First Day of Work ....

Today was my first day of work at KBK, a good first day. It took me a while to get settled, but everyone was nice and I look forward to working with the people there.

I have like 5 subjects I want to talk about. All about suing random companies under various theories, but I will refrain myself since I am not allowed to talk about ongoing cases. This will suck for me, but at least I get to have fun in the office. I will probably funnel my excitement about the cases with a couple of memos to the boss about what I think the relevant issues are.

In other news, I decided to give up facebook for a week. There are three main reason for this, first I waste too much time there. Second, I did not want to be tempted to log to the website while at work. The last reason is a bit more personal and I will give bonus points to any friends who can figure it out, but I highly doubt they will. I like secrets.

Miles Updates

Update to the American Express Delta Card post from last month. This morning I received my first bill from Amex noting my bonus 15,000 miles, checked my Delta account and sure enough the miles had posted there too. This means that I got all those miles posted to my account in one month (as opposed to 8-10 weeks they said). There was no sign of my bonus 2,500 miles from having a second card, but a fast call (and I mean fast) took care of that issue and those additional miles should also post soon.

My only complaint so far is that although I get double miles for purchases in groceries stores, gas stations, hardware stores, and cell phone service, these purchases are not in any way noted on the bill. I have to guess if certain stores count as grocery stores, etc. All I get is a number at the end of the statement telling me how many bonus double miles I got, very annoying. My only recourse in this situation is to call Amex and ask if a particular charge counted towards double miles.

I am still waiting for the Netflix offer points to post.

I took advantage of a delta offer and got 25 miles for every dollar I spent a certain online retailer. Very vague I know, but there is a reason for this.

Emiles and erewards accounts are still active and I am earning a small number of miles there. I would be getting more, but I tend to not be eligible for many of the surveys on there.

In any case, I'm really close to my first free ticket.

No Kinky Sex in Amsterdam ...

Couple of years ago I went to Madagascar (pictures here). Felicia and I were trying to decide between Europe and Africa, and one of the reason we chose the latter was because of the deforestation and other environmental problems in the region. We figured that it would be a long time before we could take such a long travel vacation again, and that by that time the Malagasy nature might be destroyed. On the other hand, Europe has been around for thousands of years and will probably be around forever without much change, or so I thought.

Newsweek reports that the Amsterdam city government has started a plan to close down the red light district. Most of the of the brothels will be shut down, and those pimps and prostitutes who remain may be forced to be licensed. Furthermore, the city has adopted a stricter policy for selling marijuana and banning hallucinogenic mushrooms later this year. All of this is being done in an attempt to reduce crime and violence in the city and turn the red light district into a booming commercial center. Many are protesting, but the majority of the city is supporting the plan. I may just need to travel there before the city changes too much.

It's a tie ....

Super Tuesday is over and the winner is ... who knows. On Tuesday Hillary won California with 52% of the vote compared to 42% for Obama (see post below). Because California, like most states, is not a winner take all system, each candidate will get a number of delegates based the percent of votes they get. The final delegate count is Obama 861 to Hillary's 855, with 2,025 needed to win the election. It seems that the nomination will not be resolved by the time the convention comes around. This reminds me of the that one West Wing episode where the democratic nominee was chosen in a free for all during the convention. I miss that show, but real life may prove to be just as exciting.

Go Democracy ....

It's late here on the west coast, but people still have time to go vote until 8pm. Until then, check out this Google gadget which dynamically updates elections results below. You can also take a look a Google Map mashup of Twitter comments about the election throughout the country. This is exciting. Go Obama.

Go Obama ...

My friend Bob sent a massive email to his friends detailing why he is choosing Obama over Clinton for the Democratic presidential primary tomorrow. Like me, he was supporting Edwards, but moved over to Obama when Edwards exited the race. His email does not address one of my biggest concerns which is lack of executive experience. Looking up (this is from Wikipedia so please beware of the accuracy) the previous experience of past presidents is not a decisive factor in their success as president. Given this with all other factors, I lean towards Obama. So yeah ... go vote for him. Bug Bob for the email, I won't post it without his permission.

I got a job!!

I am happy to report that I've just accepted an offer to work part time during the school year at Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP. This is a small local firm with many cases dealing with mass tort litigation against large technology companies such as Google and Yahoo.

This is really exciting for me because this will be my first "real" legal job. I will probably start in the next week or so. They have some exciting cases going on. Unfortunately, if I get to work on them I will not be able to post on them because of the sensitive nature of litigation. Bummer.

My short term goal is to save money for a trip to Nicaragua this summer. Long term, to gain real legal experience. All of the people were nice and I enjoyed the firm culture. I look forward to start working.