Happy Halloween!
I get to help Mike hand out candy to all the employees' kids at work this year. I'm dressing up as a SOX compliance attorney, complete with witch's hat.
"I'll get you my pretty.....and your little audit too! EEEE-HEEEHEEHEE HEE!"
Now if I could just figure out a way to dress Sollie as my little flying evil monkey auditor.....and sneak him into the building.
Nah, he'd just chew up his briefcase.
And I don't mean the river itself, though Lord knows it prolly does after another summer of overuse. (Or so I guess, since I haven't been there since it became more like the sewer-like Seine than the free-flowing, beautifully clean river of my youth.) The latest controversy stems from the Park Service closing even more access roads....an accelerating practice over the last several years. The stated reason?
Park Service officials have said they closed roads to protect resources, prevent vandalism and poaching, and curtail illegal activities. They contend that each area is analyzed, case by case, and stress that many of the gates protect hayfields from vehicles.
Let me translate that into plain English for you. It's to keep out the locals. Because of course the million or so tourist who visit each year never do any of those things. Or if they do something like hang their bare ass over the side of their rented canoe & defecate into the water, it's largely overlooked because by cracky, them's paying customers.
Maybe I'm just being a hyper-realist again, but seems to me the primary resource the Park Service has been ever vigilant about protecting is their cash flow. Locals generally don't rent canoes, cabins or even camping sites. And those 'hayfields' they're so concerned about? Those are pretty interesting hayfields. As I remember it, one of the selling points for nationalizing the Buffalo River was that those hayfields would be allowed to 'return to nature'. Strangely, many of those same hayfields have instead been rented to the highest bidder. And not so strangely, that has tended to piss the locals off, especially those families who had those hayfields taken by eminent domain.
Funny how that happens.
So anyway, this latest round of road closures isn't sitting too well with those who live in the area. Some of them have gotten together and are fighting it, lead by Mr. Jerry Patterson, Esq. (Std. disclaimer, he's one of my many cousins) Now Jerry's gone a round or two with the Park Service over roads before, when they closed off his access to some property he owned. The 8th Circuit Ct. of Appeals smacked 'em down, and the access in question was reopened.
Jerry's circulating a petition opposing the closures, and has enlisted some of the local politicians in his fight. One, Congressman Marion Berry, is discovering what we've had to deal with for years: Park Service employee attitude.
Buffalo National River spokesmen Doug Wilson, Robert Still and Robert J. McGuire told Davenport that no new gates have gone up in Marion County since 1992.
They noted that many closed roads are in designated wilderness areas. Motorized traffic is forbidden in wilderness areas, they stressed, and only an act of Congress can open the roads.
Congressman Berry's response:
"That's what I do"
According to our local paper, the Marshall Mtn. Wave, Oct. 26, 2006 edition (no link available), Congressman Berry has issued a statement after investigating the closures, which says in part:
"My problem with the Park Service there is this. Number one, in my years in office, they have told me and state publicly that they don't care what the people of Searcy County and residents of the area surrounding the Buffalo River want, and that they would rather de-populate Searcy County so that they didn't have the locals to deal with, and that offends me to the soul."
It doesn't exactly please me either. Sure I'm not exactly a local these days, but I will be again someday....and besides, you can take the girl out of Searcy County, but you'll never take the Searcy County of the girl, even if she has seen Paree. I was a Buffalo River rat before being a Buffalo River rat was kewl. And I've seen what the Park Service's stewardship has done to the river, and how locals are slowly being squeezed out of the places their families have used since the first white people moved into the area and before.
And I say that the Park Service has done more damage to the Buffalo River than generations of us local yokels ever did. It's high time they were reminded for whom they work. Taxpayers, not tourists.
My opinion, for what it's worth.
I freaking hate Lowe's. We were doing some home improvement projects over the weekend and needed several various & sundry items....one of which was a 4x4 sheet of plywood. Which of course won't fit in Mike's car unless it's cut to a more manageable size. We trek back to the cutting place and discover their cutting machine is Out of Order. There's no employees in sight to help us and we can't find anyone. But we had to have it so Mike eventually had to cut it with his trusty box knife to get it to fit into the car.
