Update on Rory's Pro Bono Project, and Little Else

Well hello there!

Danielle mentioned a few posts back that I would be starting a volunteer project with a prisoner re-entry program here in Philadelphia. Wednesday was my first day on the job, so now I have a few more details to provide.

The program is called the STAR Program (Supervision to Aid Re-entry), and is run in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania federal court. The program has two separate groups of around 20-25 voluntary participants, who are incentivized to successfully complete 52 weeks of the program by subsequently having their post-prison supervision reduced by one year. The program meets every other week, when prosecuting and defense attorneys, the re-entry judge, probation, and other professionals provide updates on the participants' progress in re-entry: employment, healthcare, family issues, legal problems, etc. There is then a hearing in which each individual appears before the judge and discusses their recent successes and failures. The program strives to meet their needs by providing services, such as connecting them with employment opportunities, tokens for public transportation, legal services, etc. If participants fail to comply with the conditions of the court or their supervised release, they can also be sanctioned in various ways. My role as a student intern is to conduct intake interviews with participants if they indicate a need for assistance, and then either research the issue and brief the program staff or refer the individual to the proper resources. It should be an excellent opportunity for me to help a program that is seeking a novel solution to criminal justice as well as develop research and interviewing skills.

Sadly, there is almost nothing else new going on in our lives. The academic semester has been grinding on, and as of today we are done with the first three weeks! We have had little time for fun or sleep, and in fact we have not even had a chance to change the lightbulbs that are burning out one-by-one in our apartment. Hopefully the weekend will provide an opportunity for catching up. Enjoy your weekends, and we will update the blog ASAP when something newsworthy or exciting happens on our end.

All our best,
Rory

Date to Reading Terminal Market and the Sunday Blues

Well we had quite the weekend the last couple days! Not because it has been unusual, but more because we did not have to be at school!!! What an amazing feeling. Granted, our apartment is infected with some Sunday Blues today, brought on by the impending Monday and our having to sit around all day doing homework. Danielle has definitely been much better about the homework, but we are both sitting around at least thinking about school. But even the Sunday Blues have been intermingled with some cleaning, some Big Bang Theory, some impromptu singing, and making a giant batch of garlic mashed red potatoes. We bought two bags of the potatoes last week because they were on sale, and until today had used maybe a couple potatoes. I am embarrassingly grossed out by looking at potatoes even before they begin to sprout tentacles, so by today they were at such a level of sproutiness that I finally said enough is enough. Now, of course, we could serve a couple Thanksgivings with all these mashed potatoes, but at least dinners should be quicker to make this week (and next week...)! Plus Danielle does a splendid job spicing up the potatoes!

Yesterday Danielle and I went to Center City for a long-anticipated date to the Reading Terminal Market! We decided to utilize the openness and diversity of the market to piece together a patch-work meal, which ended up consisting of a chocolate croissant, a white chocolate chip/macadamia nut cookie, pistachio ice cream, AMAZING potato salad, a slice of tomato, spinach, and mozzarella pizza, and an Italian cold cut sandwich with balsamic dressing. So other than the potato salad the meal was fairly homogeneous, but even so we had a great outing, exploring the market for our second time. Also, I won't lie: we did get to try a sample or two from other stores and we bought some candy to take home with us! So we got more than our fill, and then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Center City, including checking out the Shops at Liberty.

In other, very exciting news: Philadelphia received its first real winter snow overnight on Friday and into Saturday! While it was beautiful, it made walking around yesterday quite messy and pretty cold, too. By the time we were finished in Center City, we barely made it home in time before succumbing to frost bite on our little toesies! After changing shoes and going to church, it was the perfect night to change into pajamas and watch a couple movies: Bucky Larson (warning: it's raunchy) and Paul, a movie about an alien who befriends some British guys. We had a good laugh at both of them.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, it is time to hit the books and jump into reality tomorrow morning:( On the upside, as of tomorrow it will only be five more days until the weekend! Have a good week everyone!

