a morning at the beach

So far, the pace of this trip's been pretty slow. This morning, there was an outing to the beach, but Kaua'i is so beautiful even such a mundane outing is pretty special. Here are some the best pictures my $10 Innovage Keychain camera from Walgreens could produce.

The drive there (through the car window):

Here's the beach, with a lagoon suitable for snorkeling.

Sorry, no snorkeling pictures, because my Waterproof Camera Enclosure (a zip-lock bag) had a hole in it. I have since replaced said Waterproof Camera Enclosure. Here are the surrounding mountains:

all volcanic rock, of course:

(It looks like the camera has some issues with high contrast images.) There's a hiking trail along the beach. Here are some pictures of the hike:

off to an auspicious start

We're thinking about calling it the Missed Disaster Tour. I'm in Hawaii now. Yesterday, a hurricane rolled through this place. After I got here today, an earthquake off Peru caused a tsunami advisory for the whole Pacific (thankfully canceled a few hours later.) Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Random graffiti on a stall in the men's in LAX proclaimed "death to America, judgment day 8/10/07." Probably just random bluster. Or maybe it was more of the Missed Disaster phenomenon in operation. I sure hope it was one of the two--I sure didn't notice a Judgment Day, and missing Judgment Day would be a bigger nightmare than the "wait, you mean the final was TODAY???" one.

Other random notes from the trip:

United offered food on the flight--if you paid extra for your (cold) meal. They also offered an upgrade at check-in: five extra inches of legroom if you paid an additional $60. I think market segmentation has gone a bit far in this area.

On the other hand, I came in second in a contest to guess the exact time we'd cross the mid-point in the flight. (In the interests of full disclosure, it was more by luck than by skill.) And the rental agency was out of economy cars so they bumped me up to ta compact, which turned out to be a silver Chevy Malibu. A silver Malibu was my first car, many years ago, so it was interesting to get a chance to drive its descendant. The handling's about like I remember, maybe not quite as snappy without the 350 V-8 but it definitely has that American Car feel to it.

Oh, and dinner was exceptional: salmon glazed with Hawaiian shoyu sauce, Maui onions, and pineapple. Kudos to Mary's mom.

bar exam observation

700 people in a room all typing on their laptops sounds like rain. 700 people filling in bubbles on a standardized test form sounds like 700 stressed-out people. Tomorrow's a rain day again.

Vulcan lawyers

Having spent time programming computers, and having spent time studying the law, I am now absolutely convinced that Vulcans would make terrible lawyers: they're far too logical to do the job. (Not to mention they'd probably give the world's most boring opening statements.)

Al Gore Jr.'s Arrest

I've mostly been ignoring the media (and pretty much anything else outside of studying, which is making me a very dull boy right now.) So someone today was telling me about Al Gore Jr.'s arrest.

Gore . . . blah blah blah . . . arrest . . . blah blah blah . . . prescription drugs . . . blah blah blah . . . in a Toyota Prius going 100 miles per hour . . . wha--wait, back up. What?

I am shocked! Shocked, I say! A Toyota Prius can go 100 miles per hour? As a new Prius owner, I demand to know why I wasn't informed of this fact sooner! I kinda figured they topped out around 80 or 85. A most newsworthy item, indeed!

Disclaimer: My head's full to the tippy-top with obscure bits of criminal law, criminal procedure, and real property right now, and I've spend the last two months trying to think like a lawyer at dangerous speeds. Don't expect anything resembling rationality.

a bit of perspective

We have a simulated written test tomorrow: three essays in the morning, and a performance exam after lunch. I'm supposed to be preparing, but there are so many more fun things to be looking at. While trying to get a bit of context in President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence for obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame leak, and comparing it to what happened with Oliver North (and the folks who were pardoned in Iran-Contra), I discovered that Wikipedia has an interesting list of federal-level scandals going back to the Declaration of Independence.

practice performance exam

I just took a practice performance exam. This one went so well that I spent a few minutes afterwards scanning the want-ads for programmer positions. If work in the real world feels anything like that, I'll be back in engineering so fast you'll hear the sonic boom.

Yech.

Enough whining. Time to get back to focusing on the goal. If I can't dive into this thing gracefully, then I'll at least do a damn cannonball.