Blog
Writing, notes, and occasional rambles.
internal newsletter items - May 11 (aka ALL ABOUT AI)
Newsletter items from my internal company newsletter, the week of May 11
Feb 2026systems thinking and more
I publish a biweekly newsletter for the QE organization at my company, and I thought I’d start sharing some of what I have there. This edition is about systems thinking, as well as some other stuff. Always With the Learning Konstantinos Konstantakopoulos wrote about systems thinking and automation for the Ministry of Testing. Short read with some good insights.
Nov 2025recital program: Between Breath and Silence
Here’s the program for the November 2nd recital! 2025-11 Between Breath and SilenceDownload
Jun 2024where I'll be in 2024
I’m going to be at software testing conferences this year! It’s June as I’m writing this, and the first is in eight days, but I guess it’s better late than never! Romanian Testing Conference: June 12-14, Cluj-Napoca, Romania opening keynote - Real Life Is Not an Edge Case PNSQC: Oct 14-16, Portland, Oregon, US invited speaker - Mistakes I Made So You Don’t Have To workshop - Leveraging the Power of AI in Software Testing Testing United: Nov 7-8, Vienna, Austria opening keynote - Artificial Intelligence: the Good, the Bad, and the Bias Agile Testing Days: Nov 19-22, Potsdam, Germany musical - The Owl Problem talk - Mission Possible: Leading as an Individual Contributor I am THRILLED to be at these conferences. I couldn’t have imagined that these doors would open, and I can’t wait to meet people, learn a bunch, and share some of what I think about!
Apr 2023recital program: Invitation to Bloom
A voice recital on Sunday, May 7 by Rachel and many great local musicians featuring newly composed music. Takes place at Zion Lutheran Church. Invitation to Bloom Recital on NowPlayingUtah.com invitation-to-bloom-programDownload
Nov 2018new board games rundown
I spent the better part of five days last week playing the newest board games at a convention in Seattle. It was quite a change from the board game convention I usually go to, where players have about 40 hours to get through at least 30 games. This one was more relaxed time-wise, but the games were considerably more intense. I played a lot of “heavy” games, which took up to about five hours for one game. Altogether, I got through 27. The games were of a much higher caliber than my other convention too, so that made me happy. Here’s the rundown of the games I played:
Oct 2018pair testing adventures
Last week, I finally did what I’ve been wanting to do for months (years) and engaged in pair testing three times with some differing results. what is pair testing? Pair testing is a lot like pair programming, where you have two sets of eyes and two minds engaged in the same problem. There can be a lot of benefits to it (Lisa Crispin talks about it here), such as increased creativity, better quality, and more exploration, but, just like pair programming, it can be difficult to start and requires a lot of focus and energy. I wanted to learn strong-style pairing, as it seems to involve the most engagement from both people.
Aug 2018CAST retrospective
I attended the Conference of the Association for Software Testing (CAST) two weeks ago in Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was a fantastic learning and networking experience over four days, and I’m still reeling a little bit. I started with a full-day tutorial about how to coach testing with Anne-Marie Charrett (her site is here). She and James Bach built the coaching model together but have added their own flavors to it. Anne-Marie emphasized understanding the person and starting from where they are. We had a couple of exercises where we paired up to teach a concept or test something, and we realized how easy it was to move in and out of pairing and coaching alternately. It gave me a lot to think about if I move into coaching, and Anne-Marie’s style of teaching was engaging and thorough. The overarching theme of the weekend was “Bridging Between Communities”, so a lot of the talks and workshops ended up stressing communication. This ranged from communicating in healthy ways to defuse situations (Don’t Take It Personally by Bailey Hanna - her blog post is here) to a keynote about Cynefin by Liz Keogh where she said:
Dec 2017automation thoughts - an update
Last year, I wrote some thoughts about the benefits of manual testing. The posts are here and here. Now that I’ve been on an agile team for over a year, and doing some automation, I think (hope) I have some more sophisticated thoughts about automation. Our team has two “manual testers” and one “automation engineer”. The automation engineer does all of the UI automation (for now), but I’ve written a lot of service layer tests using SOAP UI, and the other tester has been learning to write them too. The idea is to have the two of us start running (and eventually writing) UI automated tests as well, and we’re taking steps towards that end. The benefits of the API testing through SOAP have become clear, but so have the challenges. It has cut down on our need to test all flows in regression testing manually. I can write service tests while the UI is still being coded, and it’s a good way to start our monthly testing cycle. After all, if something is broken at the service level, there’s no point in testing manually, and we can pinpoint the error more quickly and precisely. We have everything in our app that can be tested at the service level automated, which I feel really good about. Or, at least, we have all the calls exercised. There’s always more to test, isn’t there? A big weakness of service testing is that it is more brittle than manual testing, because if something changes in the call (for instance, a value changes from being taken from a detail to being taken from a cookie), it breaks the test, though you wouldn’t notice a difference at the UI level. You also can’t run all the negative tests (like lockout tests) you might want to run, particularly if you think you’ll run the suite repeatedly through the day. We have two test cases that can only be run once every half hour, and one test case that requires a person to reset the user every time. Those test cases are fairly essential, so we make do with them. I still very strongly believe that there is no substitute for getting in the features and playing around, or, to be more formal about it, doing exploratory testing. That’s how we find all the interesting bugs. Automated testing is checking; it ensures certain things are stable, not that a product is “good”. However, automated testing is (can be?) fast, and it can be an efficient use of time, particularly for regression testing. Automated testing can make sure that bugs that are found and fixed don’t break again, but would a person writing automated test think to try refreshing a page without first finding an issue in exploratory testing? Perhaps I’ll have more thoughts about this later, but this is what I’ve been thinking about recently. Thoughts from y’all? Criticism? Questions?
Oct 2017two years of dates
For Christmas of 2015, Carl and I decided to plan a year of dates. We alternated months and planned an activity around town (or at least within driving distance), trying to keep the overall budget down, but allowing for a splurge. We liked it so much that we did it again this last year and are planning on doing it this Christmas too. We haven’t done all of them, whether because of time constraints or budget constraints or something else, but we’ve managed to get to about 3/4 of them. Without further ado, here they are!
Oct 2017training a tester
I may have mentioned a few months ago that I’m training a tester who is new to mobile. We’re four months in, and I’m surprised to find that I’m still answering (many) questions daily. Language does play an important role, and sometimes I realize that concepts that are organized in a certain way in my head don’t translate well to words or the way other people think. But also, for a long time, I was just answering questions, imparting information. I’ve changed tactics, now that she’s been on our team for several months, to being more socratic. If she thinks she’s found a bug, I press her, ask her why she thinks it’s a bug, and how she can get additional information about the bug. Eventually, I want to know what her oracles are, what devices/OSes/app versions she’s tried on, what environments she’s been in, what the logs that we have access to say, and on and on. I know I don’t always follow all the steps myself, but I have a checklist published for our team that talks about all the different things to try. If she asks whether a feature is supposed to be in a specific app version, I push her to explain why it should or should not be before I give her an answer. Just this last week, I included her in writing SOAP tests, asking her questions about how we could modify certain things to get the right thing tested, instead of talking through my own thought process. I think this method is more effective. Instead of trying to describe how my own synapses fire, I’m making her form her own way of thinking about things. It’s frustrating sometimes, because it takes a lot more effort to work with someone for fifteen minutes so they come to their own answer instead of just providing it, but the goal is for it to save time in the future. In the couple months where I was the only tester on the team, I revamped how testing was documented, and how things in general were documented, to a way that made the most sense to me. I documented what I did rather than what I was going to do. My notes for things to test for were for my reference, not for anyone else to consume, and I made mind maps as artifacts. This worked great for me, and I think it’s working well for my partner, but I’m trying to be sensitive to the idea that not everyone thinks like me (nor should they), and to be open to doing things another way, should she come up with something better.
Oct 2017finding purpose
I like my employer, and I like my new career as a software tester, and though I strive to be excellent, when I leave work, I do my best not to think about it until the next day. I’ll sometimes try to learn a new skill or read a book related to software testing, or write a blog post, but software testing is not what gives me purpose in life. I grew up thinking I was going to be exceptional. Maybe every kid does. Maybe it’s my generation. And though I’m a little disappointed that I’m not running the world or making a widely known name for myself, I’m really happy with the life I’ve built. My marriage is nearly perfect - we have similar goals, complementary interests, a genuine enjoyment of conversation and companionship with each other, and a desire to see the other one succeed and be happy. I’ve found solid friends and fun groups to be around. I am getting better at singing and am truly enjoying it. I always have a project or two going, usually knitting. I’m very involved at church and am trying to get more involved in my community. I’ve taken up rock climbing. My depression is mostly kept at bay, though some days, it’s hard to get out of bed. But is this my purpose in life? I hope I bring joy to others, I think I inspire people in some way, and I’m pretty happy right now, so is this what I can hope to achieve? I try not to be selfish, though that is my nature, and I can be rather self-indulgent some (a lot) of the time. I’ve been looking into ikigai and hygge - it seems that a lot of people are seeking purpose (and contentment) in life. I don’t have one all-consuming passion that makes me happy to get out of bed (and pays me), but I do have rituals and little things that bring meaning to everyday life. This is a hard concept for me. My life is pretty ordinary viewed from the outside, I think, but it feels special from the inside. Where do you find purpose? How do you define it?
Jul 2017SOAP testing and finding the right assertions
I’ve been delving into the more technical side of testing, that of using tools to exercise code precisely rather than galumphing through UI, which really is my preferred method. Our mobile app uses a lightweight service to connect to the other moving pieces at the company and our vendors, so we can test those calls directly through SOAP, which, for you non-software people out there, is also called API testing. The developers of our software took kind of a blanket approach to the envelopes for the service calls, so there are tons of superfluous fields for each of the calls, and it’s kind of a guessing game as to which are required for any particular service call. My developers didn’t create all the service calls, so I’ve actually been able to figure things out and share my envelopes with them (so, you know, I feel pretty cool). Once I figure out which fields are necessary to get a call working, then it’s time to figure out an assertion. These are what the testing software checks against to make sure things are working appropriately. In our testing, they’re usually related to the content of a field, whether it is a “success” or “failure” message, or, in a case I was working on recently, whether the name of a document started with a specific year or not. With this case, we modified the call to pull documents one year at a time, so the call for each year needed to return only documents for that year and none others. I ended up doing a check that the count of docs that started with something other than the year I was looking for was 0. This may sound simple, but it took quite awhile to get the xpath right, and I had some (a lot of?) help from a developer. The SOAP tests are nothing without the correct assertions. You can go ahead and get all the information you want, but without an automated check on the information, the tests have very little advantage over UI testing in terms of speed, though they do have the ability to cut down on some of the noise that is inevitable with UI testing. API testing is another tool in the box. It cannot be the only thing, and it should not be ignored. It’s great for getting precise information, for making sure you exercise calls at a lower level, and it can be faster than UI testing, but it is not a substitute for a full complement of testing, including exploratory testing (galumphing), scripted tests run manually, and scripted tests run through automation. And, of course, if your developers unit test their code, that helps too. :)
Jul 2017language and learning
We have a new tester on my team. I recruited her, and I talked her up to my team. They liked her, and I was excited when it worked out. She’s not new to testing, but she’s new to mobile, and it’s a different beast and a different set of systems from what she was doing before. We’re now four weeks in. I’m exhausted. I think the fault is mine. I expected to train someone like me, and not to talk a big game, but I didn’t get tons of help when I started, and I made it through okay. But I also expected to be able to use my own language, with my own mental images and way of explaining things. That hasn’t worked so well. I’m being asked to show my work, like in math or law, for everything, and it takes so much effort to put things in terms that make sense to her rather than just to me. She’s a very visual learner, and though I make diagrams in my head of things, they don’t necessarily translate well. It’s gotten me thinking about how language is used to convey such complex ideas without many words. It’s like the Star Trek TNG episode Darmok, right? This society speaks entirely in metaphors, communicating deep ideas to each other but making it difficult for outsiders to come in. Carl and I have our shorthand, where one of us will mention a few words about a memory or an emotion and the other will instantly understand the meaning behind those words. We were at a conference once, and we ate with a couple who had been married for 50+ years and who were both deaf. Their translator explained that she didn’t know some of their signs, because deaf couples will make up signs that apply just to them. I found that fascinating, but it’s really no different from what we do with spoken word in our close relationships. I fear I’m just becoming lazy with language, and assuming that, if people don’t understand me, it’s on them and not me. I know that’s the wrong attitude, and I’m working on it. But it’s just… exhausting.
Jun 2017essential board games
I know I talk a lot about board games, but I’ve never talked about which ones are actually good starter games for anyone interested in building a modern board game collection. So what games do you need? In no particular order, here’s my list:
Jun 2017insecurity and bravery
My husband won’t sing in front of me. He’s taking voice lessons with a great teacher (Tyler Kofoed, if you’re interested), and he says he’s getting better, but he won’t sing for me. Part of it is intimidation, because I’ve been taking lessons and just singing a lot longer, but part of it is massive insecurity and not wanting to reveal that he’s not great at something. I didn’t realize it was actually a thing until he nearly had a panic attack after he almost got up the nerve to let me warm him up the other day. He calls me brave. It’s not a word I generally claim, because I think I would back down from a physical altercation, and I’m not sure I would rush into a burning building to save cats. But in some ways, I am brave. I ignore the part of my ego that cares what other people think, and when I want to do something, I just don’t give a damn about other people. Take climbing. It had been over ten years since I last went climbing (indoors, but still). Ten years and, oh, 50-60 pounds. My harness didn’t really fit anymore. Did you know that shoes feel tighter when you’ve gained that much weight? But I decided to go climbing at a gym here with a friend. We started with bouldering (stupid idea, but I didn’t have a harness that fit), and I fell off the wall. Many times. At one point, I fell on my way walking to the wall. Yeah. I shut down the part of me that said I was too big and clumsy and weak and lazy and all manner of bad things, and I made some progress. And then a little more the next time. And when I finally got a harness that fit, I got a little ways up a wall a few times. And then more. And now, I’m still not very good, and not very strong, but I’m getting better each time, and no one has even tried to say that I’m too big to climb, or anything negative at all. I’m really insecure about most everything. I know I’m smart, but I’m not doing big, important things with it. I know I’m a good musician, but I’m not in top-notch ensembles. I know I’m kind and funny, but I’m sometimes unsatisfied with my friendships. I could create a very long list of the things that I am insecure about, but you get the idea. My pride and my bravery and very closely related to my insecurity. It comes from deciding that my life would be better for having tried something, or for letting something go, than to stick with the old ways of doing things. And once I decide that, the external naysayers get the same treatment as the internal naysayers: I ignore them, or, at least, try to ignore them.
Jun 2017indispensability and value
I had a realization when I started my current job: I don’t want to be indispensable. For a very long time, I wanted to be indispensable, where things would come to a halt if I weren’t there or if I hadn’t left detailed instructions behind. I wanted to be so important to a company or a project that work absolutely required my expertise and my presence. I thought that was a sign of value, that it meant I mattered. But now, I don’t want to be indispensable. It seems to be a sign of arrogance to the point of irresponsibility and disregard for the well-being of an organization to be indispensable. I want to be valued and to train others to do my job, so that I have the freedom to take a vacation, or even (gasp) leave, somewhere down the road. I care about the team I’m on and want them to succeed, with or without me. What I want is to be valued, to be respected for the skills, knowledge, and ideas I bring, and to be regarded as a positive force on our team. However, we have a new tester on our team, and I’m training her. Though I know I really want her to succeed and be a partner with me, I still feel a little threatened, like… I’m no longer required. Even though I’ve been thinking these ideas, about the tension between indispensability and value, and coming to regard them as separate concepts, I still feel like they are the same thing, like the best way to be valued is to make myself indispensable. I actually talked with the new woman about this, so that she understands that if I start to sound a bit territorial or a bit fussy, it’s not about her, but about me, and she’s welcome to confront me about it. We’ll see how I react if she does confront me. :)
May 2017board game extravaganza 2 (April)
I went to Mind Games in April, at which judges play at least 30 games and vote on their favorites. On Sunday morning, votes are tallied, and five games are heralded as winners with the right to put the Mensa Select seal on their game. This was my fourth year going, and it was a lot of fun to see old friends, meet new people, and play LOTS. OF. GAMES. The winners this year were Amalgam, Around the World in 80 Days, Clank!, Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, and Imagine. I didn’t play Clank!, and I had played Hogwarts Battle at the other convention (and it wasn’t on my ballot this time), but I played so many other games. I promise I like more games than just those I win. I know you’re curious about my thoughts on the games, so here goes:
Apr 2017luxury and want
What conjures thoughts of luxury to you? Nice purses? Hand-tailored suits? Expensive scotch? For me, yes, those are luxurious items, but a much simpler luxury item is… Goldfish. Yeah, the cheese crackers shaped like fish. I still feel a little self-indulgent when I buy them. Realizing that has made me think about how our childhood circumstances continue to affect our thinking as we are older. Growing up, my mom supported our family of four on a pastor’s salary. She served congregations that were made up of people who were mostly middle and upper-middle class. I don’t know how much she made, and it’s not terribly relevant. We didn’t have money for new books (realizing that I couldn’t get the books I wanted from the Scholastic flyer is a decently strong memory), rarely went out to eat, and did a lot of shopping at Goodwill. My mom made most of my clothes until we moved to Germany. I didn’t have my first pair of jeans until I was in sixth grade, and those were hand-me-downs from a boy in the church. I loved the clothing she made me; she is a great seamstress, and I was never self-conscious about what I was wearing, though… I do remember a lot of pairs of pink sweatpants. I would get a new dress for Easter, and it was kind of a big deal when she bought me one instead of making it. She stopped making my clothes when we moved, in part because fabric was so much more expensive in Europe. Our snacks were not fancy - string cheese, homemade cookies (yum) - but she would sometimes buy Goldfish. I loved those things, but they seemed to only come out on special occasions. I felt really high-class when I would get to eat Goldfish, and that has stayed with me into adulthood. (Now that we’re just a couple weeks from Easter, I’ve been thinking about how our plastic Easter eggs were filled with Froot Loops and sugary cereals that were only in our house for those times.) In spite of not having much disposable income in our daily life (maybe because of it), we had an annual vacation that would take us camping in Yellowstone or driving along the Pacific coast while we lived in the US, and Italy, Spain and Portugal, Crete, Israel, or many other places while we lived in Europe. My mom spent money on experiences rather than stuff while we were growing up, so even though we would take our own snacks and sandwiches to Disneyland, we went to Disneyland most years with her family. We traveled widely in Europe, staying in hostels and not being terribly adventurous in cuisine, following Rick Steves’ guidance and exploring on our own. It was an incredible way to grow up, and I’m happy to have those experiences to remember. I now have a situation where we have two incomes and no children, in a city with a reasonable cost of living, but I still hesitate before I buy myself name-brand snacks or the leaner beef. And Goldfish, well, those are just special.
