Maze Game

Check out the maze game at the bottom of my blog. The object is to navigate throught the maze without touching the walls. It's a lot harder than it looks! Post what level you made it to in my comments section. In case you are wondering, I made it to level 4, but it took a while. It's a lot harder to control with the touch pad on a laptop than it is with a mouse.

Let it snow...

This is kind of funny. I got a call this morning at about 7:45 a.m. informing me that due to the snow storm church was cancelled. The people here are so paranoid about snow that they sometimes cancel or postpone school (not mine) at the mere possibility of a snow storm. The picture above was taken about 30 minutes ago, and it has been snowing since yesterday at about 3:00 p.m. As you can see, it did snow quite a bit, but enough to cancel church? Hey -- I'm not complaining. Lindsay and I figure we got enough church this week because we went to the worldwide leadership training broadcast yesterday. It was like a short General Conference -- a few talks from GA's, a couple of stories from T.S. Monson, and a Relief Society talk I ignored.

I Just Won the Lottery -- Part 2

I must be the luckiest SOB alive. I opened my email today to find a notice that I had won $300,000 in a lottery I didn't even enter! After recovering from the shock of winning such a great sum of money, I continued to read my email and found that an Iraqi and a Nigerian want me to help them get their dead client's money to the US, and in return I will receive 30% for my assistance. So in one day I netted $15,300,000!!! I guess I'll have to decide if I want to finish law school, or just drop out and start living it up with my newfound wealth. Now I'm sure you are all thinking that I made this story up. I assure it is true. To prove it, I am posting a copy of the lottery notification below. Read it and weep!


HUGHES INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY,
162 WHARFEDALE ROAD
WINNERSH TRIANGLE
WOKINGHAM BERKS,RG41 5TP
UNITED KINGDOM.

Date:11/2/2006
Ref: 435062725
Batch: 7050470902/189
Winning no: GB8101/LPRC


CONGRATULATIONS!!

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are delighted to inform you of your prize which was released on the
11th
of FEBRUARY 2006, from the Hughes International Lottery programme,which
is
fully based on an electronic selection of winners using their e-mail
addresses from some sites.

Your email address was attached to ticket number; 47001725 07056490102
and
serial number 7741134002.

This batch draws the lucky numbers as follows 5-13-33-37-42 and bonus
number
17,which consequently won the lottery in the second category.

You hereby have been approved a lump sum pay of US$300,000.00 (THREE
HUNDRED
THOUSAND DOLLARS) in cash credit file ref: ILP/HW 47509/09 from the
total
cash prize shared amongst eight lucky winners in this category.

All participants were selected through a computer balloting system
drawn
form Nine hundred
thousand E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, United States, Asia,
Europe, Middle East, Africa and Oceania as part of our international
promotion program which is conducted annually.

This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomorate of some
multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the
citizens in the commmunities where they have an
operational base.

Furthermore, your details(e-mail address) falls within our European
representative office in Amsterdam, Holland as indicated in your play
coupon
and your prize of US$300,000.00 will be
released to you from this regional branch office in NIGERIA.

We hope that with part of your prize, you will participate in our end
of
year high stakes for
US$1.3 Billion international draw.

HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE: Simply contact our fiducial agent,REV FR
SELEVEN
DAVETH at to file for your claim.

Please quote your reference, batch and winning number which can be
found on
the top left corner of this notification as well as your full name,
address
and telephone number to help locate your file easily.

For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information
confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your
prize
released to you.

This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and
unwarranted taking advantage of this programme by non-participants or
unofficial personnel.

Note, all winnings MUST be claimed by the 18th of MARCH, 2006;
otherwise all
funds will be returned as Unclaimed and eventually donated to charity
organisations.

PLEASE CONTACT REV FR SELEVEN DAVETH, so that he will tell you of how
you
will receive your winning prize.

Name: REV FR SELEVEN DAVETH
Email: revselevendaveth@yahoo.com

Congratulations once again on your win!!!

Best Regards (co-ordinator)
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY THIS EMAIL. CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT AT ANY BREACH
OF
CONFIDENTIALITY ON THE PART OF THE WINNERS WILL RESULT TO
DISQUALIFICATION.

