Ontario, California in late-July is pure hot, and my first night in town the only restaurants I could find for dinner were a defrocked Sizzler and, eventually, a frocked Sizzler. My hotel turned out to be a motel (not a Holiday Inn), and I think my four-day stay was about 96 times that of its typical customer. The three-hour question in the last session was a wills contest about a father who had died in the last month, and I had to take five minutes to recover after reading it.

On the other hand, plenty of friends were out there too, and we had really nice dinners Tuesday and Wednesday night. The questions otherwise fell nicely, as my three most desired topics to avoid (Civil Procedure, Criminal Procedure, Corporations) based on what I short-shrifted in the last two weeks of studying all failed to come up. I think I slam-dunked three of the six essays, and I didn't flail about cluelessly on any question (or, at most, one). Also, I bought a hat before my head sunburn got out of control.

And yesterday I found that the Venice apartment was everything I had been told.

So, all in all, not a bad week.

I did something today that is a really stupid little thing that a lot of people wouldn't think twice about, but it was immense for me. For some reason on the spur of the moment, I decided that instead of hopping on the elliptical machine at the gym, today I would get on the treadmill. And instead of my usual treadmill activity--uphill walking--I would try some light jogging.

At first I thought I'd go for five minutes if I could, thinking back to the first time I hopped on an elliptical and thought I was going to die 3 minutes in. But 5 minutes came and went and I decided to shoot for a half-mile (going at 5 mph). Then I thought 10 minutes might be attainable. Ultimately, I ended up getting to a mile in just over 12 minutes, and then I stopped.

One mile. I ran one mile.

That's nothing, but it's everything, because I came to the jaw-dropping realization that never before in my life had I run an entire mile without stopping for a break.

But the best part is that I could have kept going.

Man, I am really going to miss this past week.

David the Future Roommate is going to the likely future apartment again tomorrow, and if he doesn't find a dozen rats (unlikely) or get in a shouting match with the landlord (less likely still), we will officially have our new apartment by the end of business (PDT) tomorrow. Suffice it to say that these were our criteria: 2+ bedrooms, 2+bath, 2+ parking, < 2 blocks to Venice Beach, good-sized kitchen, and within our price range; we've met or exceeded all of them!!

Jamarcus Russell could hit the beach from our place throwing from his knees.

I had big plans to do a lot of blogging from home last week, but my parents' screwy emachine literally would not let me log in to Blogger to post. So it goes.

My mom called me home from Massachusetts a day and a half early because Dad had a fever and that was a problem, but it turned out to be largely a false alarm. So it was another week hanging out in hospice, reading, doing puzzles, and mostly just being bored.

Then on Friday and Saturday, I went to the University Honors College reunion at Pitt. This was a really cool event. The UHC turned 20 and invited alums from that whole time (and even its prior 10 years as an honors program) to come back and see its newish renovation project and to see how old everyone's gotten. I was thrilled to catch up with some people I hadn't seen in nine or 10 years, and to see some friends who I've only seen very intermittently lately. There was some talk of having this event every several years, and I hope those plans come off.

Some extremely brief reviews of the Netflix I have watched relatively recently:

This Film Is Not Yet Rated: Snarky documentary, a bit full of itself, but makes a good point about censorship and the movies.
Boyz N The Hood: Don't quote me boy, I ain't said shit. Long overdue viewing.
The Weather Underground: Shadowy film, hard to get ahold of, just like its subject. Watch it only if you're particularly interested in the subject. I was.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: Most entertaining movie I've watched in a long time. Kilmer's best work, and possibly Downey's too, and that's saying something.
Control Room: al-Jazeera documentary. Probably one too many documentaries in a short time, but I was bored.
Thank You For Smoking: Very funny, and treated the lead character with more humanity than I expected.
Shaun of the Dead: Closest competitor to Kiss Bang squared. Can't wait to see their new movie.
Mean Streets: Exactly what you'd expect from early Scorcese/Keitel/DeNiro, except maybe 10% less fun. Still solid.
Black Sunday: The Super Bowl X footage was probably the most entertaining part. But I'm a Steeler fan.
Bottle Rocket: My favorite Wes Anderson film, which is to say 2.5 stars out of 5.
Beyond the Sea: Before this movie I didn't know much about Bobby Darin; now I know way more than I needed to.
Ray: I'll take the Johnny Cash movie of the two, but that's probably more of a musical preference since they're almost exactly the same movie.
Wake Up Ron Burgundy: They had about 1.5 funny movies worth of material when they made Anchorman; still, if you like those characters and that humor, you could do way worse.
Avalanche: I'm clearly out of good '70s disaster movies and am scraping the bottom of the barrel. If they get any worse, I quit. Note: If you ever make a disaster movie, establish the physical space and where everything is, or people won't understand what's happening when the disaster hits.
The Fall of Fujimori: Really interesting and even-handed documentary about a country (Peru) and a leader I didn't know much about; also notable is that it's the first movie I've watched Netflix's new streaming "Watch It Now" feature, which is particularly good for documentaries, comedy concerts, and anything where the appeal is not particularly visual, since you're watching on a computer screen.
Reality Bites: Irony (n.): a movie soaked in pop culture retro kitsch becoming retro and kitsch itself; doesn't hold up particularly well; Winona still chooses the wrong guy.

