Work Sleepover
Monday, 5 October 2026 11:11 amLast Sunday At Work:
my alarm went off at 9:33am last Sunday morning.
i sat in bed waking up until 10:00am, then got up and did my morning things.
then i grabbed my rucksack and stuffed it full of toiletries and enough clothes and pajamas to last three days.
it was time for Conference.
every year the Public Defender's Office puts on an annual Conference.
everybody from all over the State descends on one area to gather together, celebrate ourselves, and collect enough Continuing Legal Education credits to last us throughout the year.
every year since i've been a Public Defender Conference has alternated between Denver and the Mountains.
everybody likes the Mountains better, but for the second year in a row this year, Conference was in Denver.
for budgetary reasons.
at 11:00am i kissed Dax and the PSE and Monster goodbye.
it is sad to be away from them for three days, and they seemed appropriately sad to see me go.
then i drove fifteen minutes up the interstate to the northern sprawl of town where Nice Guy Dave lives to go and pick him up.
then we drove on up to Denver.
this year, Conference was held at some Marriott in the southern part of town.
we arrived at the Marriott around 12:30pm.
we found parking and went to go check in, but we did not bring out stuff because these people are never ready for check-in when we first arrive.
so instead we walked the halls saying hello to work friends and colleagues and people from other Offices that we know until 1:00pm when we made our way to some large conference hall to start the show.
the Chief Public Defender welcomed everybody and Conference Bingo sheets were handed out.
every year somebody makes Conference Bingo playing cards with different Conference cliches we expect to hear like problems with the budget, “solidarity” and, and fuck the DAs.”
after twenty minutes the Chief Public Defender yielded the stage and a a series of presentations began.
first was a fifty-minute show by some kind of theater troupe made of of formerly-incarcerated people who told their stories about how shit their lives were growing up, why they joined gangs, why they committed their crimes and then went to prison as juveniles.
it was all very sad, though not at all uncommon.
the lesson there was 'we are still Human beings even though we made mistakes and we deserve to be treated with respect' though, i think they were doing a good amount of preaching to the choir.
we know, guys! we know!
i think they sometimes play DA gigs, so that seemed to make more sense.
after the first show Nice Guy Dave got a text saying his room was ready, which meant that my room was ready because we were bunking together.
when we are in the Mountains i normally bunk with my Very First Felony Docket Partner, but since he lives in Denver now, and the whole point of Denver Conference is that it is cheaper, the people who live in Denver and the surrounding metro areas don't get to stay in the hotel. they have to go home.
Nice Guy Dave used to bunk with one of our Supervisor Friends, but that guy decided to bunk with some other guy because they are going to wake up at 2:00am to go climb a mountain.
which left me and Nice Guy Dave to room with each other.
we went and got our stuff and brought it up to a lackluster room with an internal view down on the restaurant below.
that was pretty disappointing.
back down in the Conference Room the second presentation was from some lady who does Immigration Defense.
she is on Kilmar Garcia Abrego's defense team, if you know who that is.
she spent her hour doing a hype-man show about how The Government Is Bad!!! and Immigration Policy Is Racist, and she overstated her case quite a bit, but, i mean, sure, whatever, that's fine.
then she did a call and response bit where she hollered “what do we want!?!” and she wanted us to respond “justice!” and maybe thirty percent of the crowd participated, and it was pretty awkward to watch.
she also did a lot of boasting about past victories she'd had in Immigration Court and having us clap for her, which was also pretty uncomfortable.
the final presenter of the afternoon was some former Public Defender from Arkansas or somewhere who gave a talk about how the media frames things against our Clients.
for example, he said that the conventional wisdom is against the concept of 'defunding the police' but if you asked people if we should be using law enforcement resources to help people who are having mental health crisis, or who are economically disadvantaged or struggling with substance abuse issues, they would be for it.
i don't know if that is true, but he said it like it was true.
he just wrote a book called Copaganda and he was selling autographed copies out in the hall for $20.
by the time all the speakers were done it was 5:00pm.
we spent the next ninety minutes doing Office Awards.
nominees and winners were announced for maybe a dozen categories: Paralegal Of The Year, Administrative Assistant Of The Year, Investigator Of The Year, Juvie Attorney Of The Year, Attorney of The Year, Best In Show.
our Office did not do very well at all.
we got just a few nominations in each category wins.
we've done poorly before, but this was likely the worse Awards showing in recent memory.
i did win a Belt Buckle, which was pretty cool.
Belt Buckles are handed out for people who beat a First Degree Murder Case.
i beat two this year, but i only earned one because of the rules of how Belt Buckles are given out.
they used to have people come up on stage to collect their Belt Buckles and get clapped at, but this year they just put the names of the Belt Buckle winners up on a screen and that was it.
i got robbed!
by the time we were done with the Office Awards it was maybe 6:30pm.
everybody got up and wandered away to go do their own thing.
