And the list goes on...

At the request of several folks, here's a quick post with an update about my life... enjoy.

• It's February and it is freezing. Snow is only good when it lets you get out of school or at least play in it. No such luck thus far.
• Semester #2 of Law School is more of the same, but a little harder since we're taking an extra class.
• I'm in the middle of interviews for summer jobs. Right now I'm looking at working in Nashville, Atlanta, Birmingham or Chattanooga. I should know what I'm doing in the next 3-4 weeks. Cross your fingers.
• Christmas and New Year's were great. Was in Alpharetta, South Carolina and Nashville for pretty much the entire time.
  
• It's really, really cold in Nashville right now.
• For Spring Break I'm headed out for a cruise to Mexico. My first cruise. I'm pretty dang pumped. There are gonna be about 30 law school kids on the trip. Game on.
• I've been dating a great girl since October named Kelley. She makes me very happy.
• Civil Procedure is the most boring class I've taken thus far in law school.
• I just ordered the new tribute to The Band called "Endless Highway: Music of The Band," and it should be arriving soon. I'm quite excited.
• I did the 1L Mock Trial competition at the Law School in January. My partner and I made it to the finals - and celebrated accordingly.
  
• I'm heading to Atlanta on Friday to interview with my uncle's firm, Bovis, Kyle & Burch.
• The Jack Pearson Band is playing Saturday night at 3rd and Lindsley and I'm planning on checking it out. Should be brilliant.

That about sums it up. Some substantial stuff, some minutiae. Hope you enjoyed it.

Trick or treat... can I have both?

Law school is fun. Really. Sure, there is a lot of work. Naturally there are times when you just want to bang your head on the wall of your carrel in the depths of the library. But overall, law school is right enjoyable. I present to you two pieces of evidence for my argument, the weekend of October 20-22 (henceforth referred to as Exhibit A) and the weekend of October 27-29 (henceforth referred to as Exhibit B).

Exhibit A was marked by two key functions: 1) Homecoming Weekend at the Law School and 2) Tailgreat Part Deux before the Vandy/USC game. With all the alumni in town, I was working through Ambassadors to coordinate all the student volunteers for the class reunion parties on Friday night and the dinner dance on Saturday night. Needless to say, old Vandy Law School alumni are accomplished, rich and drunk. They kept us youngsters thoroughly entertained both evenings. My favorite line of the weekend from the old guys was from a fella from the class of 1961. I was explaining Bar Review to him and his response was, "My only question is, why is it only on Thursday nights? What's wrong with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday?"

As Exhibit A continued on Saturday morning, I headed towards the tailgate, sponsored by the two and only Maggie Johnson and Ben Schrader. I knew it would be a good day when out of nowhere, a golf cart filled with Chick-Fil-A pulled up. CFA was giving out free chicken sandwiches. And brownies. And sweet tea. Free. Don't pay nuthin'. Glorious. The rest of the day involved two-hand touch in the parking lot wearing cowboy boots, ice cold beer, sneaking into the stadium without tickets, wearing women's sunglasses, and ice cold Sprite. It was good. Oh yeah. And after the day was done, the red-headed stepchild himself, Cullen Newton and I had a tiki torch fight. The torches may or may not have been lit.

Exhibit B can be best summed up with two words: pong and Halloween. Friday night marked a revolutionary moment in my life wherein I was introduced to a glorious game of grit and stamina known only as Pong. I credit Cullen and Kelley "Pong Princess" Conolly for this development. For those that haven't played, the game is half ping-pong skills, half teamwork and half insanity. I'm not good at math. It is not to be confused with Beer Pong, a less involved and more tame cousin of Pong. You see, Pong is the Madonna of drinking games. It only needs one name and that name holds more meaning than any four letters ever should. Come to Nashville, we'll play. It might change your life.