All Hail the Cheese Steak -- King of the Sandwiches

There are two things that I am going to really miss when I move from New Jersey. First is Antonino's Pizza. When we first moved here I ordered a pizza from a little shop about a mile away from our apartment and I was immediately hooked. Lindsay and I have made it a weekly tradition to order a large pepperoni pizza on either Friday or Saturday night. It is amazing. Thin, lots of greasy cheese, and a lot of pepperoni. The second thing I will miss are cheese steaks. I will probably miss these more than Antonino's Pizza. Good pizza can be found pretty much anywhere in the country, but good cheese steaks are a different story. As everyone knows, the best cheese steaks come from the lunch carts on the street. There is a guy that sets up a cart right next to campus, and he makes the best cheese steak I've ever had. It is about a foot long, filled with meat and topped with provolone cheese. The provolone melts into the steak and bun and is just amazing. My usual order is a cheese steak with mushrooms. Sometimes I add onions or peppers, and when I'm in the mood for something a little different, I'll order a pizza steak. It is basically a cheese steak with pizza sauce on it. The problem with the pizza steak is that it can be very messy, so I usually just stick to my usual. In the world of sandwiches, the cheese steak is king.

Jay's new trick

I was trying to show Jay's new teeth in the first picture. He now has a total of 12 teeth, most recently two molars on the top and two molars on the bottom. He is such a funny guy. The second picture shows his new trick. A couple days ago he started throwing things down the stairs. He picks things up off the floor, runs over to the stairs, throws them over the baby gate, and watches them fall down the stairs. He did it for about 20 minutes straight today, and the picture shows all the crap he threw down there. Jay also had his second fall down the stairs today. I went to a friend's house to watch the Super Bowl and took Jay with me. He had been upstairs with the other kids listening to a book being read. I was sitting at the foot of the stairs and I heard the mom who had been reading the book yell that he was going toward the stairs and I looked up just in time to see him take a step and fall down the stairs. He tumbled about three times along the way, and ended up with a little bump where he hit his head on the corner of the wall, but other than that he was just a little shaken up. Nothing a brownie and a little 7-up couldn't cure.

Our Hollow Earth

This stuff is too good to keep to myself. If anyone wants a good laugh, check out "The Hollow Earth - Fact of Fiction" and "World Top Secret: Our Earth is Hollow!" I don't know about any of you, but I'm convinced.

After a mild rebuke from Mav I decided it was time for a post. The funny thing is that I haven't been that busy at all. Quite the opposite. Because I took two classes over the summer, I am able to take a lighter schedule this semester than I normally would have. I just haven't really had much to write about lately, so I'll try to fill the space with something that is not too boring. Maybe I'll talk about my preparations to move. I reserved a rental truck and am planning on driving to LV on May 8th. Dad put in for vacation time, so it looks like he and I will be the road warriors again. It's kind of funny because it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we were making the drive from SLC to NJ. Maybe it is just that the 18 hour days are still so fresh in my mind that I can't believe I will have to do it again. It was actually a pretty cool experience in a lot of ways, and it would be fun to take about 2 weeks and stop at all the cool places along the way. I am looking at apartments right now, and have about 5 or 6 that look like they will be ok. Lindsay and I are also planning a mini vacation to D.C. during my spring break. Neither of us has seen any of the sights in D.C. and we don't want to miss the opportunity while we are so close, so we are going to spend a couple days there. Kind of funny, they have been talking about "Punxsutawney Phil" a lot lately and apparently the ceremony depicted in Groundhog Day is a pretty accurate representation of the actual event. They wear black top hats and have the little rat whisper in the mayor's ear whether or not he saw his shadow. To the left are actual pictures of the madness.

The Gunner

"A gunner, especially in medical schools and law schools, is a person who is competitive, overly-ambitious and substantially exceeds minimum requirements. A gunner will compromise his or her peer relationships in order to obtain recognition and praise from his or her instuctors and superiors. " (Quoted from Wikipedia.com).

The gunner is the guy who always has his hand raised, regardless of whether he has something intelligent to say about the subject. In the gunner's mind, the fact that his hand is up is evidence that his comment is valid. Most of the time his comments are off base, watered down, or just plain pointless. The gunner believes that quantity is more important than quality. He believes (incorrectly) that his endless comments will be rewarded with a grade bump and the admiration of his professors.

In most classes there is one or two gunners. However, my Employment Law class has created a whole class full of gunners. 1/3 of our grade is based on class participation and we are required to participate every class. Participation can either be orally in class, or we can post a 50+ word comment on the course web board. Because it is much easier to get the participation points by participating in class, at any given time about half of the class of 120 students has their hand up. Because we are only graded on participation and not the quality of our participation, most of the comments in class and on the web board are off base, watered down, or just plain pointless. Yes, I swore I would never be a gunner, but today my hand was ready to shoot up like I was a gunslinger in the wild west. I saw an opening when the topic shifted and my arm shot up. I heard my name called and I gave my obligatory 1 sentence answer: "the employee's purpose must have been for collective bargaining or other mutual aid." Pretty insightful stuff. At that point my turn was over, my points were recorded by the professor, and my temporary transformation as a gunner was thankfully finished -- until Thursday's class anyway.