-Rory and Danielle

P.S. Did you notice that each paragraph in this post gets progressively shorter? Is it a clever, artful design intended by the author, or an indication of his decreasing energy? Or something else altogether (insert Airplane! joke here)?

P.P.S. Here is a picture of the big cockroach we killed in the bathroom a few nights ago. I was not going to put the picture up, because I decided that the roach does not look as scary in the picture as it did in real life. Danielle disagreed, though, so now you can see my dove battling the cockroach, symbolic of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

Editor's Note

The most recent post did not post the way it was formatted in the composition screen, so I apologize that the pictures are so weirdly spaced.

Follow-ups and Updates

Well I have a few follow-ups on Danielle's last post regarding our awards. Firstly, she forgot to include a few pictures to help you contextualize. I emailed her the pictures, but maybe she thought they were too grainy. I, on the other hand, have no standards, so here they are:

Our Antenna Rig for watching Glee

The first picture (to the right) is our precarious television antenna, and from the picture you can see it was all because of Glee! The yellow and black thing coming out of the glass on the left is what Danielle referred to as a block puzzle snake thing. I have no better term for it.

Tri-state Liquors

Next, on the left is a picture of the Tri-state Liquors superstore that we visited in Delaware. The picture is nothing special, but it captures a moment that was very special to us. I would also like to take this opportunity to express my prediction, contrary to Danielle's, that our stockpile from that trip will NOT last us the entire semester. Either way, what an amazing experience. I felt like a pioneer, traveling westward from the colonies in order to find the land of opportunity and liquor.

Speaking of the land of opportunities, during that trip Danielle and I also found another treasure: regularly-priced Velveeta! This delicious "cheese product" is useful for many household purposes, but due to its dangerous and mysterious properties we can only bring ourselves to use it exclusively as an ingredient, along with Hormel chili (with or without beans, the debate rages on), to make chili-cheese dip! Chili-cheese dip has been one of my favoritest treats in the whole wide world for several years. Thankfully, last fall we only bought one block of Velveeta because it costs around $11 in the grocery stores near our apartment! This prohibitive pricing saved my arteries, but no longer: we literally cleared out the Acme grocery store shelf (three blocks) when we found it for the recommended retail value of $5.99. Didn't think I could write a paragraph about something so trivial? Hopefully this proves to you how important chili-cheese dip is to me.

I have two last items that were not nominated for awards last week, but which deserve honorable mention. First, thanks to Mom and Dad for getting me The Matrix on Blu-ray for Christmas! Danielle and I watched it last weekend (me for the 100th time, her for the 1st) and we both loved it. We even ordered the second and third movies in the series on Amazon, because we have no lives. Seriously: since being back in Philadelphia after the holidays we have almost completed the first three seasons of The Big Bang Theory, watched several movies, and spent a significant number of hours playing video games. We also spend the majority of our weekdays at school, so I cannot account for these extra hours. I guess time just stops when you are as in love as us! Of course, you are probably not supposed to spend that frozen time staring at a TV screen, but we will not be confined to archaic notions of what love is supposed to be:) Just kidding, we are normal and awesome. I have to say that because when Danielle reads this she is going to be mad at me, but we will just play Mario Kart and all will be well again!

Secondly/lastly, the giant mama cockroach from the award show post is dead. Two nights ago, Danielle was getting ready for bed and began to scream. I came into the bathroom, and she explained that she had HEARD the cockroach climbing up the shower curtain. I looked and it was not there, but then after a moment it emerged from its hiding place in the bathtub and I triumphantly and bravely smashed the crap out of it with my sandal. Danielle couldn't even look at it, but I snapped some photos that we will post later (I am writing this post in the library at school, and the camera is at home). Seriously though, that sucker was three times bigger than any cockroach we have yet had in our apartment. I pray that we do not have a new breed settling in.

So look for those pictures soon, and have a great weekend everyone!

-Rory

And the Winner is...