When I was growing up, Easter was a major day on the family calendar. Along with Christmas Eve, it was the day we knew there was no wrangling out of church. Plus there was candy. In fact, there was candy well beyond the time when it was age-appropriate, because Mom has always been a sucker for holiday traditions. At some point, though, Easter became that random Sunday in April or occasionally March where everything is closed and it takes me way to long to remember why. The past few years I've been much more aware of Passover observers around me than I have of Easter.

While that's still true (prepare for groaner), I still had a really good Friday. I woke up with the idea that there were 5 or 6 discrete tasks that I had to accomplish, and I set out to do them and got them done with plenty of day to spare. That was remarkably satisfying, putting together a mental list and checking them off one by one. I even had time left over to read for one of my classes and to watch two of the three Netflix that had been laying around for a couple of weeks without turnover. It's funny how some of your best days are the ones where nothing earth-shattering happens, but you just mow through tasks that had been accumulating for a while.

I did two glorious things today.

The glory of the first one can only be understood by a graduate or professional student: I turned in a seminar paper to complete a year-old imcomplete. The paper is not great and probably not even good, but it's done. From my USC days I knew that an incomplete seminar paper is like a terrible Sword of Damocles hanging over your head (that ain't no crime). The only prospect more horrifying than having it continue to weigh you down is the prospect of actually finishing the damn thing. On the other hand, finishing one and turning it in is an amazing high like few I've ever felt.

The second thing I did was to buy my first adult bicycle and to ride it around town for almost an hour. I've been on a bike about a half-dozen times in the last decade, and I've always had a blast. So I had decided that I might as well get one at the end of last summer, but the weather quickly turned inhospitable and I put it off. Yesterday the weather was great, so I went to a bike shop here in town and put down a deposit. I went back today, and after a bunch of rigamarole with helmets, reflectors, license, pants clips, etc., I walked out after 50 minutes with a brand-new Schwinn Frontier. I'll probably be pissed off when it's inevitably stole in 10 days, but right now I love it.

I tried two things today that really should be experienced before leaving this corner of the Midwest--curling and Tony Packo's. Mike has a group of Michigan alumni band friends who get together annually for this outing, and he invited me along. I had my doubts, but curling turned out to be about 100 times more fun than it looks. The thigh and tailbone bruises (oh, you'll get some falling) will soon heal, but the memories will last a lifetime. As for Packo's, well, how can you go wrong with Max Klinger's favorite Hungarian-style hot dog? The answer: you can't.

I decided to try out a new template. The old one is saved in case I don't like this one, but I'll see how it goes. The biggest problem is that I can't figure out how to import the old comments, which were from backblog and not blogger itself. That bothers me, but I wanted to see what kind of newfangled features blogger is offering with its new templates. No one likes a good fangle like I do.

In other news, the raise news came down today, so I'm back off of the horrible message boards. And it was the maximum--which is to say that for doing nothing, I got a raise today that is on par with the highest income I have ever grossed in a calendar year. Drinks are on me tonight.

What you see in the right-hand sidebar under today's date must be one of a small number of things: testament to the power of kickstarting your metabolism, walking an unbelievable amount during the wedding and L.A. portions of my vacation, or Christmas miracle. I don't question it, I just thank the metabolism gods and promise to carry the positive momentum into the year. Good times.

I got back in Ann Arbor a couple of hours ago after 10 days at home, 5 days in L.A., and another day at home. At least emotionally, it was the most turbulent 2.5 weeks of my life. I don't know how I could summarize it in any comprehensive way, so I'll just present the following lists:

Things I've Done Since 12/20/06 That I Wish Everyone Could Do:

1. Spend a glorious New Year's Day in Pasadena tailgating and watching one or more (I'd actually recommend exactly one) football teams you care about play in the Rose Bowl.
2. End said glorious day eating the best Korean barbeque in the Western Hemisphere with good friends, and for dessert crane your neck to watch one of the craziest finishes to a college football game you'll ever see.
3. Stand up for your brother as he marries exactly the right person for him.
4. Walk around a neighborhood you never dreamed you could live in looking for an apartment that you actually will live in sooner rather than later.
5. Spend Christmas with your father after fully expecting that last year's Christmas had been his last.
6. Make a really good best man's speech that everyone else at the reception seems to enjoy just as much as you enjoyed writing and delivering.
7. See a movie as good as Letters From Iwo Jima at a theater as good as the Arclight.
8. Fall in love with your favorite city all over again.

Things I've Done Since 12/20/06 That I Wouldn't Wish Upon Anyone:

1. Have to leave the place you want to live, knowing you're probably over half a year away from returning at all.
2. Take a cross-country red-eye flight that lands at 6:15 a.m. and have to drive an hour home.
3. Spend said flight fretting over whether the parking lot takes credit cards (it does), because you don't think you have enough cash on you to pay, nor any in your bank account to extract thanks to bad information from the financial aid office.
4. Be the best man at a Catholic wedding, where the set-up requires you to kneel during the parts where the rest of the guests get to sit.
5. Spend the wedding of someone 5 years younger than you wondering whether you'll ever find the right person who wants to spend a weekend with you, let alone the rest of your lives.
6. Have to pull your father's underwear down so he can take a dump, because he can't do it for himself.
7. Cut your trip home short because you just recharged your batteries with a glorious vacation, and every moment at home is draining it again at a rate you cannot fathom.
8. Know that each time you say goodbye to your father it could be the last time, and for the first time see in his eyes that he knows it too.

1 Thing I Have Done Since 12/20/06 That I Both Wish Everyone Could Do And Also Don't Recommend To Anyone:

1. Eat a lifetime supply of cookies in 17 days.