Post One Hundred Sixty Seven: Back from vacation

My family has just returned from a Caribbean cruise aboard one of the major cruise lines (not Carnival; we're not WT, after all). We all had a great time which was somewhat surprising since my wife's parents were part of the group. Given my history of vacations with her family, I was kind of dreading a similar experience. As it turns out, I am thinking that it is her sister that causes the drama. Good to know.

Anyway, the ship had something called a Flowrider on the top deck. Briefly, this is a flat surface that churns thousands of gallons of water across the top at a high rate of speed that allows you to boogie board or even surf across the top of it, all on about an inch of water. It all looked pretty cool so I signed up to try the surfing. A couple of suggestions for you if you get the chance to try one out:

One, don't.

Two, if you persist, make sure you put your dominant foot in the rear so you can actually put your weight on the back of the board. Jesus.

If you couldn't guess, I failed to follow either of my own suggestions. I had my left foot in the back and for the life of me I couldn't shift my weight to the rear. The instructor, nonetheless, eased me out and as soon as he let me go I said "Nope," and fell flat ... no, not flat. That gives me too much credit. I completely crumbled into a ball and somehow landed on the left side of my neck and head on a surprisingly firm surface covered only by a thin sheet of water.

Needless to say, that smarted.

I found myself spinning on my back on this thin sheet of water in front of God and everyone on the cruise ship. Once I stopped turning I stood up, jumped over the barrier, and walked over to my wife and kids to get my towel. I have no qualms about admitting that this was probably the worst attempt at surfing the Flowrider during the cruise.

After hiding in my room for a sufficient period of time (overnight, to be exact), the next day I decided to give the rock-climbing wall a go. My oldest daughter (age 9 ... NINE!!) had done it a couple days earlier and I have to say it was impressive as hell the way she just scrambled up the side. So I lace up the climbing shoes (they actually had a size 15, shockingly) and made my way to the head of the line. I am then directed to the stone column ... not the wall. I found out later (courtesy of my expert rock-climbing daughter) that this was a more advanced course. I am guessing they saw a 6'5" somewhat muscular guy and figured I should give that one a try.

Gads.

Anyway, I made it up about 4/5th's of the way up to the top and got to a point with my toes perched on a couple small rocks and my right hand in a death grip around another. As you hug a stone column about 25' off the ground, you start to realize just how high up you really are. You also look down and see the person holding your line and start to wonder if he can prevent 225 lbs of flailing limbs from landing in a broken heap below.

You also realize that hugging a column dwelling on such thoughts tires you the fuck out.

My left hand desperately searched for a grip on the left side so I could support my weight and lunge for the rock about 6" above my right hand. It might as well have been a mile since there was absolutely no grip on the left to be found. Realizing that it was pretty much hopeless, I made a weak lunge at the grip only to fall off the wall and was steadily lowered down the column with no joy of ringing the bell at the top.

Oh, well.

My failures notwithstanding, it was a great week. We all had fun and a much-needed break. Looking forward to the next vacation, maybe an adult trip with friends to Cabo next summer.

Post One Hundred Sixty Six: Serving as local counsel is fun

Yesterday morning I attended a hearing on behalf of an out-of-state law firm my office serves as local counsel for. In a nutshell, the plaintiff in the case wanted a report from one of our client's designated experts, saying that the designation was "useless." Whatever: the designation is, as required, a "fair summary" of the expert's anticipated testimony and plaintiff's counsel is free to fill in any blanks there may be during his deposition. So I feel like this is going to be a pretty simple hearing.

Of course not. The purported basis of the motion was just a ruse: the plaintiff's attorney tells me just before the hearing that the aforementioned law firm has not provided dates for the client's depositions despite several months' worth of requests from the plaintiff's attorney. Well, I do not know how they practice law up there but that type of stuff doesn't fly with courts down here. So I immediately get on the phone and tell them that we need to get deposition dates immediately.

The hearing went about as expected given that the judge does not like me (a long story but an entertaining one that I will likely write about next time I get around to posting). The judge said get the plaintiff dates by tomorrow, or I'll see you on Friday. What this means is that if the depositions aren't scheduled/finalized by today, the judge is likely going to strike our client's experts.

Nice.

So I call the firm up and give them the news. At that point I am informed that the plaintiff's attorney is full of shit. Apparently he was being the ass in this situation by demanding two consecutive dates for experts located in different states on opposite sides of the country. Of course I knew none of this as I had not been kept in the loop on deposition date discussions since I'm merely local counsel.

Goddammit.

Truly, there's nothing like being hamstrung before a hearing. When we serve as local counsel this type of thing happens just about every time: a dispute flares up between the plaintiff's attorney and the lead counsel and we get sent to argue some minor point in front of the judge because a 15 minute hearing is not worth the travel time.

Oh well. I still got the hours out of it.

Post One Hundred Sixty Five: Dipping

Back in college, I acquired a habit that I have quit many times but keep coming back to: dipping.

It's not particularly attractive, not particularly healthy, and I'm not particularly proud of it, but after 18 years of jumping on and off the Skoal bandwagon I am almost ready to resign myself to the fact that I'm probably going to keep going back to it.

Why do I do it? Nowadays, I primarily pick it back up when my wife leaves town on one of her trips out of the country. It serves as a stress-reliever during these two-week stretches when I'm not able to get to the gym due to childcare issues. And I have to say, after a meal, after the digestive juices have gotten going, and after the kids go to bed, it's kind of soothing. It breaks the tension.

Not to mention dealing with the stress of my job. A lot of attorneys my age dip, and if we get the right group together at a deposition or mediation, out come the cans. It's kind of a bonding thing. Right.

I remember growing up and ALL of my male cousins dipped. Both sides of the family. Personally, I wouldn't touch the stuff. Not only would my parents have flipped out but I remember reading stories in Reader's Digest about baseball players whose jaws rotted out. Ugh. Therefore, I was convinced that the first time I took a dip my jaw would be instantly riddled with tumors. Yeah, I was something of a hypochondriac back then.

All that said, college came around and I'm off on a road trip with my pledge class and two of my fraternity brothers are sitting in the front seat, both with dips in. I'm in the backseat, bored (it was a long trip), and I ask what exactly it was that snuff did for them? "Aw, it's just a little buzz," they explained. Well, I couldn't drink in the car and Mexico was hours away, so I bit. They offered up a can and I took a dip. I sat there with a pinch in my mouth, complaining about the lack of an effect. Comedians that they are, they just encouraged me to pack a bit more in.

Well, we reach a stop and I get out of the car with a MONSTER dip in and instantly I'm thrown off balance by my first nicotine buzz. And I was pretty much hooked. Since this time I have quit hundreds of times (a very easy thing to do, paraphrasing Mark Twain) only to be lured back by a cheap can.

I rationalize it a lot: it's not going to kill me because it's excessive drinking that causes oral cancer (I've actually read studies so I've almost convinced myself of that). I go through cans really slowly (which is true compared to a lot of guys I know). I only do it occasionally, and never around my wife and kids (well, at least not in front of them). And I take really good care of my teeth (floss once a day, brush twice).

Regardless, I'm just treating this post as a kind of confession. But at least I'm not smoking: you can kill other people with that shit.