Deep Thoughts from the Boom Boom Room

So last night I was scheduled to work down in the Boom Boom Room at the Brooksider. I was pretty excited to go to work last night. For one, Thursday nights are huge at the BKS - don't asky me why, but they're almost as good as Saturday nights, while Fridays are pretty dead. For two, I don't have to go in until 10pm, all I do is stand behind the bar (no food service, no pretending like I care about a customer's stupid story or stupid food allergies.... which, PS, I'm pretty sure a lot of people say they're allergic to things just to ensure that it doesn't come out on their plate... I mean really, who is allergic to cucumbers???) Anyway, oh yeah, other reasons I love shifts in the Boom Boom Room: It's the shortest possible shift, it goes by incredibly fast, it's fairly fast paced and if it's not there's always plenty of entertainment to watch on the dance floor, and you still make good money (great money if you calculate it hourly).

It was a strange night from the start. If you've been to the lovely Brooksider recently, unless you were blacked out you noticed that there have been some major renovations going on. Most of these have taken place upstairs in the main bar area, but even the BBR feels different. There are now 2 staircases that lead downstairs, and coolers/wells/sinks behind the bar have been ripped out/moved/replaced/reinstalled, etc. So it felt kinda weird from the beginning. Cue music, and cue my deep thoughts....

1) The first guy who comes down the stairs arrives, looks around, see no one, and right on cue, says "Hey! Where is everybody? I thought this was supposed to be the Boom Boom Room. You should get more people down here.... blah, blah, blah." Yes dummy, it is the BBR, but by virtue of being the first person, no one else is down here yet! Don't ask me why, but this questions, which is inevitably asked every single night, is SUPER irritating. Chad (who I worked w/last night, has worked at BKS for 7 yrs, and is ridiculously funny) hates this part of the night so much he refuses to engage in eye contact with (and sometimes hides from) the first person down the stairs, no matter who it is.

2) White girls cannot dance. Ballet/jazz/studio dance, yes. Dance floor, pop/R&B/rap dance, no way. Again, inevitably the first group of drunk white girls to enter the BBR think that because it's relatively empty, they have full reign over the dance floor.... it makes me sad for my race. It's like watching Jerry Springer: so pathetic and sad, but you cannot tear your eyes away. What makes me even sadder is when I watch these girls and realize that a particular move looks familiar, because I have done it before.

When your brain is under the influence of alcohol, you think you look like you have rhythm and look sexy. In fact, you look like my puggle Wrigley when she stands on her hind paws and humps our lab's leg. But wobbly. And in heels. Throw in a few hair flips and it's a nightmare. Stop there?? Oh, no. The Brooksider has to go and add a giant fan. Girls, you are not in a music video, you did not achieve the slightly wind-blown look, you do not look pretty with your hair blowing all over your sweaty face, and you absolutely do not look sexy when you drop it low and body roll against the fan. STOP IT NOW! And if you insist on dancing provacatively, at least wait til after midnight when everyone else has had a chance to consume significant amounts of alcohol.

3) Liquor's expensive -- deal with it. If you want it cheap, buy it yourself and drink it at home. What's more expensive than liquor?? Red Bull. Don't get mad at me. Call your local Red Bull representative and complain.

4) The BKS has $1 draws on Thursday nights (which is exactly why 95% of the people present have showed up). Not $1 domestics, but "$1 Draws." SPOILER ALERT: it's Natty Lite. We take all the domestic beers off tap and hook Natty kegs up those taps, because otherwise, if we used only one tap for Natty, it would take us forever to fill your 9-beer drink orders and we would constantly be changing the keg, meaning the tap would be out of service even longer. You came for dollar draws, don't get mad when you get a draw that's only worth a dollar. If you really want a Bud Light, buy a bottle.

 5) Due to dollar draw night (see above), we strictly enforce our posted $10 credit card minimum. If you only want one beer, don't start a tab. It is not a difficult concept.

6) There’s a certain kind of reverse law-of-the-jungle that rules in the Boom Boom Room. The BBR is not a place for casual relaxing, political discussion, or getting to know someone of the opposite sex. It is a primal breeding ground, where young adults (and unfortunately, some middle-aged ones as well) come to hunt for a temporary mate, prowling the dance floor in search of prey to take home for the night. This is not always a bad thing, as there are rare exceptions that occassionally result in procreation and even life-long mating.

