I Voted!

"Think about a fruit. When you squeeze an orange, what do you get? you get orange juice. you don't get grapefruit juice, you don't get apple juice, you don't get milk. you get orange juice. every time. people are like that. they can only give you what they have inside." - unknown

It is not Nov. 2nd, but I decided to take advantage of early vote. I fulfilled my civic duty and voted today! I had to wait in line for a good hour, but I can only imagine how long it is going to be on Nov. 2nd. Hopefully my vote will get to count. Of course I voted for John Kerry and for Betty Castor. I can not believe what a terrible negative campaign Mel Martinez ran. I thought of voting for him for almost a second, and then I saw what he stood for, his techniques to try to win and I knew Betty Castor was the choice for me. The rest of the ticket I'll spare ya from. As Jon Stewart said, let the fiasco begin. I'm really tired of all this, I just want it to be over. Hopefully we won't have to go past Nov. 3rd again. There were all kinds of people who showed up to vote. Young, old, rich, poor. One woman told me she doesn't vote, but she was going to vote today.

On the educational front, I don't have much to say. Still have that writing final exam on Friday, which I'm trying to get excited about. I went over my Writing mid-term, and I ended up getting two more right (appeals), which is awesome, and moved my score up much higher. Too bad of all my mid-terms, this one counts the least. Tomorrow night will be intense.

I'm watching game 4 of the World Series as I type. I've been instructed not to talk about it, so I'll keep my comments to myself, but I'm sure everyone is keeping up. I am pretty nervous right now.

Halloween is coming up and I don't know exactly what I am doing yet. I also don't know what I will dress up as. I'm still thinking I'm going to try the weatherman thing, but I don't know where to get a weatherman microphone. Then I can interview everyone about the lack of hurricanes. Mean Girls had a funny take on Halloween, I wonder if that take will be more prevalent in Miami.

I haven't really put much thought into my winter break yet. I need to start planning. I know I want to go home to Texas, but I need to figure out if I'm going to go on a cruise, if I'm going to visit Mexico (like Monterey or something) and pet care for Koki and Mia. I'm sure prices will start going up, but I just don't know what dates to pick yet. I haven't been home since July. I'm so glad I'm away from the cold of the northeast.

Have I mentioned that my health insurance runs out when I turn 25. I am kind of worried about that. I have yet to make an appointment with a doctor. I keep putting it off. I'm writing about this so that I can keep it higher on my to do list.

I think I'm at the point where I view my apartment as home now. I don't yet view Miami as home yet, but that is going to take more time since I don't go out as much as I should. I think a few weekends at the beach and a visit downtown will help out a lot. I'll probably wait for friends to visit to go out and get a good tour of the city. I didn't do a good job when Herbert came because I was so stressed with my move, my storage, starting law school, living in a hotel, my cat, and just personal stuff, so I next person I have come visit, I'll work extra hard for them to enjoy themselves.

still on my mind

More Honest Than Cool

For a moment all the world was right.

How could I have known you'd ever say goodbye

Holding you I held everything

For a moment wasn't I the king

But if I'd only known how the king would fall

Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all

And now I'm glad I didn't know

The way it all would end the way it all would go

Our lives are better left to chance

I could have missed the pain

But I'd of had to miss the dance

- The Dance Garth Brooks

Boston is now up 2-0. This is good. I've been told not to use the S word, so I won't. I think that would be great though. I guess we won't start stressing until it's 2-2. Today I read something pretty funny. You know your a republican if you start from 3rd base and think you hit a triple. You know your a democrat if you hit a single, but think you diverse a triple because the other guy got a triple. Off of baseball, I saw a t-shirt that said "Every vote counts. If you count every vote." Lets hope we get them all counted.

You should be proud of me, I was able to track down Koki's vet. I called this vet in Springfield, VA and asked them if they had a Koki Alaniz in their records, they did not. Then I asked if they knew of other vets in the city and they gave me a number. I called it and they did have Koki on file. I told her that I took Koki by, I think about a year ago. She told me that it was exactly a year ago to the day. That that was random and cool. So I find out she got a 1yr Rabies shot, which expires today, so now I need to get her to the vet so that she doesn't get rabies. So step one done, step two the appointment coming up.

Today I got out of class early. Our Torts professor went over our exam question and then let us out. I did ok on the exam, not what I wanted, but check this out. The exam was on "assault" and the elements of it applied to a fact pattern. So our entire time was to be devoted to that. This is what I talked about, assault (yes!), battery, infliction of emotional distress, trespass, trespass to chattels, and conversion. Everything else but assault, you can just cross out on my essay, which makes it short as anything. What can ya do, I still need to see my exam to see how I did on that part specifically.

