Utah is weird

• Utah governor declares he will continue his campaign to eminent domain all up in the feds:        About a year ago, Utah legislators passed a bill basically allowing them to reclaim federal land for the state, essentially through eminent domain powers. This may sound pretty ridiculous to both lawyers and non-lawyers, largely because it is, but Governor Herbert, in his state of the state address this month, ramped up the 5th amendment rhetoric, as though there were a chance in Zion...

• Utah <3's guns. The Utah Legislature names an official state gun... a semi-automatic, Browning M1911. This is only made less weird by the fact that the gun's inventor, John M. Browning, was from Utah. 

• The largest bridal show in Utah is held annually at Provo High School, a city 43 miles south of Salt Lake where the population is about 98% LDS. The Wedding catalogs available at the High School hosted show conveniently allow brides-to-be to order both their prom and wedding dresses at the same time.  

• Guns and pets: "... and who better to decide what's reasonable than someone willing to club a collarless cat to death..."

• Utah Rep. Chaffetz & his love for concealed weapons, gets a shout out two days in a row in Doonesbury:

So, Whaddya Want?

So I started a part time waitressing job at Elizabeth's English Bakery & Tea House. It's just a few blocks from the house & not quite a full-on waitressing job. It's more like a cafe, it has a limited menu of bakery items, some other lunch type foods and basically just tea. The servers have to prepare the food- make the little cucumber sandwiches or heat the meat pies, as well as prepare the drinks and bring them to customers.

Now that I've finished my second week there, averaging about 14 hours a week, I think my table-side manner has improved a bit.

Because it's more of cafe than restaurant, people come in, look in the pastry cases and we greet them as they browse the treats and look at the chalkboard menus. It's a little ambiguous if we're waitresses, there's no one seating them, no official paper menus and people don't leave us good tips as though we were true waitresses, so my first day was kind of feeling out what is expected of me in that respect. It was pretty busy, it was a bit of a trial by fire. I noticed one girl had been sitting at a table for a few minutes & it didn't look like anyone had taken her order. The servers don't have sections really either, it's a team effort and the staff just divides and conquers based on where help is needed. So I went up to this girl, and as I'm walking there, a friend she apparently was waiting for arrived. The girl that was waiting sees me, and sees that I'm coming to take her order, so I can't turn around at this point! We made eye contact, she knows I'm coming, but at the same time she stands up to hug her friend and before they can even sit back down, I'm standing next to then and I just blurt,

"So do you know what you want?"

Obviously not, the girl hasn't sat down yet.

Idiot.

And how about a, "Hello" first? Geeze.

Anyways, I think I've improved my approach since, I at least haven't done that again!

SLC DMV

So I decided to get a Utah Driver's license... largely because it gets me locals-only deals on lift tickets.

So I finally cleared my busy unemployment schedule to dedicate what I assumed would be a long & frustrating afternoon at the DMV. I've heard that people who commit suicide are reincarnated as hateful DMV employees. It rings true, for the most part, at least in Massachusetts. Here, everyone at the DMV was surprisingly pleasant, cracking jokes, smiling. Chipper as hell really. Maybe it's just a ruffle in their magic Mormon underwear? Maybe it's because their office is located on the state fair grounds?

Anyways, I had to take a 25 question, open book, multiple choice driving test to get my license. Rhys did it a few months before me and came home bragging he got 100% right. So, I'll be damned if I get one wrong. I wound up spending an hour answering the stupid quiz - 100% right, first A++ they had that day! BOOYAH!

I was then awarded my giant, notebook size, temporary paper license. Extremely ridiculous. You'd think if they ultimately fit all that same information onto a license-sized card, that they could do the same for the temporary license rather than force you to fold this thing 8 times before it's wallet sized and then cram the now half inch thick wad of paper into your wallet.

Anyways, I look like a battle-axe in ruffles. I'm not sure if it's better than my very butch MA ID photo that is now full of holes to tell the world I'm officially not a New Englander anymore! =(

Also, I totally lied about my weight.

Flush

Is it just me, or is it like really weird to talk the on the cell phone in he bathroom AT WORK in a COURT?!?

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Screen Grab

I was looking for a sound effect to add to my Kalari post, you know that cartoony twang sound made from some sort of stringed instrument, the sound you'd think would go with both of my hamstrings tweaking at the same time?

