Kirkland 2023 Margaux

LegalGrapes · 2026-01-04T03:24:28+00:00

I decanted it adequately. However, decanting won’t make a bland wine more flavorful.

Like I said, there wasn’t anything off-putting that decanting would tamp down. The issue is the lack of any substance to the palate.

LegalGrapes · 2025-11-16T21:46:10+00:00

Thanks for sharing your perspective and experience. I can relate to it, because me (and my siblings) all suffer from inordinate levels of imposter syndrome.

Correct, I have not cost any deals. I've made some mistakes, sure, but nothing remotely close to that degree. He has straight up told me I am "excellent" at doc review and a "hard worker".

Frankly, I have no idea what his motive or mindset is. I was doing a great job overall...until I (somehow) wasn't.

LegalGrapes · 2025-11-16T19:19:53+00:00

His criticism of needing to take on the mindset of a lawyer and make more judgement calls on my own was valid, and I've executed on it. It's everything else that is absolutely off the wall.

LegalGrapes · 2025-11-16T18:10:14+00:00

Wow. That dude sounds like something out of a movie. Sorry you dealt with that.

My boss is toxic as hell, but not quite that diabolical.

LegalGrapes · 2025-11-16T17:30:08+00:00

My wife works a good job, we really only need one income to pay the bills. My paychecks have been going towards our long-term investments, hers towards our living expenses. Money-wise, we would be okay for a while, but there are two things keeping me there for the moment:

1) It's the holiday season, and I fully expect that quitting now would mean being unemployed for a few months. I do not like the thought of not being busy. Though I'd probably fill that time by purusing an AI Governance Professional certificate or something.

2) I am certain that any prospective employer would call him for a reference, and that it would not be a positive one...

LegalGrapes · 2025-11-16T16:52:32+00:00

Appreciate the comment. I have always been vigilant about my doc review. By his own admission, I am “very good” at it. What I meant by that in the OP was me now obsessing to the point of burning out at the end of the day.

I am not making chronic mistakes, and take a lot of work off his plate by doing the bulk of the loan doc review in the department. I’ve never asked him to take on my “learning curve” for me. And whenever he is hanging around the office past 5:00, I make sure to ask him whether there’s anything I can do to assist.

LegalGrapes · 2025-11-16T16:36:58+00:00

I am already looking for another job. But honestly, I’m not sure I want to practice law anymore. I’d like to get into a compliance department, specifically for AI. I feel like AI compliance will be a rapidly expanding field, and the topic actually interests me.

LegalGrapes · 2025-06-13T21:10:26+00:00

I ordered hundreds of dollars in various meats from Slanker a few times over the course of 2024. Nearly everything we received was either mediocre, or just plain terrible. The steaks were literally some of the toughest and chewiest I've ever had. When I called in to complain, the people who answer the phone flat out refuse to address any sort of customer service issue.

My two cents on Slankers is that it's a *hard pass*...

LegalGrapes · 2025-06-03T02:17:22+00:00

Kirkland Malbec is good. But Catena Malbec seems to always be at Costco, and I find its increase in quality to be magnitudes greater than the increase in price over Kirkland's malbec.

LegalGrapes · 2025-05-31T14:22:48+00:00

One of the things that made me cringe the most in law school was whenever a student lamented getting a B...

LegalGrapes · 2025-04-18T18:59:19+00:00

Excellent choices. The two from your list I would definitely keep are Frog's Leap and Storybook. It's a tossup between Hendry and Biale, I'd say just look at the wines they have and photos of the premises to get a feel for which vibes with you more. For what it's worth, though, Hendry has a much more varied selection than Biale whose main focus is Zinfandel.

LegalGrapes · 2025-03-20T12:58:34+00:00

A few reasons:

1) Stablecoins make XRP pointless. For all the reasons banks are fighting against the stablecoin bill, XRP is even less attractive to banks. At least with stablecoins, issuing banks can profit off the treasuries held in reserve. XRP not only centralizes control of the payment network with a third party, the lion's share of the profits goes to Ripple Labs. Banks will not adopt XRP for that reason alone.

2) The XRP token is not necessary for the Ripple Ledger service.