We are in the season of award shows and this past Sunday was the Golden Globes. Rory and I don't really care about award shows or celebrity gossip. Outside of reading a short article in the newspaper about who won the major categories to stay relevant, we have no knowledge of how the night went, or even what the movies and who the actors were. Despite all of that - I think the award show concept provides a good platform for this blog post (we are, after all, trying to stay current :). So, here are the categories and big winners from the past week or so:

1. Most Bad-Ass Move by a Minnesota Girl who Moved to Philadelphia goes to... Danielle!
The story: This weekend, maybe on Sunday night, I was feeling upset about something (it's not important that I don't remember what about). After voicing my feelings to Rory, I stormed to the kitchen to get some water. As I reached into the cupboard to grab a glass, I noticed a cockroach (a young, small one but I don't want to belittle my moment too much) running towards the edge of the counter top. Without even thinking for a second, I ball my hand into a fist and slam it down on top of that little cockroach - my first bare handed cockroach killing! I'd say that is a pretty bad-ass move for me.

2. Best Frozen in Shock Moment goes to...Rory and Danielle!
The story: It has been much established in this blog that Rory and I have a bit of a problem with cockroaches. This is not atypical for Philadelphia and it has never really bothered us because the cockroaches are on the smallish size and only bother us every couple of weeks. An un-established fact is that our bathroom light is in the middle of the room instead of next to the door so you must walk into the room in the dark before turning on the light. Last night I go to the bathroom to get ready for bed. I walk into the dark bathroom and turn on the light. Then, I decided to pick up something that had fallen on the floor in the hallway so I back out of the room a bit and look down. Something near the edge of the bath tub catches my eye- A BIG MAMA ROACH! It was seriously big. I stand frozen in shock then yell out, "Rory, come here quickly and see this!" He comes to the bathroom and looks at what I am pointing at- the biggest roach we've seen inside here- and stands in the doorway, frozen with me. Not surprisingly (because cockroaches do not like to stay around too long after they have been spotted) the roach scurried off to the space between the vanity and the tub never to be caught, killed, or seen again. For the rest of the night and this morning we have been very hesitant about going into the bathroom. Not our proudest cockroach moment for sure.

3. Best Ingenious T.V. Antennae Set-up that Turns Into an Epic Fail goes to...well, by this time you've caught on and realize that we won all of the categories so I'll just go into the story. As followers of our blog are probably aware (and if you aren't check out the pictures from a much earlier post) we have about the worst T.V. Antennae situation one could possibly have. We have the waaaaaay old school extendable rabbit ears that are supposed to fit into a notch on the top of the t.v. Unfortunately, well actually not unfortunately at all, we have a T.V. from this century and it does not have the aforementioned notch. Additionally, to really pick up all the channels (and even so we still have to constantly fiddle with them to get anything) I had to fashion what look like real rabbit ears out of tin foil to attach to the top. This contraption then rested in a glass stuffed with a plastic shopping bag to prop up the antennae. On Tuesdays I watch Glee and then we both watch New Girl. Fox is one of the trickiest channels to pick up. The only way to get the channel to come in was to hold the rabbit ears up high and at a weird angle. So that we wouldn't have to stand there the entire night, we moved the glass up to the top of a book case next to the t.v. stand, taped the antennae into the glass at just the right angle, and then put one of those puzzle cubes/snakes things in it to act as a counter-weight. A little ways into the show there was a slight shift of the puzzle cube and we held our breath- but nothing disastrous happened - yet.  Half way through the show it all came crashing down, quite literally, and the glass smashed to pieces. After a quick clean up, I found myself in the exact situation we were trying to avoid from the beginning - I was standing there the rest of the show holding the antennae in the right position. Ironically, when New Girl came on, Rory said enough was enough and took the antennae, resting it against the wall with the T.V. propping it up in the front, and to our amazement the channel came in perfectly! Who knew we could have avoided it all by thinking outside of the box- or should I say glass?

