Jim's Ramblings

The end is in sight

2006-07-01T02:51:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm still alive... barely. As most of you know, bar review is kicking my proverbial ass. When they say "worst summer of your life" during the first bar review class... they definitely aren't kidding! Sure, everyone's had a super intense period of study in their lives - but its usually a week, MAYBE two, for something like final exams. Not 6-8 weeks. In any case, the end is now at least somewhat in sight... a pin prick of light at the end of a long dark tunnel =P. The bar exam is July 25-26. I've got 2 more weeks of bar review left (3 days next week, then a full 5 day week the following week). After that, I'll have about 8 days of pure cramming, before I head down to Roanoke for the exam. At least I get two months off once I'm done with the exam! That should be, well, awesome. Assuming I pass of course...

California trip details!

2006-05-21T21:19:00.000-04:00

I figured its time I told you all about my California trip. But first, a little news. I am, as of May 14, officially graduated from law school. Hard to believe I'm truly done! But there's still a bit more to go - bar review begins Wed. May 24, and I'll likely be fairly busy with bar exam stuff through late July. Then my true freedom from academic things begins!

Enough of that though - time for some background on the trip. We arrived on a Saturday morning. Our trip first took us from the San Francisco airport, straight down the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway (California Rt. 1) to Monterey, where we stayed the first night. The next morning, we got up and proceeded to explore some of Monterey. Mainly, we did a little shopping on Cannery Row, one of the main downtown areas. After that, we made our way down to the Big Sur Lodge, stopping to check out the Carmel Valley along the way.

On Monday, we went hiking, a 3.5 - 4 mile hike called Buzzard's Roost that began in the forest, went up to dry chaparral, and at the summit had a nice view of the ocean. We then drove south about 40 miles along the PCH, taking in the scenery along the way. We returned to the Big Sur Lodge for the night.

On Tuesday, we began to make our way back up to San Francisco. We took our time in the morning, stopped at Point Lobos State Preserve, and did the "17-mile drive" through Pebble Beach. We drove briefly through Carmel-by-the-Sea, an interesting little town. Bit "yuppyish" but it would be neat to spend a few hours in some day. We then blew up to SF and got in late, around 8:30.

Wednesday, we did a walking tour of Chinatown, and also saw some of Union Square in the process. In the evening, we tooled around various parts of the city in the car, checking out various neighborhoods and such.

Thursday, we drove through Golden Gate Park, up the pacific coast, through Lincoln Park and the Presidio of San Francisco, then across the Golden Gate Bridge. We went on to Muir Woods (Big Redwoods) and Point Reyes National Seashore, before returning to the city for a late dinner at a restaurant called "The Stinking Rose." Great place that does Italian and other food, heavy on the garlic. I had the garlic roasted prime rib - absolutely phenomenal.

Finally, on Friday, we got up and reluctantly made our way to the airport for the ride home.

As you can see, it was a whirlwind trip - we squeezed a ton into 6 days. I'm planning to go back in August, hopefully with Ryan and Phil, and see some stuff in more detail - mostly, lots more hiking. ≈

I decided to put my pics on yahoo photos, mainly because there are so many. They can be found here. Best thing to do is view the slideshow.

PC Gaming - a one-generation wonder?

2006-05-01T15:54:00.000-04:00

Matt's latest post on his blog about the physics cards got me thinking. They have been talking about these things on the AnandTech forums for a few months now. I see it almost as a negative development. PC gaming is already heinously expensive. Heck, a decent video card alone costs as much as a Xbox 360. Now they are going to tell us (eventually) that we need physics cards, another 250 bucks down the drain.

I don't like console gaming but I question how long PC gaming will continue to be a viable industry when you have to sink that kind of money into it just for games to be playable. Teens are already priced out of the market - a decent gaming PC can cost as much as some kids' first cars. It used to be you needed a PC for non-gaming, so if you threw in an extra 150 for a decent vid card, you could then play games too. Nowadays, a $500 computer can MORE than handle all your everyday tasks (internet, email, music, writing papers, etc). By the time you throw in a video card and physics card, along with the super CPU needed for today's games, you are talking 3x that amount in most cases (or more). Most parents aren't going to be able to justify sinking this kind of money for Christmas or whatever else so their kids can play games - not when Xbox 360 is 300 bucks. And for some teens, a gaming PC can cost a whole summer's earnings (assuming they work) - also a hard sell. And heck, we are talking a "basic" gaming
PC here. If you want to talk top of the line, there are people spending $1200 on 2 video cards ALONE (they run them in "SLI mode"). That's just insane. And of course, the whole thing is outdated in a year anyway. And of course, game developers seem to insist on taking every ounce of power (and then some) with their new games - so your new machine you spent 3 grand on last year chugs on the new games unless you turn the graphics way down. The price of this hobby has just skyrocketed in recent years in my opinion.