Nice Guy Dave was hungry and so was i, so we went to go muster up some food.
the Marriott had a restaurant but it seemed crowded so we went out into the larger industrial park.
Nice Guy Dave texted our Office Head who was at some kind of a sports bar down the way and we went to go meet up with him, but by the time we got there his table was full, and so were all the other ones.
we stood around for several awkward minutes before going out to sit at an empty patio, which was fine, though the music was too loud.
we placed orders for a hamburger a piece, and fried pickles, but well before the food came out some other works friends came along and took a four-top table and we joined them there.
we were there for the next two hours.
apparently the kitchen staff quit, leaving the bartender and the waitress to have to figure out what the fuck to do.
Nice Guy Dave and i got our burgers after maybe forty-five minutes.
they weren't great, but they were adequate.
it took another hour before our friends got their hamburgers and they were nearly inedible.
one of them complained and the burgers were free for them.
Nice Guy Dave and i had to pay for our.
and i paid for Nice Guy Dave's.
after dinner we went across the street to the Wendy's and got a Frostee a piece.
vanilla for me and one of our friends, chocolate for Nice Guy Dave and the other friend.
then we walked back to the Marriott and went back to our room.
it was only maybe 9:00pm by then, early days, and i guess we could have went out to look for something to do, but we didn't.
at some point Nice Guy Dave got a text from somebody inviting him to go have a party at some girl's room, but he declined.
i sat in bed and wrote LiveJournal while Nice Guy Dave asked me a series of questions about my personal life, sexual habits, and personal grooming.
it was enjoyable conversation but also, i get enough Nice Guy Dave at work all day. let me get a little quiet time!
by 11:00pm i had a shit, then went out to call the PSE and wish her goodnight.
i already did Dax's goodnight at the terrible Sports Bar.
the PSE did not answer so i left a voicemail saying that i loved her, then i went back to my room to try to sleep next to Nice Guy Dave.
it wasn't a great night's sleep, the pillows were too fluffy and around 3:30am the air conditioning turned off for some reason, so i had to wake up and reset it.
also, i was self conscious about pushing out farts throughout the night.
not too self conscious to not do it, but enough to feel shamed.
//[AVAST YE!]
my alarm went off at 9:33am last Sunday morning.
i sat in bed waking up until 10:00am, then got up and did my morning things.
then i grabbed my rucksack and stuffed it full of toiletries and enough clothes and pajamas to last three days.
it was time for Conference.
every year the Public Defender's Office puts on an annual Conference.
everybody from all over the State descends on one area to gather together, celebrate ourselves, and collect enough Continuing Legal Education credits to last us throughout the year.
every year since i've been a Public Defender Conference has alternated between Denver and the Mountains.
everybody likes the Mountains better, but for the second year in a row this year, Conference was in Denver.
for budgetary reasons.
at 11:00am i kissed Dax and the PSE and Monster goodbye.
it is sad to be away from them for three days, and they seemed appropriately sad to see me go.
then i drove fifteen minutes up the interstate to the northern sprawl of town where Nice Guy Dave lives to go and pick him up.
then we drove on up to Denver.
this year, Conference was held at some Marriott in the southern part of town.
we arrived at the Marriott around 12:30pm.
we found parking and went to go check in, but we did not bring out stuff because these people are never ready for check-in when we first arrive.
so instead we walked the halls saying hello to work friends and colleagues and people from other Offices that we know until 1:00pm when we made our way to some large conference hall to start the show.
the Chief Public Defender welcomed everybody and Conference Bingo sheets were handed out.
every year somebody makes Conference Bingo playing cards with different Conference cliches we expect to hear like problems with the budget, “solidarity” and, and fuck the DAs.”
after twenty minutes the Chief Public Defender yielded the stage and a a series of presentations began.
first was a fifty-minute show by some kind of theater troupe made of of formerly-incarcerated people who told their stories about how shit their lives were growing up, why they joined gangs, why they committed their crimes and then went to prison as juveniles.
it was all very sad, though not at all uncommon.
the lesson there was 'we are still Human beings even though we made mistakes and we deserve to be treated with respect' though, i think they were doing a good amount of preaching to the choir.
we know, guys! we know!
i think they sometimes play DA gigs, so that seemed to make more sense.
after the first show Nice Guy Dave got a text saying his room was ready, which meant that my room was ready because we were bunking together.
when we are in the Mountains i normally bunk with my Very First Felony Docket Partner, but since he lives in Denver now, and the whole point of Denver Conference is that it is cheaper, the people who live in Denver and the surrounding metro areas don't get to stay in the hotel. they have to go home.