Mar 2017board game extravaganza 1 (March)
I went to a board game convention at the beginning of March, and I played lots of games! Here’s a list: Scoville: This is similar to Pastiche, but with peppers. It’s a cute game where you plant peppers and try to harvest increasingly more expensive or strategic peppers. You get victory points by making salsa recipes and selling your peppers. It’s cute and fun, not too heavy, and I really enjoyed it. Kodama: This is a sweet and pretty game that can be played with children if you want. You start with a trunk card that has one of six features on it. Each season (spring, summer, and fall), you place four cards on your tree, scoring points for features, and at the end of each season, you invite a kodama (tree spirit) to your tree, and it gives you additional points. There are kodama cards for children that give more basic points so they can be competitive with adults. It’s a very pretty game, with really nice art. Lost Cities: This is a two-player game where you go build expeditions by going through a deck of cards and playing cards out of your hand in sequential order for each color. Some rounds can be devastatingly bad, going into negative points, but it’s a fun game for two, and it can be quite competitive over a few rounds. I ended up with two copies of this through the math trade, and I think we’re going to give the second copy to Carl’s parents, who like games too. Viticulture: I was really excited about this game, because I love Scythe, and this was his earlier hit. I think this game would be best played with people you know really well, whom you can harass if they take too long, because a couple guys we played with were fairly dense and fairly oblivious. The mechanics are interesting, as you plant vineyards, harvest grapes, and make and sell wine, and it takes a reasonable balancing of resources. It was a fun game, and I’d like to play it again, though with people I know better. :) Deadwood Studios: You’re filming a western movie, and you take roles and get paid and get fame for performing well. For each turn, you’re encouraged to perform your line expressively, but you ultimately roll a die to determine whether you succeed or not. It ended up being a lot of fun, with plenty of laughter. Letter Tycoon: I entered a tournament for this game and ended up losing badly. It’s kind of like capitalist Scrabble. You have a hand of cards, build words, and buy patents on letters, which pay out when other people use your letters. I was a little disappointed about doing so poorly, but I love this game. I’d like to add it to my collection, if it weren’t so similar to other word games (that Carl won’t play with me). Shadow Hunters: This game is best played with a large group of people. I think we played with eight. You’re assigned a role of hunter, shadow, or neutral. Hunters and shadows are trying to kill each other, and neutrals each have different win conditions. You can try to figure out who’s who, and you can cause damage to others. It’s a fun game that I’ve played before. It has pretty simple mechanics, and it’s just a good party game. One Night Revolution: Based on Revolution, but happening faster, everyone has a faction, either rebel or informant, and a role, which include signaler and revealer and other things. Informants try to keep from being discovered, and rebels try to figure out who they are. It can be pretty quick, and it’s a fun puzzle game with lots of conversation. We played about eight rounds of it. Very fun. Herbaceous: Very pretty game. You cultivate herbs and plant them in herb boxes for various levels of points. It has simple mechanics, plays quickly, and has beautiful art. It was fun and pretty, a good palate cleanser. Elevenses: Another fairly simple game, it mimics morning tea. You have cards face-down and a few cards in your hand. You try to figure out where your high-value cards are and maximize your points, and each round ends when someone has three cards face-up and plays an elevenses card. It was sweet to play. Biblios: I was interested in playing this game to check it out for a friend. It turned out to be not that cool. You’re trying to build your collection of types of books in a scriptorium. Each person takes a card for herself, a card for the auction, and as many cards for the public offering as there are other people playing, and you go through the deck that way. The auction phase comes with buying cards. People bid on cards to add to their collection. It’s… okay. Not awesome. Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle: We only played two years of the game rather than all seven. Characters (Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Neville) try to fight villains and gain spells and items. It’s a cooperative deck-building game, and it was both fun and not too thrilling. I’m not sure I’ll play it again, but it was good enough as we went. Hardback: This is the “prequel” to Paperback, similar to Paperback but with some different mechanisms. This is going on Kickstarter in April, and if you don’t have Paperback already, you should look at both and decide which to get. Hardback involves buying cards that are one of four different genres - mystery, adventure, horror, and romance - and those cards give special powers when used together. It’s fun but still needs to be polished. It’s similar enough to Paperback to not make me need to buy it, but it could be a good option if you are looking for a word game. Sheriff of Nottingham: This is a bluffing game where you bring legal goods into the town and try to smuggle illegal goods in. Each person takes a turn as the sheriff, and as sheriff, you try to extract bribes from other players. It’s fun if you get into it and really live up your roles. I loved this game a year ago and enjoyed it this year too. Captain Sonar: This is a game for 2-8 players, and we played with all eight, two teams of four. Each team has a captain, a radio operator, a first mate, and an engineer. I was the engineer for two games and the first mate for one. It’s basically real-time Battleship with additional complexity. It was a lot of fun, though the dry erase markers basically stopped working while we were playing. It worked really well with eight players. Not a game I need to own, because I’m not sure I could find seven other people to play with. Broom Service: We played this with five players, and it was fun! This was my first time playing with more than two people, and it was quite enjoyable. It was tense trying to figure out if you should be cowardly or brave. The other people seemed to enjoy it too, one guy said it was his favorite game of the weekend. Artemis (simulation): This was a Star Trek bridge simulation with a crew of six. Five of us did it, and a random person joined us for it. I was the captain (yay!). We helped some Romulans and destroyed basically an entire Klingon fleet, then flew through an asteroid field on our way back. It was fun, and I’d like to try it again (and maybe go rogue). Stay tuned for another board game extravaganza in April!
Feb 2017board game review: Scythe
We brought Scythe home a few weeks ago, and we’ve played it a few times. We’ve played one 2-player and two 4-player games, and Carl played the automa version once. I think I can give a decent review of it now. There are some good tutorials on Scythe (see the Watch It Played video and errata here), so I won’t talk in depth about how to play the game. But briefly, there are five factions and five player mats, for 25 combinations of play. Each faction has a special ability and slightly different powers, and each player mat has a different combination of basic and more expensive actions, and different costs for things. You gain stars (achievements) by gaining power or popularity, building, deploying mechs, winning combats, and other things. Everything–territories, resources, stars, building locations–is converted to coins at the end of the game, and the player with the most coins wins. For our first game, we were a little confused about the rules, and we did a few things wrong, particularly with workers (allowing workers to have encounters, letting workers do the special mech/character actions), but we got the gist of it, and our next games were more correct. In our last game, I won without building any buildings, and I almost broke 100 coins, but I think I bribed too many people. I felt like it was a pretty nice victory. There’s an achievement sheet that lets you write down your name next to winning scenarios, which makes victory even sweeter. The first few rounds are a little slow and offer little interaction with the other players, as you try to gather enough resources to do something useful, but once you get out of your little area, there is the potential for more interaction as it becomes a land grab and race to the factory. Combats are not as frequent as you might think, even with four players, and bribery is fun (and effective if done right). Carl says that the automa version needs more explicit instructions. While he was playing, he called me over a few times to find out what I thought was reasonable. I haven’t tried the automa version myself yet, but I will say so when I do. I LOVE this game. It’s complex enough to have many different winning scenarios, there’s a little bit of luck involved, and it speeds up as the game goes on. It’s not a simple game, and you have to play with people who REALLY like games, but it’s pretty great.
Feb 2017testing trainings - a comparison
In the past month, I’ve done two trainings on software testing: ASTQB’s Mobile Foundations course, and Satisfice’s Rapid Software Testing Applied course. The difference between them was marked. Like the SQE training I reviewed earlier and subsequent ISTQB test for the Certified Tester, Foundation Level, the mobile course was heavy on vocabulary and “best practices” and light on how to do a good job. It gave me things to think about, such as using simulators and emulators to increase coverage and getting cell data on some of our phones so our testing can be more real-life and more, well, mobile. But when it came down to it, a lot of the class was about the differences between web-based, native, and hybrid apps, and the risks involved in testing them. Looking at the risks that are inherent to the different types of apps was useful, but three days of vocabulary became a little wearisome. The test, which I took about a week and a half later, went just fine. It included a decision table, which took me by surprise, but the test wasn’t a big deal with a little bit of careful reading. I don’t have much more to say about the training or the test. I wasn’t planning on doing either, but then a spot was offered to me, so… it was fine. The training that I was really excited about, and that totally lived up to my expectations, was James Bach’s Rapid Software Testing Applied. We tested a vector graphics program called Inkscape, approaching it from some different angles. Each day was a combination of lecture, individual/team work, and review of that work. Some guys from another Utah company invited me to join their team, so I talked with them throughout the day and worked with them on the assignments. We talked about sanity testing, survey testing, risk analysis, coverage, deep testing, testing with tools, and how to report testing. It was a fascinating class, though I did receive criticism, both privately and then publicly the next morning, for some of my bug reports. (I still need to check with my developers to see if they’re annoyed by my reporting.) My ego was a little bruised, but I know he was trying to make me a better tester, and in the end, I appreciated (that might be too strong of a word) the criticism. This training brought out all my insecurities, particularly those surrounding tools, but I was also pleased to have some of my thoughts about testing affirmed. James Bach is something of an icon in software testing, and I really enjoyed learning from him. I’d like to take another RSTA class, as well as his lecture class of Rapid Software Testing. It’s possible I was just way more excited for RSTA, but I felt like I got more out of it as well. I really appreciated my company letting me do these trainings, particularly as they came so close together. I’m hoping to convince them to bring James Bach to Utah - that would just be fantastic.
Jan 2017a transition to agile
I joined a team at work that has moved to agile from waterfall. It was a high-performing team in waterfall, and now the team is figuring out how to get that same level of performance while doing agile. It’s been a struggle. I wasn’t with the team before, so I’ve only seen them in this transition phase. There’s lots of talk like, “This is how we’ve always done it, and we’ve been just fine,” and “We don’t need to be told how to do our jobs.” People are frustrated, and those of us who are trying to be cheerleaders and evangelists get shouted down frequently. One of the principles that has fallen by the wayside is the idea of face-to-face communication being the best way to get things done. We are theoretically co-located. One guy works out of a different office, but the other 14 of us are in the same room. However, we all work from home on Fridays, and most people take a second day at home too, on different days, and then when the weather is bad, people work from home, and if their kid is sick, they work from home, and if their elbow hurts, they work from home, and on and on. Only for first and last days of the sprint is everyone in the same room. When the idea of video calls has been raised, the response has been swift and negative. Emails, IMs, and the occasional Skype call are said to be sufficient, and the suggestion that more information can be transmitted by being able to see facial cues has been deemed irrelevant. They say, “Our communication has always been good, why do we need to change it?” like I mentioned above. (note: voice deliberately passive in this paragraph to obfuscate my own embarrassment) We’re struggling to figure out how to make our testing the most effective. On the one side, there are a couple who are all about automation, who see it as a point of pride that they haven’t touched a mobile device (which is what we test) for a long time. On the other side, there are people who don’t want anything to do with automation, who don’t want to do any kind of programming. And in the middle, there I am. I think automation is a means to an end. That if you have good enough automation, you can spend more time touching devices and doing session-based exploratory testing, to try to find bugs that would be difficult or impossible to find with automation. I think our coach basically believes this too, but the automation enthusiasts only hear that we need more automation, not that it is meant to facilitate better manual testing. It’s almost a culture war. I guess that one of the effects (benefits?) of agile is that you’re always going to be a little annoyed, a little frustrated, a little driven to (hopefully) improve. It comes from interacting with people so regularly, from needing to rely on working as a team. Differences in approach, in opinion, in work ethic, all come to the forefront, where they can theoretically be discussed. Perhaps one of the next phases of our agile development development (ha, see what I did there?) is to have those open and honest conversations without devolving into raised voices and accusations. That’s a difficult step that requires a lot of maturity from everyone involved, and even then, emotions and egos can still impair the productivity of those conversations.
Dec 20162016 roundup
2016 has been a mostly good year in my life, but it’s been a difficult one in our nation and our world. Memes abound anthropomorphizing 2016, and it seems like most people will be glad to see the year end. Whether 2017 will be any better, whether the world will even make it to 2018 is uncertain, but people hold out hope that next year has to be better than this one. In my personal life, I got my first non-law-related, work-for-someone-else job doing software testing. I think I’ve learned a lot, and I’m enjoying the work and the collegiality. I started doing volunteer work with a high school robotics team and a refugee resettlement organization. I became more involved at church, to the point of taking a leadership role in our early Sunday service. I got a diagnosis for my mental health issues that finally fits. I’m finding time to do things that I enjoy. It’s been a little rough trying to find “our people” here, and the search for friends makes me feel like I’m 5… or 11… ugh. So the year was mostly good. We saw friends and family, explored Utah, and spent lots of time just being us. But personal life aside… 2016 has been rough for our global society. Aside from all the cultural icons, musicians, and celebrities who have died, the year brought division and destruction, emboldening xenophobia and diminishing hope. I look at the trail we left behind in 2016, splattered with Syrian blood, refugee tears, and political mudslinging, and I fear for the future. I fear that the hatred we spewed in 2016 is only the beginning, that the trail we carve through 2017 will be just as bloody, wet, and muddy as the one we left behind us. I wish I had a way to make this better, that I had words of hope to speak, that I knew how things would turn out, but I’m still feeling hopeless and gutted. I do admire the people who have stepped up to create plans of action for resisting Trump. One example is the Indivisible Guide. It takes the aspects of the Tea Party that were very effective, action at the local level, and discusses how to execute them in opposition to Trump’s agenda. I have to believe that we can halt or at least stall the worst of his plans. The problems we’re facing as a world - the refugee crisis and the rise of xenophobia - seem too big and complicated to manage. I have a heart for refugees but understand the need to keep communities safe. The Australian attitude towards refugees is cruel, even malicious, but I fear Europe is headed in that direction. As for the situation in the States, we need to stop shouting into echo chambers and make sure our voices are heard by our members of Congress. We need to volunteer with and donate to organizations that resettle refugees and that advocate for their inclusion and their rights. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and Catholic Charities are great organizations that I’ve worked with before. Some good came out of the year, but it seems to be mostly overshadowed by the bad. Here’s hoping 2017 brings mostly good things.
Dec 2016why I make music (and why I practice)
I’ve been making music since I was a small child. It started with singing, then included piano, flute, and double bass, and now I mostly just sing and play piano. Listening to music is a great pleasure, but making music is a deeper experience and emotion, joy and earnestness and connection. I’ve never considered myself a very creative person - my improvisation skills are worthless, and my compositions fall into a few standard categories with little innovation or depth. I gravitate towards the technical and enjoy concrete challenges. I’m not necessarily very good, but music is my lifeblood. I make music because I must. In the same way little kids burst into fits of dancing, I must express myself with music. Song bursts out of me, at mostly appropriate times. It’s how my soul expresses itself. It facilitates my communication with the world and with God. But I practice for other reasons. In part, I practice to improve, but in larger measure, I practice so I don’t distract. If you’re like me, you’ve heard performances that make you cringe or put you on edge, wondering if the next note will be in tune or out of control. Instead of hearing the music, you hear the technique. That’s just not a fun experience for anyone, the performer or the listener. And so I practice so that technique doesn’t get in the way of the music. Yes, I try to bring my own expression to the music, but people won’t notice that expression if they’re concerned about my technique. This came up as I was practicing for a solo for Christmas Eve. It wasn’t a big thing - just the first verse of Of the Father’s Love Begotten - but it was sung unaccompanied and alone. I found that I kept going sharp, and the key meant that the first few notes ran right over my lower passagio, so I practiced. Worked on it in coaching and my lesson. Thought I was going to be okay. But in the moment, I realized I hadn’t practiced enough for it to be muscle memory, and so I went (a little) sharp and sounded awkward on a note. Missed the expression I had been working on putting into it. I was disappointed, and the few people I mentioned it to (my husband, the organist, and the choir director) all said they had noticed my slip-ups. Granted, they were the ones most likely to notice, but still, I felt like I let myself down and took away from the experience of others. That kind of experience makes me want to practice, and practice more. It can become tedious, but the end result is usually worth it. I noticed a difference in the recitals from 2015. For the one in April, I practiced tons, and it went pretty well. For the one in October, I practiced less, and hearing the recording of it made me realize just how much practice improves everything. There’s something innocent about unpracticed song, but it is often tentative and not as expressive as it could be with study. I guess to sum up, I make music for myself, and I practice for others.