Exhibit A

With the aide of alcohol, the attractive fit girls have all been claimed by about 1am, and frequently already scooped up and taken home, as their tiny little bodies cannot handle the vast amounts of alcohol that their stalkers have poured down their throats. From 1am – 3am is when the big girls feast on the leftover meat. By this time, the males who were unsuccessful in their original hunt have drowned their sorrows in significant amounts of liquor, and have succumbed to a condition commonly known in the jungle as Beer Goggles. The mixture of all these factors results in serious, indecent, R-rated PDA. These guys (some of whom I have gone/go to school with, worked with, partied with, dated…) are gobbled up like turkey on Thanksgiving.

I’m not judging – big girls have needs too. Just commenting on a very interesting female hunting phenomenon I had never quite noticed before…

This post was inspired by Jack Handy's "Deep Thoughts," which I frequently read to stay awake during class.

What I learned today...

1. When painting over a recently-patched hole in a wall, less paint is better. Otherwise the patching mud gets wet again and starts to peel away while you're painting, which totally defeats the whole purpose of painting over a patched spot.

2. Jim Rome is really annoying. He likes to take really long pauses  and repeats himself constantly (which makes me think he's probably facebooking or tweeting mid-show - even he's not that interested in 4 hrs of JRIB).

3. The only person I encountered today who is more annoying to listen to is Professor John Ragsdale. On top of that, I have to listen to him talk about Indian law and reservations from the 1800s. 'Nough said...

4. I think the only person who pays attention in Indian Law class is the one guy who doesn't bring a computer... what a stupid move on his part.

5. Cafe Axiou (or something like that) on Oak Street right by UMKC charges you extra if you use a credit card on purchases less than $7. They should tell you that.

6. ESPN the Magazine picked the Chiefs to win our division.... highlight of my day!

7. Nick is trading in his black, window-tinted BMW (which for someone reason I find super, super sexy) for a big ugly truck.... lowlight of my day :(

Kicking the semester off right

So (surprise, surprise), 8 days into the semester, and I no longer have a perfect attendance record. I know that sounds pretty typical for me (based on the fact that I maybe, at best, had a 50% attendance rate last year), but Absence #1 happened a lot quicker than I expected it to. Whereas KU didn’t have an attendance policy, UMKC has a very strict one, where attendance is taken every day and after a few absences your grade is automatically lowered.

But it wasn’t really my fault, well…. Sort of. I only have 1 class on Monday afternoons and had been getting a bunch of stuff done around the house all day. It wasn’t until I left the house to go to school that I realized my gas tank was on empty. For those of you who don’t know, I live North of the river (approx. 435 and 152) and it takes me about 20-25 minutes to get to school. So trying to make it to school on empty wasn’t really an option. And after I leave the neighborhood (once I wind my way out past the farms), it’s all highway driving until I get downtown. And of course, it just so happens that there honestly aren’t any gas stations off the highway until probably about half way to downtown. I might have been able to make it that far, but I really had no idea and I wasn’t in the mood to be sitting on the side of the road, waiting for a cranky boyfriend (who was at home sleeping) to come bring me gas.

So I used my trusty Sprint Navigation app on my phone and it said the closest gas station (5.2 miles away) was the QT on North Oak, completely out of the way. So I speed there, fill up, and while I’m waiting for my gas to pump I again use my trusty Sprint app to see if there’s a quicker way to get downtown than retracing my steps. It told me to take 169 South and wind my way downtown, which I did. (I still have no idea if that was faster, or if I should have just backtracked and taken my usual route.)

I pull up to campus and it’s 2:28. Class starts at 2:30. As Molly can tell you, parking is not always easy. There’s a lot where I have a permit, and a church lot (where Lauren and Chris Dawson got married), one on each side of the law school. After stressing out for a minute about which one to go for (Left for permit lot, Right for church), I put my faith in God and head to church. God rewarded me with 1 single, empty spot in the back corner.

But by this time it’s 2:31. Now, I absolutely HATE walking into class after it’s started. Kinda weird considering I have no problem not going to class, but if I have to walk in late my face gets bright red, my heart starts beating fast, and I know everyone’s staring at me, which then causes me to curse myself for not choosing my outfits more carefully. And especially a class like this: only about 12-15 people, tables set up in a U and I have to squeeze behind everyone to get to my seat. So I sit in the car, thinking about all this for another 30 seconds, and decide not to go. After all that stress, all those potential speeding tickets, and wasting a favor from God, and I don’t even go to class.

Story of my life. At least I made it to that class today. But then again, I just spent the entire class writing this blog……. Whoops.

