was wonderful. It was held in Woodberry's chapel and presided over by Woodberry's headmaster. Hornady, who very kindly let me and Kelsey stay with him on Friday night, played the organ. I spent the night talking to many teachers and colleagues from my days as both a student and a teacher at Woodberry, and I was glad to have the opportunity to introduce them all to Kelsey as well. Highlights of the night included a bet between teachers as to who could steal Dr. Campbell's (very stylish) hat, nerding out over the Supreme Court with my former American History teacher, and dancing with Kelsey and Rachael Fine. The best part, though, was seeing my Zibster so happy with her now-husband Ryan, whom I have liked ever since I met four or so years ago. They make a great pair and hopefully I will get to see them more often in the coming years.

Congratulations, Zib!

Costco and Hirshhorn

I had another good week at work. So far I've only gotten to talk to people who have been happy to talk to me, though, and my experiences may change once I've been authorized to speak with more... hostile parties. 

It is a well known fact that at least once during exams I decide that I am incredibly interested in some completely irrational hobby (the more disconnected from the exam I SHOULD be studying for, the better). This past exam period, I decided that I was going to get a dehydrator and make my own beef jerky and dried fruits. This past weekend I was able to go to Costco to fetch some supplies to finally make use of my exam-induced purchase, for which I have been mercilessly mocked since exams ended.

Kelsey recruited Justine and Patrick to help keep me subdued in Costco. A monumental task, certainly.

I purchased four bunches of bananas and three pounds of lean meat specifically for dehydrating. I also attempted to get Jeff and Noah interested in a giant freezer chest via text-message, but that was unsuccessful. 

I also just bought a lot of food, as per usual.

The first batch of dehydrated things were very difficult to make and not altogether that good. I under-dried the bananas (though Kelsey swears she loved them) and over-dried the jerky (though it was a lot of fun to have something to chew for an hour at work). Normally, such initial failures would stop me from second attempts, but in this case my desire for cheap beef jerky has won out and I have another batch that is going in the dehydrator shortly after this post is published. 

This weekend, Kelsey took me to see a production of The Full Monty. It was also National Donut Day, so we went to Krispy Kreme for our free donuts.

The picture of mine is on Kelsey's blog. She won't share pictures with me anymore because I end up using all of hers and don't leave any unique pictures for her to use on her own blog.

The musical was very funny and had excellent production values. The theater is doing A Few Good Men in August and I'd like to go back and see that.

On Saturday, we met up with David and Shannon at our old crepe place from when we lived in Foggy Bottom last summer. Afterwards we went to the Hirshhorn. Even though I don't care for a majority of modern art, I love going to a museum where I have literally no idea what I'm going to see. Television static with tape over it, tubes dangling from the ceiling in a maze formation, a floor made of beeswax, snails eating cabbage (to symbolize the deterioration of the brain), a pitch-black walk-in room in which a hologram of a tiger occasionally bursts out and growls, etc.... There's always something new. And bizarre. 

Saturday's exhibit was relatively tame.

Except for a giant demonic Easter Bunny sculpture/statute/mixed media thing. That was terrifying. Or cute. I can't decide.

Today I played racquetball (with Noah) for the first time in a year and a half. Now that's a fun cardio workout. 

Special Counseling

This week marked the start of my summer internship at the Office of Special Counsel. There are many "special counsels" set up within the government, but this one is the most special. We investigate complaints about prohibited personnel practices within the executive branch of the government. 

That doesn't sound exciting. 

I'll try again. We investigate complaints from whistleblowers who reported fraud/abuse/illegality within their chain of command and were then punished or fired for that report. 

This is my desk. I have a desk and my own computer. And a badge. Very important to have a badge.

I enjoy the work so far. I'm working on real cases and I have a fun fellow intern and a very nice boss who has been giving me more responsibility and authority every day. After work I can take the bus halfway back home and work out at the gym (which I have not done all year but which I now am doing as part of a work-out-to-avoid-future-embarrassment routine).

In other news, Rupert and Harper have been having regular visits and aren't trying to kill each other anymore. They aren't quite friends yet, but they are certainly in a cold-war stage.

The Weekend of Exceptional Life Lessons

This past week has been very eventful. I will leave the MOST eventful stuff to Kelsey, though, as she has already summed up its events in this blogpost.

The day after my final exam was turned in I went on a walkabout. That is, I went outside (where I had not been in a while) and just walked about wherever I wanted to go. Everyone else was at work/school so I took a bus over to the Mall and started at the outdoor sculpture garden.

Contemplating modern art is always much more palatable when you can compare it to taking exams.

My main goal, though, was to get to the Air and Space Museum's new exhibit on time and navigation. Why? Because learning how clocks work is just about the most exciting thing in the world, especially after exams. 

And because I always love walking past the Apollo 11 Command Module right after the entrance.

The time and navigation exhibit was amazing. Whoever put it together really thought carefully about the progression of the exhibit and what sorts of multimedia should be present. It started with a brief explanation of ocean navigation before the 1500's and the very real dangers of just plain getting lost and having no idea how to get back home. You wouldn't think "accurate timekeeping" would be the answer to a navigation question, but it is, and this was presented fantastically well with an interactive game involving plotting a ship's location using a sextant a clock. 

You had to align the sextant with a certain star on the back wall and then the game showed you a PDF of an old star-chart where you could see the longitude given by the angle cross-referenced with the current time.

The exhibit also had a reasonably well-acted pictures in frames talking to each other (featuring an Apollo-era astronaut, a WWII-era pilot, a justifiably confused 1800's-era ship captain, a modern-day military navigator, and a very confused modern-day person who just stumbled into the center frame) in order to explain, again, the basics of how time is integral to navigation. There were examples of clocks from the very earliest pendulum designs all the way up to a cesium atomic clock, and with each new clock there was some sort of explanation about the increased navigational accuracy that the clock's invention allowed. 

I'm making clocks sound like fun, right? Right? 

I liked it so much that I forced Kelsey to come see it in the middle of one of our runs on Sunday. That was before her car got broken into. Speaking of which, we have a video of the guy who broke into Kelsey's car walking away with her purse. This is courtesy of the very nice nerdy couple with excellent surveillance technology.

Kelsey was moments away from screaming "enhance!" while living out her CSI dreams in this couple's apartment.