Obviously people of our generation grew up with PC games, and now we are employed and have money to keep up with things to at least some degree. But today's kids are more and more growing up only on consoles as PC gaming becomes more and more cost prohibitive. I wonder if PC gaming will die with our generation.

Big Bad Test is Dead

2006-04-26T18:44:00.000-04:00

School continues to wind down. Yesterday I had what was in all probability the most difficult to study for final I've had in all my school days - Virginia Civil Procedure. Immediately after the exhileration of being done with my last class, I had to begin studying. I studied some each of the 4 days leading up to the final, and had to pull a near all nighter on Monday night to get through the last bits of material. And that was the problem - SO much material, and a closed book test.

In an average law school class, I have 40-50 pages of notes (hand written, front and back counting as 1 page). Further, a lot of it is intense detail, so the notes "compress" well when I sit down to outline. Here, I had 90-100 pages of notes and very little of it compressed. By the time I was done outlining, I had 47 typed pages, and I even skipped a section because the prof had handed out an outline of sorts for it!

So then came the test. Designed to be doable in 3 hours, but he gave us 6 for good measure. I got it home, and finished it in about 1hr 45mins! I took a brief nap, got up, looked at it again, and spent another 30-45 min on it polishing it up and adding some stuff to my answers. It wasn't bad at all - but I think its because I put the time in studying. Its the sort of material that is not difficult - there are no real "tricky issues" or anythin else - its very straightforward. There's just a TON of it. So you either know it or you don't.. and for the most part, I knew it. I'm pretty sure I got an A or B on it, and I'm certain I passed it. So I am *very* pleased. Now all thats left is about 2-4 hours of edits on my paper, and two more MUCH EASIER TO STUDY FOR finals. Then I'm outta here, and off to the city by the bay :).

Last law school class.. DONE

2006-04-20T18:37:00.000-04:00

That's right folks, I just finished my last law school class... EVER. Most likely my last truly academic class EVER. Oh, sure, there will be Continuing Legal Education classes to take and that sort of thing, but those are professional classes, not academic ones. And they are one day seminar type things. So yeah, my academic career is quickly coming to an end. I really don't think it’s sunk in yet. Unlike many in law school, I've been in school my whole life. I didn't take time off between college and law school to work. The longest I've ever held a full time job of any kind my entire life is about 2.5 months. Put another way, I'm 25 years old and I'm facing the prospects of the "real world" for the first time.

And I say.. bring it on. I'm honestly looking forward to it. This is a LONG time to be in school with no break. Especially when you consider that, unlike PhD programs where most of what you do is more work than school (ie, lab work, not classes), law school is *all* classes. And I'm sure there will come a time when I will look fondly back on my law school days and think how much better school is than work - but that time isn't now. Right now, I'm just glad to get out of here and do some of the things that have been on hold the past 3 years. Like getting enough sleep... like lifting regularly.. like dating.. like having money. There are certainly things I'll miss about school - the intellectual conversations in class, the collegial environment, and the casual comfortable clothes! But all in all.. I'm ready for a change in my life. I'm ready to move forward.

Of course, I may have spoken too soon when I said last class EVER. After all, I may one day return to the hallowed halls of academia - an advanced law degree? Some classes for fun in my old age? Who knows - I do know that we never stop learning, and as time presses on, it can be a good thing to return to that formal education we all must one day leave, as I am about to do.

So, what's left you ask? Final exams - I've got three. The worst is Tuesday. The other two are 9 days later. Oh, and the final draft of my paper. I don't have to do too much, just some minor changes. Then graduation is May 14. After that, I'll have my J.D. I'll be a "Juris Doctor." I'll be able to truthfully put "James H. Hutchinson, Esquire" in my email signature. Pretty crazy! Then all there is is the "simple" matter of the bar exam. Once I pass that and get my results in October, I'll have the keys to the court system.. I'll be able to file suits in Virginia and the Federal courts, go before judges, defend people's lives and property. When you think about it, its a pretty awesome responsibility.

Ah well, that's for another post. In the future, perhaps i'll pontificate on my overall law school experience. Until then, I'm just glad I don't have any 8:30am classes for a while.

Lifting Blog

2006-04-19T22:19:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

I already linked most of you this, but for those I didn't I've decided to go ahead and put up a lifting blog. On it I'll basically detail my workouts, how I'm progressing, as well as go ahead and post logs of my workouts and such. It is linked here, and you can also find a link over in the links section of this page. If you are into lifting, or just interested in my progress, check it out! I'd appreciate any comments/support people are willing to give.