Minor annoyance yes, but it gets worse. We also need a battery-powered nail gun. These are apparently such a valuable commodity that they're kept locked up. So after searching 30 minutes to even find any on display, we then have to find an employee to get one for us. The only employee in the area is trying to re-assemble a door knob, and ignores us. Mike finally gets a passing 'Product Manager' to put down his cell phone long enough to get us a freaking nail gun. Meanwhile I entertain myself by watching Mr. I Can't Put a Door Knob Together....until I started wanting to take it away from him, spend 5 seconds putting it together, and shove the assembled door knob up his, well you get the picture.
We finally find everything on our list except wood stain. Which you would think would be in one of the paint aisles, but you'd be wrong. It's not even in the Painting Accessories aisle. By the wood and cabinetry? No. But there were 2 employees there productively discussing their weekend, so Mike asks one of them, telling him that we've looked everywhere and can't find wood stain.
The employee, who obviously thinks we're retarded, dismissively tells Mike that there's 'all kinds of wood stain' in the Paint section. Thanks, asshole, but ah, no, there's not.
We go back to the Paint section, Mike actually finds a live employee there and they set off to find the wood stain. I stay with our 2 cartsload of stuff. Mr. Asshole finds me. He's called someone, and tracked us down to tell us the stain is on Aisle 6.
Of course! How stupid of us! The wood stain is on Aisle 6, which is prominately marked "ELECTRICAL".
At this point, I want to find the store manager, point to our approximately $350 worth of stuff and explain to him in excruciating detail why we're not buying it because his store's customer service sux ass and the store itself appears to have been designed by a blindfolded autistic crackhead who was given a crayon and a big sheet of butcher paper and who also was apparently given items at random to place around the building.
But that would entail searching for hours to actually find the manager and it's faster to just go check out. Which is what we do after I find Mike trying to decide which stain to buy and I tell him I don't give a shit I just want to leave. Now.
Because I have had enough.
Which of course resulted in us getting the incorrect stain, and Mike had to go back later. We decided it's better if I stayed home.
I don't know if I'll ever go back.
I'm in another all-day CLE tomorrow....or as I like to call it, 7 Hrs. of My Life I'll Never Get Back.
Employment, Construction, & Real Estate law presentations.
Bleh.
--"Oh shit!" indeed.
--Your dog wants chicken lips.
"I never knew that," Pavano said. "I never even looked at the labels. I think that is kind of gross. Actually, I can't believe they let dogs eat that stuff."
Hope no one ever tells him what's in a SlimJim.
--And on a local note, a good friend of mine just got her first murder conviction. You go, girl!
No, she wasn't the defendant, she's a prosecutor. Sheesh.
I said friend, not relative.
My son said if the employers with whom I've been interviewing were cool, I'd get rejection letters like this:
D3a4 41ta,
u s0x0rz lawl! u liek a4 teh b1g3$t n3wb.
gg
The truly sad thing is that I can read that.
--It's currently 34F. So much for the Big Freeze We're All Going To Die.
--Pea Ridge Mule Jump starts Saturday at 8 a.m. Great time for the entire family.
--As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. Umm, they can....wild ones anyway. Duh.
--It's Friday the 13th. So don't walk under any black ladders....or something like that.
Oh noes, it's sleeting in Fayetteville!
Big deal, it was sleeting here this morning around 6 a.m. There's also a freeze warning for tonight....and the way the media is treating it, you'd think the low temp is going to be -40 instead of just barely below freezing.
I wonder if there'll be a stampede to the store to buy milk & bread anyway.
Unclear whether this is an accident or not. Witnesses are saying that a small aircraft hit a high-rise on East 72nd St., NYC.
More as details become available.
FoxNews Live saying 2 people dead, people trapped in burning building but firefighters are inside. FAA confirms it was a fixed wing aircraft. Still unknown whether terrorists are responsible, but 'no reason to believe it is terrorism'.
