Uncle Kracker Archives - Memos and Mirth

Colbie Caillat, Uncle Kracker, and Dead Hamsters

January 21, 2010

Last night Joel and I went to the KS95 concert at the Varsity Theater. The concert’s headliners were Uncle Kracker and Colbie Cailatt.

Uncle Kracker’s performance was underwhelming. He just sat the entire time and had minimal crowd interaction. Colbie, whose name I can’t pronounce, was really pleasant to watch and listen to. She’s no Lady Gaga, Brit-Brit, or Beyonce…but she’s a little livelier than Nora Jones and a little less scandalous than Miley.

After the show, Joel and I went to Loring Pasta Bar for a little come-to-Jesus meeting, where Joel had Jesus lighting:

Which brings up a tangent I forgot to go on: the ridiculousness that is becoming “facebook official.”

Facebook official status seems like a casual, trivial thing, but it is actually like sending an engagement announcement to your 600 not-so-closest friends.

Then, after a few weeks or months (when the honeymoon heat fades) facebook-official status can create an awkward feeling of entrapment. Is the other person as serious as you are? Does someone want to break up? Is he a vampire? Are you willing to make that facebook change and take the aftermath?

It’s like calling off a wedding – no one ever believes that the bride and groom sat down calmly over coffee and mutually parted ways. No, everyone from your school dean to your mom will imagine some grand Revolutionary-Road style fight. There has to be screaming, shattered glass, a restraining order, a dead hamster… ie, drama.

None of that happened last night at the Pasta bar. It was more “Can you meet me half way?” than “Ring the Alarm” and there’s no break up or restraining order that I’m aware of. Now the hamster is another matter…

2L Spring / 2L Winter / Law School / Minneapolis-St. Paul

End of break, start of spring

January 20, 2010

Spring semester started, somehow. That means winter break is over.

I had this vision (delusion) of winter break as this slow, peaceful thing filled with vast amounts of free time. Instead, winter break was characterized by 10-hour¹ workdays, epic nights out with long-neglected friends in Minneapolis and Miami, and a slowly deteriorating apartment.

The apartment was so disorderly by the end of break that I would only let Phillip see it. Then came the second dog, a massive apartment scrub down, and – yep – classes again.

This semester is more exciting and less cluttered. Two of my professors are partners at law firms, and one of my professors has reached an age and level of prestige where she just can drop F-bombs in class. I love it.

There are also no more 8am classes, ridiculously stacked² days, and I started going to the gym again! I am beside myself with joy.

And no class on Friday. Oh yeah.

The only class³ I have yet to have is my housing clinic. This is my first clinic⁴ and I’m not sure what to expect. I guess I’ll find that out tomorrow.

Tonight I’m seeing Joel, who has been MIA, and we are going to the Colbie Caillat/Uncle Kracker/Theory of a Deadman concert. The concert sounds a tad less exciting than a Beyonce concert, but not quite as bad a root canal. We’ll see how this goes.

¹ This was because I worked full time, but 3 of the 4 weeks of break were compressed. One week was compressed because finals ended on Tuesday, and the two weeks abutting the Miami trip were also shortened. This is why I had to work 10 hour days to get my time in.
² Stacked days mean stacked books. Last semester I had to carry around an overnight bag just for my books. This semester I only have two 1-inch books. This is so awesome I might cry.
³ Class, ie, not moot court. I have no idea what’s going with that…
⁴ One thing I like about this semester is that my classes are very practical and relevant to my goals. I came to law school to practice estate planning, but I really like tax law, so I was excited when my estate planning seminar professor told me that estate planning is laden with tax issues.