Final Post

7.57 pm EST
It's been a fun three years. I started this blog as a place where I could post about law school in a way that wasn't, shall we say, appreciated on Nuts and Boalts. It's been fun writing about law school, but this was never intended to carry past that. I thought about continuing the blog as a lawyer instead of a law student, but I suspect I'll do enough legal writing at work to have my fill.

Instead I'm migrating platforms - and topics. You can find me at Manhattan for Beginners, this California girl's attempt to understand that strange island we call New York.

4.34pm, EST
It is decidedly autumn. Last week was Indian Summer, green trees and T-shirt weather. This morning I woke up to the wind blowing through the trees and the first scattering of leaves on the ground.

I am, for the indefinite future, in Boston at my parent's house. We flew out to NY the second week in September to find an apartment. We found a place that we loved the first day we looked. It was in the East Village, within spitting distance of the river, in a really cute building with a super who clearly took great care of the place. Plus, it was a true two bed and it had a patio. That was Wednesday, September 8th.

We spent the next three days gathering the 350+ pages of documentation they wanted: bank statements, credit reports, cell phone bills, electricity bills, tax returns, W-2's, pay stubs... The agent at the building told us on Thursday, when we brought in a deposit to take the apartment off the market, that we would know by Friday when we had our interview. At the interview, she told us there was actually another two levels of approval we had to go through (her supervisor and the city) because there was an income cap on the apartment. On Monday, after she'd told our broker that there was no way we wouldn't be approved, as we were driving to the airport to head back to SF, she called and told us were weren't approved because we made too much. Considering that I haven't been employed all year, and A only worked until May, we thought that was ludicrous.

The worst part was that they had all the numbers they needed the very first day, on the application forms. My theory is that they jerked us around for five days in hopes that we would get so frustrated we'd walk away and leave the deposit. The company, by the way, is gonofee.com. In case you're wondering who to stay away from.

I stayed in NJ with his parents another week, and we ended up signing a lease for the first apartment we'd looked at on Friday the 17th, a week after our interview with the place in the East Village.

A called the moving company to get our stuff sent out Monday. It took until Wednesday (9/22) to get insurance requirements straightened out with them. It is now Wednesday again, a week later, and they still haven't put our stuff on the truck. I am, to put it mildly, ticked.

My parents have been reminding me that at least I don't have two small children with me, like my mom did when they moved from Dallas to Boston. This is true. But, having just gotten off the phone with the woman at the moving company who has, by her own admission, no idea when a truck will be there to ship our stuff out and no idea how long it will take to get to New York, it's hard to feel like this could be much worse.

2.50 pm
I start work in 46 days. It sounds like a long time. It's going to fly. I spent a good part of today going through the rental homes on Long Island we're going to check out. We need some sort of schedule, because people want to know when we'll be there, but it can't be too rigid because I have no idea how long it takes to look at a house when someone's there to show it to you. When my mom and I looked at venues, they were almost all rented out, so all we could do was look from the street. It made the whole business go by very fast.

September must be some sort of cut off, since there were a fair number of people who said they didn't have tenants and would love to meet with us to show the house. There are a few I really like, but for the most part I'm trying not to make up my mind about anything until we 1) see the property and 2) verify that the owner realizes this is for a wedding and 3) make sure it's really in our budget. The "W" word has a strange effect on home owners - either the house is suddenly no longer for rent, or the price goes up exponentially. Understandable, but it makes the search frustrating.

2.57 pm
A and I are going to a cousin's wedding next weekend. Having failed to find seersucker in the Bay Area (we were informed it was acceptable garb for the rehearsal dinner), A did the next best thing and bought linen pants. White linen pants. With an orange shirt. He looks very dashing, but it gives the impression that he ought to be on a beach in Cuba with a mojito in his hand rather than standing on the steps to our apartment modeling.

I'll be wearing my $10 Asby-stolen-goods-market dress, which ended up costing $40 once it had been drycleaned and hemmed. Still not a bad price, considering that it's absolutely gorgeous and fits superbly.

This will be the first wedding A and I have gone to together. Strange, really, since we've been together quite a bit at this point. On the other hand, as someone pointed out to me this morning, who'd have thought five years ago that two kids living in the ghetto in St. Pete would be in Manhattan and getting married five years later.

