The Adventures of Chris

I was about to go to sleep at around 12:15 last night when I turned on the TV and saw Roger Federer playing. I ended up watching his entire five set match. Damn it was exciting. I finally felt like I got something out of having cable.

I think it’s awesome that he’s so good, that even when he’s pushed to a four or five set match, people start saying things like his opponent may have figured out a “formula” to beat him. First of all, you know you’re awesome when people are constantly trying to find a “formula” to beat you. Second, the “formula” thing is stupid. I actually know the formula:

1) Get most of your (really hard) first serves in, and if you don’t get the first serve in, use your really heavy second serve that you get in all the time.
2) Serve well and never get broken.
3) Hit every groundstroke really hard and never make an error.
4) Try to hit the lines. Even Roger Federer can’t get those.
5) Run 20 miles a day so you never, ever get tired.
6) If possible, play Roger Federer after he’s just recovered from an illness or injury.

I wonder if I can sell this to anyone. I’m sure Andy Roddick would pay me at least two bucks for this before the U.S. Open starts.

That title is more exciting than my life is right now. I’ve never left work earlier than 6:30pm. But, here are some “highlights”

- I bought a box of spring greens at Costco. It’s the greatest deal in the world of salad. The box is good for at least 10 salads and it’s only $3.69. I ate 3-4 servings and felt like I didn’t even make a dent in it. Highly recommended, plus you get to go to the huge “refridgerator room” that I raved about in an earlier entry.

- Since I’m on a really tight budget, I’m eating the exact same lunch every single day. It’s like I’m getting a head start on being every Asian dad.

- Netflix has a free 2 week trial when you first sign up. The trial applies to all levels of membership, so right now I’m on the 4 disc at a time one (who would sign for less than that? It’s free and cancellable.)

- I finally am going to get to see the Bourne Ultimatum.

- When I got this apartment, I wanted a 24 hour gym. Guess how many times I’ve used it so far?

- My mom got me a swiffer vac.

- Chick Fil-A is really good.

- I bought a tv stand, but I dont’ have a hammer to punch some pegs into some holes. I tried to use hard surfaces instead, but now I’ve driven in one peg crookedly. Now I need a hammer AND a pair of pliers.

- I still don’t have internet service in my apartment. I hate cox cable internet. I hate att dsl. I hate all internet providers. I’m really close to sending letters to all of my neighbors and offering to pay half of their dsl bill in exchange for them giving me their router password.

- I really miss having some tv shows to look forward to now that I get out of work and have very little entertainment in my barren apartment.

- The other day I asked one of our secretaries to do a filing for me. He was in the middle of something and was a little annoyed, but he said “how about I show you how to do it so you can do it next time?” I said “how about you do it and I watch so I can learn how to do it in case that becomes necessary?” So he showed me the steps of, and then about 3/4 the way through, realizes that I’m the new attorney (he was on vacation during my first week). Then he turned to me and apologized and said that I looked so young that he assumed I was a clerk. I said no problem, and that I like to know how to do things so that, in a pinch, I can do things myself. Then he finished the filing and brought me the attorney approval form to sign off on . The experience was kind of funny to me for a number of reasons. First, I’m really not used to asking people to do stuff for me. I’ve been doing that stuff for so long, I don’t know how to go about asking someone else to do it. Second, I’m still balancing out how to be nice, but pull rank on people. You can’t be buddy buddy with people who have to take your orders. Third, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m actually really happy when people think I look young. Fourth, in a way, it was a perfect way for that secretary to get to know me. Now we’re cool.

- I thought I’d be totally confused at this new job, but I’m not confused like I thought I would be. I actually generally know how do to a lot of the things that I’m asked. I don’t know the details, but I do know the ideas behind them. I thought starting this job would be like starting to be a fisherman or something where I’d be totally out of it. It’s more like I’m doing a job I had heard about for a long time, but never really knew how to do. It’s probably like if I started playing center field for the Dodgers. I’d know what I was supposed to do, but I’d probably drop the first 20 fly balls, miss the cut off man on the first 20 throws, and fall down every once in a while.