Summer's Over... Back to Blogging (aka not paying attention in class)

So school started this week and I made it through 3 classes without getting on the internet…. That may not sound like much but trust me, that’s monumental. So I had to reacquaint myself with how to kill time on the web, and I found myself on Molly’s blog. A previous post summarized in a nutshell what she learned from each class last semester, and it inspired me. So here’s what I learned last semester:

Business Associations II – If you own stock in a company, always show up to shareholder meetings. And if you’re going to start your own business, make it an LLC.

Evidence – There are only really 10 rules of evidence, but every rule has an exception, every exception has a qualification, and every exception has an exception that will surely apply. Unless it doesn’t. And don’t trust Law & Order, they almost always get it wrong.
Taxation of Business Organizations – ummmm…… Hire a really smart CPA. (aka Allie Hanson)

Time of Crisis: Rethinking Our Financial Markets – Nobody really knows what’s going on in the financial world and how to control it. Not even brilliant men like Alan Greenspan. The entire framework we’ve been operating under is based on assumptions that aren’t necessarily correct. And it’s inefficient to try and pay off your house; unless you plan on staying in that house for the rest of your life, only pay your minimum monthly payments and invest your money somewhere with a higher rate of return.

Commercial Law: Secured Transactions – Any time you enter into a payment contract, think about if you’re borrowing money or loaning money. If you’re the potential creditor, always get your agreement secured immediately (in writing and filed). If you’re the potential debtor, don’t sign anything, hope your creditors are too lazy to get the credit secured, and convey your assets to someone you trust if you think a creditor is about to come after you.

I hope Jay Kramer doesn’t read this because he will surely think it’s sacrilegious. I'm sorry Jay, I will burn in good-law-school-student hell.

Almost out of Lawrence

So, as I said earlier, I'm moving to KC as soon as finals are over (yay!). But, as many of you recent grads will remember, just because you leave school for the summer or graduate, you're frequently left still paying rent for the summer. I was in this same situation last summer (living in KC, paying rent on an unused apartment in Lawrence). Since I wasn't going to be there, I canceled all my utilities for the summer. Smart and responsible right? Ummm, no. Apparently there was a clause in my lease agreement that required me to have all utilities turned on for the duration of my lease. So I got a bill at the end of the summer from my apartment complex for delinquent utitilites, and a $150(!) fine for violation of my lease agreement. I guess becausee I'm still charged by the city for things like trash regardless of my individual usage? Probably something I should have known, but keep in mind this is the first time I've ever lived on my own.

Anyway, as I am currently still with the same management company as last summer, I've been dreading still having to pay not only my rent but electric/energy/utility bills all summer as well. But then a miracle happened, and I got a call from someone wanting to sublease!

So I talk to her on the phone, and she is extremely thorough, to say the least. After an hour-long conversation about my apartment, my complex, my living habits, my neighbors, my preferred sleep schedule... and on and on... she decides she wants to come visit my actual apartment (she'd previously seen the model). Knowing that there is a couple grand riding on if she likes my apartment, I skip class all day Friday (like I needed an excuse) and clean for about 12 hours, until my apartment is spooooootless. Of course, on Saturday morning (just hours before she is to come visit), I get a call from the leasing officce saying someone (the girl) put down a security deposit for subleasing on Thursday... THURSDAY! The day before my 12 hour cleaning extravaganza. Not that I'm not happy my apartment is spotless, but pretty sure there are better ways I could have used my time one week before finals.

Anyway, so I speed home from work to meet this girl, already a little irritated. I hear the doorbell ring, open the door, only to be staring at a big pair of boobs. Seriously. I have to crane my head way up to see her face. No joke. This girl was an amazon. Probably 6'2" flat-footed, but she happened to be wearing heels. Not only was she super tall, but was standing ridiculously close to my door, so my head was literally inches from her boobs. Awkward start... she proceeds to come inside and look in every drawer/closet/cabinet/lint tray she can find. Also, I told her I was interested in selling lots of my furniture, so she took pictures of pretty much every piece of furniture I own. An hour and a half later, the amazon finally left...

Which brings me to my point (if I have one). I am moving in with Nick, who already has a fully furnished house. Which means I need to get rid of just about all of my furniture. I'm not trying to make any big profit on it -- as much as anything, I just want to get rid of it so I don't have to deal with it or where to store it. None of it is really expensive stuff, but it's all nice looking and in pretty good shape (pictures will follow). So if you or anyone you know is looking for any of the following, let me know: couch, loveseat, coffee table, entertainment stand, bookshelf, computer desk, bar stool/chair, dining room table w/4 chairs.

