Leap day is my alternative birthday. I use it for web sites that demand my birthday without offering any compelling need or reason. So for them, I wish myself a happy day today!
There are few cases where there is broad social acceptance for the government to cast judgments on one’s life in a way that directly affects that person’s livelihood. Practicing as an attorney is one such example. Attorneys must pass through the pearly gates of judgment in order to get a license to practice law.
In California, this amounts to three things:
The latter involves filling out an application (currently 37 pages), paying the $431 fee (plus an additional amount for a live scan fingerprint), then waiting about 6 months for the Bar to determine if you’re hiding anything and thus not determined to be of acceptable moral character.
For anyone following it, my moral character (applied for on May 10, 2005 and determined on Sept. 29, 2005) has now expired. I guess that in the eyes of the California Bar examiners, and despite many, many years of being who I am, I can’t stay a good person for long.