Dec 2016Whisky Advent Calendar
I bought the Drinks by the Dram Whisky Advent Calendar this year, and it’s amazing. Each day, I’ll update this post with the one I’ve tasted. Twenty-four drams of deliciousness. Here we go! 1 Dec: The Lost Distilleries Blend Batch 8 from the Blended Whisky Company, blended scotch whisky, 53.1% Maybe it’s the season, but the nose of this was caramel and eggnog to me. Deliciousness. It was a really nice fruity taste with an ideal peatiness (which, in my book, is not much). The taste that lingered was a little herbal , maybe sage. This was the first blended whisky I’ve deliberately tried, and it was quite pleasant. 8/10 2 Dec: Glenfiddich 15 Year Old Solera, single malt scotch whisky, 40% This smelled strongly of apple juice with hints of peach. The taste was cinnamon, with a finish of leather. It’s similar to the scotch I normally drink, so I didn’t think it was particularly special, but it was really nice. 5/10 3 Dec: Kilchoman Machir Bay, single malt scotch whisky, 46% Peaty scotches are just not my thing. I mean, that blended one from the 1st was really good with just a hint of peatiness, but this was a little too much. It had a nose of pineapple and campfire, and it tasted and finished like hot tar. It wasn’t terrible (I mean, hot tar isn’t an awful smell), just not my taste. 3/10 4 Dec: Wolfburn, single malt scotch whisky, 46% This was a very nice scotch. Bright citrusy nose with a taste of cherry jolly rancher and something dark, maybe chocolate. Just a hint of peatiness, which was really delightful. 6/10 5 Dec: Mackmyra Svensk Ek, Swedish single malt whisky, 46.1% Wow, I liked this one a lot. The nose was vanilla and lemon, and it tasted of bananas and graham crackers. Can you feel that warmth? It was like wrapping up in a down comforter on a cold night. 8/10 6 Dec: Rock Oyster, blended malt scotch whisky, 46.8% Apparently, I need to drink more blended scotches. This one had a nose of mandarin orange and salt, and a taste of chipotle peppers and wood. A little smokier than my taste, but really nice all the same. 6/10 7 Dec: The Dalmore 12 Year Old, single malt scotch whisky, 40% I was surprised at how strong the smell of this was in comparison to the taste. And a little disappointed, I guess. The dark color had me excited. The nose was burnt caramel, the taste was old book, and the finish was totally tobacco. I’m not quite sure what I think of this one. Probably not one I’ll seek out. 4/10 8 Dec: Lagavulin 16 Year Old, single malt scotch whisky, 43% This one smells like being on a farm, with a hint of grass. The palate is coffee and dirt. The peat is really strong. And the finish isn’t very pleasant. I like sweeter scotches, ones that are less earthy and less smoky. 2/10 9 Dec: Old Perth Sherry Cask Blended Malt, blended malt scotch whisky, 43% This was pretty pleasant. Nose of raisin and maple syrup, palate of fresh spinach and fruitcake, finish of raw silk (I do love the smell of silk). It was quite smooth, and I liked the boldness of the flavors. They meshed well and seemed pretty distinct. 5/10 10 Dec: Teeling Whiskey Single Malt, single malt Irish whiskey, 46% An Irish whiskey this time! Nose of green apple and… chocolate? Palate is very floral, and the finish is almost like a berry, though I can’t pick it out. I consider myself a scotch girl, but this was quite delicious. 6/10 11 Dec: Evan Williams Bourbon Extra Aged, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, 43% Bourbons are a little rough around the edges. This one had a nose of wood (obviously), honey, and nail polish remover, and it tasted of vanilla and caramel. It tasted like… bourbon. This one might be better as a mixer, though it wasn’t unpleasant. 3/10 12 Dec: Tomatin 14 Year Old Port Wood Finish, single malt scotch whisky, 46% Maybe because my first favorite scotch was a ruby cask one, this tastes to me just how scotch should taste, but there is nothing distinctive or outstanding about it for the same reason. It’s just how scotch should taste, right? Nose of honey and dark cherry, palate of vanilla and cinnamon, finish of fermented berries. It’s kind of like an unembellished ideal for me. 7/10 I’m halfway through now. It’s been a fun experiment, though I’m not sure I’ll need to do it again. I thought I was a scotch girl, and I enjoy it, even drinking it every day, but I find that I’m running out of words to describe the scents and flavors. I don’t know what that says about me as a scotch aficionado. I’ve been surprised that I liked the blended scotches as much as I did, though it makes sense if I think about it: if there is a person who is skilled at blending the flavors, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. I’m excited for the second half of this calendar. It’s been great! 13 Dec: Balvenie DoubleWood 12 Year Old, single malt scotch whisky, 40% Perfectly pleasant. Nose of yeast and grapes and cake, palate of wood, vanilla, and chocolate, and a finish of yeast again. Very nice scotch, though not outstanding. 5/10 14 Dec: That Boutique-y Whisky Company Invergordon 25 Year Old - Batch 9, single grain scotch whisky, 49.8% I liked this one, but it didn’t seem “old”. The nose was of raspberry and coffee, and the palate was banana (maybe) and gingerbread. The herbs lasted into the finish. I’m not sure I know what age is supposed to do anymore - smooth it out? This didn’t seem much smoother than yesterday’s. 5/10 15 Dec: Glengoyne 12 Year Old, single malt scotch whisky, 43% This one was a lot sweeter than I expected. It had a nose of apple and creme brulee, a palate of pound cake, and a finish of toffee. 5/10 16 Dec: Glenfarclas 21 Year Old, single malt scotch whisky, 43% This was very very smooth. Nose of lemon and rose hips, palate had hints of fruit, and the finish was tobacco. This was quite pleasant. I do enjoy the fruity, floral ones. 7/10 17 Dec: KaVaLan Concertmaster Port Cask Finish, single malt whisky, 40% A Taiwanese whisky this time! I quite enjoyed this one. The nose was of blackberry and maple syrup, the palate of jam, brown sugar, and vanilla, and the finish of tobacco again. This seems like a great scotch to drink while smoking a cigar. 7/10 18 Dec: Oban Little Bay, single malt scotch whisky, 43% Not very smooth, but quite nice anyway. Nose of cherry and vanilla, palate of coffee and salt (just a little), finish of orange. Not getting to the Oban distillery was a disappointment on our trip. 6/10 19 Dec: English Whisky Co. 5 Year Old - Batch 1 (That Boutique-y Whisky Company), single malt English whisky, 49.5% This was pretty raw and rough, though maybe it’s the higher alcohol content. Citrus nose, palate of ginger and chili, hints of smokiness. Adding water to this didn’t really smooth anything out. It was just… okay. 3/10 20 Dec: Fettercairn Fasque, single malt scotch whisky, 42% Great name for a scotch. :) Nose of dried cranberries and grass, palate of chocolate and coffee, and finish of vanilla and cinnamon. Pretty good! 5/10 21 Dec: Macallan 12 Year Old Double Cask, single malt scotch whisky, 40% This was a really nice scotch. It had a nose of apricot or some other stone fruit, a palate of honey and vanilla, and the finish was very woody. Quite pleasant. 6/10 22 Dec: Buffalo Trace, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, 40% Bourbons are fun but a little raw. This one had a nose of lemon and caramel, a palate of charred wood, vanilla, and cinnamon, and a finish of spices. This was a nice bourbon, one I may actually want to keep around. 6/10 23 Dec: Highland Park 12 Year Old, single malt scotch whisky, 40% This one smells like fruitcake. Fitting, for the season. Hint of smokiness in the palate, with a lot more depth than I expected, tastes of vanilla and… forest. Finish of wood. Decent scotch, not my favorite of the month. 5/10 24 Dec: The Blended Whisky Company Half-Century Blend Batch 1 Aged over 50 years, blended scotch whisky, 45.5% Last one! This one seemed really rich. A very nice nose of dried cherries, walnuts, and chocolate, palate of vanilla and toffee, finish of spices and stone fruits. Really nice, but honestly, I can’t tell much difference between a 50-year and an 18-year. 8/10 In summation, I’m glad I got to do this, but I don’t think I need to do it again. It wasn’t quite worth the cost of shipping it all the way from the UK just to try a bunch of different whiskies. I’m thinking Twelve Days of Christmas Wine next year. :)
Dec 2016Harry Potter cosplay at LeakyCon
I went to LeakyCon in October and had a FANTASTIC time. My friend Austin and I celebrated our way through the weekend. I cosplayed each day, some days with multiple costumes. The first day, I was Luna Lovegood, and once the wig became too annoying, just a Ravenclaw student. The second day, I was a Wizengamot witch for the morning, while I did my presentation. Then I changed to a stag patronus for the afternoon and evening. Saturday during the day, I was a Beauxbatons student, and for the ball, I was a phoenix. And on Sunday, I was a sleepy Ravenclaw student (Austin and I declared Sunday pajama day, and some others joined in). I’m sure you’ve been dying to see pictures from the weekend, so here they are! My Luna Lovegood costume was the heaviest of all my costumes. Or at least it felt so because of the wig. With this, i made the wand, Carl made the necklace and earrings, I bought the wig, the tie, and the sweater (from the shop that made the sweaters for the films), and my friend Tyler Beal made the Quibbler purse, which was just amazing. I took my picture with Moaning Myrtle, of course. Once the wig was too burdensome, I became a more relaxed Ravenclaw student with the earrings as a nod to Luna. The Wizengamot wear plum robes with an elaborate silver W on the left front. I wore a simple black dress under it. My mother-in-law sewed the bag for me and cut out the W for me. My stag patronus! This was entirely purchased. The mask is a work of art by Mythical Masks. I had Austin casting me multiple times in the halls. It was a great time. This costume was the closest I got to being spot on. The hat was purchased from a store on Etsy. The dress was made by a much more talented seamstress than I am, Cherie Duggar, who was dead set on getting it right and did a pretty fantastic job. I painted the shoes. The bag has an embroidered Beauxbatons crest on it, done by my friend Tyler Beal. My phoenix costume involved a LOT of glitter powder. I bought the dress. The mask is another incredible design by Mythical Masks, this one custom made. I got two colors of glitter powder - red and gold, and we put them layered on top of each other. Austin helped with the glitter, particularly on my back. The last morning, Austin and I went as sleepy students. I had my deathly hallows shirt and my Ravenclaw pants (yay Hot Topic!), and Austin wore a 9 3/4 shirt and her Hogwarts pants. It was a great end to the week!
Dec 2016December gaming edition
I’ve been playing a number of games over the past few months, some new ones and some not-so-new ones. Canalis: We played this game with 4 players a couple times over the weekend. It’s part of the Tempest universe (which includes Love Letter, Courtier, and a number of other games). In Canalis, you’re trying to build buildings that require connections to resources, labor, and the harbor. There are public and secret missions, and there’s a drafting element for cards in each round of play. The board is a grid, and you place tiles (buildings, canals, or gardens for bonus points) on the grid. We played with two people who have played it a lot, so they were both (a little) helpful and sometimes skeptical of why we were doing things. It was a fun game, though maybe not one we need to own. Paperback: Absolutely must own this one, and as quickly as possible. This was my chance to introduce Carl to it, and he liked it a lot, in spite of not really being a word games person. I think I’ve talked about this game before, but in case I haven’t: it’s kind of like Dominion meets Scrabble. It’s a deck-building game with words, so you have a hand of cards each round, with different values, and your goal is to create the best word you can that will enable you to buy additional letters (some with special powers) or straight-up victory points that also act as wild cards. This is just a wonderful game, and the guy who created it lives in Utah! Guillotine: This is a card game where you try to rearrange the order of execution to acquire the highest value executed noble you can. It’s played over three days, and the noble cards range in value from 5 (Marie Antoinette and others) to negative points for martyrs and innocent bystanders. It’s a lot of luck, or maybe I just wasn’t playing very well. It’s a cute, quick game that seems like a good filler or palate cleanser. Sushi Go: Another cute, quick game, and possibly one I’ve discussed, players collect different kinds of food (tempura, sashimi, nigiri, maki rolls, dumplings, and puddings) for different values of points. It’s played over three rounds, and it’s another drafting game. I think I need to figure out a new strategy for that one, because I tend to focus on one food item for a game instead of just a round. It’s a nicely balanced game, where each kind of food can be successful… sometimes. Archer Love Letter: We don’t really go in for licensed games very much, but Carl surprised me with this one, and it turned out to be very good. It’s themed well, and it follows the mechanics of Love Letter, but it adds more interaction with the hidden card, which was fun. I’m not sure we’ll disregard the original game, because it fits so nicely in my purse, but this was a good complement. Tiny Epic Westerns: Can you tell we like the Tiny Epic games? This is their new one, and it’s kind of worker placement meets poker. There are six locations that make up the board, and players can place their meeples at five of them. Duels ensue for control of spots, and then bonuses are acquired by having the best three-card poker hand. There’s competition for control of cards with special powers, resources similar to the other Tiny Epic games, and a way to build your own empire, for lack of a better word. It’s a fun game, better if you wear cowboy hats to play it. World’s Fair 1893: We’ve now played this game about four times, and I’m less certain about it being an awesome game now. Except for some rare circumstances, there’s usually one obvious move at a time. It happens pretty much every turn that if you try to plan a move ahead, the person before you will take what you want. It’s almost inevitable. And that makes the game feel a little more pre-determined than I would like. Strategy is fluid and can change from turn to turn. I still like this game, but I’m less enthusiastic about it now that I’ve played it a few times. Five Tribes with Artisans of Naqala expansion: Man, Five Tribes is just great. It’s been one of my favorites for well over a year, and it remains so. The expansion adds a sixth tribe (sacrilege!) and new corresponding items and tiles. It also adds mountains and a chasm that bar some paths for meeples. It’s a great game with plenty of strategy, and the balance is really great. You can’t really win if you go all in on just one thing, but if you focus on one thing while not neglecting others, that gives a player a good chance of winning.
Nov 2016living in Utah - one year later
We have now been in Utah for a full year. We’re feeling settled and are having fun here. We’ve learned our way around, found friends, communities, volunteer opportunities, I found a job (!), we’ve done some outdoorsy activities (though not as much as either of us would like), and we’ve acclimated to the culture for the most part. Utah is just different in some ways, with the dominant religion influencing secular life in a fairly large way. The refugee family I mentor was told by another volunteer that Christmas isn’t big here, and that Halloween is much bigger. That jives with what we’ve seen, but it’s influenced by religion (the Christmas thing, at least) rather than just being less important. The institution I work for is a Utah business, so we don’t get Christmas Eve off, just Christmas Day. Another thing influenced by religion is the prevalence of specialty soda shops. There’s a big emphasis on sweets rather than coffee and alcohol. But those who aren’t LDS seem to drink a lot more coffee and a lot more alcohol to make up for it. Some of the politics and legal stuff is weird, but it’s not terrible, and we’ve gotten used to it. I get angry about politics in a lot of places, so Utah is just another instance of this. The outdoor activities in this state can’t be beat. We’ve been to three national parks this year (Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands), have gone camping at Nine-Mile Canyon (petroglyphs all over the place), and have gone on a number of hikes. No skiing last winter, but we’re hoping to change that this winter. There’s a walking/bike trail that goes from pretty far up north all the way south along a river. We’ve only explored a few miles of it, but it’s quite inviting. The climate is more temperate than Kansas, still getting cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but nowhere near the extremes of Kansas. The downside of the climate here is inversion, which comes from living in a valley between two mountain ranges. The pollution stays in the valley, settling like smog and staying there for up to weeks at a time, until a storm clears it out. It gets so bad that people are supposed to stay inside, and people who work outside wear ventilators. I’ve found people with whom to play board games, people with whom to knit, and a great voice teacher. People are very friendly and welcoming. My church is a wonderful community. Work is a good place for me to be. All in all, we’re happy here and think we’ll be here awhile.
Oct 2016Rational Rebellion: Morality and the Rule of Law in Harry Potter
I’m at LeakyCon in Burbank, CA right now, and yesterday I presented a talk about law, morality, and rebellion in Harry Potter. It went better than I expected, and though I wish I had been better prepared (and had practiced it enough to not have to read it), it was fine, and I received positive feedback. Since most of you weren’t able to be there, I thought I’d post my talk and slides (with “(slide)” written into the script if you want to follow along). The slides are mostly pictures and quotes to complement the talk, but I did work on them, so I wanted to put that out there. Without further ado:
Oct 2016hand-waving and subject matter expertise
From this recent project I’ve been discussing, I have one more point. Our customers can make transfers into other accounts. The vendor told us that it would “hard fail” if the customer tried to go over their balance. “Hard fail” sounded fancy, and we were assured that it would prevent penalties. However, I was able to show that customers could go over their balance once the fees were included, and it wouldn’t fail. There were actually a number of ways a person could transfer more than they had to give. Turns out “hard fail” wasn’t anything fancy, and it only happened at one point in the process, rather than it being a continuing thing. Business got involved, said the internal people had control over whether to assess the penalties and that they “probably” wouldn’t assess those penalties. Finally, a person who had done that kind of work spoke up to assure us that he had never seen a penalty not assessed. It’s another battle I lost. (I lost a lot of battles on this project, but there were also just lots of battles.) The financial institution assumes that people won’t be that foolish, or perhaps the institution just likes those penalties. I learned a lesson about thoroughly understanding processes. Before the true meaning of “hard fail” came to light, and before a subject matter expert spoke up, it was just hand-waving. We tested it with our assumptions that there were fail-safes involved, when there weren’t really. It took pushing the issue and not giving into the hand-waving that we were able to make an informed decision about the process. The project also taught me not to trust anyone, particularly vendors, when they talk about behaviors. When they say something is “as designed”, they often mean “no design” or “designed without thought”. The product was exhilarating to test, because it was so very broken, but it was also immensely frustrating to be stonewalled by the vendor at most steps.
Sep 2016why testers need to be involved from the beginning
On a recent project, the vendor’s software was going to be embedded in our website through an iframe. After a quick tutorial from my husband (a software architect who had done a lot of research on the security of iframes not too long before that), I thought it would be interesting to poke around and see what I could find in their system and see if I could break into it, though I’m not a security tester. I found some of what I expected to find - they were using security headers that are a little dated but the best that work on Safari (there’s more secure stuff for the other browsers - I don’t know why Apple is behind the times on that). But there was also a header that was misspelled when it should have been automatically generated by the system. This gave me pause. There was a possibility that something got a little funky with the server, but it was also possible that they were hard-coding things on a homegrown server rather than using a commercial server that is regularly patched. I filed a bug. And pushed it. A lot. I got the Information Security team involved. The response finally came back (after more than a month of asking) that they were not using Apache, but they couldn’t tell us more about it, that they were keeping up with security issues and regularly testing their server. This was another issue. The software we were given was so poorly written and tested, that I wasn’t sure if we could trust their word that they were adequately testing their own servers, much less keeping up with OWASP vulnerabilities or doing anything security-related. InfoSec was aware of this. But when I asked about the results from their penetration testing, the project manager told me that they weren’t doing any testing. It was in our contract with this vendor that we wouldn’t do any testing of their server. Seriously? My response to that in a meeting was, “Someone is touching their servers, and I’m concerned that it’s not us.” I lost the battle. I looked through the contract to see if there was any way we could say they breached the contract (hooray, law background!), but the vendor had written it so wishy-washy that it was basically a “best effort” contract without anything binding. So frustrating. In addition to the gaping potential security issues, it was a big problem to me that testers weren’t involved in the decision-making process. I’m not sure if anyone technical was involved, though I really hope so. But a tester could have raised the issue about not testing their servers instead of lawyers and business people just agreeing to it without considering the implications. It should have been a major red flag that they didn’t want us to try to break into their server. Testers are not just a checkmark. We have experience and specific knowledge that can assist with product decisions and can end up protecting the business’s interests.
Sep 2016September gaming edition
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted something on a Friday, and there have been a number of games I’ve played recently. I’ve been to two board game conventions and have played a lot of games with friends. This is a long post, but here goes (in alphabetical order):
Aug 2016the benefits of manual testing, episode 2 - agile
Teams at my company are moving to agile, and all of us will go eventually. I’ve been learning about how testing works in agile, and I’ve been talking a lot with people about it, both inside my company and outside. One thing that has come up is the perception that manual testing is not a big piece in agile, and that all of the testers will need to learn automation to continue to succeed. While I agree that testers should know enough to at least identify areas for automation, or better yet, do it, I think there will always be a place in agile for manual testing. Some things just cannot be automated in the first place. Also, manual testing is quick and robust, and the cost can be about the same as automation. Let’s break those down. Quick: Testing in agile needs to be quick. If something is broken, it needs to be discovered and fixed quickly or put the sprint at risk. Manual testing is an efficient way to make sure that something is functioning. Stories can be very small to quite large, and, especially for the smaller stuff and GUI items, being able to quickly look at something, play around with it, and see whether it is working the way it’s supposed to is best done with manual testing. This is especially true for a smaller piece of a work in progress, when not everything is connected, but the developers want to make sure they’re on the right track. Robust: Manual testing is robust. Deviations from a script are expected. If a URL or menu changes, or if a button moves around, a manual test can go forward. An automated test stops and throws an error and has to be inspected for what went wrong. If an application is very stable and unlikely to change anything, automation may be helpful, but if features are being added or moved around, as happens frequently in agile, manual testing will be able to continue more easily than an automated test. Cost: Automation is a large up-front expense. What takes five minutes of manual testing may take thirty minutes to code an automated test. If the same test is going to be run over and over again over multiple sprint, automation may be more cost-effective. But manual testing is more cost-effective to determine functionality for initial tests and one-off tests. Automation does have its uses. Automation takes some human error out of testing (though possibly introduces human error in the coding for testing itself). If testers want to be involved with writing unit tests or helping with TDD, automation is a good way to go. If it’s a long-term project with core functionality built at the beginning, regression tests can be automated to ensure that future features don’t break the main stuff. Integration testing of earlier features can be built too. But, especially for the first sprint of a feature, before it’s fully realized and integrated, manual testing is the way to go. I know of some companies who do entirely manual testing in agile, which poses its own set of challenges. For a discussion of how agile changes the tester’s role, and for briefly touching on different benefits of manual vs automated testing in agile, see Ulf Eriksson’s blog post here. From the same site, here is a mind map about testing in agile, and section 6 deals with manual testing and why it’s necessary. I ran this past people who know what they’re talking about to make sure I’m not saying anything heretical, but I understand there may be differences of opinion. I’d welcome a discussion about this!