4.29 pm
Shortbread crust in the fridge, inexplicably chilling before being baked. Something to do with the consistency of the butter, I'm sure. We're doing dinner for a few people tomorrow night, and it seemed to make sense to get that out of the way before A takes over the kitchen to cook. I'm trying to sell him on the idea of a larger, backyard barbeque type gathering the weekend before I leave. A chance to say goodbye and all that. Also, we'd be remiss if we didn't take full advantage of the gorgeous house we're living in.

4.32 pm
Now that the bar is over, I've transitioned into full-swing wedding planning. The theory is that once I start work, I'll be at the office 12 hours a day with no interest in determining guest lists or seating charts or table linens when I get home.

A and I are slowly starting to figure out what we want and what we can actually afford. We're out in Manhattan and Long Island a little later in the month to take a look at apartments (you'd be surprised what you can't get for $3000 in the city) and wedding venues. A wants to do it in a house, which means renting from someone on the beach, which has turned into probably renting from someone out at the very end of Long Island. The plan is to spend two days and a night out there, and with any luck by the time we fly home we'll know where the wedding will be. If not, it's back to the rental by owner sites, and another mass batch of emails and spreadsheeting.

9.03 am, PST
On the plane, Albany bound. there's WiFi, but I'm blogging into Evernote with plans to upload later. Less distraction that way.

This is the first flight where I can remember not bringing books or embroidery or something to keep myself occupied on the plane. The goal is to work through my MBE flash cards this flight, then do practice questions on the next. 5 hours to Charlotte, an hour layover, then 2 to Albany. And me a captive audience.

10.20 am
3 down, three to go. An hour and a half of flight left. In the queue: real property, torts, and crim. (Query: why does the spell checker recognize torts, but not the name of the program I'm using?)

The people on either side of me are both reading Stieg Larsson novels. I have 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on my iPod. I feel like such a groupie. I bought it after seeing the novel in the bookstore - in several bookstores actually, when the hype was still in promo mode. The conflict between wanting to read the next two novels and hating to read what everybody else is reading...

11:37 am PST/2:37 EST
At least I am guessing we've crossed into the Eastern time zone, since we're only about 30 minutes out and we're starting to descend. Only real property left, and definitely not a case of saving the best for last.

I go from feeling confident that I know enough to bullshit the rest to feelings of certain and impending doom. Like when it takes me an hour to get through evidence which was, when I started studying in May, the subject I knew best. The terrifying suspicion that there's no way I can contain all the legal niceties in my head - that they will jumble and leak until I am left with nothing but a fleeting memory of res ipsas and in personams.

Gulping Air

4.18 pm
Ran my first 9 minute mile yesterday. It was also the first mile I ran non-stop. Today, we did about a mile and a quarter non-stop, and then a two-block sprint uphill. Pandora kicked up one of my favorite songs, and it felt incredible to stretch out my legs and fly. Until, of course, I got midway up the hill and began gulping air.

I thought about doing track in high school. The coach for the track team asked me to be on the team in 8th grade. I didn't, because I couldn't stand the thought of all that running. Junior year, a friend informed me that I would be playing lacrosse with her. Probably the best part of high school. The joke was on me though, because we did more running for lacrosse than the track kids ever dreamed of.

4.18 pm
I'm at the point where I just want to take the darn test tomorrow and I want the whole month of August to keep studying.

I am off the paced program. I have been reliably informed that I am crazy for even contemplating sticking to it. I have a pile of index cards, color coded and arranged by subject, and an even bigger pile for all the subjects I haven't made flash cards for yet. Sometimes I am breathing. Mostly I am gulping air.

8.12 pm
Exactly two weeks until the Bar Exam. Which means that exactly two weeks from now, I will be asleep in a hotel room in Albany after having completed the first day of the test. I should feel excited that I'm going into the home stretch. Instead I feel a numb sort of terror mingled with utter despair.

I stumbled upon this last night, and watched it with the sound on this time. It may become my mantra for the next two weeks.