4. Biggest Score on Huge Liquor Savings
Pennsylvania has very different liquor laws than MN. Instead of selling all booze and beer in the same store and having somewhat decent prices, they are in different stores and expensive. You have to go to a state run wine and spirits store to get alcohol or wine and the prices and taxes are all usually high. To get beer or any type of malt beverage, you have to go to a beer distributor or a corner store (actually, this is a benefit of Philly - the pizza, cheesesteak, and beer joints all over). Therefore, everyone has been telling us that the way to do it is to drive down to Delaware- a 30 minute drive- and go to the big alcohol superstores they have for all of the PA people. Last weekend we drove down there and found ourselves in an oasis. It was almost like being home again where everything was in the same store and it all made sense! Needless to say, we stocked up and should be sufficiently set for the rest of the semester - as long as things don't get too rough on us. Just kidding!

That concludes our awards for the evening. Hopefully you all enjoyed the show and will be joining us again next time.

Until then, lots of love -
Danielle (and Rory)

Spotlights: Some Cool Opportunities Coming Our Way

Hello Everyone!

I said I would do spotlights on cool organizations as we come across them in our activities. Therefore, I come to you today with brief spotlights on three cool organizations.

As it is Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I will start with the most relevant first. Today school was cancelled and the University closed, but the law school offered an opportunity to volunteer through its Day of Service in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. day. We got up early on our day off, walked to school, and then hopped on a bus that took us to Martin Luther King, Jr., High School (a very fitting place for our service project, don't you think?). We volunteered through an organization called Philadelphia Reads. It is a joint collaboration among the City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia School District, and the Free Library of Philadelphia (interesting fact- they call it the free library because while Philadelphia was the first city to have a public library system, it was not free - you had to pay a membership fee. Now there is the pay-for library system and the free system.). The coalition works to improve the literacy of Philadelphia children and youth through outreach programs, mentorships, and book drives. This last activity was crucial to our involvement. Martin Luther King, Jr., High School serves as the home base for book donations. We sorted through boxes and boxes of donated books, putting them in bins with other books based on intended age group and/or type of book, then further sorted each grouping into an order appropriate for shelving like at a library. Teachers then come in monthly to pick out "new" books for their classrooms. Rory even had the opportunity to record the Velveteen Rabbit as a read along audio book.

The next two organizations also come to us through involvement as school. Drexel has a 50 hour pro bono requirement for graduation. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, pro bono is latin meaning "for the good," short for pro bono publico, or "for the public good." It is common practice in the legal profession that firms must complete a number of pro bono hours each year. To help us complete our 50 hour requirement, the law school coordinates a number of legal volunteer opportunities for us to participate in each year. Unlike the day of service, these opportunities are a more consistent commitment over a semester or an entire academic year. This semester is the first opportunity we have to work on  pro bono projects, and we are allowed to complete up to 25 of our 50 hours this semester.

Rory is considering work as a public defender upon graduation and has found a real interest in prisoner re-entry work in the last six months. Therefore, he was very excited to learn that one of the pro bono options was a prisoner re-entry program in Philadelphia. We are currently unsure of the exact name of the organization, but we do have some facts. Similar to Rory's work in drug court when he was a Guardian ad Litem last year, it is a specialized federal court system dedicated to prisoner re-entry. I realize I should maybe explain what prisoner re-entry is. It is working to help people who spent time in prison re-enter society in a way that helps them get back on their feet, provide for their families, and deters future crime involvement. That's all we know for now - he starts on the 25th so wish him luck, and we'll write more about it then!

I will be completing my pro bono hours with the Migrant Farm Workers Tax Clinic. Next week I will attend a training to make me IRS certified to assist low-income workers prepare their taxes. While I am in no way interested in tax law, I am excited for this opportunity! I may get the chance to use my Spanish skills, I'll be helping low-income workers (which was very rewarding last year), and I'll be learning how to prepare taxes-a very useful skill for anyone to have. The tax clinic operates every Saturday in February and the first two in April. Again, I don't have too many other details at this point but I will share what happens in a future blog.