Aug 2016living with a mood disorder
For a long time, I thought I had “ordinary” depression. It was terrible at times, though I managed to function. My first bout of it was in fifth grade, and I would deal with it every couple years after that. I would cry easily, think dark thoughts pretty much constantly, and find little joy in activities. I was hospitalized once when the medication I was on proved ineffective, but I quickly found a medication that I responded to well and stayed on for the next ten years.
Aug 2016Harry Potter's Birthday
For three years before this one, I celebrated July 31st with a friend who loves Harry Potter much like I do. After moving to Utah, I was sad about not celebrating with her, but I found friends here who love Harry Potter too. In previous years, I’ve made chocolate cake with fleur de sel caramel filling, but this year, I decided to try a snitch cake. I found a hemisphere cake pan, edible gold spray paint, and edible paper to make the wings. I made chocolate frogs, butterbeer, and a beef stew worthy of Molly Weasley. Friends came over, some with wizarding accessories, and we read tea leaves, did trivia, and watched Half-Blood Prince. Everyone got into it, which made it fun.
Jul 2016the benefits of manual testing, episode 1
I attended PyCon a few weeks ago, and it was a wonderful experience. I met lots of interesting people, heard great talks, and got inspired to get back to programming. One thing I encountered from multiple people is a lack of understanding of what testers do and why it’s necessary, particularly manual testing. Once I explained what I do and described the things I’ve found, I received a few job offers actually. I think it reflected more of an unhappiness with the rote checking that a lot of testers do instead of the targeted, intelligent testing I was describing. I was honest with people about my novice programming skills (solving math problems kind of counts, but I have more ambitious projects coming up). People immediately assumed that the only valid kind of testing was automated testing, though they tried to understand what I do. This post contains thoughts that came out of those conversations. I anticipate that this topic will be merit a few posts, hence “episode 1”. First, automated testing is almost always necessary for performance testing and stress testing, though sometimes the stress testing can be mimicked through the use of other tools. What manual testing offers is a more detailed look at how the software behaves at every step, because a tester can visually inspect pages, figure out alternate paths to what should be the same outcome, and test the foolish things and the unexpected things. I might be mistaken that not all of these things can be automated, but automating testing can be expensive and time-consuming to get off the ground and maintained, and it’s not a silver bullet. Manual testers function best when we can use creativity. “Checking”, the act of merely inspecting documents to make sure that something in program A matches something in program B, is a waste of talent and money. Manual testers use experience and “hunches” really to figure out where the weaknesses are, and they try to exploit weaknesses in multiple ways. Once that weakness is found and fully understood, a test can be written for automation that would make sure it doesn’t break in the future. Manual testers can cover the bulk of the testing by just exploring the software and getting creative with how they approach different scenarios. As a few examples, I’ve been working on a project that uses iframes. I knew a little bit about the security in iframes and how it used to be exploited (and how it can still be exploited in Safari, which is another matter). I thought I might be able to do something with that, so I went through some of the http headers from the iframe to see what was there. It wasn’t quite as bad as I had hoped, but I did find some suspicious tags that made me question the vulnerability of the server generally. The vendor promises they aren’t using a home grown server, but our information security team is preparing to go to town to try to break into the software. With the same software, the math wasn’t adding up. I tried a bunch of different combinations of things to make sure that people were consistently able to do things a financial institution would not want them to do. Basically, every thing that we customized or that the vendor bragged about had a high probability of being broken initially. I had a bit of a high from the first few weeks of testing. This is our first experience with this software, so until we know the weaknesses fully, manual testing is most appropriate. Manual testing can have more coverage in some instances, and it can be more effective in finding specific bugs that may not expose themselves until the tester plays a fantastic fool.
May 2016a documentation argument
I’m testing some vendor-supplied software, and I’ve been testing a variety of functions and integrations. I’ve been more deliberate in my testing on this project, less monkey-at-a-keyboard and more creative thinking about how it might be broken. I’m testing things that aren’t necessarily documented in the requirements. I got some push-back about it, that we should only be documenting (and even running) tests that have written requirements. That’s basically telling me that I shouldn’t do a thorough job because someone else didn’t do a thorough job. And that’s not how I want to work.
May 2016movie review: Code
Carl and I went to a screening earlier this week of Code: Debugging the Gender Gap. I didn’t expect it to be a great film (too many film festival awards), so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a coherent, cohesive, and compelling film about the gender gap in computer science, particularly in programming. It started with dialogue from young girls about what they thought of coding and who they thought of when they considered it. Some girls were defiant and said that there was no reason they couldn’t do it, and others said they almost always think of boys coding rather than girls coding. One of the sentences that really stuck out to me was a founder (CEO?) of a company saying something like, “I don’t feel like I can try to convince women to join a profession where they’ll be harassed.” I think her point made a lot of sense and addressed the catch-22 the profession has. It needs to change its culture to be more inviting to women, but it probably needs more women in order to change its culture. Groups of people don’t suddenly realize they’re being exclusive without more people around who are being excluded to point it out. They interviewed the founder of Goldieblox, who talked about her construction toys for girls and the engineering learning that goes along with them. They talked to founders and volunteers with female-oriented coding programs. They had extended conversations with a woman who works at Pixar about combining coding with her love of art and her experiences as an undergrad in computer science classes of mostly men. That was an interesting insight. She said that the men would get together and do their homework and projects together, figuring out the tricks and shortcuts embedded in those things, and they wouldn’t communicate any of that to the women. It turned into a self-reinforcing group excluding women from improving and learning as a team (they still succeeded, but they had to work harder for it). They talked about the changing stereotypes of coders, from the scruffy and socially awkward programmer of the ’80s and ’90s to the “brogrammers” of today (what a terrible word), who are more likely to be (or act like) frat boys. Women stopped going into the field around the same time as the perception of coders changed from logic-oriented people to nerdy men, helped by media and job ads. And they talked about the attrition of women in the field, something like 41% of women leave by their tenth year (I might be making up both of those numbers), compared with only about 17% of men. One woman attributed this to women feeling like their careers stagnate fairly early, while men experience acceleration in their careers. My own experience with sexism will be the topic of another post, provided I can do it without pointing too many fingers. But I will say that in software testing at my company, at least, women are pretty fairly represented among all the levels, including management, except on the automation team. I don’t exactly know why that would be, but I can guess. At other companies where I interviewed, they paraded in the one woman on their testing team, which left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. The movie comes out on Netflix in November. If you get a chance to watch it, I highly suggest that you do!
May 2016Harry Potter cosplay
Thrilling Thursdays are where I will share things that get me excited. This could be music, knitting, or, as it is here, Harry Potter! I’m going to Leaky Con in October with a friend, and I’ve decided to cosplay for all five days we’re there. I’ve started work on my costumes, ordering the bits I’m not going to make and getting ready to sew the stuff I will make. So here’s my plan:
May 2016musical dogs
It’s Wildcard Wednesday! It’s a magical day when anything can show up here. This week, it’s just a video of what my dogs do when I start warming up my voice at home. It can be a little disheartening, particularly when I have auditions coming up, but Carl is convinced they just want to help.
May 2016job and training
It’s Testing Tuesday! Let’s talk software testing! To start, software testing is finding weaknesses in software that, when fixed, make it a better product. Software testers don’t break software, they expose how it’s already broken. It is rather fun to say I break things for my career, but some people, particularly developers, respond poorly to that. Software testing is a productive practice in that it improves the end product, though it can feel a little destructive when the tester finds bug after bug. I’ve been at my new job since the end of March, ostensibly testing software, but mostly learning things. The first project I worked on was a small upgrade to existing software, and I didn’t have much to test, though I had plenty of time to test it. That was good, because I’m learning the formalities of testing and how this specific company does it, and I appreciated having time to get my bearings. On this project, the vendor supplied recommended test cases, and I was left to my own devices to create a suite of regression test cases. The people who had done the prior upgrades hadn’t left any test cases to run for regression, and the documentation of the tests they did run was virtually non-existent. The learning curve wasn’t too bad, though I did have to ask a lot of questions about some things, and the institutional knowledge of the product wasn’t great. A couple times, I got the response that something was working as designed when it was really a bug acting consistently across a subset of items, and when I asked why something was supposed to behave like that, I was told that the person didn’t know. This was frustrating, but the project could have been much more frustrating with less congenial people. I had a fairly high bug find rate, particularly in light of the number of test cases I ran and the amount of time I spent in ad hoc testing (which for me meant learning my way around and trying random and non-targeted things). As a novice tester, this has me very concerned that the software is really buggy (as opposed to me being very lucky or very good). Sometimes I wonder if the reassurances from my colleagues and managers are just false accolades, but that’s my own insecurity, not the topic of this post. All told, I really like the company I’m working for, I love the cooperative and collaborative environment, and I find the work to be fun and sometimes challenging. Plus, no one is going to sue me because of my work, so that’s a bonus. I was given training through SQE to prepare for the ISTQB exam. The certification is as a foundation level tester, and the exam is 40 questions long, with a passing grade of 65%. The training was fine. The teacher was engaging most of the time, and you could tell he had a real passion for testing. I didn’t find it at all useful in helping me to do my job though. It was about theory and vocabulary and forms. The only time we came to concrete techniques was a discussion about partitions and boundary analysis. The training did help fill in some gaps in the self-study I had been doing, but I think the usefulness of the training comes in giving the team common vernacular to use. I have kind of a big problem with 65% being a passing grade though. How should that reassure anyone that the person knows what they’re talking about? Another problem with the certification, aside from its low passing grade, it that it’s a one-time certification with no renewals necessary. There’s no requirement for continuing education, no need for production of work product to show competence. It seems to me to be a meaningless badge of legitimacy that isn’t needed once you have a real job behind you. I think a more valuable thing for a resume would be an online portfolio with a test plan and test cases. But I say all this as someone with a job now, and had I not been given a chance, I was planning on getting the certification on my own to show that I at least know something. I’ve been looking at a lot of resources to help make me a better tester quickly. These have included books, blogs, online resources, and streamed conference presentations. Of the resources I’ve consulted, one of my favorites is James Whittaker’s How to Break Software. Some of it isn’t applicable to what I do, but he gives real-world examples of how things can break. He talks about different kinds of tests to run through human interaction and manipulating file interaction as well. I just started reading Cem Kaner’s (et al.) Testing Computer Software. Just the first couple chapters are really useful so far. I’ve really enjoyed James Bach’s blog and Michael Bolton’s blog as well. They are both big into rapid software testing and rethinking the way exploratory testing is (and rechristening it simply “testing”). Their blogs are full of insights and good ideas for people who want to improve the way they think about software testing. As I finish or discover other resources, I’ll discuss them here. Until another Tuesday!
May 2016conversation and emotion
I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we interact with others and how we perceive ourselves as interacting with others. I, personally, think that I am normally charming, witty, and engaging, particularly when I have a full night of sleep behind me. I’m able to make intelligent references to history or literature, and, to a lesser extent, pop culture (though they can be a little dated). When I’m feeling bubbly, I do feel like I sparkle in my interactions with others. On the other hand, conversation can be pained and stilted, sometimes confusing, and always a struggle when I’m in a dark place. In those times, I feel like I suck energy out of the conversation and add nothing to it. But I’m not sure how much people notice either end of this spectrum for me. It all has me wondering how much of this is real and how much is self-perception. My husband has said I’m a great conversationalist, though he perhaps notices when I’m not at my best, and I do maintain that I charmed my way into my current job. But self-perception can often lead to judgment, which is a place where I spend a lot of time, in spite of knowing how damaging that can be. I judge myself based on how I think my interactions with others went, spending time thinking how I could do better but never actually putting those constructive thoughts into action. A recent conversation has me thinking about the power of understatement too. I was talking with someone about his childhood, and he told me about leaving home when a child and making his way on the streets. His response to my horror was, “It was hard.” He is a remarkably well-adjusted young man for having suffered through what he did, and his statement underscored both the difficulty of his life and his own resilience. I tend towards the other end, not always going for hyperbole, but generally not downplaying my stories or emotions attached to them. Emotion can be powerful in conversation. It can enhance or undermine your words. It can heighten or relieve tension. I’m still figuring out how to effectively use emotion in my speech, though I guess what I’m still figuring out is how to control outward manifestation of emotion and use it strategically rather than letting it control the dialog. I’m looking for a way to improve my storytelling and my public speaking. I’ve been thinking about Toastmasters, but I also think an individual mentor relationship could be good. I’d appreciate suggestions if you have any!
Feb 2016weekly roundup - February 19th
Maybe not strictly weekly, but here’s this week’s edition of what I’ve been reading, playing, and thinking! The New Yorker had an interesting piece last spring on police shootings in Albuquerque. The violence directed at civilians by cops is far beyond what other areas experience, and the city turned a blind eye to it over and over again. The DOJ launched an investigation and found a pattern of unnecessarily aggressive responses to crises. The most egregious violence has been directed at people who are homeless or have a mental illness. It is a depressing read, and the protection by the city and within the department makes it even worse. I could feel the hopelessness of the parents in the story. This short opinion piece (caution: language) on the Huffington Post’s refusal to pay its writers got me thinking about how I choose to spend my time and energy. It’s also an analog to paying artists, like I believe so firmly in with ArtsFuse. I’m not sure I can completely stop reading HuffPo, but is it worth it to make an effort? Games:
Feb 2016weekly roundup - February 5th
This will be a short one. In the last couple weeks, I’ve been focusing on other things and haven’t read many articles or played many games. I’m still a week or two behind in Bloomberg Businessweek, but I found this article about a man who has donated millions to Ted Cruz’s campaign to be very interesting. Robert Mercer is a very wealthy programmer and hedge fund manager who donates to political campaigns and summits and movements that push for the gold standard and deny climate change. He and I basically have nothing in common, but it would be interesting to have a conversation with him (though he is also fairly reticent about his personal beliefs, so it might be difficult). The story is light on formative background for Mercer, and I would want to know why on earth… just… why. My Facebook feed has been dominated by a few outspoken Sanders supporters, and it made me start thinking that everyone was like that. I’ve taken measures to lessen that exposure and talk to Clinton supporters more. And then I came across this piece this morning, and it seemed like perfect timing. Clinton has been in the national spotlight for 25 years. She has incredible perseverance, and she has had to deal with so much mud-slinging for pretty much the entire time. The GOP is encouraging Sanders supporters to spew the same vitriol the right has been spewing for years. It’s frustrating and worrisome. In the past two weeks, I’ve played Roll for the Galaxy (this time with my husband), Five Tribes, Splendor, and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. Splendor: I think nearly everyone we’ve played this with has gone out and bought it. It’s a gem-collecting game where you buy cards with gems on them and use those to buy more expensive cards. It’s very straightforward and easy to learn, but it is a lot of fun to play. Castles of Mad King Ludwig: I first played this last May. Each player builds rooms on their castle, getting points for rooms and various bonuses. Players take turns as the “master builder,” when they get money from others. It’s a larger strategy game, but it’s not too difficult, and it’s quite fun. It’s not terribly fun with two players (as Carl and I have found out), but with three or four, it’s quite good. One of my favorites, but not one I get to pull out much. Five Tribes (reg. version): Players drop meeples on the tiled board to perform different actions, gain resources, and take control of tiles. It’s unlike other games I’ve played, and it is hands down one of my favorites. Once you get the hang of it, it moves quickly, and it’s fun to try different strategies each time. This time, I went the resource route, which went super well. I’ve discussed Roll for the Galaxy before, but I will say that Carl really liked it, and I think we may end up adding it to our collection.
Jan 2016weekly roundup - January 22nd (game edition)
I didn’t get much reading done this week, but I have plenty of games to talk about, so this is going to be all about games. If you were hoping for more reading suggestions, check in next week! I spent last weekend at a game convention at Bryce Canyon. It was great! We got there Friday evening and played games through Sunday evening. On Monday, we went on a sleigh ride to the edge of the canyon, and then we spent a couple hours exploring the national park. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a national park - some views were breathtaking. We need to go back and do some hiking and camping there (and at the other, what, five? national parks in Utah). We played thirteen games over the course of forty-eight hours (a slower pace than some other cons, but more serious games than other cons too). Here they are in no particular order:
Jan 2016weekly roundup - January 15th
One of the best things I saw this week was Jerry Seinfeld and President Obama in Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Both of these men are personable, and I enjoyed their conversation. Having Obama open up about what it means to have power is interesting, and his advice to the candidates about making sure they’re running for the right reasons (or rather, not running for the wrong reasons) made me think about the reasons behind the choices I’ve made in my own life. In law school, we learned about arbitration, but there wasn’t a big emphasis on it. It was something that was relegated to consumer contracts, but even there, it wasn’t used by all of the companies. In the last few years, however, arbitration clauses have popped up all over the place, and the Supreme Court has upheld even the most extreme of them. This article does a good job of explaining the rise of arbitration clauses and the influence the Chief Justice had in creating the winning argument while he was practicing law. I’m not a proponent of arbitration. My arguments against it are nothing new, but I am particularly against it in employment contracts. Cerner gave its employees an ultimatum late last year: sign an arbitration contract or lose the ability to get merit raises. It prohibits class action suits, which can be effective to change corrupt or improper practices by companies. And it’s just unfair. The way that our country and justice system seem to be run by companies rather than people really gets to me. A New York Times Magazine article addresses the Russian media trolls who put out pro-Russia articles and comments that disparage, well, anyone who criticizes Putin or Russia (or looks too hard at the trolls themselves). It’s an interesting bit of investigative journalism that culminates in the journalist himself being trolled. Another article about the dark side of technology is this article about the Silk Road and its founder. It’s a long, two-part read, but it goes through the founding, running, and downfall of the Silk Road and the efforts law enforcement made to try and shut it down. In the end, it’s a pretty classic case of getting too big for one’s britches. Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind, became arrogant and a little careless, which was enough for law enforcement to get a toehold. There are so many examples of this extreme hubris, and the article was in part fascination with a dark world and part schadenfreude at seeing the end result. I didn’t play any games this week, but I’m going to a board game convention this weekend, so I’ll have lots to report next week! Personal thoughts: I’ve been applying for jobs, which is somewhat disheartening. I’m educated, curious, driven, and eager to work, but I think my JD scares off potential employers who think I’m going to expect a lawyer’s salary while not doing legal work or who think that I’m not right for a software job. It’s frustrating. But I’ve come to realize that majoring in math in addition to music was one of the best decisions I could have made in college. I wanted to graduate with more than a degree in music (I knew I didn’t want to do music professionally), and I enjoyed math and was pretty good at it. It turns out that a lot of software jobs require a technical degree or a math degree, so yay! Trying to figure out my future (career-wise) makes me feel so young and inexperienced again, but it’s essential.