I ordered ATT DSL last Monday. They told me it would take a week to set up. They told me it would be set up by 8pm today.

Expectedly, the line didn’t work. At 8:30pm, I called tech support, who offered no help, telling me my order was still “pending” and that the department who activates the line closes at 5. Then he told me to “maybe wait until tomorrow at 8pm” to see if it works (even though the department who activates lines closes at 5, meaning I’d get no help again).

Seriously, if I ever, somehow get into a position of power, I want to take down ATT broadband services (except for the one friend I have who works for them. I’ll promote her somewhere else).

One thing that I miss from living up north is reading In Style magazine (Susan subscribes to it). I never thought I’d say that, but reading that magazine is seriously interesting in a way that reading other magazines isn’t. You see the designers and the styles they choose, and you actually can notice their themes and what works. Then you see photos of people wearing the current trends and noticing what looks better than others. I actually believe that fashion is in the class of things that guys probably could care about if they wanted to. Fashion’s not as mainstream as cooking, but I honestly believe that people have a built in aesthetic preference that they just put on the back burner because it’s not a priority.

I have two favorite parts of the magazine. The first is The Man of Style (MOS) section. The MOS section is cool because it’s the only man-oriented part of the magazine, and it just focuses on some celebrity guy and his hobbies and “fashion taste.” There are a lot of cliches though. If you want to make it into that section, you need to think Cary Grant, Paul Newman, or Steve McQueen were the coolest fashion icons, that photography is the greatest hobby, and that “you like wearing what’s comfortable and what fits your personality.” It also helps if you play the cliche where you were the nerd in high school and couldn’t get girls. I’m sick of that cliche. I want some real witnesses to tell me, under oath, that James Marsden (this month’s MOS) never got chicks in high school.

The MOS artlce on Kyle Chandler (last month’s MOS) sort of summed up why I like the section. He said something like “guys are simple - all they care about are shoes, sunglasses, watches, and jackets” or something to that effect. I honestly read that and thought “I DO like shoes, sunglasses, watches and jackets!”

The second favorite section is the “what’s in my purse” section. It’s probably the most confusing section in the entire magazine. Moisturizers and eyeliners and powders….it’s mind blowing. You see all of these words that are in English, and you have no idea what they mean, how they can all be used together, and how they can all fit in a bag. All I know is that La Mer moisturizer is in every actress’s bag, and the price of it is like five hundred bucks for 3 drops but it’s “so worth it.”

Possibly the greatest thing about the magazine is that, deep down, you know nothing about it really matters on a primary level of existence. You can’t read Newsweek and the Economist all the time. Sometimes you just need to sit on the can (my favorite place to read In Style) and see that Beyonce likes guys who wear Creed cologne and that Christian Louboutin doesn’t make shoes - he makes “art for feet.”

So there you have it. In Style is a hidden gem of a magazine.

Towards the end of last week, I started realizing that I was getting mentally worn down, not just because the work was stressful and I was worried about billing, but also because of other things that I didn’t anticipate, like the fact that my apartment had nothing in it. I love the short commute, but I realized that not having a “home”-type place to come back to after work was affecting me. It was like I was some consultant working on site and my apartment was a hotel room. I couldn’t separate work and home, and being unfamiliar with Irvine didn’t help matters. I’m pretty short on cash right now, but I’ve got to improve the situation. Here are my ideas on improvements:

Mandatory Improvements

High Speed Internet - High speed Internet is probably one of the most important things in the entire world for me. In terms of household necessities, it’s right behind toilet and refrigerator and tied with microwave. Before moving into my apartment, I ordered cable modem service (a bad dsl experience up north scarred me), but it turned out that cable modem service just didn’t work at my apartment for some reason. I put an order in for ATT dsl (here we go again), but the service doesn’t until next Monday. To say I can’t wait would be an understatement.

Seating - I probably need some sort of chair in my apartment. I only have one thing to sit on, which is the desk chair that I brought over. The only other thing to sit on is my bed. Years ago, I won an ugly loveseat on a game show (seriously), and it’s sitting at home in a storage room. I think I’m going to bring it in the next few weeks.

