Eeediots, I 'm surrounded by Eeediot....Drivers

Atlanta is famous for awful traffic. I haven't run into too many traffic jams but there are usually 4 or 5 accidents each rush hour. Drivers tailgate and weave in and out of the eight lanes of interstate traffic at 80 miles an hour. The unofficial speed limit, observed even by police officers, seems to be 10 to 15 miles above the speed limit at all times. Atlanta has a subway system but it only has two short lines, North-South and East-West. So if you want to drive into Atlanta and the surrounding areas you pretty much have no choice but to drive with these crazies. Yesterday was a particularly idiotic day. It started out with me attempting to leave Peachtree City, where there are really only two main roads which run perpendicular to each other. We live off of 54, from which you take a left onto 74 and you can drive 12 miles to interstate 85 and then on to the city. Brad's apartment is off of a small side road off of 54 and once on 54, two lanes until it crosses 74, we have to cross over a bridge, there is no other way out of our street where our apartment complex is. (I know, I know, brilliant right...let's hope War of the World's doesn't start here, we'd be trapped.) The best part is that Peachtree City, as I've stated before, is a planned community, a studied shining star of what planned communities can be, and it has the worst planned traffic pattern I've ever seen anywhere. It has taken me, depending on the time of day, 30 minutes to drive less than 2 miles because....40,000 people are restricted to two roads.

Now as I was saying, I was leaving the city heading to work. I stopped to get gas and then I drove up to the the light to make a left turn onto 54. There were two cars and a dumptruck ahead of me. All of the traffic problems have not gone unnoticed by the good folks of Peachtree City, they are attempting to widen the road down by our apartment, making 54 four lanes all the way across. So there are dumptrucks and cranes and bulldozers and lots of guys in orange vests. Well the light turned green and the dumptruck goes first. The dumptruck had its bed up at a 45 degree angle, not in the dumping position but back toward the cab. Don't ask me why you'd want the truckbed pointed in that direction but it was. Also don't ask me why it was up. I am not sure if the guy even knew it was up and I watched as the truck drove under the first changelight wire and then turned left under the second, catching the wire on the left pulling all four parts of the square wire intersection down...lights, green street signs and all. It was so surreal. Orange vest guys started running toward the dumptruck waving their arms and yelling. The dumptruck stopped, the guy looked out the back and then he backed up. The two cars in front of me decided to make a run for it and drove under the dangling wire between the dumptruck and the other side of traffic. I drove up and stopped. I wasn't sure if it was safe to drive two feet under electrical wires and by that point a Peachtree City cop had shown up. He pulled his own orange vest out of his trunk and stood in the middle of the intersection basically directing all four ways of traffic to stay put. I waited. A fire pick-up truck comes up. The fireman yells at the cop and the construction workers to get out of the intersection; the wires are hot. Good thing I didn't drive under them. Now all I'm thinking is: I'm trapped. But then I notice that on the other side of the street you can get around the wires. I was trying to make a left turn onto the street but if you were already on the street, heading in the direction I wanted to turn in, and you turned right (that is directly across from me) drove up a ways, made a u-turn and then turned right again, you could get out. I looked right down the street at the long line of traffic but thought, hey at least I can get out, right? Wrong. About 10 cars make their escape and then a dumptruck pulls up in that lane. The dumptruck is too tall to go under the wire even though the wire is higher at that point. So that dumptruck effectively locks in everyone on that side of Peachtree City. The fun part is that behind me was a Wal-Mart, the only Wal-Mart for at least a half an hour so I imagine that some people found themselves trapped in this little Peachtree peninsula. I made a u-turn around a landscape island, at the direction of the cop, and headed home. I called my boss and explained that I was trapped, I would do research from home and if he needed me to come in I could probably get out in a few hours. I didn't end up going to work but I did venture out again and they had put up orange cones on either side of the intersection and through the middle, effectively making 54 a two lane road. At that point they had torn down the wires, lights and green signs. Brad is on the nightshift rotation and he called to say that the lights were back up by 10pm. This morning I noted that they hadn't restored the intersection to four wires hung in a square, rather, they hung one wire on a diagonal and hung the lights across the diagonal in four directions. This is pretty clever I think.

The second disaster, I feel lucky, I wasn't involved in. At about 1:45pm on the 285 bypass, 4 tractor trailers, 2 cars and a utility truck were involved in a chain reaction accident. The last car hit the one in front of it, which hit the one in front of it, and so on. It appeared to be a matter of the first truck stopping and the next six tailgating and unable to stop. One of the trucks was tailgating an SUV which was tailgating the truck in front of it. The SUV was smashed between the two trucks and burst into flames. At one point all of the vehicles were on fire, including a large Fed-Ex truck which was burned until the roof was gone and it was hollowed out. There was one fatality in the SUV and the rest sustained minor injuries. You would think after such a tragic accident that people would be more careful. Nope, today people were tailgating and weaving in and out of traffic at 80 miles an hour this morning. Atlanta drivers have a very slow learning curve.

Thunderstorms

It has thunderstormed, if not rained, nearly every single day since I've been down here in Atlanta. Apparently this is unusual and has cooled the temperatures. The first few days this week we got a break but the temperature soared to 104 degrees in the shade, (with humidity, it's like breathing in water.) Penny doesn't like the thunderstorms. I don't know what she thinks they are but she goes into what Brad and I call the "Bathroom Bunker." She hides in the bathroom between the toilet and the bathtub, you know...where it's safe. Because the safest place to be in a thunderstorm is next to the plumbing. I don't think this is a natural Darwinian survival thing. So earlier today we had a daily freak hour-long thunderstorm and Penny headed to the bunker. Penny is otherwise usually very brave...she saves us from bugs in the house, noises from the upstairs neighbor, and lawnmowers outside. Thunderstorms are aparently not on her list.