Jan 2016weekly roundup - January 8th
I started my week by reading an article in Bloomberg about Disney’s princess business switching from Mattel to Hasbro. Mattel had a series of missteps with its treatment of Disney princess products, and Disney finally took its business elsewhere. Last year, two-thirds of the Mattel senior staff resigned or was fired (Mattel lost the Disney princesses in late 2014). Hasbro has reworked the princesses to be more true to their animated characters, including painting on faces, making the waistlines (very slightly) different, and taking the dresses back to what they were meant to be. A couple things stood out to me in this article. First, it’s very important to know your market. Disney didn’t understand that kids (and their parents) wanted princess stuff until an executive went to a Disney on Ice show and saw little girls in handmade princess dresses. Second, it’s important to pay attention to your client and make them feel heard and valued. The article is full of cringing moments where I found myself wishing that Mattel had done anything else. Excellent read. Speaking of Disney and Hasbro, the #WheresRey debacle has been fascinating. Hasbro may be doing right by princesses, but their treatment of the female protagonist in Star Wars is just terrible, and their excuses feeble and hollow. This post discusses how Rey is a role model as much for boys as she is for girls. Something else Disney is doing is building a Star Wars franchise to last the ages. Wired wrote about how the last Star Wars movie won’t come in our lifetime. Star Wars is following the comic book style of universe-building, with lots of options for side stories and having characters develop independently and together. (Also, I learned a new word - paracosm - so that’s exciting.) It’s the same thing that the big studios are doing with Marvel and DC, intertwining stories and building franchises to explore characters and ages and lands. It’s an exciting thing, but at the same time, I like being able to just ingest single stories or movies without needing to know a lot of external information. On a side note, I may get more into Star Wars. Carl certainly wants me to, and he has a list of books for me to read if I’m interested. So there’s that. Getting away from Disney entirely, I also read about environmental activists that went after a ship that was egregiously and illegally fishing. The article was a fascinating look into a world of very determined people (on both sides). The environmentalists pursued the fishing boat for over 100 days and 10,000 nautical miles. I care about the environment, but their level of caring is so beyond what I can comprehend. Games! This week, I played Bang the dice game, Aton, Roll for the Galaxy, and Five Tribes solo:
Jan 2016weekly roundup - first ever!
Welcome to my first weekly roundup, where I write about things I’ve read, games I’ve played, and things I’ve been thinking about that don’t merit their own blog posts. I’ve read a few interesting articles this week. I discovered the Wait But Why site, and the archives are full of interesting things. I read a two-part post on AI and the timeline for the future of it, which was both really interesting and fairly terrifying. The idea that we could be so close to immortality or extinction left me reeling. It’s a very long read, but I highly recommend reading all of it. Another interesting post I read was about procrastination. I spend a lot of my time on unimportant things, and though I’m starting to get better about doing things that will move me forward, some days are better than others. The post really resonated with me, and it reframed things in a way that may put me in more control in the future. I’ve read a couple of art-related articles this week as well, both ending rather negatively about their subjects. One was about Peter Lik, the photographer, the other about an art collector who patronizes young artists. The article about Peter Lik talks about his business plan (prices increase based on how many prints sell, and stores in high-traffic tourist areas), and about the criticism he has received from the art world (lack of shadows and darkness in his art, little resale value). We nearly bought a Peter Lik a few years ago, and I still like what he does. I’m not sure what that says about my taste in art (it probably means I’m not very sophisticated). I didn’t like the sales tactics they used, somewhat akin to car sales, but it nearly worked. The other article dealt with a man who patronizes artists as an investment strategy. It made me think more about what I’m doing with my business and how easily artists are taken advantage of. This post about Hillary Clinton was eye-opening. I had to reconsider why I feel the way I do about her. It’s a defense of her in a way, pointing out that she’s in an impossible situation. I dislike her corporate connections, but at the same time, she’s doing what she needs to to survive, and she’s immensely strong. I cannot imagine anyone I know putting up with what she’s had to endure for the last twenty years. Another site I’ve discovered is Inverse, which is full of articles that make my geeky heart sing. If you get excited about science or nerdy shows or movies, this is the place to poke around. I don’t want to point to any specific articles, because they’re all good. On to games! Recently, I’ve played Morels, Smash Up, Stone Age, Eldritch Horror, Red Dragon Inn, and Exploding Kittens. It’s been a nice vacation. :)
Dec 2015a look back, a look forward
This has been a year of change and redefinition for me, and next year is full of promise. Starting next Friday, I’m hoping to write a weekly round-up of things I’ve been reading, games I’ve been playing, things I’ve learned, rediscovered, or found interesting, and thoughts on events. I’m sure you’re all terribly interested in my thoughts on these things, so I hope you’ll continue to read. But today, I want to wrap up the year with an overview and talk about future plans. The year began with anticipation of moving. We decided in October 2014 that we were going to move in 2015, and we were looking at jobs in Colorado and overseas. We love Kansas City, but it was time for a change. I grew up moving every five years, and I was getting the itch after being in our house for just about that long. We told Carl’s company in March that we were leaving, that it would be great if it could be with them, but regardless, we were leaving by end of summer. They brought up Salt Lake City in April, and the more we learned about it, the more excited we became. We thought the move would happen in June or July, then in August, but it finally happened in October. Our house sold quickly, and we sold off most of our stuff, as we were moving from a 4-bedroom house with basement and garage to a 2-bedroom apartment with neither. It’s been good to do with less, but I think both of us would welcome a garage or basement to store our camping stuff and bikes. We love SLC so far. We’ve had some snow, we’re excited about skiing, and we’re starting to make friends. It’s a good place for us. Another big change happened in July when we both changed our last names! I had my hyphenated name from birth, and Carl and I both liked the idea of having the same last name. Of the three last names between the two of us, we chose my mom’s. I have to admit, when we got married (almost 6 years ago!), I didn’t ever really think about changing my name. It didn’t make a lot of sense, as I had started to establish myself in law under that name, and Carl’s last name wasn’t really any less complicated than my own. Since I left law, I had been wanting to simplify it, and Carl finally asked me why I didn’t, and he offered to change his name too. It was very sweet, and it has meant more than I expected to have the same last name as my husband. We were able to change our names with very little fuss, Carl’s work colleagues thought it was great, and apart from a few notable exceptions, everyone has either thought it was neat or kept their opinions to themselves. The third big change has been my delving into software development. I started learning Python in March (a college class in it 12 years ago barely counts as having learned it before), after doing some HTML/CSS/JavaScript stuff, and I’ve been doing small projects and solving math problems (gotta love Project Euler!). I’m doing a class on how to properly test software too, and my hope is to start as QA and move into test automation and then a full-on development job. It’s a lot to learn, but I’m enjoying it, and Carl says I already think like a software engineer (not that his opinion is the be-all and end-all, but it’s nice that he has that faith in me). I have a list of projects to conquer in 2016, and I’m looking forward to doing them. Keep an eye on my site for them! In other news, I welcomed a niece in August (she’s beautiful), and I celebrated with friends and family for their own milestones. I gave two recitals, sang with multiple choirs, and went to both Universal Studios in Orlando and Disneyland in California. I made plans for Harry Potter things, learned new board games, learned to crochet, finished some knitting projects, and read a lot. It was a wonderful year, and next year looks like it will be just as good.
Nov 2015first impressions
I have been in Salt Lake City exactly one month. Our apartment is great (albeit with a tiny kitchen), we have our Utah driver licenses and our plates (Harry Potter themed, of course), and I’ve found a Lutheran church. The dogs are used to not having a dog door, we’ve gone on a few hiking adventures, and we have unpacked most of our boxes. I’ve met Carl’s colleagues, church people, knitters, and gamers. SLC is pretty great. The mountains are right there, and even cold days aren’t bitingly cold like in Kansas (or Iowa, goodness). People are friendly, and communities come together really easily. We’ve moved down the crazy scale from Kansas politics (though not by tons), so that’s a plus. SLC elected its first openly gay mayor two weeks ago, and the governor isn’t actively trying to destroy the state. There seems to be an “us versus them” mentality here though, between Mormons and non-Mormons. The LDS people I’ve met here have been friendly and open, and I’ve had some frank discussions about beliefs and lifestyles. From the non-LDS people, however, I’ve heard things along the lines of, “I tried to keep an open mind at first, but I just don’t understand,” and “I have some Mormon friends, but I hang out much more with my ’normal’ friends.” The line often seems to be demarcated by what a person drinks. There seems to be a higher prevalence of drinking among non-Mormons, almost a shibboleth. I like drinking, but having it as a marker of my culture and/or religion makes me uncomfortable. Overall, I’m really enjoying being here. One thing I heard from multiple friends in KC was that they had a hard time telling if I liked them at first (two people were convinced I actively disliked them). I’m working on that, trying to make my face less… what? grumpy? shy? I noticed it at church yesterday morning. I went to choir, and as I was introduced to people, I would give a small smile and say hi, but not brightly, and so after worship, I made a point to talk to the people that I hadn’t really engaged earlier. First impressions matter.
Sep 2015moving
Almost exactly one year ago, we decided we were going to move west. We love Kansas City, but we’ve been here for five years, and it’s time for a new adventure. We want mountains and a more temperate climate and more opportunities for outdoor activities. We told my husband’s employer that we were leaving, that it would be great if he could stay with the company, but we were leaving in a few months. The company came through and asked us to move to Salt Lake City! It wasn’t initially on our radar, but the more we learned about it, the more excited we became. It sounds like most everything we’re looking for in a new city. We thought we would move in June, then July, then on and on until now it’s finally going to happen in October. We found a two-bedroom apartment that is close to his work and not far from anything. The dogs will have a little bit of grass on our patio, but they’ll have to get used to not having a dog door. Our house goes on the market at the end of the week, and I’ve been playing contractor, finding a roofer, landscaper, foundation person, painter, and carpet cleaner. We had a massive garage sale last weekend, then donated a bunch and took a lot to the dump. We got rid of thousands of pounds of stuff over the weekend, and there’s more to go. It’s a relief to have less “stuff,” to be downsizing and getting rid of things we once considered important. It’s also brought my husband and me closer together. We’ve been working hard to get things ready, staying up late, getting up early, packing, cleaning, carrying boxes (and beds, and furniture). It’s been a good lesson in patience and teamwork. We have two more days of push, and then we just maintain things while the house is on the market. Just two more days. That’s what’s going on here. Still lots of cleaning to do, plus a couple trips to various places. I didn’t think moving would be this stressful. It’ll get done though. And soon!
Sep 2015What I've Been Reading
In the past few years, I’ve been making an effort to read more. I started by reading non-fiction, and though that was nice (and educational), I wanted to expand my horizons by reading more fiction. Here’s what I’ve been reading recently (and some of the best from the last few years):
Aug 2015baby shower
I hosted a baby shower for my sister-in-law recently, and it was pretty fun. It was an afternoon tea, complete with homemade clotted cream. No specified colors, but she wanted owls, so I did yellow and lavender (and owls, of course). Decorations included paper and tissue paper decorations, an owl mobile, and foam balls covered in fresh flowers (purple carnations and yellow daisies) Food: four types of tea sandwiches cut into owl shapes (mango chutney chicken salad, cream cheese and cucumber, radish and butter with sea salt, and bacon tomato); three hors d’ouevre (bacon-wrapped dates (stuffed with blue cheese), mini caprese salads on toothpicks, crispy salmon bites with a yogurt-dill sauce); homemade scones (regular and blueberry) with clotted cream and sliced strawberries; and four desserts (berry tartlets, homemade petits fours, sugar cookies, and chocolates shaped like owls and baby feet… and dinosaurs, because why not?). Drinks: four hot teas (black, green, herbal, chai), coffee, three iced teas (unsweetened, sweetened, and herbal), and homemade lemonade with smashed strawberries. Everything was gluten free (Canyon Bakehouse bread), and I had some dairy-free options as well. We played three games and had two activities. One of the games was guessing the contents of a diaper bag by touch. I bought a diaper bag with owls on it, and the contents of it included ten items: diaper, burp cloth, nasal aspirator, baby powder, wipes, sunbonnet (which I made according to this pattern), changing pad, rattle, pacifier, and bottle. The mother of a ten-month-old baby guessed nine out of the ten correctly. Another game was putting a paper plate on your head and drawing a baby on it with a crayon. Silly but fun. And the third game was guessing the baby animals based on the adult. The prizes for the games were pedicures in a jar (sadly, no pictures). I had labels on them, and each jar contained two colors of nail polish and the five-piece pedicure set from the Dollar Store (heck yeah). Our activities were writing messages to be opened at each month of the baby’s life and writing messages on diapers for midnight diaper changes.
Jan 2015discipleship sermon
The readings for this were from Jonah and from the first chapter of Mark. I want to talk about discipleship and following God today. We get three views of what it means to respond to God’s call in these lessons. We’ll start with the easiest one first. In the Gospel, Jesus calls Andrew and Simon (later Peter), and he calls James and John. The men leave their careers and families and towns willingly, even joyfully, and quite literally follow Jesus up and down Judea for the next three years. This may be the most common view of discipleship, that of giving up everything to follow God. And it’s a powerful message and takes an awful lot of nerve. But thankfully for us, that’s not the end of discipleship. You can still follow God even if you aren’t a fisherman. In our first reading, Jonah tells the people of Ninevah they will be destroyed. Now you may remember the story of Jonah. God tells him to go to Ninevah and tell the Ninevites that Ninevah will be destroyed in forty days. Jonah, understandably, would rather not do that, so he runs, gets thrown into the sea and swallowed by a fish, and God, again, tells him to go to Ninevah. He delivers the message, the Ninevites repent, and God doesn’t destroy them. Jonah thinks it’s unfair, but that’s another story. We have two examples of following God in this story. Jonah follows God’s instructions eventually, though he was kicking and screaming and only gave in once he realized he couldn’t escape. This may be what discipleship feels like for many of us. But there’s another example, that of the Ninevites. When they heard Jonah’s message, they repented, they turned towards God, and God saved them from destruction. They led their lives but prayed and repented and did fewer bad things, and God spared them. This particular example of discipleship is a little difficult for me. As a Lutheran, we put a large emphasis on grace and faith. Our salvation comes from God, and there is nothing we can do to earn it. Works are a response to God’s love, rather than a way to earn salvation. Other denominations believe that faith and works are equal, that we must do works to receive God’s mercy. This story from Jonah, that of the Ninevites being spared because they repent, does not make me want to not be Lutheran, but it does raise an interesting question of how we are called to follow God. God desires a closer relationship with us. He hears our prayers, he walks with us, and he desires good things for us. He wants us to repent from what keeps us distant from him. But I believe that his grace is not conditional upon this. His grace was sealed with the death of his son. And our response to that grace is to lead prayerful lives. I hope you will think of your whole life as a response to God’s grace in the coming month. Amen.
May 2014belonging sermon
So a few months ago, I took over a service at a nursing home once a month. I had been playing piano for the services for a while before I was asked to lead the service as well. Sometimes it’s a little awkward to hop back and forth from the piano to the altar, but it’s been working pretty well, and I have a great team of volunteers who come out and shepherd people. My sermons are short, five minutes or less. Today’s was the shortest yet, just over two minutes. The text was John 14:15-21, “I will not leave you orphaned,” that kind of thing. And I thought maybe other people would be interested in reading what I had to say. So here’s my sermon for today: I met someone who grew up in a family where, instead of saying “bye” or “see you later” when one of them left the house, they would say, “remember whose you are.” It was a reminder to be strong in identity and values, to remember where you came from and to whom you belong. It was a reminder to live faithfully and in glory to God. Because of that story, I have a card in my wallet that has a sunset with those words printed on it – Remember whose you are. We remember whose we are, that we are God’s children. God loves us so much that he sent his Son to die for us. During Easter we especially celebrate his resurrection, but that’s not the end. Jesus ascends to heaven, where he still lives, and sends the Spirit to be with us. God loves us so much that He will not leave us orphaned or alone. At the beginning of this Gospel reading, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” The commandment we are instructed to keep is the one given just before this in John, to love one another as God has loved us. Our response to God’s love to is to love one another. This can be easy to do when people are nice and we have the ability to help. But what about when we have no help to give or when people are mean or lash out? God’s commandment is clear. We are to love one another, not just when it’s convenient or when they look like us or have our same values or the same beliefs, not just when they’re nice to us or have something to offer us. We are to love one another as God has loved us. Period. But we’re not alone in this. God sends us the Spirit to guide us and be with us as we figure out the world. He does not leave us orphaned. The Spirit is God’s presence on earth. And this Spirit lives in us. That might sound like some modern hippie stuff, but God’s work is done through us, and the Spirit guides that. We remember whose we are, that we are God’s children. We should do our best to show whose we are by how we love each other. We talk about scripture being God-breathed, God’s word filtered through human hands. Our lives and works should also be God-breathed, the Spirit working through us with our personalities and passions and mistakes imprinted on them. Our love for one another is God-breathed, Spirit-inspired, with our own expression on it. Remember whose you are. I have three other sermons that I haven’t posted, though I will if people are interested.
Mar 2014discipline
My theme for this year, as a New Year’s Resolution, is discipline. Since I closed up my law firm, I’d been rather undisciplined - sleeping late and too much, eating too much, watching too much TV, drinking too frequently (rarely to excess), generally living in my own bubble of self-indulgence and not engaging with my community. I felt bad, emotionally and physically. New Year seemed like the right time to make more changes, and I decided to try to live with more deliberation and discipline. I still have a long way to go, but I think I’ve made a good start. I get up with Carl most days and work on our new business (ArtsMuse!) for a decent portion of the day, I get out of the house regularly, I’m eating, if not better, at least less. I attend 1 Million Cups, which is a weekly presentation of two start-ups, and I made it my goal to meet 2 new people each week. That’s pushed me outside my comfort zone, though I think with the lack of “work friends,” maybe I’m willing to seek out human contact a little more. And I’ve been reading more. Last year, I read a lot of nonfiction, which was great, and I learned a lot, but I’m trying to read more fiction right now (I love my local library!). I started voice lessons, and I’ve been playing more piano recently too. So that’s been well and good, but I can do better. I have nowhere near the discipline of, say, mothers. My house is still regularly cluttered, I’m still not exercising (I do walk the dogs, but does that count?), and my spiritual life is not great. I’m really involved in my church, but the last time I prayed on my own without prompting in church (before yesterday) was, well, I don’t remember, because it’s been that long. I’ve decided on my Lenten disciplines. First, give up alcohol. I think my liver and my gut will both appreciate that. Second, follow the devotional that my pastor wrote. Third, pray regularly, at least daily. And fourth, write or draw (or both) daily. I still feel like I write like a lawyer, and I’m hoping that I can write like a normal human again. As for drawing, my artistic ability is limited, and it’s something I want to improve upon. My husband asked what Lenten disciplines are all about, which was a good reminder to me of why we do this anyway. The way I learned it was that when we deprive ourselves of something, we are meant to pray when we feel the deprivation. One year when I was a kid, my dad, my brother, and I decided to fast on Wednesdays (though somehow, smoothies didn’t count). The idea was that when we felt hungry, we were supposed to pray. Hopefully this will mean praying at dinner now. :) With adding disciplines, again, it’s meant to be something that brings us closer to God. The devotional and praying regularly are pretty obvious. I have a harder time explaining the writing/drawing, but I think anything that gets me focusing for long-ish periods of time is a positive in my personal development, not that it will make me worthier of redemption, but I think we are meant (called?) to improve constantly.
