The Supreme Court and Fun and Games

The day started way too early. Technically, breakfast was at 7 a.m. The first true event, however, was at 8 a.m., so I showed up at 7:50, scarfed down some grub, and made myself comfy in the large ballroom between Bax and my new friend D80, who is my Taiwanese twinsie who shares my penchant for taking photos of everything.

Our first lecture was on ethics for attorneys. Stop laughing. I'm serious here. Not a bad presentation. We had these little buzzer thingies that made the exercise interactive. I felt like I was part of a live audience for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Then it was time for constitutional law superstar Erwin Chemerinsky. No exaggeration here. This man is beyond incredible. Anyone who has taken BarBri in California has an inkling of how awesome this man is. And now he is the founding dean of the brand new University of California, Irvine School of Law.

Being the Chemerinsky groupie that I am, I snapped a couple photos. Yes, I pulled out my camera in the middle of class and clicked away. Shameless.

I actually took rather copious notes, thinking I would touch upon the cases discussed, but now I've decided most of you would be bored to tears with federal preemption and punitive damages issues.

I will say this, though. If you haven't already realized, the upcoming presidential election will determine whether the Supreme Court becomes significantly more conservative or remains ideologically the same (i.e., McCain would appoint conservatives to replace retired or dead liberal justices, or Obama would appoint liberals to replace retired or dead liberal justices).

Some of you non-lawyers may not know just how much of an impact the election will have on the Supreme Court and the law of the land. It is scary scary scary (yes, three "scaries") to imagine the kinds of decisions that would result from such a right-wing Court. Ideology controls everything. For this reason alone, I think it is imperative to vote for Obama. (Yeah, like you haven't already guessed this is how I swing.)

Seriously, this is reason enough not to vote for McCain.

But let's get back to more important things -- food.

Lunch consisted of build-your-own-sandwiches and run-of-the-mill sides.

I'd planned to take a quick nap, but housekeeping was in my room, so I walked around and took pictures to pass the time.

After my solo excursion, I met Tennessee, D80, Glam and her Mini-Glam and Mama Glam, and A (the newest attorney I have yet to name) for a walk to the lagoon. Mini-Glam rode around in her Bugaboo.



As you can see, the lagoon was the pits. Not really that fun to walk and get sweaty for this.

Hanging out by the pool was more enjoyable.

We even witnessed a budding bromance. Lucky us.

Next event was a cocktail reception by the pool. There was a Mexican fiesta theme, complete with mariachis.



You can't see them in my video, but you sure can hear them.

Dinner was nothing special. Even so, I inhaled my food because I was really hungry after our new president/CEO's speech. Like really hungry. You know I'm famished when I don't take pictures.

I did take a picture of dessert. Every single thing on this plate was disgusting, except for the little shot glass of rice pudding. Sad.

The game room quickly turned my frown upside-down. After dinner, I became a sweaty Monkey playing ping-pong and air hockey. Giggles, Bax, Wienerdude, Purell, and Fooz kept me laughing past midnight. Happy.