Taking Spring Break By Storm: A Revolutionary Time!

As the final installment of "Taking Spring Break by Storm", this entry recounts the adventures of our wild weekend in Colonial Williamsburg during my parent's Spring break visit. And like any good spring break story, it ends with a brush with the law...
Colonial Williamsburg is the beautifully restored colonial capital of Virginia. It includes several restored historical buildings such as the royal Governor's Palace and the House of Burgess. It also includes several restored buildings where various trades are exhibited in the fashion of the time such as wig-making, shoe-making, and printing. The town is also filled with people dressed in colonial style clothing, some of whom are employees and some of whom are enthused tourists.

We toured the historic buildings, strolled in the sun, coveted the other tourists' costumes, and sampled Colonial fare at the local tavern. We loved Colonial Williamsburg and would recommends it to anyone. Overall, we had wonderful spring break and I hope you will join us for our next series which will feature the visit of both my and Lake's parents in May entitled "Wagons East! The Exodus to Graduation!"

Taking Spring Break By Storm: Amherst or Bust!

My parents and I saw small town Central Virginia at its finest on our road trip to Amherst. On my parents' last trip to visit us, they stopped in Amherst and ate the best apple pie they had ever tasted. We adopted the cause to retrieve another pie and took the long way around stopping in small towns and antiquing.
On our road trip, we stopped by Waynesboro so my parents could see the courthouse where I practice. We also stopped in Verona to visit the antique warehouse. My parents unfortunately relied on my navigation skills to get us to Amherst so after an hour and a half, a trip over the Blue Ridge mountains, and a spell of car sickness, we ended up at the "What a Blessing Bakery" in Amherst where they did not make any apple pies that day. We settled for coconut and took the more direct route back to Charlottesville, taking only about 30 minutes.

Taking Spring Break By Storm: The Invasion of Richmond

My parents recently visited over spring break and our adventures comprise a new blog series entitled, "Taking Spring Break by Storm." In part one of a three part series, my parents and I visited Richmond on a civil war history tour. Fortunately for the Union, they were equipped with better navigators than we were in our invasion, as my mother and I left to our own devices stopped by the Virgina Museum of Fine Art, the Virginia Historical Society, and did three U turns before arriving at a single civil war history site.

Once properly on the war path, we visited the Civil War History Center at Tredegar Iron Works, the Confederate History Museum, and the White House of the Confederacy. My mother and I participated in a brief civil war reenactment which was reduced to a fist fight due to the lack of bayonets present for the photo opportunity. Luckily, we were able reconcile our differences over lunch at Shockoe Bottom with some fabulous crab bisque.

Vindication of the Pencil Test!

Lake and I spent the weekend with our wonderful friends Amber and Chris Lindsay in Washington, D.C. On our last trip to Washington, they delighted us with the news that they are expecting their first child in July. Lake's parents, who were privy to the good news before we were, have (not so) subtly suggested that we get some advice from the Lindsays on how to remedy our continuing childlessness.

As part of our weekend festivities with the Lindsays, I cleared up all uncertainty about the baby's gender by administering the scientifically-proven, surefire pencil test. The pencil test is administered by dangling a pencil from a string over a pregnant woman's wrist. If the pencil moves from side to side in a line, then it is a boy. If the pencil moves in a circle, then it is a girl. I performed three tests, the first two being inconclusive due to the persistent heckling from the father-to-be who was jumping the gun on a potential boy reading. Finally, the third test conclusively showed that the Lindsays were expecting a GIRL!!

Quite unnecessarily, the Lindsays visited an actual doctor to verify the results of pencil test. I am happy to announce that the pencil test was vindicated and the Lindsays are having a GIRL!! I am also happy to announce that if law doesn't work out, I have a future in witchdoctory!

Sleuthing "The Chicago Caper"

We had a "roaring" good time at our 1920's themed murder mystery party in January. It only took 8 guests and 4 courses to solve the whereabouts of "Hal Coppone" who we discovered was cunning disposed of by our very own "Silky"(expertly played by Reagan Foust). Lake played a district attorney corrupted by money and power and Elysa played a wild bootlegging flapper who spent most of the evening trying to keep her wig out of the Bolognese sauce.