The end is near

2006-04-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

That's right folks, the end is near. No, not the end of the world... the end of law school! I can hardly wait. As some of you know I have been slaving the past few weeks on a very long paper on police excessive force - 25 pages to be precise. This past Friday (April 7, coincidentally, my birthday), I spent from about 4pm to 10pm in the library working on the paper, and managed to finish it up. Not the way you hope to spend your bday, but regardless, this is a huge relief - that paper was probably the biggest thing I had to do for the semester. It is of course just a first draft, which the professor will comment on - the final draft is due May 1 - but I expect any necessary changes to be fairly minimal and quick. The hard part was getting the main stuff down on paper. So with that thing out of the way, I've got a week and a half of class left (next week is the last week of classes), then finals. I'll officially be done with law school on May 4. This brings me to summer plans :D.

May 6 - 12, my mom and I will be in San Francisco - sort of a "hey you're done!" trip. I'll be back in Williamsburg May 13-15 for graduation festivities on May 14. Then I'll probably be up in NOVA for about a week or so, before I return to Williamsburg to begin my bar exam prep course on May 24. That will go through mid-July. In late July, I'll head to Roanoke to take the bar exam. I'll proceed to move my junk to a storage unit in Blacksburg, and then have all of August to myself up in NOVA (maybe a road trip is in order?). Looks like I'll probably move in to my apt over labor day weekend. Then of course Sept 9 is Kim's wedding. We may go to Hatteras for two weeks immediately following that (and Ryan will hopefully be able to join us!). After that, its back to Blacksburg to settle in and start work on October 2. So, yeah, definitely have a busy few months ahead of me, but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm also planning to spend a LOT of time in the gym once I'm done with finals - between classes and this paper, I've been out of the gym for a long time, so I need to get back on track. I'd like to be lifting 4 days a week anyway, so I figure summer's a good time to start. During the bar prep, I honestly think most of my time during the week will be spent studying, lifting, and sleeping - but overall I'm looking forward to it - its at least a change of pace from school. And I love pumping iron anyway, so its all good! :). I was thinking of maybe finding time for a little summer fling, but I think I'll keep dating on hold till I'm done with the bar. Between studying and the gym, I just don't see how I'll have time, much as I might like to jump the gun. :-P

So, there it is - the next 6 months of my life are pretty well planned out. All I care about now though, is getting the heck out of law school... that's gotta be one of the best feelings, well, ever.

PS: If you are interested in coming to my graduation, it is on Sunday May 14. Its roughly the same format as Tech's - a university wide ceremony at 12 where the degree is conferred, followed by a law school only ceremony at 3:30 where I get my diploma. We don't have extra tickets for the university wide ceremony, but the law school one is open to all (and its the more important one anyway). Ex-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will be the speaker at the law school ceremony. So yeah, if you want to come, let me know and I'll get you the details (DO NOT feel obligated though, I'm not expecting anyone other than family, so this is purely an if you want to thing). As for places to stay, depending on how many (if any =P) want to come, the guys at least can probably crash at my place.

That's it for now.. I'm out!

I'm still alive!

2006-04-02T22:25:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in a long while, partially because nothing much has been going on. Basically there are only 3 real things in my life at the moment - getting ready for my move/new job in October, getting ready for graduation, and finishing up this semester.

On the job front, I went to Blacksburg last weekend and got everything ironed out. I'm really looking forward to being done with school, moving, and getting started. I think it will be a very good situation overall. On the roommate front, I was hoping I might end up living with Ray, but that unfortunately fell through, at least for this year. So, I'm probably going to bite the bullet and get my own place. It'll likely be a 2br, 1.5ba in one of the nicer areas of Foxridge. This will be my first time living alone for any length of time, so it should be interesting. There are advantages of course, especially in the privacy/women department =). That said, I know it can get awful quiet. I'm hoping I'll be busy enough and have enough friends around the area that I won't really notice. Of course, this also means I'll have a guest room.. so you people better come down and visit me!

On the school front, we are sort of on the "back edge" of the storm. Things are picking up for a final push before they slow down in preparation for finals. The main thing I've got going is a 25 page paper. The good news is I'm done with my research and outline, and I'm 10 pages in. The bad news is there are 15 left. I'll probably work on it some this week and finish it up this coming weekend.

Only other real news is I'm gonna be 25 (that's right, the quarter century mark!) on April 7. My mom may come down, assuming I can get enough time away from the paper to celebrate

Spring Break!!