Until then, hope you enjoyed learning about some of the awesome work that these organizations are doing and that your Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was great.

Signing off,
Danielle

Danielle's Correction

Hello Everyone!

So far Rory has monopolized the blog writing lately (not that I actually mind - he usually lets me edit his post and seeks approval pre-posting).  We are currently playing MarioKart with my brother Brandon but will soon be going out (as mentioned in the previous post).  However, I wanted to take a quick moment to correct something Rory stated in the last post. Unfortunately, he was incorrect about my plants. While I have become a plant lady, and sadly (and maybe a bit neurotically) I do name my plants. But Rory said that one of the still alive plants was named Liz Lemon - a reference anyone who watches 30 Rock will understand. This is sadly untrue- she was a bit sickly from the start and did not last long enough. I do have many others that Rory failed to mention but I am not going to let you all in on just how crazy I am by telling you the names of the rest of them. For now my plants fill the void of not having any pets. 

Loving you all like "crazy,"

Danielle

A Thursday Evening

I want to start this post with a quick story about Reggie, Danielle's first plant. For those of you who don't know, Danielle has gradually been turning into a plant lady the past couple years, and has begun successfully networking with other plant people and engaging in several plant exchanges. The beginning of all of this madness was Reggie, a tiny cactus Danielle bought at a gift shop in Arizona when she, I and her father Tim road tripped to Las Vegas in January 2010. The painted pot, "Arizona" sign, and fake miniature cattle skull that came with Reggie have been empty for a couple weeks now, but the satisfaction and inspiration he brought to Danielle remain. She still names every single one of her plants, and now does much better keeping them alive. Among probably others that I am forgetting, Reggie left behind his siblings Petra, Walter, Suzy, and Liz Lemon.
In other news, we finally tried some actual pizza from our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Evan's Pizza. Funny that until now we have only had sandwiches there, right? Also funny that our posts involve mostly food, right? I guess it's because I am writing this post as I slowly starve while waiting for Danielle to get out of a meeting so we can walk home. I have no legitimate explanation for all the food talk in the other post, except that I am almost always hungry.
In other other news, grades were released yesterday, and Danielle and I are both still here. So no earthly or galactic shift which we could detect, but if you were hurt by one we can help you sue someone for it in about two and a half years. Nevertheless, we are planning to check out a japanese karaoke bar tomorrow and relieve the stress of the waiting, and the mounting pressure of summer jobs. Any excuse to drink and sing is de facto legitimate.
Unbelievably I am still waiting for my dear wife. If she doesn't get a move on, we are going to miss the season 6 premiere of 30 Rock! Nevermind, she made it. Take care and watch 30 Rock if you care about the future of art.
-Rory

Life As We Know It

Hi! 

Well we are back in the saddle of law school as of this morning, and we are loving it (imagine big, fake smiles on our faces)!  Really it's not too bad, but in my experience it is a rare and lucky person who actually enjoys being in school: I personally can always think of things I would rather be doing. On the bright side, though, we get to see our friends again, the weather in Philly has been phenomenally nice, and so long as we keep our eyes on the prize hopefully we can remain sane. Speaking of sanity, our grades are supposed to be released at the end of this week, which is Friday the 13th!!! What an omen! And those newly released grades promise to be very hungry due to their captivity and are sure to feast on my emotional well-being. Nevertheless, here they come. 

We should also mention that last week we were technically in school, but today was the start of our full-semester courses. Last week both Danielle and I took a one-week course on Interviewing, Negotiating, and Counseling. So if anyone feels like being questioned, needs advice, or wants to haggle, we are now pros. Unfortunately Danielle felt that she got a little more out of the class than I did, but that is probably because I was already so good at all that stuff. 

Besides the unseasonably warm temperatures, Philadelphia has welcomed us back with its characteristically bad drivers. You can see our previous posts for more specificity, but an example of what we are talking about presented itself to us yesterday outside of church:

As you can see, the churchgoers had to walk around the car, inexplicably parked in the middle of the sidewalk. In Philadelphia this would generally be justified by turning on the emergency flashers, but I suspect this driver was at church and did not want to wear out his or her battery by leaving the blinkers on for that long. 

