Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Supreme Court and Fun and Games

The day started way too early. Technically, breakfast was at 7 a.m. The first true event, however, was at 8 a.m., so I showed up at 7:50, scarfed down some grub, and made myself comfy in the large ballroom between Bax and my new friend D80, who is my Taiwanese twinsie who shares my penchant for taking photos of everything.

Our first lecture was on ethics for attorneys. Stop laughing. I'm serious here. Not a bad presentation. We had these little buzzer thingies that made the exercise interactive. I felt like I was part of a live audience for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Then it was time for constitutional law superstar Erwin Chemerinsky. No exaggeration here. This man is beyond incredible. Anyone who has taken BarBri in California has an inkling of how awesome this man is. And now he is the founding dean of the brand new University of California, Irvine School of Law.

Being the Chemerinsky groupie that I am, I snapped a couple photos. Yes, I pulled out my camera in the middle of class and clicked away. Shameless.
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I actually took rather copious notes, thinking I would touch upon the cases discussed, but now I've decided most of you would be bored to tears with federal preemption and punitive damages issues.

I will say this, though. If you haven't already realized, the upcoming presidential election will determine whether the Supreme Court becomes significantly more conservative or remains ideologically the same (i.e., McCain would appoint conservatives to replace retired or dead liberal justices, or Obama would appoint liberals to replace retired or dead liberal justices).

Some of you non-lawyers may not know just how much of an impact the election will have on the Supreme Court and the law of the land. It is scary scary scary (yes, three "scaries") to imagine the kinds of decisions that would result from such a right-wing Court. Ideology controls everything. For this reason alone, I think it is imperative to vote for Obama. (Yeah, like you haven't already guessed this is how I swing.)

Seriously, this is reason enough not to vote for McCain.

But let's get back to more important things -- food.

Lunch consisted of build-your-own-sandwiches and run-of-the-mill sides.
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I'd planned to take a quick nap, but housekeeping was in my room, so I walked around and took pictures to pass the time.
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After my solo excursion, I met Tennessee, D80, Glam and her Mini-Glam and Mama Glam, and A (the newest attorney I have yet to name) for a walk to the lagoon. Mini-Glam rode around in her Bugaboo.
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As you can see, the lagoon was the pits. Not really that fun to walk and get sweaty for this.

Hanging out by the pool was more enjoyable.
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We even witnessed a budding bromance. Lucky us.

Next event was a cocktail reception by the pool. There was a Mexican fiesta theme, complete with mariachis.



You can't see them in my video, but you sure can hear them.

Dinner was nothing special. Even so, I inhaled my food because I was really hungry after our new president/CEO's speech. Like really hungry. You know I'm famished when I don't take pictures.
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I did take a picture of dessert. Every single thing on this plate was disgusting, except for the little shot glass of rice pudding. Sad.

The game room quickly turned my frown upside-down. After dinner, I became a sweaty Monkey playing ping-pong and air hockey. Giggles, Bax, Wienerdude, Purell, and Fooz kept me laughing past midnight. Happy.

18 comments:

  1. I'm tired just reading about this post.

    and I couldn't agree with you more re: upcoming elections. but you knew that already.

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  2. Glad you put your endorsement out there. Even more glad that you are an Obama supporter.

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  3. i think it's cute you took a picture of chemerinsky!

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  4. glad to hear the end of your day was fantastic. ;-) always great to end on a high note, although it is a tragedy to have a plate full of nasty dessert.

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  5. What scares me is the number of my colleagues who think a more conservative court would be a great thing. Gah! It's hard being the only liberal at lunch.

    Bad desserts are tragic.

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  6. fun fun fun! blech to blechy dessert. nothing worse.

    p.s. and thanks for sparing us the legal talk ;)

    keepin it real,
    D

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  7. Love that you are a Chemerinsky groupie! I can understand why.

    Cannot get over all the pretty flower pics.

    And, I could not agree more with you re: the Supreme Court. A moderate court is key.

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  8. Love, love, love the shuffle board photos! My tired brain thanks you for sparing it from legal talk.

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  9. lunch is totally more important than talking about the presidential race. agreed.

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  10. Busy day! But overall a nice one. That's cool :)

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  11. beautiful pictures! the bean has that same dress that mini-glam was wearing :)

    i really don't care for either candidate, but i refuse not to exercise my right to vote.

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  12. OMG! I laughed so hard in response to the Bromance bit! I am going to walk across the hall right now and make sure Purell, AKA Hot Stuff, has seen the post!

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  13. Why am I so sad that your churros were disgusting? That is just sad and embarrassing.

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  14. That dessert doesn't look nearly as bad as you describe. Thank god for another Obama voter.

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  15. I get so food overstimulated when I visit, it makes me want to get out of bed and go downstairs and open the fridge. But I know I won't find scallop pizza or churros in there so I'll refrain. Looks like you had a packed weekend but enjoyable, I'm pretty jealous that you got to see Chemerinsky, he's a legend! Oh and PS I can totally tell that some of those pics are from your Nikon, so beautiful!

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  16. ugh to the decent-looking but bad desserts.

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  17. Boo to nasty churros.
    You have a small audience for lawyer stuff. I'm a linguist, but a law groupie.
    Maybe some law-filled meanderings after the jump every one in a while?

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