2006-03-04T02:02:00.000-05:00

Yay! Spring Break has officially begun. I have very lofty plans for the break. First and foremost, I plan to sleep a lot. These 8:30 classes are absolutely killing me. On a very very good day, I get 6 hours of sleep, often less than that. This leaves me dead, and I end up taking long naps after class in the early afternoon. While I get by like this, it definitely leaves me drained. Thus, I slept 11 hours last night, and wouldn't be surprised if I have a repeat performance the next few days.. the batteries are definitely low. Lofty plan #2 is to spend some time in the gym. This will hopefully get me back on track with my lifting. Thirdly, I plan to spend some time with friends, hopefully starting with Steve's party tomorrow. Fourth, I need to get a little work done - a little bit of reading, plus get some outlining done for my Virginia Civil Procedure class. Fifth, I MAY try to get some skiing in Sunday or one day this week.. this is rather unlikely, but its a possibility. Finally, I'm going to just chill out and play some games.

Yeah, nothing very exciting is it? I told you my life was boring! :-P

PS: If you have time to hang out this week hit me up on IM.

Goodbye Olympics!

2006-02-27T15:18:00.000-05:00

Well, the winter olympics are over. What a great 2 weeks! I don't think I've ever watched as much TV as I have in the past two weeks... the olympics took precedence over a variety of things in my life, including sleep, working out, and school. Of course, I can justify because they only come around every 4 years, and the winter olympics are probably my favorite sporting event there is - by a lot - and that's saying a lot for a guy rather into sports such as myself. Yes, I even like them better than VT Football. All in all I saw:

- Virtually all of Alpine Skiing
- Virtually all of Speed Skating
- Virtually all of Short Track
- Most of Figure Skating (even though I don't like it much)
- Quite a bit of Nordic events (including men's combined, quite a bit of ski jumping, and a decent bit of cross country skiing)
- A lot of Biathlon (this may just be my new favorite olympic sport - it rocks!)
- Most of Luge, Bobsled, Skeleton etc.
- Some Freestyle Skiing
- Most of Snowboarding
- 4 Hockey games (USA vs. Sweden; Sweden vs. Switzerland; Czech Republic vs. Russia (Bronze Game); Sweden vs. Finland (Gold Game)).

So I guess the only thing I didn't see is much curling... but I've got the women's gold medal game DVRed, so who knows, maybe one day when I'm bored I'll check it out.

Now that I've got from 4-6 extra free hours a day, maybe I can get some school work done! :P.

Note: Image courtesy of Davide Cerboneschi, from Torino2006.com.

Moving to Blacksburg!

2006-02-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

I think I've told most of you this but for those I haven't... I'm moving back to the burg! I took a job in Christiansburg with the attorney I worked for last summer. I will start on October 2. I got the job offer in early February, but I had some reservations about it. I called him up last Monday though, and we got everything ironed out, so I went for it. I'm pretty stoked about it - moving back to Blacksburg has been my goal since I started law school, and the fact its actually come about it pretty awesome!

So now, my priority is finding a roomie. If any of you know someone who is looking for a roommate next fall, let me know! I'm looking for a male who is clean, not too much of a party animal, and reasonably quiet. Also, no live in girlfriends or live-in on weekend girlfriends. Visits for weekends, etc, now and then are fine, but I don't want a semi-permanent non-paying roommate! Students are fine by me, though I may be going for a slightly nicer/pricier place than some students want to pay for. Anyway, if you know anyone... hit me up!

Getting my act together...

2006-02-25T15:56:00.000-05:00

Yeah, the title says it. I need to get my act together! I need to start posting on a blog again - to say I've been slacking is the understatement of the century. I haven't posted on my old blog since early December. Pathetic!

I need to get my ass back in the gym too. I went precisely 0 times last week, and once so far this week. I should be going 3 times a week, minimum. At least I've gotten back into biking though, so its not all bad. I'm not really losing any muscle but maintaining isn't my goal. You don't get bigger and stronger lifting once a week. This whole year has been spotty for me and I'm sick of it. I've been letting school and lack of sleep get in the way of time at the gym - neither is an acceptable excuse. I've got to pull it together and do what I want to do - lifting's just too important to me to continue to let it slide.

Finally, I need to get my school work back together. I've been slacking bad with my reading. Sure, I'm not missing any classes, and I'm fairly on top of the material, but I've been blowing off reading and in general not been quite as prepared as I usually am. I guess a little of that is normal your last semester, but I've taken it a little too far. I've just got ZERO motivation, and when the Olympics have subjected you to 4+ hours of TV a day it doesn't make it easy!

So, how do I plan to pull it together? Well, this new blog addresses the first issue. Think of it as a fresh start. Hopefully I'll keep up with it this time. For my fitness goals, well, I've got a new program planned. I'll be lifting heavy 3x a week, running once a week and mountain biking once a week. I'd like to add a light lifting day for 4 lifting days total, but we'll see how it goes time wise. With school work, the Olympics are almost over and spring break starts March 3. I think a week off to rest will do me some good - hopefully I'll come back and be ready to get back on the ball.

Now you know what's going on with me.. pretty boring huh? :). That's all for now, I'm out!