We have also taken the past week to explore a few new restaurants in the area (and Chipotle and another local pizza/sandwich shop that we love- Evan's). The new places were Tandoor India, which serves Indian food:), and Head Cook's Pizza and Bakery, which is a brand new hole-in-the-wall just a few blocks away. Tandoor had a decent buffet for a good price, and Head Cook's won us over with its perfect combination of cheesiness, sauciness, and thin-crustiness. What's more, the owner gave us free rice pudding. It probably makes top three, maybe two, for our favorite pizza places nearby. 

Finally, this picture is a little late in coming, but we drove by a very pleasantly-lit home on December 30 while leaving the wedding of our friends Jimmy and Sarah Abreu (CONGRATULATIONS!!!). Here is the house, just thought we would share and extend the joy of Christmas into the new year:

Finally finally, we want to mention that Grandma Judy Smith passed away last Friday, January 6. We don't need to say much, but we thought we should give her a shout out and say that we love her very much! 

Okay, well peace out!

-Rory (and Danielle, right beside me!!) 

Cleared for Re-entry

It has been almost exactly one month since this lonely blog last tasted a sweet, juicy post, and it is hungry! I am going to keep this post moderate, though, and ease the blog back into solids, just as we are easing ourselves back into a normal, healthy diet after the feasts of the Holiday Season! Now that Christmas and New Years are over, we are enjoying some regularity until the period of mourning that will follow the posting of our first semester grades in a few weeks, during which our appetites (or at least mine) are sure to diminish, or increase, as the case may be. So now, an incredibly brief recapping of the past month.

The first two weeks of December held for us the final exam period of our first law school semester. Danielle and I both sat for finals in Torts, Civil Procedure, and Contracts, with varying degrees of comfort (I mean mental comfort: the seats were fine). The days between the exams were filled almost exclusively with studying and video game breaks. Danielle impressively abstained from chocolate, alcohol, pop, and all other caffeine sources during this time, in order to avoid migraine headaches! Despite this self-imposed challenge, she maintained an impressive degree of focus and resolve, whereas I suddenly became interested in all kinds of online and smart phone games. The fruits of her labor and my procrastination will be unleashed on us sometime in January, but in the meantime following finals we were able to very much enjoy 16 days back in dear Minnesota!  

Our first married Christmas was filled with celebrations, and we were fortunate to have many visits with friends and family in Raymond, International Falls, and Minneapolis, MN. The trip was not as relaxing as we might have liked, but in the end the time spent with loved ones over the holidays was not only very important but also a great time. Games were played, drinks were drunk, presents were given, and it was all awesome! Speaking of presents: as I write this post, Danielle is playing, for the first time, Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7, which she got for Christmas. I have never seen her so happy, even on our wedding day :)

We returned to Philadelphia yesterday, New Year's Day, to a little change in weather. Although most of Minnesota is snowless so far this year, it is still cold. What a shock to return to 50 degree-Philadelphia! That being said, we have been so thankful that all of our travels went well and that the weather cooperated with our flights and road trips perfectly! We were even blessed with snow in International Falls, probably among a handful of cities in the state that had a white Christmas. Finally, we were so happy yesterday to return to a clean apartment with only four cockroaches (one dead, but we counted it) to greet us! If they did have a killer Christmas party in our absence, we appreciated the amazing clean-up job. And as if to signify the end of our vacation, we were overjoyed last night, while walking past CVS, to spy a woman running out the door and dashing across the parking lot with a jingling, life-size Santa Claus mannequin over her shoulder, which we can only assume she had stolen from the pharmacy. Philly was glad to see us again! 

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are off to a Happy New Year this 2012. Look for more nuggets in the weeks to come: it is our resolution to be even more awesome this year, so you are in for a treat!

Love,

Rory, on behalf of myself and Danielle