And you Tin-Man, I think I miss you most of all...

Brad and I have a really nice washer and dryer. The washer even has two handwash cycles: handwash, and really gentle handwash (well not in those exact words) but you get the idea. The washer and dryer are up in Winston-Salem. Here in Atlanta, Brad is renting a washer and dryer from his apartment complex. I don't know if I've described his apartment complex but it is pretty nice. His apartment has 9 foot ceilings and crown moldings and a lovely arch between the living room and dining area. Brad is not a snob, he had no choice. This was actually the cheaper of the three apartment complexes in Peachtree City. Peachtree City is this garden city and planned community with a golf course on every corner and no Target but they do have a Banana Republic, Ann Taylor and a Williams Sonoma in a nice little shopping center complete with a Starbucks. Don't get me wrong, I like all of those stores but I just can't afford to shop at them on a regular basis. Anyway, I think you get my point, nice city, nice apartment complex, but.... the washer and dryer, that he is paying $25.00 a month to rent, has probably been more than paid for over the course of the year that he has been renting them. They are cheap and have none of the crazy options that my washer and dryer have. And you have to dry your clothes twice everytime even if you set the dryer to high. You'd think that such an uppity apartment complex could have purchased a nicer washer and dryer set. I'd rather have a nicer washer and dryer and give up the 9 foot ceilings and crown moldings. Of course I would rather be here with Brad than in Winston with my washer but at least it gives me something to look forward to when I go back in a few weeks. Everytime I put my, mostly gentle wash, laundry into the regular cycle I fear that I am going to pull out rags. So far so good though, so maybe all those wash instruction labels are bogus.

Judge Roberts

As most of you know, the President's nominee to fill Justice O'Connor's position on the Supreme Court is John G. Roberts, Jr. He is currently serving on the DC Circuit Court. This past February Judge Roberts came to Wake to speak as part of our Rupe lecture series. I met him briefly and shook his hand, so if he is appointed, I will have met a Supreme Court Justice. Pretty cool, huh! He is exceptionally qualified and very funny. Let's hope the Senate offers a speedy confirmation.

Next Year's Classes

I registered for my classes last Tuesday. Oddly enough, we register for the whole year at once. I actually got all of the classes I wanted. I am taking:
Fall
1. Taxation: Federal Income
2. Evidence
3. Real Property Security
4. Debtor-Creditor Law
5. Banking Law

Spring
1. Legislation and Administrative Law
2. Legal Research and Writing III
3. Secured Transactions
4. Real Estate Finance
5. Law and Economics
6. Trial Practice

I may add a "class" for the fall. In order to graduate I have to create a substantial writing project. Unlike undergrad where the writing intensive classes were specifically identified as writing intensive. At Wake, you take a class and add a writing project to it. So you might be taking the class as just a class while some of your classmates will be adding a writing project to it. In order to make the class writing intensive for the purposes of graduation you have to register for "Upper Level Writing Requirement" This is a zero credit class which shows up on your transcript to identify that you made one of your classes writing intensive that semester. In short, I might add a class, but it won't add anything to my schedule.

So there you have it, my schedule. I'll let you know how the classes go when I start. I also plan on writing pretty much everyday when classes start. School is a lot more interesting than my summer, which is pretty much the same everyday.

The Trial

Sorry it took me so long to post again. I went up to visit my family in Virginia for a couple of days last week and then work was pretty hectic when I got back. We went to court for a real trial last Thursday! I, of course, didn't do anything in court (I had worked on the case but you can't participate in court unless you're a lawyer.) I did watch, and I could follow along and anticipate some of the objections. What I learned is that no matter how hard you work and how good of an advocate you want to be for your client, it's all irrelevant. The truth, the accusations, everything is dependent on what you admit in court and if your evidence is objectionable or your witnesses aren't cooperative or helpful then you will probably lose. It doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong, it ultimately comes down to perception and who was able to prove who's version to the judge or jury. The false accusations might end up sounding more reasonable and that will be decided as fact. It's all pretty crazy. I also believe that the accused should not take the stand to protect themselves from themselves. I think people who are accused of something, even in a civil case, feel like they have to explain themselves. Giving more information than what is asked for, in my opinion, is not a good thing. This opens the door for more questions and possible truths. If you keep talking long enough you may even prove the case against you without meaning to.

In sum, perception is everything in the law. If you can provide enough evidence to support your case then it becomes the truth, whether it really is or not. Hopefully, though, you won't have enough evidence to prove your case if it isn't the truth.

You know you're in a fancy building when...

there is a stand in the lobby with plastic bags marked umbrella. They came in two sizes for the longer and shorter variety. This was in a nice high-rise building downtown and it was raining today so these bags were to prevent your umbrella from dripping everywhere. Who knew there were such things? Umbrella bags!?

Expanding Universe

In light of the recent NASA accomplishment, I began to wonder:

If space is a vacuum how do things stay together in space. Don't vacuums make things implode or explode or something? Did your high school chemistry teacher ever stick a marshmallow in a vacuum and show how it expands without air particles pressing in on it? So, if you stick a marshmallow in space would it fill the universe? Yeah, probably not. As soon as it hit the first star it would burn, turn black and deflate, and no chocolate or graham crackers! Or it might just freeze solid and not expand at all. Guess, NASA should should scratch that big marshmallow experiment they had planned for the next shuttle flight.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your day and perhaps even enjoying a day off. This morning we slept in, skipped a parade, ate the traditional fourth of July lunch of leftover pizza and then Brad went to work and I am watching TV. Brad doesn't get off until 10:30 so I am going to stay home with the dog and watch fireworks on TV. That's OK, I think fireworks scare Penny so I can stay home and tell her the loud noises won't get us.