So I take my 700m laptop and mail it back to Dell. 20 bucks shipping, not too bad for a loaner. I go shopping for groceries to fill up my frig. I noticed something, that people love to talk about their families. The check out lady was talking to this lady in front of me and kept asking questions like, how are your kids, do you have any pictures? etc. I could tell they had a relationship (maybe she checks her out each time), but they hadn't seen each other in a while. The customer lady complained how her son didn't call her enough and she probably wouldn't be approving of what he is doing. They both looked pretty happy.

After work, Angie came by. We went to Aventura mall to return a gift for her sister and to get these pants she saw on her friend Hazel that she thought were really cute. I tried to convince her to go to Pembroke Pines mall, but she really likes Aventura (it is a better mall.) I still argue that Tysons is much better, but I think she and I are biased. So we go to abercrombe and she found her pants. There is no way I'd be cool enough to shop there. We did the mall thing and shopped for a while. So back to the family thing. So while I was waiting for Angie at the mall, I was standing by this guy who worked there, probably a janitor, but his shirt said trainee. We didn't talk and then a woman passed by with 3 little girls. He told me that those were very beautiful girls (in a nice way) and I decided to ask him about his family. His eyes just opened and brightened and he seemed excited to tell me how he had 5 sons and 1 daughter. His oldest son is 16. I asked him if he could still win in a fight and he said yeah. He seemed very happy to talk about them and then Hati and his country. So I guess people just like talking about family, I guess I'll ask more about it. So after shopping, Angie took me to the food court to try her papi salads that she eats for lunch. They were actually very good. A woman came up and asked to have a salad just like Angie's, but the salad person said you pick what you want, and the lady was like, (with attitude) no just give me what she has, so the person starts to put in the same stuff that Angie asked for and then she yells, no I don't want cucumber, it was funny. Guess that's that it's called make your own salad.

So I got this exam on Friday. I figure I'll just study like crazy Thursday night, but I hope to get some general studying done earlier. Well I'd better go read for Contracts and Civil Procedure.

sweet pea

Your Body Is A Wonderland

"Invest your time wisely and choose your friends accordingly...for life will become stagnant if you surround yourself with those who sincerely can offer nothing but just a way to pass the time..." -fri

Sometimes people sleep when they are depressed. I guess I enjoy sleep so much, that I sleep when I am very happy too. Sometimes you feel so good when you go to bed you don't want to wake up because you don't want that feeling to end. You know that waking up will mean going back to a life where you might not be as happy. It is hard to explain.

Thursday night after and I mourned the Astros loss, I went with Fed to a Spring L get together at his friend's apartment. I only hung out there for about an hour or two, but this girl had the nicest one bedroom apartment I've ever seen. I wish I had money. I talked about politics with some people and we went through the usual arguments and responses. I find it interesting how when some people argue, they love to say certain things with confidence, but when you know it is wrong or misstated, and you call them on it, it really irks them. If you let them go on, they act as if what they are telling you is truth. That is how rumors get started I bet. I met some pretty cool people and one guy who called me on my arguments with some pretty good ones. I didn't agree, but I didn't have facts to dispute his facts, nor did I have any proof his facts were off. It's good to talk to people like that because they really keep you sharp. After, everyone went to Coconut Grove, a place I have yet to go to, but I had class in the morning, so I just came home and watched the 1am Daily Show.

Friday, I went to class and took a Property quiz. It was 20 questions on future estates after 1536 and I thought I did very good at first, but I ended up missing 5. It was the last 5 that I missed, but the problem was that I got one wrong, which subsequently made the rest wrong too, because I based them off of that one. Thank goodness it wasn't for a grade. After property, I went to my writing class and found out about a summer semester in Spain. If I am still in law school this summer, I'm definitely going to Spain. I never got to study abroad in college, so this would be such a great experience. I'd like to go to Europe again and this time with the motivation of seeing Europe. I find out in class that I have my final exam in legal writing this coming Friday. I will probably need to study pretty hard for this because I haven't touched my bluebook since my midterm exam. Luckily I'm determined to get back in study mode.

After class, I came home intending to go back to school for a Hispanic group kegger from 4-6, but once I got home, it's always hard to go back to campus. When I got home, my new 600m laptop had come in. I spent a lot of time playing with my laptop and moving over a lot of files and programs. I still have a lot more stuff to do to set it up, but it is getting there. Now I can mail back the 700m, which I'll probably do Monday or Tuesday. I think I might give up on my old 600m. Angie came over after work and we watched the DVD Mean Girls. I think Tina Fey did a great job on the screen play for the movie. There were some great lines from that movie. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. After the movie, we practiced a little taboo and I showed her how to play Outburst. I also got to show off Rick's mp3s as if they were my own. I need to start listening to my mp3s more.