Taking Things for Granted

So I'm sitting here in "Rethinking our Financial Markets in a Post-Crisis World" (the class is about as much fun as the name suggests), and my professor was discussing his upcoming State Department trip to Pakistan to lecture on..... I don't know, all kinds of boring things. But something he said really caught my attention (and gave me something to think about for the rest of the 2 hour class, and hence this blog post).

Gretchen (State Dept. lady): "Are you clear on the details of your itinerary and the different lecture topics you'll be giving?"
Prof. Westbrooke: "Pretty much. But will Powerpoint available at each of the lecture locations?"
Gretchen: "We'll be lucky if they have power, so I wouldn't count on Powerpoint."
Prof. Westbrooke: "You're not being serious."
Gretchen: "Yes I am. They get about eight hours of power a day, so we may well be without power during the lectures."

Apparently, on average the entire country receives only about eight hours of power per day. Eight hours, for the entire country! That's not just the little rural towns in the middle of nowhere, that includes the big cities, the capital... everywhere.

He sort of explained why this is the case, and I caught some of it: As opposed to here in America, where it seems like everyone is in bed together (politicians, lobbyists, judges, etc.), in Pakistan it's apparently quite the opposite. Apparently it's a major power struggle between government vs. business, and the two are completely adverse to one another, and it makes it impossible to get anything done. One example we heard was a textile factory owner whose factor keeps getting broken into, but he can't get the government (police/military somehow run together, I'm not sure) to step in and help protect him. In terms of the power issue, apparently the government has more stable power supply, so doesn't really care how it affects the country's businesses, or people in general I guess.



That blows my mind. I had no idea that in 2010, something that we take so for granted like power is so unsecure in other countries. Obviously I know that there are people in third world countries who live their whole lives without power, but I always assumed that was just the poor rural areas, and that the big cities of the country were more modernized. No wonder these countries can never climb out of the basement and compete with the US or England. How could you run a government, or ever get anything done? You can't. That's just beyond my imagination, when I use power from the time I wake up (from an alarm clock, or the alarm on my phone) to the time I go to bed (turn off the lights). And if they don't have reliable power, who knows what other kinds of ammenities or things that we think of as just part of daily life they don't have (or isn't reliable). For all the problems with America and our current system (and especially in the last year or so, I feel like I notice a lot of them, especially healthcare and insurance), it's a pretty great place to live.

Soon-to-be UMKC Law Student

So, as I alluded to in a previous post, and as you may have heard me talk about before, I will be attending UMKC Law as a visiting student for my third (and final!!!) year.

The visiting student program is an AMAZING idea!! It's like transferring, in the sense that you can take up to a year's worth of classes at another university. But you still graduate from your original university (assuming you still meet all the graduation requirements of your original university), and it is so incredibly easy without any hassle (don't even have to apply, just have to get your dean to sign off on the classes you'd take). It's a brilliant idea, and so appropriate for graduate school. I'm pretty sure it's intended for people with spouses who may have job opportunities that take them to different cities and things along those lines, but I am thrilled thatI can take advantage of it so I can get the hell out of Jayhawk town. (On a side note (future blog post??), I was shocked and disappointed by the sheer number of people I encountered who were giddy and joyfull when K-State lost in the Elite 8.)

So anyway, as of May 6, 2010, I will no longer be a KU Law student (though I'll still graduate from KU in May 2011). Let me just say, I can not express in words how excited I am to get away from crimson and blue, chants of "Rock Chalk Jay-hawk," ridiculous sorority girls (RIDICULOUS!!! - coming from a former LA sorority girl, no less), and the whole never-ending Williams/Self debate.

Plus, at UMKC I get to take sports law courses (YAY!!!! no joke, by far the most exciting-sounding classes I could possibly ever take), though I didn't get into Seminar of Famous Trials (3 credit hours for learning about the Scopes Monkey trial, OJ trial, Lacy Peterson trial, etc. - way better than Federal Taxation of Business Enterprises and Corporate Organizations).

What does that mean for you??? You'll get to see my adorable face more!! (Lucky you!) I'll be living in KC, attending Wednesday night dinners, and though I'll still be working every Friday/Saturday night (the legal market sucks, as does the rest of the economy), I will be much more available and accessible, and I cannot describe how excited I am to see the faces of all my lovely friends again. It has been way too long! Love you all, miss you guys, and looking forward to seeing you on a more regular basis!!