TV Stand - I need to get a TV stand for my TV. Watching TV while looking down at the floor isn’t fun. I actually am paying for cable because I thought that being alone would make me want to watch TV more, but having the TV on the floor makes me want to watch it less. So now I have to either cancel cable or get a TV stand (and maybe a Netflix membership instead of cable).

Optional Improvements

Wall Decorations - Susan thinks I need some stuff on the walls. Right now there’s nothing. I’m actually not sure about this suggestion, mainly because I don’t have anything on the walls at home, and I’ve never really considered it a necessity. Then again, I do agree that it could help, because I think having things to look at on the walls is one of those things you associate with being at home (just not my home).

Desk Replacement - Replace the folding table with a real desk. I used a long folding table as my desk in my college apartment. Then my brother used the same one for his college apartment. I’m using the same one now in my Irvine apartment. I know it’s really useful and practical, but it’s pretty ugly. But it’s really practical, so it’s staying.

Kitchen Items - Getting a few kitchen items, like a pan and a dish rack. Probably not going to happen for a while (but better odds of this happening than replacing my folding table). I don’t have a lot of time to cook, and because I live in a studio, I’m afraid that I’ll make the whole place smell like food. I don’t mind if it’s a good smell, but let’s just say not everything I make puts out a good smell.

I just wrapped up my eighth day working at my new job in Irvine. It’s been an interesting 8 days. I moved into my apartment the night before my job started, carting over as little as possible (bed, folding table, desk chair, clothes, my tv from college, some laptops, and some paper plates). My first day was decent – I scored a free lunch (which is, in my opinion, a mandatory sign of a decent workplace), my own office, a support staff (like secretaries, paralegals, and law clerks), and the first chance to really call myself a lawyer. I got my first project at 9:15am on my first day, so it wasn’t a joke, but the first few days were pretty decent. The fact that I started on a Wednesday and on a week when the boss was on vacation helped too. Then I spent the weekend up north.

Then this week, the boss came back from vacation. The firm I work at is sole proprietorship, meaning one guy owns it. He charges buttloads of money for the attorneys that work for him, and he pays us a really small cut. That part doesn’t bother me, but the part about him being a mix of Michael Scott and Meryl Streep’s character from the Devil Wears Prada, does. One thing I’ve realized is that lawyers don’t necessarily have social or management skills, and the more successful they are, it’s almost like they’re less likely to have those skills. The practice of law doesn’t require them – when you hire a lawyer, do you want a nice guy who tells jokes, or one who gets what he wants?

So this guy is like Michael Scott in the sense that’s really socially awkward, and he likes to get attention and be the leader. He’s like Meryl Streep’s character because he is sometimes impossibly demanding, idiosyncratic, egotistical, demeaning, and pretty mean. So far I’ve gotten lucky – I’ve heard that he’s been in a good mood during the last few months. I’ve worked on a few things for him, but so far no blowups. I’ve worked for some bosses in the past that helped prepare me somewhat for something like this, but I don’t think you ever fully get prepared to fear walking down the hall or always carrying around a Dictaphone in your pocket in case you get ambushed (we carry them around in case the boss starts talking to us really fast). My immediate concern is whether or not he’s a truly bad person, or just a decent person who has no social or management skills. I’m still not sure yet, but I think it’s the latter. One thing that’s encouraging is that almost everyone there BUT him seems to be really decent. The good thing about a weird boss is that it has the potential to bring everyone else together, because it instantly gives everyone something in common. It reminds me of that episode in The Office where the new workers from Stamford get introduced to the Scranton branch, and Michael’s incredibly odd behavior actually helps the workers from the two branches to start to interact.

So, with the boss back, this week was a little tougher. I’m not really sure I’m cut out to be a lawyer for the rest of my life. There are parts of the job that I enjoy, like the logical arguments and the adversarial situations. But there are parts I don’t like, like the inherent inefficiency of the legal system and the constant focus on billable hours. I’m sure it gets a bit easier as you get more experience and make more money doing it, but I don’t think the negatives ever change – you just get used to them. But hey, at least I’m getting some experience.