New Law Firm

For those of you that read my last posting you know that I was a bit torn between two job offers. I wasn't really torn… I knew which firm I wanted to go work for; however, I had already accepted an offer from the first firm that interviewed me. In a normal business setting it wouldn't be that big of a deal to accept an offer to work for a company and then call them back a bit later to turn them down if something better came along. Well, the legal world is a different beast when it comes to job interviews and offers and acceptance of offers. First, the legal world here in Las Vegas is very small, despite the fact that Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing cities in the country (if not the fastest) and holds a population of about 2 million. For some reason the number of lawyers in the city is not growing nearly as fast as the city.

    You might be wondering why this matters… Well, in such a small legal community, word gets around very quickly. If you do something stupid or screw over a law firm in Las Vegas and you plan on continuing to work in Las Vegas, chances are the other lawyers in Las Vegas will find out about it. So I didn't want to screw over the first firm that offered me the job by going back on my word if that was going to have big consequences to my reputation. The other problem with finding a job in the legal market is there is a set of rules or etiquette that is usually followed when it comes to job interviews and offers. I didn't know if what I was doing was going to be looked at as a serious faux pas or not.

    So, in the end, I decided to go with the second law firm. I just felt a lot better about it (plus they pay quite a bit more than the first firm). I called back the first firm to tell them that I couldn't work for them anymore. Luckily I just got the guy's answering machine. I'll do anything to avoid confrontation. I'll probably start work at the new law firm sometime around mid-May. I have finals coming up at the beginning of May and I'll be done pretty quickly because I only have 3 finals this semester. I'm going to try to plan some kind of vacation before I start work, but it might be tough with Kiley being 8 months pregnant. I don't have anything more to say, so that is all…

72.4% of My Problems are Solved

My life has greatly improved in the last week. Things got really crazy for a while because I was interviewing for a billion jobs, looking for a new place to live, and trying to keep up with my school work at the same time. There were quite a few more problems added to that, but I won't go into those.

You probably guess from the title of this posting that 72.4% of my problems got solved recently. I'll start off with the small news and lead into the big stuff. I just took my Federal Income Test final, and right now my butthole hurts. To start off, the test was on Friday night at 6:00 p.m. Who gives tests on a Friday night? I guess I shouldn't be complaining… I am in law school. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I passed that test and I'm just glad to have it over with.

The better news is that we finally found a place to live, so I don't have to worry about being homeless with a pregnant wife anymore. The place we found is really nice. It's a 2 bedroom condo/townhouse with a 1 car garage. We're only paying about $50 more per month for this new place than we're paying right now for a 1 bedroom apartment with no garage, so I'm happy about that. The only downside to this new place is that there is no pool. I've been grieving over this detail for the past week. We've been packing up all of our stuff and getting ready for the move, which will take place on Saturday. I really wish we had enough money to just buy our own place, but with the number of foreclosures increasing in Las Vegas, I think it's best to rent for a year and watch the housing prices drop like a hammer.

So now for the biggest news of the week: I finally got a job. You have no idea what a relief this is. Once again, I don't really want to be homeless with a pregnant wife, and getting a job is a good way to prevent that. I'll be working for a pretty large firm here in Las Vegas. They mostly focus on insurance defense. So when a personal injury lawyer decides to sue an insurance company, this law firm is there to protect them. I'll be getting paid really well, but I guess it's all relative. Compared to my pay at UPS, I feel like Christopher Walken. Anyway, the nice thing about this job is that I'll be able to work part time during my last year of school, and if they like my work, they'll hire me as an associate once I graduate and pass the bar. That does mean that we'll probably be staying in Las Vegas for a while unless something unforeseen happens in the next year.

So that is the update on my life. Kiley's doing really well. She cut back on her hours at work because she's had high blood pressure lately, and that's not so good for the pregnancy. Other than that, we're going to have to start buying all of the baby stuff now that we'll have an extra bedroom to put it all. It's going to be quite an adjustment spending money on somebody other than myself. It's a good excuse to buy a nicer camera and a camcorder though. So I'll still get to buy my toys even though the rest of our money will probably go into buying things for the kid.