Nice Guy Dave used to bunk with one of our Supervisor Friends, but that guy decided to bunk with some other guy because they are going to wake up at 2:00am to go climb a mountain.
which left me and Nice Guy Dave to room with each other.
we went and got our stuff and brought it up to a lackluster room with an internal view down on the restaurant below.
that was pretty disappointing.
back down in the Conference Room the second presentation was from some lady who does Immigration Defense.
she is on Kilmar Garcia Abrego's defense team, if you know who that is.
she spent her hour doing a hype-man show about how The Government Is Bad!!! and Immigration Policy Is Racist, and she overstated her case quite a bit, but, i mean, sure, whatever, that's fine.
then she did a call and response bit where she hollered “what do we want!?!” and she wanted us to respond “justice!” and maybe thirty percent of the crowd participated, and it was pretty awkward to watch.
she also did a lot of boasting about past victories she'd had in Immigration Court and having us clap for her, which was also pretty uncomfortable.
the final presenter of the afternoon was some former Public Defender from Arkansas or somewhere who gave a talk about how the media frames things against our Clients.
for example, he said that the conventional wisdom is against the concept of 'defunding the police' but if you asked people if we should be using law enforcement resources to help people who are having mental health crisis, or who are economically disadvantaged or struggling with substance abuse issues, they would be for it.
i don't know if that is true, but he said it like it was true.
he just wrote a book called Copaganda and he was selling autographed copies out in the hall for $20.
by the time all the speakers were done it was 5:00pm.
we spent the next ninety minutes doing Office Awards.
nominees and winners were announced for maybe a dozen categories: Paralegal Of The Year, Administrative Assistant Of The Year, Investigator Of The Year, Juvie Attorney Of The Year, Attorney of The Year, Best In Show.
our Office did not do very well at all.
we got just a few nominations in each category wins.
we've done poorly before, but this was likely the worse Awards showing in recent memory.
i did win a Belt Buckle, which was pretty cool.
Belt Buckles are handed out for people who beat a First Degree Murder Case.
i beat two this year, but i only earned one because of the rules of how Belt Buckles are given out.
they used to have people come up on stage to collect their Belt Buckles and get clapped at, but this year they just put the names of the Belt Buckle winners up on a screen and that was it.
i got robbed!
by the time we were done with the Office Awards it was maybe 6:30pm.
everybody got up and wandered away to go do their own thing.
Nice Guy Dave was hungry and so was i, so we went to go muster up some food.
the Marriott had a restaurant but it seemed crowded so we went out into the larger industrial park.
Nice Guy Dave texted our Office Head who was at some kind of a sports bar down the way and we went to go meet up with him, but by the time we got there his table was full, and so were all the other ones.
we stood around for several awkward minutes before going out to sit at an empty patio, which was fine, though the music was too loud.
we placed orders for a hamburger a piece, and fried pickles, but well before the food came out some other works friends came along and took a four-top table and we joined them there.
we were there for the next two hours.
apparently the kitchen staff quit, leaving the bartender and the waitress to have to figure out what the fuck to do.
Nice Guy Dave and i got our burgers after maybe forty-five minutes.
they weren't great, but they were adequate.
it took another hour before our friends got their hamburgers and they were nearly inedible.
one of them complained and the burgers were free for them.
Nice Guy Dave and i had to pay for our.
and i paid for Nice Guy Dave's.
after dinner we went across the street to the Wendy's and got a Frostee a piece.
vanilla for me and one of our friends, chocolate for Nice Guy Dave and the other friend.
then we walked back to the Marriott and went back to our room.
it was only maybe 9:00pm by then, early days, and i guess we could have went out to look for something to do, but we didn't.
at some point Nice Guy Dave got a text from somebody inviting him to go have a party at some girl's room, but he declined.
i sat in bed and wrote LiveJournal while Nice Guy Dave asked me a series of questions about my personal life, sexual habits, and personal grooming.
it was enjoyable conversation but also, i get enough Nice Guy Dave at work all day. let me get a little quiet time!
by 11:00pm i had a shit, then went out to call the PSE and wish her goodnight.
i already did Dax's goodnight at the terrible Sports Bar.
the PSE did not answer so i left a voicemail saying that i loved her, then i went back to my room to try to sleep next to Nice Guy Dave.
it wasn't a great night's sleep, the pillows were too fluffy and around 3:30am the air conditioning turned off for some reason, so i had to wake up and reset it.
also, i was self conscious about pushing out farts throughout the night.
not too self conscious to not do it, but enough to feel shamed.
//[AVAST YE!]