Anyways, I couldn't find it but I did find this:

Kalari

I've been going to yoga pretty regularly for the last month (I Groupon) and the studio I'm attending offers a whole bunch of classes I've never heard of before... They also incorporate a level of chanting, incense & fruitiness that my pre-law self would probably not be comfortable with, but after law school broke my soul, I consider myself more open to fruity things. Isn't that kind of ironic? Law school made me feel less up tight? Maybe I just feel less up tight right now after 90 minutes of kalari.


I'm pretty sure I pulled both of my hamstrings in the first 2 minutes of class.

Here's why.

Learning to Drive Stick Shift in Downtown

I never knew how to drive stick shift.... until now.

Most of my friends don't know how to drive stick either, and the few that do were usually forced into it.

It's a valuable skill that would have saved Erin & I about $200 on our one week rental car in Sardinia. I'm pretty sure we rented the ONLY automatic on the entire island.

The nice Italian man at the rental agency offered to teach us, Erin being the elected driver given my history as BR Class of 2001 Worst Driver.....despite her being a far scarier driver to share the roads with!

(Highly paraphrased direct quote "will you just look for me and tell me when I can merge on this highway onramp while I speed up to 70 mph cuz if I look I'll turn the steering wheel with my head and bad things will happen...")


He brought us out to a big open roadway, in an industrial looking part of the harbor, there was no traffic and lots of space, like the Raynham-Taunton Dog Track parking lot, perfect for learning.

I think Erin was behind the wheel for a total of 5 minutes, while I tried unsuccessfully to muffle my laughter as we bucked violently to a halt time and again. There's no way we should be driving on winding, narrow mountain roads in a car we can't get into first on flat ground. And of course, when in Rome- and we were just a few hours out of Rome- you must drive like the Romans, which means drive like you're evading terrorist gunmen pissed that you captured one of their top men in their evil plans to overthrow the Bolivian government.....

So, we didn't learn that day. But now that I'm in Salt Lake City, and I'm forced to learn. Too daunted by the 500 foot elevation gain between downtown and my house to bike commute, there's no choice but to drive Rhys's manual Subaru.... that I've nicknamed Bobo, much to his chagrin.

I tried to prepare for the inevitable, and perhaps avoid or decrease the possibility of Bobo-induced fights, by taking driving lessons in our family friends' manual before moving out here. Unfortunately, Kim's car was awesomer than Bobo in that it didn't have that hideous "rolling backwards to your doom" feature that most manual's have. So, I never practiced an E-brake start before moving out to my hilly new home.

Fortunately, though, Salt Lake drivers are not Boston drivers and the roads are wide, often double or triple-laned and rarely turn into surprise one-ways that you're now driving the wrong way down. I am still constantly lost, though.  All the roads are numbers and directions. My street, for instance, is 600 South, which means it's 6 blocks south of the LDS Temple. The road itself runs east west, not north south. The giant north-south running mountain range looming beyond the city tells me so.  I have enough trouble keeping my lefts and rights straight to now have to worry about my norths, souths, easts and wests....

So, I'm always lost. And I was driving downtown one day trying to find the place I was supposed to meet someone for a networking lunch. She told me to park in a guarded lot near 151 East South Temple. So, I turned into a guarded lot, that turned out to be a Federal Government Building where the USDA and Senator Orrin Hatch has offices. Not the fancy pants upscale club I was meeting someone for lunch.

I had already turned into the lot. The guard came out to ask me for credentials, which I of course didn't have and therefore wasn't even permitted to turn around in his lot. I had to *gasp* BACK OUT of the downhill facing driveway into TRAFFIC with cars already lined up behind me trying to rightfully get into their federal employee-only lot. I told the guard I was new to driving stick, implying I may roll through  the wooden gate and accidentally smash into the building.

(This is how I envisioned myself accidentally smashing into the Federal Building despite the slow rolling approach I'd take as I failed to get the car in reverse in a timely fashion.)

So, after describing how a handbrake start works, he proceeded to stop traffic on State Street, wave the other cars waiting to enter the lot out of the way, and made for a clear path for me to buck and stall out of the lot. I actually did it smoothly, which both of us were very excited about.