8.22 pm
I am looking forward to August. Here is my list of things I plan to do after the bar:

• Tan the back of my legs (I have the inverse farmer's tan - the fronts are tan and the backs are white as a dead fish)
  
• Read "The Help"
  
• Learn enough French to pronounce menu items without embarrassing myself
  
• The novel
  

Yes, They're &!*%ing Sweet Potatoes

9.12
The restaurant I used to work in did not attract the high-caliber, discerning diner. Mostly, we got people who only went out to eat a few times a year, for special occasions, and therefore didn't know what they were talking about when they complained. Like the woman who got mad at me for bringing her a glass of sparkling wine (which, by the way, was what she ordered) because "sparkling wines aren't white wines." Lady, have you looked at a glass of champagne lately? My favorite is the one who wanted to complain to the chef because her sweet potatoes weren't orange. The chef came out, listened to her rant, tried to explain that only yams were orange, and even brought sweet potatoes out of the kitchen to show her the difference. No dice.

All this is to say, BarBri is making me feel a bit like the chef at the moment, standing at the table with sweet potatoes in my hand and hearing MPQ1 tell me "Nuh-huh, those aren't sweet potatoes, and I knows them when I sees them." I mean, really. Isn't there a line between "the bar examiners are going to try to trick you" and "absolutely ridiculous"?

If the bar examiners need to resort to calling a yam a sweet potato, then I think it's fair to question the utility of the whole exercise.

6.44 pm
A and I drove up to Napa today in search of sunlight and wine. We found both, in ample quantities.

About 15 minutes outside of Napa, we turned off into a Sunday Flea Market. In between the faded DVDs and the table of rusty power tools and the frilly polyester first communion dresses were tables heaped with tamarind and dried chilies. We might have been the only white folk there.

Then up to Sattui, where we discovered that the wine we'd come up for had been discontinued and that the last bottles had been sold about 2 days ago. We consoled ourselves by tasting a few of their whites - none of which came close to the bottle we'd wanted - and buying a Syrah.

We also went by Grgich, which is run by the man who produced the bottle that beat the French reds in the Paris Tasting of 1976. The wines were pricy, and quite frankly, I wasn't that impressed. But the Chardonnay... it was delightful. We bought a bottle and will drink it on a suitably special occasion.

Then back towards the Bay, taking in a car show and the Napa Outlets along the way.

6.58 pm
We are in the fog. I can see wisps blowing through the tops of the trees. It hasn't quite descended yet to brush against my window, but it will.

It was good to take a day off, just the two of us. I suspect that my free time is going to become more and more tight as we get closer to the bar. Next week is the last week of lectures (only 3!) and then it's about 2 weeks of self study. Two weeks which will be a frenzy of memorization and outlines and perhaps even flashcards.

And then it will be over, and it will be August, and if the fog deigns to clear I will finally have my summer.

3.51pm
After two days, the sun has finally broken through the fog. I can almost see the beams of sunshine fighting to come through the window. I know some people find it easier to study when its gloomy outside, I suppose on the theory that they'd spend the day indoors anyway. I try to do most of my studying out in the garden, though, and that only works when there's sun. (For those of you unfamiliar with Bay Area weather, July is not summer. Note even close. Trust me on this one.)

4.17pm
And it's gone.

I discovered Bar Bri 1.5 today. I guess there is something to be gained from trolling ATL after all. Someone mentioned it to me yesterday, while we were at the break between sections of the simulated MBE.

On which topic, all I have to say is that my brain still feels scrambled. I went through and self-graded, which was something of an exercise in frustration. I haven't read through any of the analysis yet - I'll save that for this weekend, while I'm watching all the lectures. I haven't gone through to see if the questions I thought I knew were the ones I got right or the ones I bombed yet, either. Again, saving it for the weekend. I figure that will be less depressing, since I'll have had a whole week to recuperate.

4.30pm
Small dog is gone for the next bit, back to his family. It was somewhat strange to wake up this morning and not hear his nails clicking on the floor. He was given a bath yesterday so he'd be clean for them, and then got some quality time with the blow dryer because it was so miserable outside that left me covered in dog fur and him still not completely dry. For a small dog, he's got a lot of fur. A swept the house this morning and there was enough dog hair in the pile to stuff a small pillow. Which is amazing, considering that he swept the whole house about 3 days ago, and I did the bedroom day before yesterday. I wouldn't be surprised if dog fur continued to accumulate in his absence.

10.09 am
I took a day off yesterday. It felt wonderful. Breakfast in bed, afternoon at the beach, evening of doing nothing at all. Today, of course, it's back to the salt mines, and tomorrow is 6 hours of Scantron-bubble-nightmare.

