Tag: race for the cure

Who am I?

October 16, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

if you haven’t donated to Race for the Cure and would like to do so, you can donate here.

I came across this article on Lawyerist about headshots and biographies. I have been putting off the headshot and I am completely baffled about what to put in a biography for my professional site.

What exactly is my expertise if I’m starting out and how does my “expertise” manage to follow the Rules of Professional Conduct that says you can’t say you are an expert in a certain type of law?

For all the writing about myself and random daily events on this blog, I have always had problems writing out my accomplishments and writing a succinct biography. It must be a function of modesty or some “home training” where I’m supposed to be modest. Also, I’m always surprised at what people want to know and how people react to certain information. I also see the gaps and the disappointments and mistakes I made in my life in those biographies. The information that isn’t there because I did something goofy or made a decision that turned out in hindsight to be “not wise.”

Of course, my mistakes aren’t tragic. I haven’t gone to jail. I’m not paralyzed from the waist down because I got in a car with drunk driver. Although I am overweight, I still have a decent blood pressure and am working to lose weight. I have a good job and some good friends. Even though I’ve had some relationships that were absolutely horrible, I didn’t have any horrible marriages that resulted in kids and many years of a long drawn out divorce and years of litigation over child custody and visitation issues. When the weenies who used to be my significant others are gone, they can stay gone. I’m blessed like that.

So what is this great biography that I should be making on my professional site? I don’t know. I guess I’ll figure it out later.

Blog post amnesty

October 7, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

There’s a concept in the De-cluttering world known as email amnesty where you delete all your emails and send a mass email to all your contacts stating “sorry, I was so far behind on answering emails that there was no way I could catch up. I deleted them all. If there was something important, I’m sorry. Please send the message again.”

Well. All those meaningful posts that I meant to write are well way past their prime to be relevant anymore. Maybe I’ll catch up on them later. Here’s a list.

The first football game of the season here in small town America. It was our town versus the town twelve miles away. IT’s amazing how football, of all things, manages to bring the entire town together. I had pictures of the band and the full bleachers of the visitor side and the home team side. Well I guess I will upload the pics. The “Friday Night Lights” style commentary is just gone forever.
Roman Polanski.
Okay I may still go after details on this. I’m a criminal defense attorney at heart and this type of case is a gold mine for all the issues involved. Does he deserve time? If criminal law is meant to protect the public, does it matter that Polanski hasn’t recommited the type of crime in the past 30 years? Does it matter that he was gainfully employed and giving to society? Does it matter that his past involved Nazis and his wife and unborn child being slaughtered by the Manson family? What about his leaving the country? Does it matter about the corrupt judge? OH man.

Well the short answer is that in most states (i’m not sure about California) bail jumping, leaving the country, being on the lam, etc. is an entirely new charge and that is an extra felony on top of his crime. So he’s screwed for that. There is a concept that warrants get stale and if the police wait too long then it’s over. Most of that time, that is based on a warrant to arrest and it doesn’t involve a person ACTIVELY avoiding being arrested. The girl was underage and that is statutory rape. This means it is a strict liability crime. it doesn’t matter if she lied and said she was 20. It doesn’t matter if was completely consensual and she climbed on top of your naked body and rode you like a rodeo bull. If she’s under age and you had sex with her, you’re going to JAIL. The more interesting question is “how much time should he get?” Sentencing is where most of the issues being bandied around in the press get their attention: his past, etc.
MORE SERIAL KILLER LOVE I discovered Dexter. What a wonderful witty little show. I managed to whiz through the first two seasons via Netflix ready view and will now have to wait for Season 3 to make it here in teeny succession.
I became interested in psychology after watching Silence of the Lambs. My wanting to be a criminal profiler lead to an interest in forensic psychology which lead to my investigation job which lead to law school. If you want to connect the dots, Hannibal Lecture is responsible for me being a lawyer. Lord, help you all.
WORK AND VOLUNTEER WORK I’ve become involved with the local young lawyers section. Since I have been in practice for less than five years, I qualify. yee hawww. This also deserves an extra special YEE HAWWW because it means I am getting out of the house.
I’m doing Race for the Cure again. According to the site, I’ve raised NO DAMN MONEY!
professional domain YES. web host for professional site. YES. Actual site content. NO! will rectify that soon.
COOKING I bought a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I’m not good at cooking but, like Julia Child, I do like to eat. Since I heard that she explains every little thing down to the last detail, I would buy this book and attempt to make delicious food. We’ll see how this goes. I’m sure there will be photos.

So yeah. I could have written an entry on each blurb. I just realized I forgot about the Blogging Academy I attended. SEE!!

But I’m good and I tweet a lot. And I will start over with topics.

Fa la la la la busyness means no bloggyness

September 21, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

It’s that time again. I signed up for the Race for the Cure. with Team Fabulous. You can see the pictures from last year’s race here. This is one of the few events that I don’t actually run. Last year, Team Fabulous took a smoke break by the stripping firemen. Yeah I said stripping firemen. You might just have to join to figure out if I am serious.