Exhibit B roared on towards the culmination of the fall semester social life in law school: The Halloween Party. Dressed as William Marbury from the landmark Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison, I donned by colonial gear, accompanied by my good friend Jimmy Madison (a.k.a. Andy Veit) and hit the party scene. Not much substance to report about the party... just a top-notch fete. I mean glorious. Costumes were out of control. Look, there's Kim Jong Il! Hey, is that The Crocodile Hunter and a huge stingray? Good heavens, it's a box of Franzia. Yeah, it was nutso. And the Falcons won on Sunday. And I played music with friends on Sunday night. And I have no class today. My life is good, kids.

Happy Halloween, y'all.

Long time no see

It's been weeks since I've blogged. If you're still reading this stuff I have two things to say to you: 1) Sorry for the delay 2) Wow, you're committed.

So in the past four weeks or so I've been doing some pretty exciting stuff like making a return trip to the casinos in Tunica and winning money this time, tailgating in The Grove at Ole Miss for the first time ever and understanding what the fuss is all about, going back to Athens for Homecoming and pretending that there was no football game played and having old friends from college come into town and see why Nashville is so dang cool. I've also done some duller stuff like studying but who really cares about that.

So to get you faithful blog readers back in the swing of things, I figure a story from class today will be appropriate. In Torts, we're less than 30 seconds into class and I hear the professor wind up for the first question of the day while I'm getting my computer and books set up. He wraps up the question and finishes it with "umm... Mr. Gibson?" I freeze. I can't think. He asks me a very basic question and I have no clue. And I'm honest with him. "Uh, umm, sorry professor, I was in the zone and my brain just totally shut off. I've got nothing." I'm stumbling all over the place. "Give me just a second." I'm turning pages in my book frantically and I can't even read the words. "I'm so sorry, can you ask someone else?" Ouch. Choked. My heart was pounding, my mind racing and my adrenaline rush was totally useless. I spent the rest of class raising my hand, trying to claw my way back up to even. Embarrassing.

After class I go up to my professor and say, "I just wanted to apologize for sucking in class today." He cracked up. Told me not to worry about it. He knows I participate and I come to class prepared. Don't even think about it. I like my professors at Vanderbilt.

More stories to come. Thanks for tuning in, folks.

To the Classic City and back

Ahhh. A weekend in Athens. It's just what this boy needed. Almost 48 hours in my home town. With the people I care for most. A Georgia football game. It warms the soul.

But my weekend wasn't Athens alone. Friday was Family & Friends Day at the law school which meant Mom, Pops and my grandmother would all be in town for a while. With the clan arriving late on Thursday night, the obvious option was to take the 'rents out to Bar Review. It was a big hit... they loved the scene and the folks. Seeing Joe Gibson in a dark, smoky bar was a sight to behold. Trust me.

On Friday, the trio got to go to a mock class, sit in on a real class and get a good general feel for what law school is like. Even took them to lunch at Pancake Pantry, a Nashville institution. After all that jazz and the traditional Friday afternoon Blackacre, my mom and grandmother headed up to Indiana to see my sister while Pops and I drove back to Georgia. I dropped him off in Alpharetta late that night and headed out to Athens.

What can I say? Athens was just how I left it. People had often warned me that the first time I went back things would feel weird. I'd feel dated. I'd be out of place. I have no clue what they were talking about. It was like putting on an old pair of jeans on the first cool day of the year. They just feel right. Yup, that's Athens. The people, the scene, the football, all of the above. Well, the football game almost felt right. A one-point win over Colorado wasn't what I had in mind but hey, a W is a W. Capped the weekend off with Son's from about 2:00 'til 7:00 on Sunday afternoon with some of the most incredible people I've ever known in my life. It made for a late return to Nashville but it was quite worth it.

The week is off to a good start. Haven't done enough studying but that's okay. It's more fun that way. Tasty Torts, our co-ed softball team, got a big win today. Wrote a song for the first time in months tonight. K. Scott is coming into town on Thursday night. Things are shaping up nicely. Life is good, people... life is good.