I need to start including photos in these postings because I know it's always more interesting when there are pictures. I'll probably end up just adding them to these posts later when I'm not sitting in class. That is all…

More Comings and Goings in My Life

So, as usual, it's been quite a while since I last posted. Quite a bit has happened since then, but not much to write about. I am passed my half-way mark in law school, which means I have just over a year left to go before graduation. School has calmed down for me, since this semester I decided to only do 12 credits instead of 15. If I had decided to do 15 credits I would pretty much be forced to graduate early. I don't really have a reason to graduate early, so I just decided to take it easy this semester.

Kiley is still pregnant. She's now 25 weeks along. That means we have about 3 ½ months to go. I'm not sure I'm ready for it, but I'm going to have to be. We were a bit worried last week after Kiley went to the doctor, because they said that her blood pressure was incredibly high. High blood pressure during pregnancy can be a sign of toxemia. I won't explain what toxemia is, but it's a condition that's about as bad as it sounds. The doctor said that if she gets toxemia, they will be forced to deliver the baby early. So that's not a good thing. Anyway, Kiley got some blood tests done and they determined that she doesn't have toxemia, but she still has to go see a high risk OB from now on.

Other than that little problem, we also have the added stress of finding a new place to live. Our lease is up on March 31^st, and we're currently living in a one bedroom apartment, so we have to move either way. My dad was actually looking into buying a house down here and we would just rent it from him. This was mostly for tax purposes, but it would work out nicely for us. However, with the housing market looking the way it does, we were cautioned not to buy in Las Vegas right now. Plus, I'm still looking for a summer job (more on that later) and we could possibly move after I graduate. So any house that my dad could buy would have to either appreciate in a year and a half, or at least keep from depreciating. So that was too risky for us. And now we're back to looking for a rental. Which sucks.

I was getting a bit worried about finding a job for this summer. Things are starting to actually look up for me. I got some interviews with several law firms here in Las Vegas. I got a call back to one of them, which is my first choice right now if I were to get an offer. I also have a law firm that is almost sure to offer me a job (I have some inside connections), but they probably don't pay as well as this other firm, so I've got a backup plan. It would be really nice to actually have a paying job. I've forgotten what it feels like to receive a paycheck. Plus, it would be a big relief to have an income since we don't know how much longer Kiley's going to keep working.

Anyway, I'll be posting again soon. Which means check back in about 3 months. That is all.

    

The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly of CES 2007

CES has come and gone this year and it has brought another set of memories. I went with Keltose again this year. I don't have much to say about the show itself: it was mostly a lot of the same stuff as last year. I was a bit disappointed in the amount of SWAG ("Stuff We All Get") that was handed out, as compared to last year. There was the usual pens and keychains with the logos of the companies on it: Divx, Toshiba, Xbox 360, etc. A new one this year was the yo-yo's handed out by Palm. I thought that was clever. I'd have to say the best unconditional SWAG (the stuff that you don't have to do anything to get) was from the Microsoft Zune lounge. They gave out cool bags with brown Zune T-shirts and Zune stickers.

As for the "conditional" SWAG, Sandisk came up short by giving out crappy backpacks, but only to people who got "passports" stamped at different spots in their booth. It wasn't worth it to me, so I didn't even bother. A bit farther down the lane was Creative who had the same hot booth babes as last year wearing their space age outfits. In order to get something from Creative, we had to get a card punched at two different areas after listening to a presentation about Creative's new products. I have to admit, Creative's new X-fi system was pretty cool. It basically takes mp3 quality audio and makes it sound a lot better. After getting your card punched you had to spin a Wheel of Fortune type thing and they gave you the prize that the wheel landed on. I won a Creative Coffee Mug, which doesn't do me a whole lot of good since I don't drink coffee. Keltose, the lucky bastard, won a Creative Zen V Plus mp3 player which is a whole other story on its own. You'll have to ask him about that...


