A Man & His Toys...

One thing I have never outgrown is my love of toys. From my first pedal-powered red convertible to the GPS-equipped XM-radio-jammin' four-wheel-steerin' seven-seater Behemoth that's sitting in my driveway right now, I've gotta have the newest and bestest. Which also portends the fact that I'll likely die penniless buried under a bonecrushing pile of obsolete computer equipment.

Luckily, my chosen profession has finally kept pace with my gadget cravings. After years of last decade's technology and fewer color choices than a Model-T, I now revel in the fact that I can shower myself with tax-deductible geekware. For those of you who saw me lurking around the exhibitor hall in Chicago, American Express in hand, thought I'd give you a month-in-the-field take on some of my purchases.

Amazingly, the cheapest doohickey I bought is my runaway favorite, Stenograph's self-inflating back rest (about $30). This thing is a godsend. When deflated, it's about the size of a chimichanga (a large burrito for you yankees), but with a twist of the valve it fully inflates in about 20 seconds to more than adequately fill the gap between your low back and those cavernous conference room chairs attorneys insist on purchasing in warehouse club quantities. I've used it on every depo since, on plane flights, long commutes, you name it.

Another home run by the folks in Mt. Prospect is their new machine case, the Executive Traveler. I know everyone has their own particular size requirements for the ever-growing myriad of crap we must schlep through our daily grind, but this is by far the best designed writer case I've seen, particularly for paperless writers, which frees up the paper tray area for auxiliary storage. It gets a little hefty when hauling both a laptop and writer, but heck, most days the only exercise I get is hucking my machine into my vehicle.

Now I'm just waiting for the guys who were advertising the custom hooptie paintjobs for Stenturas to get certified to do Miras as well. I'm thinking purple metallic flake with The Last Supper airbrushed on the sides.

"Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation." - Rosabeth Moss Kanter

You Never Wanna Be There When The Bill Arrives...

We've all sent invoices to counsel where we knew the call was coming from an irate paralegal wondering why their 350-page overnight rush with 2000 pages of exhibits was so gosh darn expensive, but by that point we're usually at a minimum safe distance from which we can explain the going rate for scopists, proofers, copier repairmen and a lost night's sleep. But as dumb luck would have it, recently I happened to be standing in counsel's reception area on week two of depos when in walks the UPS man with week one's COD.

Of course, the fears prompting the demand for payment up front were well founded. Counsel immediately launches into Lawyer Soft Shoe #47, "Well, my secretary has the checkbook, so I couldn't write a check even if I wanted to," (which he obviously didn't). "I know I ordered a copy, but that's kinda steep, isn't it? I'm good for it, can't you just bill me?" I just shrugged it off and said, "That's the policy," as I watched the hapless dude in brown schlep my copy order back out the door, disappearing in the distance... as did 25% of my paycheck on the O&2. Trust me, I was more comfortable and less p#ssed off last time I was shoehorned into Economy Coach on a trans-Pacific flight than I was at that very moment.

Now, luckily (and I use the term loosely) this was a referral job from an agency in another state not filed in a Texas court, so I can swaddle myself in my warm blankie with the knowledge that this weasel won't have the opportunity to play the "Just Send Me The Original" game, since there's no rule in that state compelling the referring agency to give my work product away to deadbeats; but that only slightly mitigates the fact that out of everyone in that room, I was the only one who, at the whim of another, was making below scale.

"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M.C. Escher

Lesson Learned...

Just got back from the NCRA Annual Conference in Chicago. I had to man the shop here in Houston a couple days more than anticipated, finishing off a pesky witness that just wouldn't stop answering questions. I made it in early Friday a.m. and spent the remainder of the weekend eating, drinking and laughing the night away with my STAR friends, relishing this bonus encounter in addition to our two annual conferences. The consummate Chicago moment this trip: Landing at our window table on the 96th floor of the John Hancock Building as the Venetian Night fireworks erupted below.

Coming in Friday morning also precluded my participating in Mask Vote '04. Personally, I had every intention of voting to grant stenomaskers and voicewriters membership within NCRA, although based on what I understand transpired within the Hilton ballroom on Thursday, the National board likely would have convinced me, as they did many others who were willing to back their agenda, to shoot it down. No argument by the opposition swayed the vote of those with whom I spoke as effectively as did the attempted last-minute molestation of the bylaws by our leadership.

From what I gathered, the whole session smacked of Proposition 12 last summer in Texas: If what you're proposing is so radical a departure from your current mandate that your bylaws/constitution/{insert name of governing document here} must be materially scrapped and rewritten, you'd best be holding all the cards before presenting your constituency with a pile of special-interest/self-serving dreck and asking for their support.

The final revision of NCRA's loophole-riddled bylaws amendment, the way it was described to me ex post facto, seemed as if it were scrawled on a cocktail napkin in a rum-soaked haze the night before, and yet somehow, inexplicably, the board failed miserably to convince the membership at large that these shaky-at-best changes were for the greater good. The upshot I got was that on the heels of National's initial proposed retooling of their rules, the group would have voted down a pay raise, a hug and a cookie at that point. Here's hoping everyone in that room learned a few lessons about association governance for the future.

The good news is, if the past is any indication, we've got three years of relative peace before Mask Vote '07.

"Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators" - Will Rogers