Red seersucker

In less than three days I will be in Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. I'll be home. As much as I love Nashville and all the incredible new people I've met here, there is no way in the world this city could replace Athens in my mind. I can't freakin' wait to get back to Georgia and see all the people I miss so much and spend some time in the city that treated me so well for four incredible years. It finally set in that the weekend is right around the corner when I picked up my red seersucker gameday pants from the tailor. Gotta make sure I'm looking my best for the Bulldogs on Saturday. I wore them all last year and they were a size too big. Can't be looking sloppy for my triumphant return.

I'm also really looking forward to my parents and grandmother coming into town for Family and Friends Day at the law school on Friday. There's a full program of stuff for them to do and it'll be nice to have them around and let them get a glimpse into my law school life. My mom and grandmother are going to drive up to Indiana U. to see my sister after the program ends on Friday while Pops and I drive back to Georgia.

Played in my first ever softball game yesterday. Got beat 4-0. I played okay but it was really strange tossing around that big ol' ball. I'm used to a baseball and it felt bizarre. Had a lot of fun though, I think our team might be decent if we get it together a little bit. It'll be a blast win or lose, though. By the way, we're The Tasty Torts.

Bar Review is at The Flying Saucer tomorrow night. Good times are sure to follow. For now, I've gotta do some work. And daydream about Athens while doing it. Prediction: UGA 47, Colorado 3.

Law school is hard

Yup. It's true. Law school is really really tough. I've been doing a lot of work this week and, although I enjoy it, it's still a ton of stuff. I've got a rough draft of an office memo due tomorrow morning by 8 a.m. and lots of reading to do before Bar Review. With that in mind, Bar Review should be great, as always. A nice release, for sure.

I got a couple of cool opportunities this week that I'm excited about. First, I got elected as a 1L Representative for the Ambassadors program, the group that is responsible for making sure that prospective students think Vandy is the best law school around and that alumni know that it still is the best law school around. We give tours. We talk to students and parents. We hang out with alums. It's like the V.C. and O.L put together but for law school. Should be fun.

I also got selected for the Executive Board of the Entertainment and Sports Law Society (ESLS). The group brings in speakers a few times a month to talk to students who, like yours truly, are interested in those fields. I'm excited to work with people in that legal area and hopefully make some cool contacts with attorneys around Nashville. Next week we're having the legal counsel for the Nashville Predators (NHL) come and speak. A good start to the year I feel like.

Bar Review in five hours. Lots of work to do. Peace.

Party at my place?

Last night was a revolutionary experience. For the first time in my life as a UGA fan, I was going to be watching the game at a sports bar. During all four years of undergrad, I missed a total of eight Georgia games, all of them on the road. Not too shabby. Every single one of those games I watched in someone's home. Last night, with the OSU/Texas game on at the same time, all the other 1L's from UGA (along with all the folks that are trying to become Georgia fans) were planning on hitting a sports bar called The Longshot. Turns out The Longshot was the unofficial home of the Tennessee Volunteer nation and it was packed with orange and white. Sickening. We hopped from bar to bar, looking for a table for our big group, but nothing was to be found. So my roommate and I made the decision to move the party to our apartment.

Long story short, when I woke up this morning to clean up from last night, I counted boxes from about 15 twelve-packs and nine boxes of pizza. I think we probably had about 50 people over for the impromptu party. It was crazy. There were probably around 30 people in the living room watching UGA/USC on the big screen and then another twenty or so in my room to watch #1 vs. #2. Twenty people in my room! I can't believe how quickly it all came together. There were people waiting to get into our apartment when we got back from the sports bar. In total, huge success. UGA won 18-0. Oh yeah, and the party was fun, too.

NFL starts today. Falcons-Panthers in less than 3 hours. Can't wait. Gonna get to church before it gets started and then cheer on the Dirty Birds. Prediction: Atlanta 27, Carolina 21.