There are only two other parts of CES that I find worth mentioning. First of all, Yahoo! was giving out Cold Stone ice cream, which was delicious. I got vanilla with strawberries. After getting our ice cream, we stopped by the Girls Gone Wild bus where they had some skanky girls playing fake volleyball (they also looked like they were underage, but I won't get into that).

Other than that, everything went as well as can be expected. Now I just have to get back to my normal life. School stars next tuesday I think and I'm not too excited to go back. It's been nice to have a month off. My wife is now 17 weeks pregnant and we find out on Monday whether it's a boy or a girl. I'll keep you updated on that. That is all for now...

I sure wish I had a job...

I bet you never thought that having a job could be stress relieving. Well, try being $70,000 in debt with a pregnant wife and no prospects for work. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself... I still have a year and a half left of law school, but many of my friends in law school already have jobs lined up for the summer. All I got was a stack of rejection letters. I think I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to make $100,000+ after graduation and maybe I just need to be more patient, but I'm a pretty greedy person. So I'm going to continue to look for that job that will make me buttloads of cash.

In other news, Kiley's been pretty sick lately and she hasn't been able to work, so we're basically living off of savings and the kindness of others. Hopefully she'll be able to get back to work soon so that we can make it until we get some loan money in January, but if not, I'm sure it will work out. Luckily we found a prescription that seems to calm down her nausea. She's now 10 weeks along, so we're hoping that once she's past the first trimester she won't get as sick.

Thanksgiving was pretty fun, we went up to St. George to visit Kiley's family for the week. That was some good fun. We got to play some racquetball and shoot some guns... I don't know what it is about Thanksgiving that makes people want to shoot guns.

Anyway, that is all for now.

This should be a good year for me...

I'm hoping that this year will turn out to be a good one for me. So far it's been pretty rough. Law school is not fun. I don't care which law student or lawyer you talk to, if they tell you that law school is fun, they are liars. But it is pretty rewarding... as long as you can get a job after you graduate.

Other than law school, my wife and I just found out that we're going to have a baby. I guess that won't really affect this year as much as it will affect next year for me. This has already changed the way I'm looking at things. I was planning on buying a nice computer next year, since I've had mine for about 3 years now and it's getting a bit outdated. However, I think I might have to put that money towards a new camcorder and other various items to prepare for the kid. I am hoping for a boy, since Kiley hates baseball. That way I'll have somebody to watch the games with me.


Speaking of baseball, my St. Louis Cardinals are in the World Series and just won a game last night to put them up 2-1 in the series over the Detroit Tigers. This might not be important news to most of you, but it's a bit step for me. As a long-time University of Utah fan and Utah Jazz fan, I have never seen one of my teams win it all. I know the U of U football team won the Fiesta bowl a few years ago, but that wasn't quite a National Championship, and the Jazz have only reached the NBA finals a couple of times but got beat by the Bulls on both occasions. So this is big news for me.

In other news, I'm really hoping to get a job at a law firm for next summer. It's quite a competitive process and some of the big law firms will pay up to about $2500 per week here in Las Vegas. I interviewed with a couple firms and I'm not too positive I'll get either position, but it would be a dream come true if I did. That would sure take some of the financial pressure off. The important thing about getting a job at a good firm for next summer is that most firms make offers to their summer associates to come back and work after graduation. That would be the ideal way for me to start out my career as an attorney.

I know this has been a pretty long post, but it's been a while since many of you have heard from me, so this should catch you up on everything. That is all for now...

I'm Back

I know most of you don't care, but I'm back in the world of blogging. This time I think I'm going to keep it simple. I'll probably just post a few times a week, when I get the time. I got the idea from Keltose, and I think it's a good way for my friends to keep up on my life without having to call everybody. So check back often for updates...