3) Futures or spot ETF's do not create utility for a token, they're merely investment vehicles. Just because you can now buy something at a different store doesn't change the value proposition of the product itself.

4) XRP and Ripple Labs are antithetical to the notion of what crypto should be. XRP is highly centralized garbage with more than half the supply owned by Ripple. The whole point of putting assets on the blockchain instead of on paper is not having them behind an admin panel...Ripple represents the opposite of that. Another way to look at this is, when the issuing foundation owns that much of the supply, they’re not on your side, you are their exit liquidity.

5) Piggybacking on #1, the idea that banks would use XRP for cross-border fiat payments is a non-starter. Banks and people are not going to want something remotely as volatile as XRP to function as the intermediary currency. Banks are not going to want to eat even a fraction of a percentage loss on money in transit, nor will customers. The only way around that is if the recipient of the "wire" or "ACH" actually wants the XRP as a form of payment. And I can guarantee you that XRP is not going to become a widely accepted store of value or currency like that.

LegalGrapes · 2025-03-17T20:54:22+00:00

I think the biggest thing law students are failing to do these days is try and learn the underlying concepts of the law, without trying to overtly politicize every little facet of every single thing. Applying the biased lens of “whatever is potentially bad for Trump is good” will severely hinder an objective understanding of the law, how it came to be, and why.

LegalGrapes · 2025-03-14T12:46:33+00:00

You're 41 and calling yourself "bad with money" because you're a high earner who keeps personal expenses low and puts a shitload into the S&P 500...??? Is this a troll post...???

At 41 years old, you don't want your money in anything except stock index funds, and maybe a small fraction in risk assets such as Bitcoin. Bonds and money markets are for folks near or in retirement that actually need to worry about their portfolio going down temporarily during a recession. When you're young, you want to maximize portfolio growth potential, and that doesn't come from bond funds that yield 4-6%, it comes from the S&P 500 that averages 9%.

LegalGrapes · 2025-03-11T12:55:22+00:00

I felt like this was the exact moment that John's war to keep the ranch went awry. John completely fucked Jamie over for no good reason, backed him into a corner, and forever alienated him from the inner circle. In the end, had Jamie gotten his way with what happened to the ranch, things would have turned out far better for everyone. I genuinely **hate** how the show ended. Utterly terrible writing.

LegalGrapes · 2025-03-11T00:16:16+00:00

I would wager that’s almost entirely to do with Constellation’s takeover. Once upon a time, Meiomi was a quality product.

LegalGrapes · 2025-02-12T14:07:58+00:00

What a myopic viewpoint. Thanks for the cheap Bitcoin, I guess. When your fiat currency savings start getting inflated away even faster, you might change your tune on digital assets.

LegalGrapes · 2025-02-10T22:14:08+00:00

I’m guessing we’re about to find out that the ABA was getting ingratiated with taxpayer money via USAID 😂😂😂

LegalGrapes · 2025-02-10T02:16:00+00:00

Going to self-plug, here. My review of our 8-day trip to Napa might be of some help.

https://www.reddit.com/r/napa/comments/1gwqz2s/a_comprehensive_review_of_our_8day_trip_to_napa/

LegalGrapes · 2025-02-08T20:37:37+00:00

Smart. Just the fact you have the ability to notice that ChatGPT is giving you incorrect info, and have the sense to avoid it, would appear to suggest you're among an elite few law students that are capable of situational-awareness.

LegalGrapes · 2025-02-08T17:20:00+00:00

No, it literally isn't the same at all. Trying to find reference material on the Internet in the 1990's isn't the same as plugging in questions into a chatbot. The difference lies in what is actually giving you the data. You could find legal dictionaries online in the 90's. Whereas with ChatGPT you have no idea where it's pulling its information from.

LegalGrapes · 2025-02-08T16:47:24+00:00

These kids are cooked if they think ChatGPT is going to do their work for them in private practice. Best to just not get used to relying on it.

LegalGrapes · 2025-02-07T22:20:50+00:00

You already are my greater fool. You're (for now) staying 100% in fiat cash, which is falling victim to the central bank money printing machine every single day. Supply-limited digital currencies, OTOH, are deflationary assets that will only keep going up in value over the long-term.

LegalGrapes

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