May 2013bridal emergency kit
A good friend got married last weekend. It was a wonderful ceremony and a fun reception. As one of the bridesmaids, I elected to bring the emergency kit for the day. And this was the emergency kit to end all emergency kits. I was prepared for basically anything except a biochemical attack. It was a pretty packed duffel bag, but it came in handy, and thankfully, I didn’t actually have to use much of it. :) So here’s my list of contents:
Mar 2013When I Die...
This may be a little macabre, but I’ve been thinking about what I want things to be like when I die. I closed my law firm officially last week. I just wasn’t happy practicing law, and I realized that when I’m on my deathbed, I don’t want to think that I should have changed jobs fifty years ago. And that’s what I would think if I continued in law, or at least in practicing law. So I’ve closed up shop and am spending some time being a housewife. I don’t think I will regret this. Thinking about being on my deathbed got me thinking about other areas of my life as well. Carl and I talked about things, and we agreed that, if one of us were to die suddenly, we don’t want either of us to feel that we should have said more or shown more love. And I know that, if one of us died today, I would know that I had shown him love and been shown so much love. I also don’t want to feel like I didn’t really LIVE. And by this, I don’t mean bungee jumping or swimming with sharks or opening a bar on a beach in Costa Rica. I mean being present. Being present to experience the beauty and the sorrow that life provides. This means everything from playing with my dogs and gardening to spending time with friends and family to traveling to reading a book and watching TV (because yes, watching some TV can contribute to my happiness). I’ve known someone who disconnected and chose not to be present and experience the hurts and the joys, and it caused a lot of pain for many people. I will be present though. I will try not to regret broken relationships or missed opportunities. I may not love life every day, but I will appreciate it and know that experiencing it is what makes everything worth it. Embracing the pain and the sadness so that celebrating joy and love is even more brilliant. That got really sappy, didn’t it? I’m in a bit of a sentimental and contemplative mood…
Jan 2013Update on slow cooking
I have three days left for my month-long challenge, and while I’ve had a blast, I’ll be glad to start using my slow cooker only a few times a week instead of every day. It’s produced SO MUCH FOOD. I did get a 1970s-era 3 1/2 quart Crock-Pot, so that will be nice for smaller quantities of food. Here’s the list of things I’ve made since my last post:
Dec 2012slow cooking month
Merry Christmas! I thought it was time for another post after such a very long radio silence. I wanted to let y’all know about my month of slow cooking. I’m over halfway through and having a blast. I’ve used it every day except the first two Wednesdays (because we were rather overloaded with leftovers). I’m working from three sources - Michele Scicolone’s The French Slow Cooker, Cook’s Illustrated The Best Slow and Easy Recipes, and Stephanie O’Dea’s blog. So far, I’ve made:
Jun 2012gardening excitement
Carl and I have been weeding the garden like mad the last few days. Out of the 500 square feet, a good 150 (if not more) of it had weeds. I assume it’s because we brought in a bunch of topsoil last year, but all the same, it’s quite annoying. I think most all of it is clear of weeds now, thank goodness. And we have vegetables growing! Some tomatoes on about half the plants, a few bell peppers on a couple of the plants, butternut squash, some melons (I don’t remember which kind I planted there, so we’ll just guess when they’re ripe), zucchini, cucumbers, and artichokes! One of the squash plants has started annexing the schoolyard behind our house, which is quite fun. Squash extended about ten feet into the schoolyard a couple years ago, causing the mowers to mow around it. The butternut squash plant in question is growing out of the compost, so it’s terrifically happy and producing lots of squash. The lettuce has just about gone to seed, as has the arugula. I don’t know what’s going on with the kale - it’s nearly inedible from being so tough, so if anyone has suggestions on what to do with it, let me know. I think that about covers what we are growing - a few more types of squash and melons, and then the asparagus is nice and bushy, so lots of nutrients are getting to the roots. And the potatoes and sweet potatoes are coming along nicely. Last night, we had lambchops from our meat CSA in a marinade of lemon juice, garlic, and oregano, and we had roasted beets. The beets are better when they’re wrapped in foil and roasted that way, but these were okay. It was our first time having lambchops - they were absolutely delicious, and I look forward to having them again. I made GF crepes for breakfast - also delicious. All in all, life is good, and I’m happy with how things are going. I haven’t done much sewing recently, but I’ll get back to that.
Jun 2012Things I Miss
A friend asked me today if I miss being at my former firm. I thought about it for a minute. There are some things I miss: being busy all the time (or at least a lot of the time) someone else shouldering responsibility for my work someone else being responsible for bringing in new work having a steady paycheck However, I know that these are things I miss now. I know business will come in the door in waves, and I won’t always be busy (or always slow). I know I can build a network of people I trust to respond honestly to my work product or my questions, which is something I’m already building. I know I’m getting better all the time at bringing in new business. And I know that the paycheck will come, and it will vary, but it will hopefully pay off in the end. In short, I miss having a safety net. But the freedom that comes with being my own boss is amazing. And that’s something I would miss tremendously at a firm.
Jun 2012peppers
I fear I’ve killed off a lot of my pepper plants, both through pulling them up with weeds (we have weeds that look remarkably like pepper plants) and now through the cold. I’m quite disappointed. Maybe I’ll try putting some seeds straight in the ground later this weekend, once it has warmed up a little more. I’ve heard that peppers do better when started inside, but I can’t wait at this point. Also, I have SO MANY tomato plants. We’ll cage them in the next few days. Mmm.
May 2012Garden Excitement
Carl and I have been busy in the garden. It’s been lots of fun. I’ve planted: lots of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, melons, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, lettuce (which is bolting), rhubarb, amaranth, and, naturally, borage. My herbs are safely in their herb boxes, and Carl built me a box just for basil. Our artichokes from last year are coming back! And our strawberries are doing great. And our raspberries are coming in. I’ve taken some pictures of some plants in the yard, in our flowerbed, and my lavender bed. My lavender is blooming, and it’s awesome.
Apr 2012choosing a name
I’m sure at least some of you are wondering why I chose the name “Vesta Legal” for my firm. First, a lot of lawyers use their names as their firm names, something which I believe is rooted in ethical rules. The rules have changed though, and a law firm can choose different names. I thought my name was too complex and hard to remember to be effective as a branding technique. And it would just be clumsy: “The Law Offices of Rachel Kibler-Melby” - ugh. I like my name generally, but as a brand, it’s not so great. So the next step was finding a phrase or name that I liked. I have always had an interest in mythology, so I thought that would be a good place to start. I searched for gods or goddesses with connections to wills, and I had a hard time finding anything. Then I thought having the goddess of the home would be a good bridge to estate planning, my primary area of practice. I’m more familiar with Greek mythology, so I first tossed around “Hestia,” protector of the hearth. But I didn’t like the sound of it. I went to Roman mythology, where “Vesta” is the goddess of hearth and home. I liked the sound of her name, and to my delight, I discovered that the Romans actually deposited their wills with the priestesses of Vesta, the Vestal Virgins. It seemed perfect. I searched the name and “law,” and a Swiss law firm came up, so “Vesta Law” was out. There also appears to be a town in West Virginia called “Vesta,” though strangely, no one had used it in their law firm name. So then it was just a matter of figuring out what I liked, and “Vesta Legal” won out among the various “law firm,” “law office,” “legal services,” and other variations. If you’re thinking about a name for a law firm, I would encourage you to not use your own name. Having a brand name is frequently easier to remember, and a bonus is that it allows room for growth. If I take on a partner or hire an associate or whatever, I don’t have to worry about changing the name. It also gives no indication as to the size of my firm (thus breaking no ethical rules by stating it is bigger than it is), which can sometimes give more credibility. So that’s how I came to name my firm what I did. I’m happy with it - I think it sounds elegant, and I like the background of it.
Apr 2012new firm!
As my dear husband pointed out, I haven’t updated this since I was studying for the Missouri bar. In the past three years, I have taken (and passed) three bar exams - Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas - worked for two different firms - one doing civil defense litigation (asbestos) and one doing data privacy and records management consulting - and have recently started my own firm! I’m doing estate planning, and I hope to do asylum work on a pro bono basis. I’ll write a few posts on what I did to start my own firm, but I wanted to get a post out. Hooray for a new firm!
Apr 2012GF communion bread
Another thing: I’m working on a recipe for gluten-free communion bread, preferably unleavened. I’ll post a recipe if I find one I like, but I would love suggestions!
Apr 2012another long absence
I’m sure you’ve all been dying to know what I’ve been doing for the last six months, so here’s the update. I left my job and started my own firm, so that’s cool. I’m doing estate planning, though right now, I’m doing pretty much anything. In February, I started a bunch of seeds, and this year, I decided to do better than last year, where all my seedlings either died or ended up really leggy. I got a grow light and some heating pads, and we set up a table in the basement as my grow station. I know what it sounds like, but I promise it’s legit. I’ve planted 5 types of lettuce, spinach (which didn’t germinate, oddly), 5 types of carrots, kohlrabi, arugula, lots of different pepper, dill, parsley, cilantro, basil (a bunch of different kinds), mustard, chives, eggplant (including an African variety - yum), lots of tomatoes, thyme, little strawberries, cucumber, a few different squashes, and other things. I’m SO excited. Some of them have made it into the garden, but a lot of things are still waiting downstairs. I’ve been surprised at how much water they need, but considering the light and the heating pads, I guess I shouldn’t be. Outside, everything seems to be doing really well. Our grapes and (female) kiwi came back (we got a new male kiwi yesterday), the agastache is really happy, we’ve had asparagus, coming up, the raspberries and blueberries are turning into something recognizable, my herb boxes are doing well, and the strawberry patch is blooming. We built another raised bed and planted a bunch of flowers in it. I think Carl is going to build me a basil box to add on to the raised bed. That will be exciting. I’ve been baking quite a bit as well. I made eggplant parmesan a few weeks ago, which was delicious. And I still make my sourdough bread about once every other week. I’ve progressed to adding rosemary and olive oil or cheese to it. I want to try adding lemon thyme to it as well. I think I’m going to make a double chocolate crumb cake this week, so I’ll keep you all updated. I have the best husband ever, the dogs are great, and I have independence in my career. Things are going well!
Oct 2011a productive weekend
So I accomplished quite a bit this weekend. Figured out how to sew with Ultrex (a Gore-tex type material), got the guest room ready for a friend (quite a feat, I assure you, as it is also my sewing room), and did a fair amount of cooking. So here it is, in order of increasing good-ness: salsa: I had a lot of tomatillos and cherry tomatoes from the garden, so I decided to make salsa. I put in about a half-dozen tomatillos, four handfuls of cherry tomatoes, a shallot, two cloves of garlic, a jalapeno, and some lime juice. It is definitely spicy, a little watery (I probably just processed it too long though), but it is okay. I think it will be really good with chicken or fish, so we’ll try that tomorrow night. Mmm. dog treats: My husband made me breakfast on Saturday, and we had some leftover bacon. I made dog treats with bacon, peanut butter, shredded carrot, honey, and a mixture of oat flour and brown rice flour. I had to make my own oat flour using GF rolled oats (seriously, make sure the oats are GF), which I put in the blender until they turned to powder. The dogs seem to love them. I found the recipe at http://tidymom.net/2011/homemade-dog-treats/. I followed the recipe exactly, and it turned out well. bread: Sad news - my sourdough starter died. Good news - I got to make beer bread instead. I used this recipe, though I cut out the dill. I used Green beer, partly because we had it around the house and my husband won’t drink it, but also because it is a nice dark beer (even if it doesn’t taste great). It made the bread really delicious. My husband said he liked it even better than the sourdough. Because it isn’t a yeast bread, though, it didn’t rise, and so it was just a really really flat loaf. However, like I said, delicious. If you know the beer is there, you can taste it, but it just tastes good. The texture was really light and the beer makes nice holes in the bread the way yeast does in yeast bread. and the best thing this weekend: chocolate chip cookies: I didn’t even try the recipe I have in a book, because my experimentation worked out so well. I adapted an old Toll House recipe that my grandmother had altered years and years ago. I wanted to try millet flour, and I’m glad I did. I think it added a flavor that just tasted substantial, if that makes sense. One thing I have done in the past that I wish I had done here is add some cinnamon. But anyway, here is my GF chocolate chip cookie recipe:
Oct 2011What I'm doing today
I apologize for the long hiatus. It’s been a few weeks of out-of-town weekends and very busy weeks. Today, I’m going to make another two loaves of sourdough bread, experiment with GF chocolate chip cookies using a recipe I found and attempting to alter a recipe I love, and then I’ll make bacon treats (also GF) for the dogs. I will make a full report on how everything turns out. I also get to plant amaryllis bulbs today. And I’ll try to get to planting some lily bulbs and replanting daffodil bulbs that came up last weekend. We dug up all our sweet potatoes - some are 8 inches across! My husband is going to build them a bin in our basement so that we can have our very own semblance of a root cellar. :)
Oct 2011Bread. Mmm.
I made banana muffins and banana bread over the weekend using two different recipes. The muffins used brown rice flour and pecans, and the bread used teff flour and cream cheese. I had never cooked with teff flour before. Apparently it comes in different colors - ivory, brown, and red - but our grocery store only had brown. Thus, the bread was a little darker than you normally expect. My husband thought both were good, though he preferred the muffins slightly. I thought the bread was quite rich, probably due more to the cream cheese than the flour. I think the verdict is just that banana bread is easy to make taste good, no matter what recipe you use. In the past, I have used a mixture of white rice flour, tapioca flour, and cornstarch, and that always turned out well. Brown rice flour has a little more nutrition in it than white rice flour, so I think I will use the brown rice mixture from here on out. Might try mixing in some teff or millet flour next time though. And then tonight, I made sourdough bread. I end up making two loaves about every other week. Carl says he likes it better than the store-bought bread. The starter has settled down now, so it is consistent from loaf to loaf. I’ve had the starter since July, so it’s nice and sourdough-y. It uses a mixture of garbanzo bean/fava bean flour, tapioca flour, cornstarch, and sorghum flour. And it is delicious. I use Bette Hageman’s recipe - can I reproduce it here? That is something a lawyer should probably know… The pictures aren’t uploading. Just imagine two delicious-looking loaves of bread and a single muffin. Mmm.
Oct 2011Disjointed matters
I’m sure I will have many posts on disjointed matters, but here is the first in my recent posts. First, the sweet potato chips were a huge hit with the dogs. I think I may make more tomorrow for them. Second, I’m rather frustrated with my orchestra right now. I really miss playing in my college orchestra where people practiced and the conductor encouraged players to be better. One derisive comment the conductor made at practice tonight really made me think seriously about not going back. But I can’t leave the orchestra without a bass player… Third, I’m struggling with sewing ultrex, which is a goretex type material. My stitches are really close together no matter what stitch length I set them at, and the feed dogs push the fabric through faster than the needle, so it puckers. I fiddled with the tension and thought I had it figured out, but no. I’ve ripped out about seven inches of very close stitches, and I have another two to go, so if anyone has any suggestions, please share them. I definitely learned my lesson about practicing on scraps instead of the actual project. And fourth, I will be starting a new job in two weeks at another firm here in Kansas City. I will be doing e-discovery and data privacy consulting, as far as I understand it, but everyone knows you don’t really know what your job entails until a month into it. I am so grateful for the experience I’ve gained at my current firm, but it is time to go somewhere else, and I am excited about this next chapter in my career. That’s it for now. Mulling over a few other things that I might post, but we’ll just have to see.
Oct 2011Still harvesting!
This year has been really hard for our garden. We lost pretty much all our squash, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelons, cantaloupes, and cauliflower, and our tomatoes and peppers did not produce as much as they did last year. And our corn failed, and our broccoli never got off the ground… literally. It was a depressing summer garden-wise. However, this fall is apparently turning out great! Beans are coming in (I pulled one to see if they’re ready for harvesting), tomatillos are ripening, carrots are getting big, tomatoes are still happening, I found some red peppers today, and… we have HUGE sweet potatoes coming in. It’s quite exciting. I’m baking one right now, and I cut another one up to make chips. So here is a picture of my pride of the day - yay!
Oct 2011Bulb planting time
Last weekend, we planted a lot of bulbs on the side of our house. We are hoping to have bearded irises bloom in the spring and saffron in the fall. We are going to harvest our own saffron threads once they are ready. So excited. Daffodils also bloom over in that bed, and we will plant some allium bulbs and some other summer-blooming flowers so that we have blooms basically from March through October or November. Awesome, right? Once we get everything in the ground, I will post what exactly is in there and when it should (hopefully) bloom. We may need to supplement the late summer time period. I don’t think we have any bulbs coming for then. Any suggestions?
Oct 2011Sewing class
I’m currently taking a sewing class at JoAnn Fabrics. I thought that since I’ve been teaching myself and learning as I go (and as I make mistakes), it would be good to take a class to fill in the blanks. It’s been great. We are making a skirt. I will finish it tomorrow - it seems the hem on mine is going to be fairly tricky. I will post a picture when it’s done. The education coordinator at JoAnn has also agreed to do a serger class. A family member and a friend are interested, so I think we will all do it together. The instructor has been awesome, and I’ve learned quite a bit. I would recommend trying out their classes, if you are interested.
Sep 2011Gluten free dogs
We have two dogs - a maltipoo (Maltese poodle mix), and a cockachon (cocker spaniel, bichon frise mix) - and they are terrifically adorable. Zoe and Wash have been part of our family for over a year now. Wash had all sorts of problems when we first got him. He had parasites and bronchitis and a high susceptibility to fleas. We took care of everything, except that he was really itchy. He scratched so much that he broke skin a few times. It was horrible. We didn’t know what to do, but we decided to change food. They were on Science Diet, and first we tried Avoderm, but they didn’t like it too much, so we settled on Blue Buffalo, which is a high quality, grain free food. His skin got a lot better, but he was still scratching. We had him on an antihistamine, and if he didn’t get it for a day, he would start scratching a lot. We finally decided to cut out all grains, including from treats, thinking that maybe it was more than just going to a higher quality food that had helped him. And it has been great! Wash no longer scratches, and we haven’t given him a pill in over a week. Blue Buffalo makes some grain free treats, and so do some other brands. We also discovered that Wash (but not Zoe) LOVES raw carrots cut into thin slices. Crazy, right? Both of the dogs also love duck jerky. So now everyone in our house is gluten free, except that I keep a loaf of bread and some crackers around. I will need to make GF dog treats now, beyond raw carrots. Liver treats, perhaps? If you have pets, and if you are feeding them Science Diet, do some research. I think we went to dogfoodadvisor.com.com when we were looking for a new food. We were surprised at what goes into dog food.