Jury Duty

Right now I'm sitting on a bench outside the law school enjoying some beautiful weather. According to weather.com it is currently 63 degrees here. I can't believe how mild this winter has been. Especially considering last year at this time there was about 2 feet of snow on the ground and it was about 5 degrees (-10 with the wind chill). So I got a notice about 10 days ago that I was called for grand jury service beginning March 8th. The grand jury requirement was once/week for 17 weeks so I wrote back and told them that due to the fact that I will be moving in May, I will be physically unable to perform jury service. A week later I got another notice, this time they had changed me from grand jury to petit jury, which is only a 1 trial commitment. The problem is, they changed the date to June 13th! I guess they missed the whole thing about me moving in May. I called the jury management office today and explained to them that I will not be living in New Jersey at the time, and they told me to just fax a copy of my employment offer and they would release me from service. It's kind of too bad, I think it would be pretty interesting to serve on a jury. It's also kind of funny because I was called for jury duty in Provo and the date was for September 2004, which was about a month after I moved out here.

D.C.

Lindsay and I went to the Washington D.C. temple on Saturday. It is only about a 2 1/2 hour drive from where we live, so it's not too bad. We also watched the new Joseph Smith movie at the visitor center. While we were waiting, we were walking around looking at the displays, and when we got to the display about eternal marriage, the picture (or should I say poster) was my friend from my mission when he got married. The funny thing is Lindsay said "lets see if we know anyone in the picture" and I said "I know that guy" and she thought I was just kidding and I had to convince her I was serious.

Viva Las Vegas

Today on MSN.com I saw this thing where you can put in an address and see a satelite image from like 60 yards in the sky. I thought it would be cool to see if I could find the office building where I will be working this summer. Click here to check it out. My firm is in the Bank of America building.

Haircut

I gave Jay a haircut last night. It was only his second haircut -- his first was over Christmas break. I thought these pictures were pretty cute. The picture of him crying is a little deceptive because he wasn't crying from the haircut, but because we took away the Sonicare toothbrush. He loves that toothbursh more than any of his toys. Too bad they are so expensive, or I'd just buy him one to play with. After I finished his haircut he stood up in the sink and grabbed his own toothbrush and his toothpaste and opened the cap and wiped the toothbrush over the top of the dispenser and proceeded to brush his teeth. It was pretty cute. By the way, Jay now has 4 molars for a total of 12 teeth. He's starting to look like a shark. Unfortunately I don't have a post-haircut picture, but I buzzed his hair and he looks pretty tough. In other news, I got my final grade yesterday -- an A- in Sports and the Law. So my grades for the semester look like this: Commercial Law: A, Military Law: A-, Sports and the Law: A-, and Evidence: B+, for a GPA of 3.639.

Crash

Well, it was bound to happen sometime. Last night while Lindsay was at the grocery store Jay fell down the stairs. Actually, we both fell down the stairs. To provide some background, we have a baby gate in front of the stairs, and rather than unlatch it every time I come or go, I just step over it. Well about 2 weeks ago I didn't step quite high enough and I knocked it over and stepped on the wood frame. The frame broke, and I glued it back together, but a few days ago it got knocked off again and the glue didn't hold. We thought it was ok because Jay doesn't really push on the gate, and it still worked well enough that we were able to set it up. So back to the story, Jay was running around playing and he went over to where the baby gate was. I was on the couch watching tv when I heard a mixture of screams and crashes. I jumped up and saw the gate was skeewampus so I started running down the stairs. Luckily Jay had stopped his fall about half way down the stairs, but I was running down so fast that when I realized he had stopped, I lost my footing and slid down the rest of the way. I'm happy to report that we were both fine, just a little scared. I picked up Jay and he was screaming, but when I took him outside he cheered up pretty quick.

The Luck Continues

I got a little bit of good news today. I just received an email from the law school registrar that stated:

"Mr. Butterfield,

Prof. Ferzan asked me to double check the writing grade for you in her Evidence class and I did, and I make a mistake. She wrote a 3.7 and I read it as a 3.2, which is what I gave back to her anonymously. Please accept my sincere apology for this mistake. Your final grade in Evidence is a B+, I have made the change in our system and you should be able to see it right now.Again, I am very sorry. If you have any questions, please let me know."

It doesn't really make that big of a difference overall, but I thought it was pretty cool. Hopefully my luck will continue.