UPDATE: Multiple eyewitnesses say they saw the plane doing some type of acrobatics over the East River, then it leveled out & flew into the building.
Some 'expert' is speculating that the plane stalled because it was flying too slowly. Or something.
FDNY has now upgraded it to a 4 alarm fire, though the main part of the fire has been extinguished.
UPDATE: NORAD has scrambled jets to fly over 'major US cities', even though 'all initial indications are this is just a terrible accident'.
UPDATE: FWIW, FoxNews is now reporting that the plane may have been registered to one of the Yankees' pitchers. Or that's the rumor anyway.
Bizarre.
The AP is now reportedly confirming that the planes was registered to a NY Yankees' pitcher, Corey Lidle. He was piloting the plane, and died on impact.
FoxNews is also saying there's now 4 deaths being reported.
See how you'd answer these questions.
I was recently asked which bar exam I thought was easiest, Oklahoma's or Arkansas'. Maybe it was just because I'd taken Arkansas' first, but Oklahoma's seemed easier and more straightforward.
Though honestly, the fact patterns on the Arkansas bar exam were much more like what I've encountered in practice....entangled convoluted situations which the participants made worse and which were most always best answered by that lawyer's stock phrase:
It depends.
--Much speculation over whether the Norks actually set off a nuke or not. At any rate, now they're threatening to fire a nuclear missile if the US doesn't....do something or other. You know, one of our neighbors has a dog like that. It's always yip, yip, yipping at every little sound....as long as it's safe behind the fence.
--Speaking of duds, had a visit with a rheumatologist this morning. I've concluded she's A) a waste of my time; B) a waste of our insurer's money; and C) a waste of oxygen....like 99.9% of the rheumatologists I've seen in the last 20 yrs. I mean seriously. Would you tell a patient that their knee DJD was caused by tight hamstrings?
--And speaking of dogs, I'm trying an oil supplement that's supposed to keep the dogs from shedding so much. Sassy was like, oh you want me to eat that well it smells kinda funny but ok. Sollie of course was highly suspicious that it was not something pugs like best. Me, I just hope it doesn't cause them 'digestive difficulties'.
Shedding is much easier to clean up.
So the Norks reportedly set off an underground nuke earlier today, to which most everyone responded with a stern talking-to.
Nork's response: DIAFF.
Wow, that was effective. Let's impose some more sanctions, since those worked so well. [/s] Of course, it's all our fault. All the bad stuff always is.
If indeed there was a second nuclear explosion, perhaps we should consider a slightly different approach. Something like, dude you call that a nuke? Now this, this is a nuke.
DIAFF indeed.
Life has intruded, sorry. (btw Mike's doing very well, thanks) But I'm job hunting in earnest, and between looking, preparing and interviewing on top of everything else, I've not had much free time. And there's also the factor of I feel I should be careful about subject matter since I don't know for whom I'll be working yet.
Had a fun interview this morning, fun both because the job sounds much more interesting than I originally thought, and because it was fun to talk with a couple of nice, professional attorneys for a change.
Speaking of which, I've been wondering if this isn't why I don't get as many interview calls as I would think......I'm competing against inflated resumes. If so, that's just too bad. I'm not lying or exaggerating to make myself sound better.
That may be the easy way, but it isn't the cowboy way.
--Oh noes! Someone set us up the.....bowling ball?
--Funny, the dog ate ours too.
--We hate him too. I dunno which is more annoying, the way he chokes out his lines like a constipated Chihuahua or how he always has to stand in profile and therefore never looks at anyone while he's talking. He actually smiled at the end of the last episode, which Mike said caused the ground to open up & swallow Homestead into a bottomless black pit. I replied that fortunately Chuck Norris was there to pull it back out.
It's my birthday too.
The funniest thing that's happened so far is my parents got into a big argument over exactly which day is my birthday. My mom was wrong.
You'd think of all people she'd be the one to remember that.