Sep 2011Amaretto cake recipe
As promised in my prior post, here is the recipe for the gluten free amaretto cake I made last weekend. 1 box devil’s food cake mix (Betty Crocker makes a gluten free one) 1 3.9 oz pkg instant chocolate pudding 1/2 c vegetable oil 1/4 c water 3/4 c amaretto (Hiram Walker’s is gluten free) 4 whole eggs 1 egg yolk Crushed almonds to coat Bundt cake pan Preheat oven to 350F. Mix wet ingredients together in a big bowl. Add cake and pudding mixes. Sprinkle crushed almonds into greased cake pan. Pour mix into pan. Bake 1 hour. Invert onto plate and poke lots of holes into cake. (LOTS of holes) For the glaze: 3/4 c brown sugar 12 T butter 1 c amaretto Bring sugar and butter to a low boil, stir to make it creamy. Remove from heat and add amaretto. Pour glaze slowly over the cake, allowing it to seep in between pours. Let cool 1 hour before serving. I had a lot of glaze that didn’t seep in, so I cut the cake into slices, let each side sit in the glaze for about a minute, and then arranged the slices nicely on a plate… Mmm, cake soaked in amaretto.
Sep 2011Gluten free amaretto cake
A few weeks ago, some friends and I participated in a trivia night fundraiser for Metro Lutheran Ministry. Part of the evening was a dessert auction, and one of the desserts was a “boozy amaretto cake.” We didn’t win - the trivia or the cake - but on Friday, MLM emailed out the recipe for that cake. It called for a cake mix, and luckily enough, Betty Crocker makes GF devils food cake mix. That was the only non-GF item in the recipe (certain brands of amaretto are GF, so that wasn’t difficult), and voila, we had the amaretto cake on Saturday. It was delicious. There is a LOT of amaretto in it, and less than half of it has any heat applied, so the alcohol is all there. I will post the recipe tomorrow, but I wanted to write about it tonight. I think it is a good example of how easy it can be to make something gluten free. Frequently, you can just do a straight substitute, and really, even when you can’t, adding in four other flours to get the right consistency is just not a big deal. The real problem comes from contamination, in my opinion. That seems like a good post for later this week. Carl thinks I should write more about cake, but I will let you discover its deliciousness for yourself. Tomorrow.
Sep 2011after more than a year hiatus...
… I’m back. Pretty sure no one has noticed my absence, and that’s fine by me. I’ve spent the last year fully embracing the domestic life. I took up sewing, I’ve dived deep into gluten-free cooking, and we spent a good portion of the year doing yard and garden work. I plan to update my blog more frequently from here on out and write about more substantive things, contrary to the whining that I too frequently fall into. Here’s to another beginning!
Jun 2010JD
Within a month or two after starting law school, I was at a career services thing, and they spent a minute stressing that the degree we were pursuing is a Juris Doctor, not a Juris Doctorate. Although I understand that some people might be confused, people should know what their own degree is. I was given a pamphlet about a Republican candidate today (the Republican part isn’t important, but still…), and one of the statements in there was about him receiving a Juris Doctorate from Washington University. That just irritated me. Thought I’d mention it, because I’ve seen “Juris Doctorate” on a few attorney websites and all over our Luther class letter.
Feb 201017 days
17 days. Yes. 17. And then I will be married. I’m both excited and terrified, naturally. Preparations are coming together, but I’m having trouble understanding how I’m supposed to focus on work while this is going on. If I had been made to feel less important at work, I would probably just take off the next two weeks. :) As it is, they seem to like me, so I can’t really just disappear for a while.
Jan 2010work-life balance
This will be a short post, as I have to be at work in seven hours, meaning that I have five hours to sleep, but I wanted to say a quick word about balancing work and life. In the legal profession, or at least in private practice, balance seems to be actively discouraged. All through law school and while looking for jobs, I told myself that being balanced was very important. And it is. However, it seems to be a struggle to maintain it, and my job sometimes feels like it is a little kid on a teeter-totter who keeps moving closer and closer to the fulcrum. I’ve joined an orchestra and a gym, and I have taken over the music director position (“position” being a very loose word) at LCM as well as looking for a new church home in Overland Park. Also planning a wedding and starting to look at moving to KC (well, Johnson County really). And making time for friends. I should be able to do all this, right? It seems like these things are essential to my well-being as a person as well as a lawyer. And yet there is never ever enough time. As I write this, it seems more like I took too much on rather than work is demanding more of my time than it should reasonably have, so maybe I’m just whining. Today was just a hard day, and I’m starting to think that this struggle for balance, and this ideal of working at the office and not working outside the office is just that, an ideal.
Nov 2009a long pause
It’s been a long time since I’ve written, and a lot of things have happened in the meantime. The rest of my time in Europe was WONDERFUL. It was so good to be with Carl, and the traveling was a lot of fun. I flew home (that was an ordeal) at the beginning of September and started my job a week later. I was excited about my job before I started, and it has turned out to be even better than I thought it would be. I work with great people who support and challenge me, the subject matter is surprisingly interesting, and I get to do things that big firm associates don’t see until their third year. Also, I went to Miami this last week for a conference on asbestos medicine. Six of us went from the office - I only went because one of the attorneys couldn’t at the last minute - and it was a nice combination of educational lectures (including a video of a extra-pleural pneumonectomy - yuck), networking, and relaxing (mostly on the day before the conference actually started). I had a great time, and I felt really lucky to go. Asbestos is a complicated area, and so getting the chance to learn more in a focused context was really good for me. In other news, Carl moved home a few weeks ago. It’s so good to be back together. Wedding plans are gearing up, though there is still a lot to take care of. We’re also just trying to sort through the house. Between the two of us, who lived alone for three and four years, we’ve accumulated a lot of things, many of them duplicates. We have more tupperware (in a generic sense) than anyone should ever need. I also picked up the vestiges of my youth from my mom’s house about a month ago, meaning all of my childhood books, yearbooks, journals, stuffed animals, my baby blanket and baptismal blanket, and assorted items like a music box from my grandmother and a salt-covered rock from the Dead Sea. That is all now added to the pile of things to sort through. It is literally a pile, similar to a small hill, though much more fragile. I started to go through things today, but I didn’t get very far, because I started reading my journals from high school. Oh my goodness, those were drama-filled years. I’m very glad I’m past those years. So in closing, life is good, and I’m enjoying this journey into real adulthood. Oh, and Carl and I got Motorola Droids a week and a half ago. Awesome. We love them.
Aug 2009a week and a half into my vacation
After the horror that was the bar exam, I came over to Europe to spend a month with Carl. It’s been fabulous so far. We were in England for a little over a week, and now we’re in Munich until Friday. My brother’s down here visiting us, and this is time to just relax and sleep in. It’s wonderful. I was looking at some of the pictures we took in England, and I was shocked by how happy I looked. I’m not sure if I’ve smiled so much in the last three years as I have in the last week. When I get back to the States, I’ll have a little less than a week before I start my new job. This has been a welcome break between finally being done with school and entering the real world. I think Cort and I will head over to the Deutsches Museum today. And go shopping. Ah, what bliss. And Carl will be working, of course. He only has off for the first and last weeks of my visit. But he’s being sent to Dublin next week, so we’ll have a grand time there - I’ll go see exciting things while he sits in a server room. :) So that’s life right now. I’ll update more later…
Jul 2009selective reading
On my way home from Harry Potter at 3am, I drove past this Bible church that always has annoying signs out. They write things that are apparently supposed to make you want to come into their church. I can’t remember specific past examples, but they did spell Matthew with one T recently. The one this morning just got to me though. “The wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23” Um, sure. Yes, that’s partly correct. One word (“for”) missing at the beginning, but the next six words are right. However, the majority of the verse is missing: “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Perhaps I focus on grace too much (isn’t too little law, too much Gospel a criticism of the ELCA?), but that part of the verse seems exceedingly important. You can’t scare people into believing something. That isn’t faith. And selective reading bugs me.
Jul 2009studying for the Bar Exam
I’ve been working on Wills and Trusts today. I won’t have much time to read tomorrow, so I actually read ahead… And I had a thought. Trusts for animals (pets) are exempt from the Rule Against Perpetuities, at least in Missouri, and they last for the life of the animal, or the last surviving animal if the trust is for more than one animal. When I took Estates and Trusts (one class) in law school, my friend and I had talked about ways to get into the casebook, whether by naming our children C1, C2, C3, and so forth, or by creating an exceptionally complicated will with all sorts of procedural problems. What I want to do is adopt some animal with a long lifespan, like a turtle or a lake sturgeon, then put a massive amount of money into a trust for said animal, and then watch from my cloud while the litigation ensues after I die. I figure someone will make the Rule Against Perpetuities argument, especially since it’s for such a long time, and there will be an issue of what a pet actually is, and the trustee will be completely greedy and breach fiduciary duties. It will be fun. Is it bad that when I study, I think about ways to get around the law? Don’t worry, I won’t be breaking any laws knowingly or willingly.
Jul 2009Friday
1. bought plane ticket home for September 2nd 2. bought tickets for the midnight showing of Harry Potter 3. wrote practice essays 4. lazy day
Jun 2009another day
1. neck hurts, jerked awake yesterday morning and strained something 2. studying a lot 3. Mom bought a piano, so I get the one we’ve had forever! 4. bought plane ticket to London!
Jun 2009studying for the Bar Exam
I like organization. I like having plans. I have created a plan that is supposed to motivate me to study for the Missouri Bar Exam, which I will take July 28th and 29th. I’ve devised a point system. Three colors of points, though they are all worth the same amount. I get a blue point for every set (17 problems) of multiple choice questions I do. I’ve thought about having a quality threshold, but that (and I) would be pointless. Then, I get a green point for every essay I write. Finally, I get a purple point for 1) every 20 pages I read in the large outlines, 2) every 20 notecards I create for studying, and 3) every half hour I spend (productively) studying otherwise, though if I study for 50 minutes all in one go, I get two points. Basically, every point is roughly 30 minutes of work. So that’s my system. Sounds great, right? I have decided that I need to amass 30 points before I can watch any Harry Potter movie, and if I want to watch all five before July 15th, I need to get some serious points going. I have not earned many points so far. I’m working on it. Also, I moved into Carl’s house a week and a half ago. Stuff is EVERYWHERE. I feel torn between studying and cleaning, and so I end up reading a magazine instead, naturally. It’s probably a good thing Carl won’t move back to the States until December. It gives me plenty of time to reorganize. I told him how I’ve been organizing our books and DVDs and things. He has a strange aversion to organization, and he has repeatedly cautioned me that his books will not stay the way I’ve put them. It will be a fun marriage, I think. Speaking of which, we’re doing things backwards, and we’re going to basically take our honeymoon this August while I’m over there. We’ll spend a 7-10 days in Great Britain at the beginning, a week in Italy at the end, and we’re hoping to spend a weekend in Switzerland (Zurich maybe?) and a weekend in Vienna. I’m really looking forward to it. I love hanging out with Carl, and we have such a great time together. We have not done much traveling together, and I think it will be a lot of fun. We have similar ideas of what constitutes “fun,” which will be a great thing. I can’t wait to be there. Then, after we’re married, we’ll take a weekend or something and go somewhere close. It may sound corny, but the thing I’m looking forward to most is just getting to be with my best friend. I should study.
Apr 2009last day of class!
Yes, I have finally finished all my law school classes. Now I just have three finals to take, a settlement agreement to write, and twenty-one 1L summary judgment motions to grade for citations. I’ve been playing bass a little more, which has been wonderful. I’m playing for a friend’s church choir this Sunday as part of an ensemble. It should be fun. Carl will be home in two weeks. TWO WEEKS! This is quite exciting. He won’t be staying for as long as we had originally planned, but it will be good to have him home. He’s such a wonderful guy, and I miss him terribly. Um, right now, there are a bunch of dead ants in my bathroom, all over my shower. As in, a couple hundred of dead ants. I sprayed the cracks in my shower with Raid today, and they’ve just been pouring out and dying. It’s quite gross. And a great thing to share, no? Not sure if this is something to mention to my landlord. I think it may be more a circumstance of where I live instead of the house being defective. Also not sure if this is a good thing to mention generally. Anyway, that’s it. Carl will be home in 15 days, and I graduate in 23 days!
Apr 2009almost done with law school!
I have a grand total of nine classes left. Four tomorrow, three Wednesday, two Thursday. And then I will be done with class for a long time! Three finals, then graduation. And Carl comes home for a couple weeks. Next year, I’ll be working for a law firm in Kansas City, Missouri. I’m not going to say the name because I really don’t want my blog to come up in searches for it. That would just be weird. I’ll be defending asbestos manufacturers though. I’m very excited about it. It’s a really great firm, and I’m looking forward to working with all of them. Recently, I’ve been playing bass more. I really do miss it. Anyone know of an orchestra I could play with next year? There’s a civic orchestra with whom a Kansas appellate judge plays. That would be fun, but I’m a little hesitant to try and play with them. Okay, I’m done.
Mar 2009soon
I’m headed to Germany on Wednesday! I’ll land in Munich on Thursday and spend a couple days with Carl. I’ll leave on Saturday for Eisleben, where I’ll meet up with some friends from LCM, and we’ll do a Luther tour, following his footsteps, so to speak. Then on the next Thursday, I’ll head up to Berlin to stay with my brother until Monday. Carl is meeting me up there, so he’ll get to meet those friends. I’m excited. Also have a job lined up for next year, wedding plans are coming along, and I graduate in two months. Life is so good.
Jan 2009Manila
My brother and I are in the Philippines, visiting my dad and his family. We’ve been in Manila so far, but we’ll head to their house in the provinces tomorrow. I’m typing this on a tiny keyboard, so this won’t be long. It’s good being here, and I definitely like having mango and papaya for breakfast. Being here has made me think of India on more than one occasion, partly because of the architecture (especially churches). Also, the idea of personal space, or lack thereof, is similar. Granted, I haven’t been to India for many years, but this is what I remember. My dad’s family is great, very kind and even fun. I’ll write more when I steal my brother’s computer.
Dec 2008stuck in Story City
The only good thing about Iowa is Luther College, and that’s basically in Minnesota. Iowa is a terrible place. Terrible. A friend of mine is getting married tomorrow in the Twin Cities, and I was going to drive up from Lawrence today. I almost got to Des Moines when the serious fog rolled in. North of Des Moines, I couldn’t see more than 100 feet in front of me. For far too much of it, I could see a maximum of three stripes on the highway. I was excited when I could see the taillights of the car in front of the car in front of me. Decided I couldn’t keep going, so I pulled off in Story City. And now I’m bitter towards Iowa. It’s supposed to sleet tomorrow morning. Can’t wait to drive in it.
Dec 2008news
Carl and I are engaged!
Oct 2008cert
SCOTUS granted cert on my issue. No word on when arguments will be. Darn. I knew the risk, but I wanted to be cool and have something published before they looked at the issue, because then I would have been the only article out there on it. Yeah.
Oct 2008end of October, beginning of November
Here’s my schedule for the last few days of October and the first few days of November. October 30: Carl leaves (for a year) most likely; pick up a speaker at 10:30pm October 31: Law Review symposium all day; Bluebook relay (I will coach my team to victory); comparative law paper due November 1: nothing yet November 2: step-nephew’s baptism in the morning with reception at noon; Ali’s bridal shower at 3pm; church at 5pm November 3: Law Review paper due November 4: disability law paper due I’m worried about those six days. It’ll be fine though. Ha, fun.
Oct 2008trains
the candidates as trains
Oct 2008spread it like herpes, only for positive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhDRVKDcXQo
Sep 2008poor Carl
I’ve been sick for, oh, a week. Bad cold or sinus infection or something gross that makes my head swim. It’s been unpleasant. I haven’t had to go anywhere though. I think I made Carl sick. It just hit him a couple days ago, and this week, he’s in Louisiana training people. He just called and was barely able to talk. He’s suffering pretty badly. Poor thing. My head is swimming. But on another note, Mucinex D (with the pseudoephedrine) is FANTASTIC. Within 30 minutes, I was able to breathe freely.
Sep 2008dishonesty
Sometimes reading cases just makes me feel dirty when I see the academic dishonesty that goes on. Courts will take things out of context (much like law students, ha), manipulate language, and pick and choose “binding cases.” The best example of this is United States v. Mendoza-Gonzalez, 520 F.3d 912 (8th Cir. 2008). The court basically says that, because a district court in another circuit (a lower court that is not bound by this court’s precedent) decided one thing, and this court cited that case for a sort of related proposition in another case, the district court case became very persuasive, if not binding, law. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Sep 2008paper... taking... forever
I’m sleepy and grumpy and sick. And this paper is not doing so well. It’s about as sick as I am, possibly even worse.
Sep 2008a spider
I’m pretty convinced now that a spider is trying to take over my house. For some odd reason, a very large and ugly spider took up residence on the overhang in front of my front door. After going through the spiderweb three or four times, Carl “saved” me and took down the spider (and the spiderweb) with a stick and threw it on my roof. It’s been three days, and now the spider has built a very large web right outside my sliding glass door. It’s trying to trap me, you see. It’s very determined. And very strategic. Maybe I’ll leave it there for a day or two and then throw the spider in the bushes or something and hope it doesn’t come back. Yuck.
Sep 2008searching for a job
We’ve entered the job-search phase, which is an immensely terrifying thing. I alternate between a sense of optimism and hopelessness. Legal areas that interest me include intellectual property, criminal law, immigration law (refugee/asylum), public international law, and litigation generally. A clerkship would also be lovely. If anyone actually reads this, and anyone has any sort of job opening, let me know. I’m writing three papers this semester (yay!). My topics are: enforcing immigration law using criminal law, specifically aggravated identity theft, where the mens rea requirement is disputed and conveniently massaged to include more immigrants in its scope; whether children with disabilities can sue under sec. 1983 when their rights are violated under the IDEA; and international copyrights (using international treaties and individual national laws) protecting composers and performers of folk songs and contemporarily composed music. Fun, no?
Sep 2008mixed emotions
Carl is moving back to Germany for a year. He’ll be leaving at the end of October/beginning of November. I’m thrilled for him, because it is such a great opportunity and it will be so wonderful for his career, but I don’t like the thought of being apart for a whole year. We’ll get to see each other every few months, and I guess that will have to do. I’ll miss him.
Sep 2008Lawyering "Tips of the Day"
I’m a TA for Lawyering again this year, and my professor wants me to give a “tip of the day” when I’m in class (which is once a week). And because I have not written anything on here for a while, I thought I would share my wisdom with the general public… or no one, as the case may be. Week 1:
Sep 2008right now
This year is going to be crazy. I’m hoping it will be fun though. I’m doing all sorts of writing things, some trial stuff, and then three classes on top of that. A squirrel just ran up to the sliding glass door. Leibniz was waiting. But then both of them kind of leapt upwards and backwards. Terribly funny. Life is good right now. My house is messy, but I’m happy.
Aug 2008disastrous interview
I had two interviews today, one of which wasn’t really an interview, and the other of which was a disaster. I started talking and then I started thinking, “Shut up, shut up, for goodness’ sake, Rachel, shut up,” but I kept talking. He asked all sorts of questions that I didn’t know how to answer (e.g., “Why didn’t a law firm hire you last year?”), and he told me that my writing sample is on a topic that make people’s eyes glaze over (Burmese refugees are terribly boring, I guess). He seemed like a great guy, and I would love to work for him, but I don’t think the feeling was mutual. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get a job there.