Saturday I woke up really late and watched a little college football. That evening, Angie arranged a Taboo BBQ party at her friend Guillermo's house so we could test out her new electronic game. I picked Angie up and then we went over to Guillermo 's house. He is a pretty cool guy and has a very nice place, I hope to have a place like that one day. When I got there, I met her friend "Fuzzy." I am actually a loss for his real name right now. We all went to Publix (like Safeway) to get the food. It reminded me that I really need to get groceries. Angie of course picked healthy chicken and organic salad, but we still managed to get steak and hamburgers. As they cooked, I watched the FSU game on TV. They barely pulled it out against Wake Forest. I also saw the end of the Alabama Tennesse game. All of us, Angie's friend Bruno, his girlfriend Diana, Vania, Ada, and her friend Pablo played electronic taboo. It was boys against girls, but we had one more person so we ended up winning. (you know and we were the boys.)

Later we played a game with cups, but it was pretty much sharades. It was a lot of fun, but I guess the guys technically lost because we missed one. After, I guess it was cause of me, but we ended up watching the World Series game 1 on his awesome big screen TV. It had a function where you could pause and rewind live tv. I've heard of it, but never played with it, I wish I had that. Only the Red Sox can blow an early 5 point lead, but at least they pulled the game out. 3 more wins to go. After, we were going to go to a John Kerry party Angie's John Kerry friends were throwing, but we ended up just calling it a night since it was late. Spending a Saturday with a group of friends, even though they were not mine, and having a BBQ was very nice. I wish I had my close friends around to hang out with.

I found out that a friend of mine just started a blogger. I don't know if she will keep it up, but it always makes me happy when more people write. I think it's good for the writer and good for their friends. I remember when Monica started her website back in college, I was so proud of her. You know, sometimes I wonder if I say things that make people think I'm a dumbass or share too much information, or say something that might offend someone, but I figure, if I look like an idiot, it is probably because I am one, so why hide it. Yeah thats not true, because I do try to hide it. Personal note for Marty, saw Reindeer Games, yeah it wasn't that good, but at least you won't be wondering what it was about.

Today Mia made some great strides in trusting me. I woke up and she was sleeping in her bed (well it belongs to her and Koki) and she didn't run away when I petted her. Then at night, she was laying on my desk/table with Koki and she let me pet her again. She is still scared, but slowly she is getting less scared and trusting me more and more. We still have a lot of work to do, but I'm starting to feel better about it.

message check

Reverse Sweep

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous." - Carrie SATC

So the Red Sox pulled the reverse sweep. That was quite the series. I know a lot of very happy people and of course some sad ones. Too bad for the sad ones though cause their Yankees have won enough for them to get over it. Tonight I hope the Astros win, a Texas v. Mass world series would mirror the election and in both cases I'll be rooting for Mass. (Guess it should really be Mass v. Conn). I can't wait until the World Series is over. Why do I only care about baseball in October? I'm also like that about hockey and basketball, yet I'll watch football anytime. Soccer I seem to only care about every 4 years, like during the World cup, well I guess every 2 years because I watch the women's world cup too. Fyi FIFA 2005 is awesome and addicting.

So I wake up this morning and decide I am not going to class. I was so tired from staying up late and I hadn't done my reading for contracts. I go into Fede's room and tell him I'm staying home (since I was going to give him a ride)...so I tell him to take my truck. I had to get out of bed to tell him, so I got past the hardest part of every morning. I decide to shower since I can do that sleeping. I get out of the shower and lay in bed and it feels so good. I decide to read for contracts since I'll be missing it, I might as well learn what I'm missing. I read and when I finish reading, I notice I can still make class. I put on some clothes and drink a red bull and decide to show up to class, on time I might add. I'm glad I did because I got to ask some questions that helped me get "Parol Evidence." I decide to go home between classes instead as my way to justify going, but after class I stop and eat lunch in the cafeteria (spreading my views on voting irregulatires) and then I figure, ok I'm here so I'm going to my next class. I go to Civ Pro to learn about intervention and class actions. So a day I had totally almost skipped, I ended up attending. It sucks I almost found a way to justify staying home to myself, but I'm also proud of myself for using the same technique to trick myself into going. Isn't my life interesting.

I saw Al Gore on CSPAN making a speech at Georgetown. It was very good. He pretty much explained the motivations and mindset behind the Republican party and a lot of their actions. Sometimes I'll sit there and wonder where they get their motivations to do bad things, I mean we all want what is best for the country, but somehow their decisions never seem best for the country as a whole. Of course it sums up into them caring for and protecting their own interests, but the way Gore explained the thought process and justification was really impressive. Some of the cool facts he shared were that a US sponsored study found that over 90% of Iraqis view the US as occupiers and 2 % view us as liberators. I guess we are to think that 90% are freedom haters. Over 90% of those tortured and abused at that prison in Iraq were not guilty of anything and just there for questioning and were let go. So the argument that we don't owe terrorists human rights shows that when 90 are not terrorists we are jerks. The people we are trying to free might not trust us when we sexually humilate their people. Way to go Rumy. Isolated instances argument you can save because its been proved that there were clear instructions. I mean we are outside the Geneva convention in treating enemy combatants. He also noted how an important republican (pardon the missing name) who is not voting for Bush is quoted as saying "they spill out mistruths with an evangelical fervor." We believe them. And if you know my feelings on evangelical Christians and how they use the word of God to manipulate and serve their own ends instead of those of the lord, you would see how that really struck a chord with me. He did a nice explanation on how Republicans have made poor people hate taxes to serve their own ends and all that other democratic stuff. Don't forget I feel the democrats are part of the problem as well, but at least they stand for the right stuff and are clearly the best of two evils. Dean, why did you have to scare the democrats into thinking you weren't electable?