In some ways, I'm in shock that June is over. I feel like the whole month flew by without bothering to wave on its way out. Something tells me July will be much the same. I haven't looked ahead yet to see if there are any more scheduled days off. Somehow I doubt that there are.

10.09 am
I found a meditation chimer online. Several of them actually, but I only downloaded the 15 and 20 minute ones. I've been trying to get down to the meditation group at school Tuesdays, but have only made about 2 in the last month or so. Which leads to the problem of my trying to meditate and having trouble actually meditating. Too many surface thoughts skittering across the surface of my mind that refuse to be swept away. It's amazing how much clutter develops in the head, and even more amazing how persistent it is.

11.29 am
A shower and a phone call with a broker later, and it is more than time to get the day started.

6.30 pm

Found a great typo in my property notes today:

ANALYSIS OF RAP PROBLEMS
1. Determine which future interest has been created by the conveyance
2. Identify conditions precedent to the vesting of the future interest
3. Find a measuring life
4. As if we will know, with certainty, within 21 years of the death of the measuring life

Which really seemed to sum up real property in a nutshell: as if we could ever know anything about the subject with certainty.

I've found it best to budget a whole day on the weekend for the "cumulative review". Trying to memorize this much material makes my head hurt. Going through the subjects that are related to each other one after another seems to help, as does taking my time. The goal: to get each set of notes down to 5 or 6 pages, which I then print out and attempt to completely memorize. Right now I've got Agency/Partnership, Torts, and Con Law down to size. I'm feeling hopeful that Crim, Corporations, and maybe Contracts will cooperate for next week. It's all a matter of not deleting things from my notes until I'm absolutely sure I can remember them either spontaneously or with only a brief prompter.

7.00 pm
The church bells are ringing 7. Not exactly sure how that happened. Still have 2 and a half subjects to go through. One of which is still in "full" form, meaning that this is the first weekend since the lecture and it hasn't been at all summarized yet. Not that I copy the handouts verbatim, but...

If I can get everything done by the time it gets dark, we're going up to Chabot to look through the telescopes tonight.

8:35 pm
Crash and burn. I think I finally hit a BarBri wall. Which is a little bit funny, since the "intro" to this morning's lecture was a ten minute discourse on how instead of pushing ourselves too hard to get all the practice essays and MPTs done (because there will be plenty of time to do those in the two weeks we don't have lectures), we should be sleeping with the essay and MPT books on our nightstands so we can read them before bedtime.

WTF?! Mixed messages, much?

At any rate, I put in 12 hours yesterday and 12 hours the day before and was at 10 today when my brain stopped functioning. I stared at Essay # R-32 and couldn't for the life of me figure out what the questions were asking.

So I shut the book and decided I was done for the day, ignoring the voice in the back of my head that said I should go ahead and keep working, just so I would know what it was like to freeze up on the bar exam.

It is June 22. Over a month to go. Plenty of time to practice freezing up and freaking out. For today, I'm done.

4.31 pm
Week 5 of BarBri, and I started out behind. Only an hour or so, but it wasn't the way I wanted to go into the week. The problem was that I didn't do as much as I should have Saturday, because I had reached the point where repeatedly banging my head into a brick wall was sounding preferable (and more productive) than studying any more. That left Sunday to catch up, which would have worked had we not gone out to dinner with A's mom and then left my purse at his sister's house and had to go back for it. C'est la vie. I finished up at 10.00 last night with everything but one MPT outline done.

4.43 pm
I am blogging as I type up my notes, which I really shouldn't be doing, but this outline is driving me crazy and I need something as a form of distraction. Most of the lecturers have been alright so far - some have even been really good. Today's just didn't work for me. I'm sure she organized her lecture handout, but it's not a form of organization that makes any sense to me.

Small dog is curled up on the floor asleep. He didn't get his walk this morning, so he's spent most of the day bounding around, running back and forth and up and down the stairs. He's several feet away, which is nice. Usually when he lays down on the floor near me, he's either under my desk at my feet or right behind my chair. It's sweet, but it makes it difficult to move without running over him.

6.02 pm
Small dog has moved closer to my feet. Done with outlining my notes for today. My reward? A short walk with small dog, and then another 4.5 hours or so of work. A is making roasted bell pepper stuffed with lentils, curried cauliflower and sausage, ginger, and lemon-grass for dinner. Small pleasures.