Jul 2008Carl in DC
Carl came to DC last weekend. He arrived here on Wednesday from Munich and left for KC on Sunday. It was a whirlwind weekend, but it was so good just to see him again. Here’s a rundown of what we did: Wednesday: I met him at my house after work. We went out for dinner and walked around Arlington. It wasn’t very exciting, but it was very nice. Thursday:
Jun 2008Heller
This isn’t my own creative work, but it amused me. It was posted on the Lawrence Journal-World website. Here’s a haiku in response to the Heller decision. Hand me my shotgun. I need to go kill a bear, then I’ll have bear arms.
Jun 2008on another note
It’s wonderful being back in Kansas for a few days. Mitsu has been laying on me for a long time, readjusting when I move. Silly cat. But it’s good to be home. I’ll post something about DC soon. It might be a long post.
Jun 2008the bar application in Kansas
I’ve been looking at the Kansas bar application (not necessarily meaning that I will take the Kansas bar, but I need to start pulling my information together), and when it comes to references, both general ones and character fitness ones, I need to have known all of them for four or more years. They also can’t be employers, relatives, “fellow” law students (I need to find out if this disqualifies law students from other schools), and only one out of the eight can be an attorney or a judge. This essentially disqualifies all the people I talk to currently. Rather, it disqualifies all the people who know me well and can attest to my ability and fitness. It disqualifies all my pastors, as I worked for Luther College Ministries and my mom has been my pastor the rest of the time (ooh, wait, there might be one!). I could ask the bishop, but he really only knows me through my mom. I just think it’s an arbitrary requirement that doesn’t actually mean that someone knows you well now, but rather, that they’ve known you in the past.
May 2008ICE
We all know ICE has done terrible things to people, even US citizens and LPRs. And so I think the rallying cry should be: “Ice ICE, baby.” I came up with this while I was sort of listening to a conference call in my boss’s office. I started to giggle and then had to stop myself. More on my job later. Suffice it to say, I’m loving being in DC and working for LIRS and using all sorts of acronyms. The learning curve is amazingly steep. That’s all for now. If anyone should go hang out with my cats, tell them hi from me and tell them I miss them. :)
May 2008flirting
Thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to flirt. Because of it, I managed to be alone in the courtroom of the Supreme Court of the United States. AWESOME.
May 2008The Economist
This rap is awesome.
May 2008my Ossi bike
I rode my bike today for the first time in almost a year. It was killing three birds with one stone - exercise, errands (without damaging the environment), and procrastination. Everything was good for the first mile or so, but then the gears started acting up. One awesome thing about my bike (yes, awesome) is that when you backpedal, it brakes. But it would slip out of its gear (it has three gears plus a “neutral” - yeah, I love it) and only the handbrake worked. Then it got more and more frequent to the point it was happening every 10-15 seconds by the time I got home. My sandal flew off twice, and I had to turn around and walk back to it. Damn Commies. Nah, I love my happy little Ossi bike.
May 2008no more class until August!
I’m about to collapse into bed. I was up until 4am working on a paper. It was fairly miserable. And then I woke up at 7am so that I could be first in line for Chief Justice Roberts’ Q&A with law students. That’s right, I’m a nerd. If you want to read about CJ Roberts’ visit, check out my legal blog. I’m relieved that classes are over, but I’m not at all excited that finals are coming. That will be the most miserable part. On a brighter note, I have a place to stay in DC now. And things will come together in general, it seems. I can sometimes be a little doubtful or pessimistic, but I’ve become a lot better about stopping that when I recognize it. Ooh, and Mark Schweizer writes “liturgical mysteries,” which are absolutely hilarious. The best place to buy them is from the publisher. I bought the box set and had them all signed. And now I’m reading the third book - The Tenor Wore Tapshoes. I’ve read the first, second, and sixth already, though spread out over the last couple months, of course. I think I’m going to crawl into bed, open up my window now that it’s getting a little cooler and the tornado warning has become a tornado watch, and read for a little bit. Then I’ll sleep and sleep and sleep and it will be so very blissful. I am also reading the Decameron, which is quite fascinating (and sometimes quite gross, explicit, or awkward). I think I’ll need to read Arabian Nights as well, just to round out my old-stories-that-have-spawned-centuries-of-elaboration education. And Chronicles of Narnia, though it doesn’t fit into the same category. I should make a book list.
May 2008Chief Justice Roberts visited KU
Last night, CJ Roberts gave a lecture through the business school. It was fairly disappointing, honestly. He read his talk, and he talked about the Louisiana Purchase. He also spent a long time on the mechanics of the Supreme Court. I understand that the audience was made up of many lay people and that he couldn’t actually talk about many of the things we really wanted to hear about (e.g., Heller), but I guess I expected a little more. Today, however, he had a Q&A session for law students. I got there 1 1/2 hours early, so I was first in line. He actually walked in while I was in line, and he said hi. It was quite the moment. I got to sit in the front row, and the session was just great. People asked all sorts of things, from what he considers when deciding a case to his view on the Constitution (although that question was also asked last night by Adam Davis and received by the audience with resounding applause) to advice for aspiring advocates. I asked the second question. I asked him about the Medellin case. In that one, which came out just over a month ago, he wrote the opinion for five justices (the conservative ones), in which the Court held that an ICJ decision (that a certain treaty required the government to notify the Mexican government of the charging of Mexican nationals) was not binding on the individual states, and so the habeas petitions filed by 51 Mexican nationals were rightfully denied. In the analysis, the majority looked to the text of the treaty, and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and the US Constitution, and found that ICJ decisions were not self-executing treaties and could not be binding unless the Senate ratified them. My question was whether he would advise countries developing independent judiciaries to include something in their constitutions that would make ICJ decisions binding on the individual parts of the country. He didn’t directly answer this, saying that it was up to the country and he couldn’t advise them one way or the other, but he also said that if the country decides it wants to be bound by a bunch of judges far away, it’s that country’s own perogative. That seems clear enough to me. So then he taught the constitutional law class, which I unfortunately could not attend. I heard it was great. But then, in the afternoon, he and four judges who sit in Kansas (two 10th Circuit judges, a District of Kansas judge, and a Kansas Supreme Court justice) judged the final round of our in-house moot court competition. There were probably 100 students there, a number of professors, a handful of local judges, and lawyers from the firm (Foulston Siefkin) that sponsors the prizes for the in-house competition. The student advocates were excellent. The bench was really hot. The justices usually didn’t let the advocates speak for more than 15 or 20 seconds without interrupting them. The few times they didn’t interrupt, the advocates were kind of thrown off. But everyone did a really great job of advocating, especially under such intimidating circumstances. All of the judges/justices-for-the-moment gushed about how wonderful the advocates were, and Judge Tacha even said they did as well if not better than the final round in the national competition, whose problem we used. I was thrilled for the team that won - Dani and I were rooting for them from the beginning - but I was still a little bummed that it wasn’t the two of us up there. After the competition, there was a reception in the informal commons. Lots of men in suits (and not just federal marshalls) were trying to get close to Roberts, but I managed to get pretty close to him. And then he turned towards me! And he shook my hand and thanked me for my question! It was a very proud moment for me, even if it was just what the situation required. I know CJ Roberts is a conservative judge, and I don’t necessarily agree with his opinions (including the opinion he wrote for Medellin), but he’s brilliant, his credentials are absolutely outstanding, and he’s kind of dreamy. I’ve been joking about swooning. Ah, men with power. That is probably slightly inappropriate for a legal blog, but oh well. It’s been an exciting day and a half. (And today was the last day of classes, which made it even better.)
Apr 2008advertising
“We’re not gonna take it” is probably a bad song lyric to have playing during a birth control pill commercial.
Apr 2008two weeks until finals
Two weeks and counting. Seven days of class left. Seven days. I think Joel is going to take care of my cats. And I’ve got my flight to DC. But I’m still working on a place to live. It seems like things are falling into place though. I still have to send in my contract. I’m very excited though.
Apr 2008my immune system
My immune system hates me, it seems. In the past six weeks, I have had a migraine (or at the very least, a terrible headache) for five days straight, two colds, some random bug that had unpleasant symptoms, and now there’s something wrong with my eye. My left eye hurts like crazy. It now hurts whenever I blink. There’s stuff coming out of it, too. And when I lean my head forward, my left eye feels massively heavy and like it’s going to fall out. It’s bad. Pinkeye? Let’s hope not. My eye is red and swollen now, but I’ve been rubbing it all day. Anyway, I have a couple papers to write and a trial advocacy trial to prepare for. Woohoo. I love my weekends.
Apr 2008I'm back from New York
The international law conference was great! I met lots of really interesting people. The panels were pretty decent. My best friend also ended up being at the same conference, and we hadn’t established that until Tuesday. Crazy. But it was great to see her. It had been graduation since we last saw each other. And another really good friend from college lives in New York and works as a pastry cook. It was so good to be around people who know me. I guess it was a nice balance of old and new. KU won the NCAA basketball tournament. It was an exciting time. I was in New York for the Final Four, and I hung out at an unofficial KU alumni bar. People were going crazy for Russell Robinson (from New York, NEW YORK!). It was tons of fun. Anyway, life is good, and I’m very thankful to be surrounded by people who love me. Oh, I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but I got a summer job at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services! I’ll be living in Washington, D.C. for the summer. I just need to get through this semester. I just need to get through Friday, really. Our human rights symposium is on Friday. Hooray!
Mar 2008one wonderful thing about this week
My favorite boy is home for a full week. A FULL WEEK!!!
Mar 2008back home again... for a week
Five of us from LCM spent last week in the Twin Cities. We did a service trip, spending time at a homeless shelter, a food pantry, and an after-school program. It was an excellent experience, and one that I need to still process. One thing that I was struck by was the gradations of homelessness. The thing that came up a few times was that, when people have a place to sleep, when they have four walls and a roof, they don’t necessarily consider themselves homeless. That was interesting to me, and something that I didn’t consider before. It was an eye-opening trip. I should write more and study.
Mar 2008it's good to be home
I haven’t been gone for days, but it feels so good to be home. I spent 17.5 hours away from home today, 15 of which were spent at the law school, and 17 of which were spent doing law-related and law-school-related things. My head hurts. Not like it did when I was seriously in pain a couple weeks ago. It is just very difficult to articulate any thoughts right now. I am pleased to say that Dani and I have finished our moot court brief (more than 12 hours before it’s due!), and we’ll be printing it off tomorrow morning. We’ll celebrate with mimosas. Mmm. And then I’ll clean my house, get copies made of my key, do laundry, pack for spring break, and maybe think about law school things some more. Oh, and I’ll get all the stuff for the Easter egg hunt together. That shouldn’t be so bad. I’m going to put pebbles in some of the eggs, maybe mini action figures in others, and then the traditional stuff like candy and cereal (is my family the only one that got cereal like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms in their Easter eggs?). I may fill an egg with pennies. It will be awesome. And now for my random musings: I did a pretty bad parking job this morning, and it made me wish that I could blame it on the tuba section picking up my car and moving it. I still wish the basses had started a war with the tubas. That would have been great. I got an interview with an organization I’ve been really interested in for years! My (phone) interview is next week, though, which is when we’ll be in the Twin Cities for this service trip, so I’m hoping my friends behave when I’m being interviewed and they’re all in the car. Creepy guys bug me. At times I feel like I am going to implode. Or explode. I guess maybe I feel like a neutron star, sucking mass in and getting denser and denser and then spewing it all away. Isn’t that the process for a neutron star? Astronomy was four years ago, which seems like light years away (haha). I kind of like having a vanity blog. But then I feel kind of selfish. And annoyed with myself for using “I” so much. Oh well. It’s my blog. Don’t read it if you don’t want to. I’m exhausted.
Mar 2008sooo busy
It’s kind of an inside joke. I am, however, very busy. I have a paper due tomorrow that will determine my future (I’m being only slightly dramatic), a midterm on Tuesday, a paper due on Thursday that will essentially be one-half of my grade (another paper will be the other half, I think), and a really big paper due on Friday. I’m busy, but for some reason, I’m not panicking. I’m just slowly getting things done. It’s wonderful. I steam-cleaned my carpet, couch, and chairs yesterday. I think I may mop my floors today. Or clean my kitchen. We’ll see. I’m looking forward to the 22nd very much. Spring break starts this Friday (the 14th), and I’m going to the Twin Cities with LCM. I may have already mentioned that. But someone very special will be back on the 20th, and I’ll be back on the 22nd, and we get a whole week before he goes away again until June or July. I watched Pride and Prejudice last night. I like that story so much. There was a time when I read it in a day and couldn’t stop talking like Jane Austen wrote for another few days. I should get back to writing. And not writing in my blog.
Mar 2008massive headache
I’ve had a terrible headache for the last 24 hours. It’s terrible. My mom was convinced I have the flu, but no, I don’t. Maybe it’s just stress. I have a lot of papers and things due in the next two weeks. But two weeks from today, I’ll be driving up to the Twin Cities with LCM. Hooray! I just need to make it to 3:00pm on March 14th. Fun times. I’m also really looking forward to getting back from the Twin Cities on the 22nd. I’ll get to spend an entire week with someone pretty wonderful.
Feb 2008in response to the McCain controversy
A friend asked me what I thought, so I responded. This was on Facebook, so it is a little informal: Whether McCain is a natural-born citizen has been getting press (well, minor press) for years, but it makes sense that the politicos would bring it up now. I think the US Constitution was created to define rights between the federal government, the states, and the people, and giving people rights is one of the big things, so it would make sense that “natural-born” would be interpreted broadly. Also, I just spent a few minutes perusing the INA, and sec. 303(a) says “Any person born in the Canal Zone on or after February 26, 1904, and whether before or after the effective date of this Act, whose father or mother or both at the time of the birth of such person was or is a citizen of the United States, is declared to be a citizen of the United States.” It seems to me that the distinction between “citizen” and “natural-born citizen” is just citizenship at birth. The courts should (at least I think they should) find that the use of “citizen” in the statute means “natural-born citizen.” There.
Feb 2008conferences
I’ll be attending two conferences in the next month and a half, and I’m really excited about them. The one I’m going to this weekend is the Rebellious Lawyering conference at Yale. It’s a public interest law conference, and there are two lectures on immigration. And then I’m going to the ABA Section of International Law spring meeting in New York City. I don’t think I even need to talk about how great it’s going to be. There are public international law lectures and “young lawyer/law student” lectures, which are of particular interest to me, but then there are also corporate law and trades/customs law lectures, which could possibly be interesting too.
Feb 2008universal jurisdiction
No citations this time, just ruminations. I read a story about how some nations are using universal jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes. Universal jurisdiction is an awkward concept to me. It allows a nation with absolutely no connection to a crime to prosecute the perpetrator of that crime. The nation has no interest in it except a moral one. While morality does have a place in law, and especially in criminal law, it cannot be the sole reason for bringing someone to justice. There should be some other connection. While universal jurisdiction might be used to prosecute only the most egregious of war crimes, it sets an alarming precedent. If a homosexual were to travel to a nation where sodomy was criminalized and the law was enforced, even if the person did not engage in sex while there, the government could theoretically prosecute by using universal jurisdiction. The point of international law is to create treaties between nations. Nations have to agree to be bound (however, if a law is so fundamental as to be jus cogens, then every nation is bound regardless of whether or not the nation agrees). Hence, for individuals to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, that individual’s nation must be a party to the Rome Treaty. Beyond that, there are the tribunals set up by the UN to prosecute individuals for crimes committed during conflicts in certain areas, like Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone. Granted, universal jurisdiction only comes into play if the individual cannot be brought to justice under the Rome Treaty or under one of the special tribunals, but if the UN is unwilling to create a tribunal, why should individual nations be able to prosecute those people? This may be rather incoherent. I apologize.
Feb 2008why I'm lazy
I woke up at 10 this morning. Granted, I went to bed close to 2 (girls’ night last night), but I slept later than I intended. And I haven’t really accomplished anything since then. I guess that’s okay. I do have an entire weekend, sort of. I need more than a weekend though. Moot court stuff is coming up pretty quickly, and the packet for law review comes out on Monday, so I’m going to be stressing over those things and all the prep work that’s been going into classes this semester. But today, I’ve been lazy.
Feb 2008what I've learned and what I think
So one thing that I’ve learned this year (and really, it’s been years in the making) is that I’m a good leader, and I certainly do well with responsibility, but I don’t like it. It makes me think that I’m even more like my mother, which I don’t mind.
Feb 2008sure
Today ended up being a pretty good day. I was more productive than I usually am, though that isn’t saying much. I’ve been reading the Economist instead of reading for my secured transactions class. It’s better that way. Sometimes I feel like a really ineffective leader. I like to say that I have good leadership skills, but maybe I’m just fooling myself. However, maybe my insecurity is just insecurity and not really a mark of how I am as a leader.
Feb 2008maybe
I may have taken on more than I can handle this year. I feel like I’m not doing a good job with all the things I’m involved in. We’ll see how it goes.
Feb 2008definitely
I am so in love.
Feb 2008protecting the innocent... corporations?
I didn’t realize the significance of this case until I read a blurb about it in the Economist this week. The US Supreme Court came down recently with the decision in Stoneridge Investment Partners, LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta, Inc., — S. Ct. —, 2008 WL 123801 (2008). Kennedy wrote the opinion, joined by all the conservatives, and Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Souter and Ginsburg. Breyer recused himself from the beginning because of stock he owns. Roberts initially did, but I guess he sold his stock so he could be part of the opinion. On to the opinion itself: Investors (led by Stoneridge Investment Partners) sued a cable company (Charter Communications, Inc.), its executives, its independent auditor (Arthur Andersen, poor souls), and the company’s vendors and customers. The investors said the company made sham transactions that inflated its reported revenues and cash flow. The investors wanted the customers and suppliers to be liable for the sham transactions they agreed to. Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola were suppliers and then customers of Charter. The Court assumed that Arthur Andersen had been misled, though it made no controlling decision on that point. Id. at *3. That’s good for Arthur Andersen, at least. Charter entered into a deal with both Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola to pay more for digital cable converters that it purchased from them, and they would then buy advertising (at higher prices) from Charter. Id. Charter drafted documents to mislead Arthur Andersen in its transactions with Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta and make it appear that the transactions were unrelated by backdating the purchase agreements to a month before the advertising agreements. Id. Charter showed an increase in revenue and cash flow of $17 million, which it reported to the SEC and the public. Id. The investors said Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola had a duty to disclose the transactions. Id. at *4. The Court had previously held that, when suing for deceptive practices in the selling of securities, liability does not extend to aiders and abettors. Id. at *5 (citing Central Bank v. First Interstate Bank, 511 U.S. 164, 177 (1994)). The idea was that a company had to make statements or actions that the plaintiff directly relied upon before there could be any liability. Id. The Court decided in this case that, because “
Jan 2008participating in persecution
A recent case – Chen v. U.S. Atty. Gen., — F.3d —, 2008 WL 150205 (11th Cir. 2008) – discussed a woman’s application for asylum status. Chen lived in China and worked at a governmental family planning office. Her job was to watch over the pregnant women who had violated the country’s family planning policies until they were forced to abort the fetuses. After about a month of working there, she released a woman who was eight months pregnant and was subsequently fired. She feared worse, and so she fled to Thailand and then the US two years later (in 2005).