Angie dropped by yesterday and dropped off a documentary called Unprecedented about the 2000 election and about the voting in Florida. It is narrated by Danny Glover. He spoke at my graduation. I thought I knew a lot about the voting irregularities in Florida, but it was so much more messed up than I imagined. Some stuff is complicated, so I won't try to explain it here, but the issue of purging felons was crazy. In Florida if you are a felon you can't vote. The law was actually created at a time when people were upset that blacks got to vote, so this would decrease their voting numbers. It was beefed up recently before 2000 because it wasn't being enforced as hard. That aside, they create this list of felons and then try ot match it with the people registered to vote. If the names match they delete you off the list. In theory it makes sense if you agree with the idea, but the way the did it was more messed up. They sent out memos saying they wanted the process to be all encompassing, so they just matched people who were somewhat close, ignoring Jrs, srs, name spellings, different birthdays etc, even those with our felony dates or dates in the future. (yeah explain that.) Now this wasn't like a few people that were getting mistaken due to errors, it was thousands...mostly blacks and 93% of blacks vote democratic. There was an example of a preacher who was purged and had his vote thrown out whose name was "johnny jackson Jr" and was born on 9/8/?? and he was matched with a felon named "John Jackson" (no Jr) born in 8/8/??. Close enough I guess, so he didn't get to vote. Then out of state felons who had their voting rights restored in their states are on the list and purged as well, unless they write the governor a letter and ask for his permission to vote.

It goes on and on, with details about the companies outsourced to do it. It has a nice explanation about how the chad ballots sucked and how the new electronic ballots with no audit trail suck too. They already have cases of backdoor code where you can change the results. In Nebraska, the CEO of the company who made the voting machines was the senator whose own machines counted his votes in his last election. Now even if you feel this could still be fair, (like Cheney and Halliburton's no bid contracts) he didn't even disclose that he was the CEO of the company.

It also talks about the recounts, the lawsuits, the way republicans sent all their staffers down to Florida to protest in Miami-Dade county like they were citizens of Florida. The shadyness of Katrine Harris was mind blowing. They made a key point that Gore should have asked for a total recount than a partial recount, which would have been more fair and how that could have cost him the election. The supreme court ruling was talked about and how Scalia (I really don't like this guy in general to begin with) has so many reasons to recuse himself from this case, including his son being benefiting from the election of Bush, but didn't. They also noted that Bush v. Gore only applies to Bush v. Gore and not any other case, this is rarely done in court cases and if you applied Bush v. Gore to any election it would invalidate it. Of course you get a lot of great arguments in the dissent.

This is just a tidbit of the information I learned, but there is a lot more and yeah, 2000 is over, lets move on, but a lot of these same practices exist today. It really makes you worry about our voting process and fair it really is. Dude, I vote, you count it, you add them up, it shouldn't be that complicated.

Wow I'm really going off on this issue, so let me tell you about a press article Angie wrote. Here is a part of it.

"The absentee ballot instructions, instruct the absentee voter to insert their ballot in a sealed secrecy envelope. Apparently, the absentee ballot does not fit in the secrecy envelope, which the voter is instructed to place the ballot in. Since, the absentee ballot does not properly fit in the secrecy envelope a voter is not insured of their privacy when voting.
Furthermore, the instructions do not instruct how much postage should be placed on the envelope being mailed to the board of elections. Therefore, the absentee ballots may be returned to the voter, which may result in those votes not being counted. After speaking with the Miami Dade Board of Elections, Voices for Working Families was informed that a voter needs to place three 37 cents stamps or two 37 cents stamps and a 9 cent stamp. The United States Postal Service is also stating conflicting information regarding how much postage needs to be place on the absentee ballot. "

If this election is close, and every vote is important, I hope people fight all the injustices out there. I'm done with my surmon.

On a more materialistic side, my new laptop from Dell (3rd laptop actually) arrives tomorrow. I will have to set it up, but it will be nice to have a good laptop for law school again. Still working on finding out who has my old one.

I may say I'm not settling, but it's obvious I'm settling