In the Peloton

12.43
Could it be that studying for the bar exam is actually making me less neurotic? As strange as that sounds, I'm thinking it might be the case.

Let me explain. I'm definitely what you would call a "Type-A" personality. A card-holding member of the "if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself" school of thought. And while I don't consider myself an overachiever per se (I stuck with 2 extracurriculars in law school per year, thank you!), I firmly believe that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing perfectly the first time around.

This is the kind of mentality that sets you up for disaster when studying for the bar. Because let's face it, unless you've got a photographic memory or are willing to go without sleep for three months straight, there's no way you can learn everything that's going to be tested. After all, if they made it easy, there wouldn't be any bell curve.

This is where the less-neurotic part comes in.

For the first three weeks of class, I was banging my head against the wall, frustrated that I was missing issues or rules or tiny little points that hadn't even been in the CMR or the lecture. Going over the answer for the first essay we turned in for grading was definitely a low point. Although I was pretty sure I'd get a third of a point or two for IRAC'ing, that was about all I thought I'd get.

This week - I've been letting things go a little bit more. Instead of trying to grade my essay outlines, I've been focusing on reading the fact pattern, sitting back and looking for the big picture, and then concentrating on making sure I hit the issues in the answer.

But most importantly, I've adopted a peloton mentality. You can't ride in front the entire race, not even if you're Lance Armstrong. The middle of the pack is a pretty good place to be.

3.04 pm
Somehow I have reached 3 in the afternoon with only an hour left of work. It's a nice feeling, especially since I got a late start today. The dog wanted walking, and ignoring his whining for two and a half hours while I listened to my lecture seemed rather cruel. So we went up and down the hills, and then up again, enough to tire him out enough that he's spent the rest of the morning alternating between napping and weaving around my feet like a kitty cat. We might take him to the farmer's market this afternoon, too. I'm pretty sure they don't allow dogs near the food, but I think they're ok on the periphery.

3.10 pm
I've adopted a new approach to BarBri.

I've started listening to the lectures in the morning. Before, I was doing them in the afternoon or at night, and generally was too exhausted and brain dead when I finished to tackle the "after class" assignments. This was great the first day of the week, but then I would end up feeling like I was behind a day all week - until the weekend, where I would spend all weekend working to catch up. Leaving myself a) exhausted and b) frustrated and continuously feeling "behind". Since the lectures are up by 8 am Pacific, I've been doing them first thing in the morning (after breakfast and a quick read of the newspaper). It's only Tuesday, but it seems to be working.

I've also started going over my outlines - just a quick refresher - before doing practice essays or MPQs. I know, I know, you can't use the outline on the test. But - if reading it before I do the essay gets me that much closer to getting the rules in my head, I figure I'm in a better place. It doesn't do me any good to look at the book thinking, "I know that rule" (or even worse, "I don't even know what they're asking"). Because reading the rule in the model answer is helpful, but typing it myself is even better.

4.50 pm
Sunday afternoon on a gorgeous summer weekend, and I've spent almost all of it inside studying. Which, at this point anyway, is beginning to seem like a futile endeavor. I wouldn't mind my entire summer being consumed by Conviser and NYT and really bad puns if I felt like I was making any progress. But the fact is, three weeks into Bar Bri, I feel stupider than ever. I've gone from being able to spot the issues on essay questions with reasonable proficiency to not even having a clue what's being tested. I've been told to use common sense when answering the MBE questions if I come across an unfamiliar point of law - but my common sense seems to have no relation to the bar examiner's common sense.

The frustrating part, is I've never had this much trouble studying before. Once I figured out that the key to law school exams was to do a bunch of practice problems, I did fine. Sure, I made outlines, but I rarely used them during exams - the process of doing practice essays was what made me memorize the law. Here? I feel like I'm running a marathon. Through the woods. Off trail. blindfolded. No matter how much I study, no matter how many obscure points of law I think I'm memorizing - there's another five that I don't know.

On the upside, at least I'm not trying to take care of last minute wedding details, too!

8.45 am
We lost a fish in the earthquake Saturday night. When I got up Sunday and fed them, Picasso wasn't looking too good. All huddled in on himself, not moving, not eating. He looked all beat up - fins ragged, great big spots on his scales like someone had been beating him up. It looked like every blood vessel in his tail had exploded. By the time A came home he was in bad shape, so he took the fish out of the water and sent him off to the great fishtank in the sky. It was kind of sad.