Grade Update

I got my Evidence grade today and I got a B, so it looks like my good luck ended with my unexpected A in Commercial Law. In Evidence I expected my grade to fall somewhere in the B range, so I can't be too disappointed. I'm still waiting on one final grade (Sports and the Law, probably an A or A-) so I don't know my GPA for the semester yet. Hopefully I'll get that last grade soon. In other news, I made a pretty good roast yesterday. I browned a roast and braised it for about 3 hours in 1 1/2 cups of water, italian seasonings (dried basil, oregano, chili flakes, garlic, etc.) carrots and onions. I did my best impression of the old man and made gravy from the drippings. It turned out really well. The meat was so tender it practically fell apart. Lindsay made garlic mashed potatoes to go with the meal and they were delicious.

R-E-L-I-E-F

I'm supposed to be doing an assignment for my Employment Law class right now, but the school's website is down and I have to submit it online so I decided to post an entry. I had something really cool and unexpected happen yesterday. I have been waiting for my grades now for about a month and on Thursday I finally got my first grade -- an A- in Military Law. That's about what I expected so I was pretty happy with that. Anyway, I have been dreading getting my grade back for my Commercial Law class because I didn't think I did very well on the final. The more I thought about it the more I was convinced that I would be stuck with a C- at the worst and a B at the best. Realistically I was thinking I would get a B- or a C+. Well yesterday I got an email notification that my Commercial Law grade was available, so I opened the grades page and saw that I had gotten an A in the class. What a freaking relief! There was one section of the final that I thought I might have completely missed, but I guess I must have done OK. I'm still waiting on two grades -- Sports and the Law and Evidence. I think I got an A or A- in Sports and the Law. Evidence could be anywhere from a B to an A, so we'll see.

The Answer to the Missing Dollar

The answer is in the way the question is worded. You cannot add what one person HAS to what someone else has PAID and come up with any kind of a meaningful number, you have to subtract.
Each man has paid $9. The bellhop has $2. Difference
$9 x 3 = $27 2 $25
The hotel clerk has the other 25 dollars.
To look at it from the standpoint of the original $30.
Each man has $1. The bellhop has $2. The hotel clerk has $25. Total
$1 x 3 = $3 2 25 $30

The Missing Dollar

OK smart guys, this is one of my favorite riddles. When I was a supervisor at MyFamdamily.com I held a smart guy contest for my team and I gave them this riddle. The most memorable (albeit incorrect) response was "Why are 3 men getting a motel room anyway?" I will post the answer tomorrow.

Three men went to a motel. The motel manager said a room cost $30, so each man put up $10 and went to their room. A little while later the manager realized the room was only $25, so he sent the bellhop back to the three guys' room with $5. On the way to the room the bellhop couldn't figure out how to split the $5 between the 3 men, so he gave each one of them $1 and he kept the other $2.

This meant that the 3 men paid $9 each for the room for a total of $27. Add the $2 that the bellhop kept = $29. Where did the other dollar go???

The Many Faces of Jay

 
 
 
 

Lord of the dance

I'm a little bit worried about Jay and his current career path. First, he seems to be training for riverdance. Lindsay and I have been watching the DVD's of Alias lately, and when the music to the credits is playing, he jumps up from whatever he is doing and begins dancing like Raquel Welch. He stomps his legs furiously and spins around and the whole time his arms are straight down at his sides. For those of you (Mom) who missed the Raquel Welch reference from Seinfeld, I have included a helpful exchange from the episode below. Jay also seems to be training for the strong man competition or to be a stunt man. He loves trying to push things around -- the heavier the better. His favorite objects to push include his high chair and the shopping cart. He is slowly working his way up to pushing things like vaccuum's and lawnmowers and then maybe our car, etc. Since our return from Utah he has shifted his training focus from pushing to climbing. A couple of days ago I heard him in the kitchen banging what I though were pots and pans (a favorite pasttime of his)so I didn't think much of it. When I walked into the kitchen, I found him on top of the kitchen table banging the cooling rack (Lindsay had just baked cookies) on the table. If his future career options are limited to riverdancer, strongman competitor or stunt man, I think stunt man would be the coolest.

Malcolm: Are you familiar with our star, Raquel Welch?

Kramer: Oh yeah, she's fantastic....

Mr. Graham: She's a train wreck.

Malcolm: There's a big tap dance number just before Jean Harris leaves the school to confront Dr Tarnover.

Mr. Graham: It is a gut wrenching scene.

Malcolm: But, Raquel Welch doesn't move her arms when she tap dances. It's very distracting.

Mr. Graham: There's lot of this [swings his arms] in tap dancing.

Kramer: So, you'd like me to teach how to dance?

Malcolm: No, we want you to fire her.