I cooked something. It tasted good and no one got food poisoning. It’s the dawn of a new age, America. I made this Chicken a la Diable It’s french. Well bastardized french. I don’t think about.com got too authentic but its’ dijon mustard and cayenne pepper over chicken, then covered in bread crumbs and baked in a roasting pan that has melted butter in it. YUM to the TUM. I was rather pleased myself. It didn’t taste spicy though. IN fact, I didn’t taste much of the mustard or cayenne pepper at all. That was rather weird but the chicken wasn’t dry or bland so I can’t complain.

I attended our local high school football game and took tons of pictures. Yet I haven’t had time to download them and give the commentary. I also attended the tailgate but the camera crews had already left and most of the food was gone by the time I got there. I wasn’t that late people. It seems people descended on that food like vultures. One woman almost snatched something out of my hand. OUT OF MY HAND!!! I didn’t know anyone here was friends with Kanye West. What the hell?! See… great commentary is a coming. Oh yeah we won like 62 to 32 or some other crazy score that indicates that both teams have shitty defense but theirs is worse than ours.

2008 in pictures (the person ones)

December 31, 2008 / melissa / 2 Comments

I got a gym membership for Christmas but didn’t fill out the forms until January 1st.

This is Breezy the most awesome dog in the universe. I spent last New Year’s day at her house. She’s a party animal.

Max, my pretty pretty kitty, got murdered by two Rottweilers while enjoying the outdoors. Seriously, they were trying to eat him. They cracked his spine and broke one of his legs off at the hip. The leg was hanging on by the skin. My town really needs to enforce its leash laws better.

I went to my friend Tiffany’s wedding in Tulsa. We were known as the “backup bridesmaids”

I met Bellesouth and Debbie at the Tulsa zoo. Unfortunately, I was so excited by the animals I didn’t get a picture of us. LOOK that Cougar. There’s no fence. NO FENCE!

It snowed in March. That is creepy enough to get a mention and picture here.

I went to Greek Food Fest and had gyros and watched some folk dancing. It was fun.

I spent the Fourth of July at my Grandmother’s house. She was canning tomatoes. She always keeps a garden.

This was an Obama rally on the steps of the capital. The special guest was Hillary Clinton.

Race for the Cure with Team Fabulous. That is a fun group of women, y’all.

These were some great guys and this sign still cracks me up.

Went to Kennett Missouri to campaign for Obama. Also stopped by Tennessee to have dinner and beer with Kevin.

My friend’s son celebrated his 10th birthday at the bowling alley. I got to come along. I got conned into serving the ice cream. GAH!

This is the County Clerk and the Chief of Police getting into a heated argument over why he can’t close the parking area of the fire station for a training exercise on the same day the fire station is being used as a polling place. Oh it was craziness. This was also in Missouri.

I ran Craig’s Jingle Bell 5K.

DMZ 20 year reunion show at Vino’s with Matt Besser. Good times.

Christmas came and went. That’s the food. NOM NOM

There you go. While there were ups and downs, it seems to be a good year.

My fabulous weekend

October 21, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

Team Fabulous 2008

Originally uploaded by mesawyou

I cannot tell a lie. I was a little bit nervous about meeting the “team fabulous” team and going out with them. The last time I met a large group of people that I mainly didn’t know, I was forced to listen some guy talk about his “Italian sausage” for 45 minutes at a sit down dinner.

But this was not that event. This was fun.

We loaded into the hotel shuttle and took our fabulous butts to La Hacienda on Cantrell. There was booze.

That’s a raspberry Margarita. It was orgasm good.

Since it was also a double birthday party, there was cake.

If you celebrate your birthday at La Hacienda, you get your picture taken with a sombrero and blanket, a serenade and a shot of tequila (if you’re over 21).

There was laughing and practical joking. I think we scared Mitch, the shuttle driver.

I didn’t get the memo about dressing like a Transvestite hooker for the Race but considering that I was called Man Woman in college (damn you Frank and Ken!), I think I can definitely pull that shit off. Nextyear, girls. NEXT YEAR.

It is quite awe inspiring to see 40,000 people gathered in one place to support one cause, no matter what the cause is. The Broadway bridge was bouncing. That was a little bit scary.

The other interesting thing is the groups that line the race route along the way. There are bellydancers, firemen, politicians, regular guys (or the Three miles of men), Bikers, line dancers, cheerleaders, a high school marching band, etc. It’s touching. Really.

BOOO YAAAA

October 7, 2008 / melissa / 0 Comments

I ran 6 miles on Saturday. That’s right 6 miles. That, to date, is the furthest I have ever run. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t feel like I was going to fall down from exhaustion. I couldn’t believe that my pace didn’t slow down a whole helluva a lot. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t crazy sore. I did have a slight ache that made me very aware of my legs when I was trying to go to sleep that night but that was it.

I am amazed. RAWRRRRR..

Of course, now I’m feeling all proud of myself and am considering doing the Little Rock Marathon in earnest. There are some hills and that will be a challenge but it seems doable. Crazy but doable. I will be ridiculously slow but it seems feasible that I can finish the thing.

WOW! I’m amazing myself over here. Of course, running a marathon has been one of those “BUCKET LIST” type goals so I’m a little psyched about the whole thing.