We think the rocks shifted around during the quake, and Picasso was just in the wrong place. Could be he got beat up by the other fish - but he was hurt so badly that I don't think the other guys did it. For all that they're mean, nasty fish, they play pretty nice with each other.

8.53 am
In happier news, I'm trying once again to get an herb garden growing this summer. Last year we had the herbs inside, and it was so darn hot they just up and wilted. Year before that we were house sitting in Berkeley and put the planter outside, where a friendly squirrel came and dug up all the seeds.

This year I've got oregano (I think - I either planted oregano or watercress, but I'm pretty sure it was the oregano), basil, rosemary, sage, coriander, and tomatoes. The last one isn't exactly an herb, but home grown tomatoes are definitely a goodness.

Here's the seeds when they first started popping their heads up.  This was about five or six days after I planted them.












It helps to put them in plastic, especially since it's still a little chilly.

This morning, I realized that as soon as the seed casings fell off, I wouldn't have a clue what was what until they'd grown a bit more.  Which is alright for the most part, aside from the fact that planting tomatoes in a small pot with the basil would be a bad idea and that sort of thing.

9.26 am
We had a little earthquake last night. Only about a 4.0, but it was two or three miles up the road. I was in bed, half asleep, when there was a jolt. Well, I sleep next to a 30-gallon fish tank, and the first shake was hard enough that I wasn't going to wait around for more. I was out of bed, over the couch, and almost at the doorway in about half a second. At which point it was clear that this was not, in fact, the big one, leaving me slightly embarrassed and more than a little impressed at managing to get out of bed that quickly without having caught an ankle in the sheets.

9.33 am
BarBri started last week. It's a little surreal. We go into a room in a convention center in Oakland to watch a four hour DVD, all of us pretty much writing down verbatim the entire lecture. I got up at one point to throw something away, and as I walked back to my seat, I only saw one internet window open.

The lectures are all available online, so we've been losing people. The first day I think 30 or 35 showed up. The next day it was about 25. 20 or so the next. And there was a kerfluffel with the DVD (BarBri said they mailed it, the building said they didn't have it) last class, so I suspect Tuesday will be even slimmer pickings.

I'm still trying to decide whether it's worth going out to the class or if I can do it at home. I was really hoping to get a small group together, but it seems like people would rather do it on their own schedules. Understandable - but I think in about two weeks it would really help to have some moral support.

9.38 am
We move to Berkeley in a week. The living room is almost entirely boxes. The closets are almost empty. There are four pots that we are taking to Berkeley, a few spatulas, a whisk, and the dishes we'll be getting rid of in the kitchen. The bookshelves are almost bare. It's amazing how much accumulates when you live in one place awhile. Even more amazing is how you can use something twice in five years, pack it, and then discover, once it's boxed in and taped shut, that you now need it.

3.32 pm
The boy and I ran our first ten minute mile on Monday. More like 9 minutes and 58 seconds, but who's counting? By Tuesday we were back to eleven minutes miles. I don't even want to talk about this morning's run.

Monday morning I also had a piece of carrot cake before we went out running. Just a small piece - enough to keep me reasonably not hungry until we had gone running and showered and washed the mountain of dishes in the sink and made real breakfast.

I suspect there may be a connection, but I'll have to make more carrot cake in order to test the validity of my theory.

4.11 pm
I am almost done with law school. My last final is finished (and with any luck, won't be graded until after Commencement), and my final paper is about done with the research stage and ready to be outlined and sent off to the professor for comments over the weekend. I will start writing Sunday or Monday, and with any luck be finished by the time the family shows up next week. If not, I will send them all off to Alcatraz for the day while I frantically finish the darn thing.

I am using almost my entire allotment of graduation tickets. This amazes me. I don't want to sit in the sun for three hours listening to people I don't know tell my graduating class how awesome we are and how much we're going to need that awesomeness in the shrinking-by-the-minute legal market. (I skipped my undergrad graduation for this reason and maybe missed hearing Eckerd's only famous graduate speak - but that's neither here nor there.) It amazes me that friends and family actually want to come to this thing. Of course, I did promise them all beer at Triple Rock afterward...