We were fortunate to have a lively cast of suspects including Brian and Norma Roberts, Cheryl and Troy Johnson, and Regan and Shawn Foust. Brian in his knickers and argyle socks was a convincing country club frequenter and Norma gets the award for "Best Chicago Accent at a Murder Myster Dinner Event." Norma, if you comment on the blog in 30 days, you can claim some deep dish pizza as your award.

Cheryl "tourched" up the evening by playing a sultry night club singer/deadly hired assasin. (a role requring much acting versaltity and skill on her part) Troy played a professional baseball player who was all too quick to admit his penchant for throwing games for the infamous "Ernie G. Ambler" played by Shawn Foust who came stylishly dressed in a tuxedo cravet and matching cane.

Ultimately, it came down to "Silky" the menacing and discrete brothel owner to polish off "Hal Cappone."
Thank you for all who joined us for our murder mystery dinner. Look for our potential 1930's themed party sequal-"Night at the Hooverville"!

Worst Testing Conditions Ever!

In November, Elysa had to go to Richmond to take the MPRE- the national ethics exam for attorneys. The scores ranges from 50 to 150, with 100 being the mean of all exam takers. In most states the hurdle you have to clear is around 75, so the standard is pretty low. But that doesn't mean you can waltz in there and take it with your eyes closed, one hand tied behind your back.

In the UVA Law Weekly (The Law School student paper), we read about an example of one person's misperception of the average MPRE test question:

While at the local strip club, Larry Lawyer kills Clarence Client while drunk and hazed on Angel Dust. This behavior can best be described as...

A) Good
B) Bad
C) None of the Above
D) Fraggle Rock

The actually test is very technical in procedural rules. So you do need to study.

We drove to Richmond the night before, spent the night and got Elysa to the testing site by 8:00 AM. We should have know things were bad when, a few days before, Elysa was notified that her original testing site at the Marriott Conference Center had been moved to the Comfort Inn Conference. If you didn't just groan, then either you have stayed in too many Comfort Inns or too few Marriotts.

It turns out, the ethics test was bumped because the state GOP decided to hold a last minute fund raiser that weekend before the election. Personally, if you want to know why the GOP lost the Senate, I think you can blame a few hundred law students that asked God to curse the GOP for the following experience.

Elysa was dropped off at the Comfort Inn and noticed that the lobby is freezing. Richmond, the night before, had seen the thermometer drop below 20° F. It turned out that the hotel's heat had been broken for three days. Yet, the testing officials couldn't do anything about it, so the students were taking a three-hour test in, what I can only estimate, had to be somewhere around 50° F.

Testing officials led the students to the testing halls, where, it was discovered, there was less seating available than there were students. So they scrounged up some other chairs and crammed everyone onto the tables. Elysa had to straddle one of the table legs the entire time.

As the test began (the timed test, mind you), students pointed out that there was no visible time keeping device, something they were promised. Resigned to the fact that this was not their day, test administrators said they couldn't do anything about it.

And to top off the event, about half way into the test, in the conference hall adjoining the ad hoc testing center, "Fire for Christ" starts a 30 minute revival/prayer meeting. As you can deduce from their name, "Fire for Christ" didn't exactly choose the most reverent music to worship.

Aside from all that, Elysa received the score back from the test. She scored impressively high.

They Call Her "Killer"

That is Elysa's new nickname: Killer. She was renamed that by the Commonwealth Attorneys over in Waynesboro were she has been spending two days a week during the past semester. She is part of the prosecution clinic at UVA Law, a class that farms out students to the state and federal prosecuting offices in the area. And she has had some amazing experiences.

The vast majority of the class is to actually be trying real cases for the duration of the school year. She is handling cases in general district court as well as the Juvenile and Family Court, from DWIs to Assault and Battery, Drug Possession and Distribution to Sexual Predators.

From what I can gather, Elysa got the name for a couple of reasons. First, she cowboy'ed up and went with a few of the officers to the new shooting range and unloaded a few clips. I wish I had been there to see it, but she fired a Glock, a Tommy Gun, an automatic Shotgun and a M-4 rifle. I think she wants an NRA membership for Christmas.

The other reason they call her killer is that she is sharp in court and is putting away the bad guys (and gals) left and right. She has even turned on a few witnesses for committing perjury. I guess they didn't call her "Shark" because James Woods and CBS might have a trademark on the title.

Still, you don't mess with "Killer." I could have told them that after 3 1/2 years of marriage.