The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals will be hearing arguments at my law school tomorrow! I will finally get a chance to see the top dog lawyers scrap for a few bones. Plus, I'm in a mock trial invitational with a second year student and soon we will begin to argue a criminal case. It certainly is going to be exciting around here now that I am finally moving away from the theory of the law and into the practice, if only in pretending and observation. I wish I could have heard the Hoot-Hoots play Adam. Congratulations, Christina! Keep on keepin' on the rest of you, I wish everyone the best.

Greetings once again from the land of potatoes, which btw are slowly being phased out of Teton Valley as wealthy retirees buy up farmland and the cost of agriculture skyrockets. Damn anti-potato migrants.

Life in the Gem State is still mostly good, even if living alone sucks. I have my bouts of loneliness, which is wierd because I'm always around people. I'm starting to have lengthy conversations with my dog in bed every night and although he listens intently, I usually come away from the exchange feeling like I'm losing it.

Went with a friend from work last night to see one of her favorite bands (a Celtic punk band called The Kissers) playing at the local pub on the mountain and that was pretty awesome, mostly because I drank lots of whiskey and did some reflecting on the range of emotions I've been feeling lately. My theory is once you've allowed yourself time enough to feel like shit about something it becomes much easier to let go of emotional gloop. Okay, no more gloop.

Freakin girls, man. I'm just not into the whole let's go to the singles bar scene. I'd rather stay home and save the energy. Of course every girl and her mother around here are in relationships. All my coworkers are either married with kids or in one case engaged. I'm like the little brother who's single with seven sisters nagging him about it every day. So they tell me that it's time for me to up the ante and be aggressive even if the said target is seeing someone. Ya, well, if you steal a girl by being an aggressive guy, you'll be stuck with a girl who can be stolen by an aggressive guy. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

We've had unusually warm and sunny weather lately. All the lows are predicted to be in the double-digits this week! I've also been trying to get out and exercise regularly. It's amazing how much more will to live I seem to have after running for an hour. I'm getting better at Nordic skiing, and so the other day I tried a more technical ungroomed trail winding through Caribou-Targhee National Forest with a multitude of elevation changes. I totally ran into three pine trees and got hung up in the bushes a few times. Some skiers passed by on one occasion when I had just taken a spill, and I think they got a real kick out of coming to my aid. We also saw a mama moose and her baby moose-i and Scoop barked his head off at it. I thought Morton was about to charge and gorge us to death.

I cover County Commissioner meetings for the paper, and lately the commissioners have been allowing some extremely high density subdivisions and failing to properly notify the public hearings in the paper which they are required to by law. In a valley exploding with growth with most county subdivisions utilizing septic systems, that's a real problem. Basically the commission employs a "good ol' boy" attitude with developers and as a result they allow them to cut corners and get away with murder. So, I've been writing some controversial articles that hold them accountable and that's upset the reporter-public official apple cart a bit. It's not always fun, but I'm continually amazed at the kind of responsibility this paper is willing to place on my shoulders in that respect. Plus people will be reading these articles on microfish for years to come!

The basketball team I covered this fall/winter went 3-18. Needless to say it was difficult to find a new way to accentuate the positive after every demoralizing loss but somehow I managed. i got to know the kids really well, and they're all really good kids. What I like most about my job, I think, is the chance to build those relationships with everyday people, but sometimes it just feels that I'm writing about other people so much that I start living through them and forget that I have my own life to live.

To give you an idea of my workload, this week I wrote the following stories: a feature on the high school theatre department who's putting on a performance of Paint Your Wagon, previewed the upcoming baseball season (tryouts start this week even though there's still 3 feet of snow on the ground), an educational article on noxious weeds in the valley, a hard news piece on the first valley restaurant within 300 feet of a school to obtain a liquor license (gotta love archaic Mormon-inspired state code), another on the county's decision to finally organize a committee to form a regional sewer district, an editorial on the lack of affordable housing in the valley, and a sports story on Dancing With Bulls, a high school rodeo event held in Rexburg. Right now I'm finishing a story on a youth basketball league. Aaaaaahhh! Enough writing already!!

Anyways, thought it was time for an update. Take care, dungeons of love.