Jim's Polka

2006-01-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

Is there a better way to return to blogging after a hiatus than with a blog meme? (Absolutely not.) So, thanks to LQ for the tag and the impetus to start blogging again.

Four Jobs You've Had:

Bagel guy: I worked at a bagel shop through most of high school and the summer after my freshman year of college. In that time, I cut dough, rolled bagels, worked at the register, worked short-order, cut myself and burned myself on ovens and kettles. It took me years before I went back to eating bagels.
Office gopher: my job for a year and a half during college. I worked for the business manager of the Meteorology Department, running errands and the like. I remember that I handled the department's phone bill and that they sent me to deliver stuff to other parts of campus. That was the best part of the job, since it was a good excuse to take a walk outside. And, one of the usual destinations was right next door to the campus dairy, which sold excellent milkshakes.
Lab minion (researcher): my last job as an undergrad. I did research for a professor in my department and got paid for it, which was a pretty sweet deal.
Software engineer - that's what I was doing when I started writing the blog.

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:

Apollo 13 - I saw this on a date in Tokyo in 1995 and, to this day it's still the most money I've ever spent to see a movie. $15 with the student discount. But that's not why I watch it every time it's on TV. I think I like how the engineers are the heroes of the movie. The scene where they have to figure out how to make the air filters fit using just the materials in spaceship is straight out of an undergrad engineering class. And, I just love it when the guys tells the geeky engineer: "You, sir, are a steely-eyed missile man."
Strictly Ballroom - probably the most important movie I've ever watched. It's the reason I started ballroom dancing, without which nothing would be the same. It's the movie D and I watched on our zeroth date.
10 Things I Hate About You - I don't know why, but I watch this every time it comes on cable. D and I have a rule about teen movies - we'll watch it either if it's based on great literature or if it has dancing. We added the second part to rationalize a trip to see that other essential piece of the Julia Stiles oeuvre, Save the Last Dance.
When Harry Met Sally

Four Places You've Lived:

(i.e. the lamest list of all) Try this on for size. This is pretty much all of geographical divisions I've ever lived in, although in some cases I lived in different places in the town.

Baltimore, MD
College Park, MD
Arlington, VA
Seattle, WA

Four TV Shows You Like to Watch

Battlestar Galactica
Gilmore Girls
The OC
Dancing With the Stars (I'll be posting about this, later, I think)

Four Places You've Been on Vacation

Paris - Twice, in fact. The second time was with D, for our honeymoon.
Greece - Twice, also, but the last time was in 1994. I think I've mentioned before that we're planning another trip for right after school ends. I still think it's the most beautiful place I've ever been.
Ballroom dance camp, in England and in Florida.
Japan - twice for exchange programs and once for a plain old vacation. I like the Japanese gardens, the electronics and the fact that everything seems to be on a different scale then the US. Sometimes that means hitting my head on the top of doorways, but sometimes that means going into the largest and the second-largest department stores in the world, both on the same day. I also liked my apparently infinite capacity to get lost while I was there.

Four Websites You Visit Daily:

Yahoo mail
Gmail
Newsgator (way better than Bloglines)
lawschool.westlaw.com (I plan to get a TV from the reward points this year. It's good to have goals.)

Four of My Favorite Foods:

Chili - but only the good stuff.Not from a can.I make pretty decent chili, but I've had lots that's better.
Ethiopian food - yummy, and you get to eat with your hands. How do you beat that?
Thai curry from my neighbors' restaurant
Bread pudding - I don't know why, but I'm unreasonably obsessed with this. Anytime I see it on a menu, I have to order it. I made a version at Christmas that used panettone instead of regular bread. It was spectacular, if I do say so myself.

Four Places I'd Rather Be:

Hawaii - Well, it sure looks pretty in the pictures.
Australia - How could I not want to go, after reading In a Sunburned Country?
Tahiti
Tokyo

Four Albums I Can't Live Without:

Honestly, what I really can't live without is the 3700 songs on my iPod, but let me make a good faith effort to come up with albums, instead.*

Great Big Sea - "Rant and Roar"
Loreena McKennitt - "The Book of Secrets"
Loretta Lynn - "Van Lear Rose"
R.E.M. - "Document"

Special Jim's Polka Answer Only!!

Four Artists Whose Tapes Were Found in D's Room at Her Parents' House This Weekend:

New Kids on the Block - Hangin' Tough
Debbie Gibson (both albums)
Martika (hey, who didn't like Toy Soldiers?)
Wang Chung

Four People to Tag With the Lists:

I suppose I'll go all-techie with this one:

* Not true. I'm pretty sure that there are at least 1000 that I could live without. For example, how, exactly, did I end up with 2 whole Kid Rock albums?

2005-12-20T17:46:00.000-08:00

The project to re-install Windows on the laptop turned into a long-overdue call to Dell tech support. The upshot is that, after 3 hours, we determined that the problem (one of the problems) was that the motherboard needs to be replaced. I'm pretty ambivalent about this, since it means being without the computer for a while, potentially including the beginning of the quarter. The real concern is that I need to be doing research on the patent laws for my journal note right now and maybe giving up my primary machine isn't the smartest idea. But, it's either now or next July, and I decided I'd better take the risk. For one, the damn thing isn't getting any more stable as time goes on. Anyway, I sent it out this afternoon. Now, everybody pray for me that all goes well.

Despite the fact that I really need to be working, I've been slacking off the last couple days. Over the weekend, we wrapped up the Christmas shopping (except that I still need to buy things for D). Then D took me out for a nice steak dinner. Yesterday, I experienced the thrill of going to the post office right before Christmas.

Oh, and after 2 weeks of almost completely clear weather, it's reverted to the norm - rain, rain, rain. That's not all bad, since the temperature is a good bit higher when it's raining (i.e. at least 10 degrees warmer). On the other hand, it's nice being able to see the mountains. When the weather's clear, you can see snow-capped mountains from the front step of the house, which is pretty nice. When my brother Andy was in town a couple months ago, he missed that view by a day. It doesn't look like it's going to be any better when he gets here this week.

2005-12-16T15:02:00.000-08:00

And, now I'm done. I turned in all the assignments at about 10 this morning. Despite expectations, I did leave the house over the last few days. Although, I have to say, on Tuesday I only left the house long enough to put the trashcans out for pickup. Yes, it was a fun, fun couple of days.

I'm celebrating in the style of my people - by re-installing Windows. The computer's been behaving badly for months, so the time had come. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling the blame for this goes to Examsoft. Things were basically working fine until I had to install it for my CrimLaw exam last year. The good news is, I think I might be able to make it through the rest of the year without using it again.

I also celebrated by reserving a bunch of books at the city library (fiction only, of course). I'll get them this weekend and then I'll be a happy camper.

A friend just sent me this link, to what can only be described as a combination of Salsa dancing and Street Fighter cosplay.

2005-12-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

OK, this is too funny. Last week, one of the gadget weblogs had a meetup in town. The location was really close to my house, so I figured I had to go. (I've definitely mentioned my geekiness before, so this isn't embarassing.) It was pretty decent, as these things go, and I got to see a whole bunch of new toys that I'll be getting just as soon as I get a paycheck again (assuming I can talk D into it). Today, they posted pictures from it and sure enough, I'm right in the middle of one of them, with my geekiness on display to the world. The best part is that I first heard about it from my old co-workers who spotted me in the picture. They're making fun of me, but I know they're jealous.

Believe it or not, I actually haven't been spending the last month just going to blog meetups. I've also done such fun things as studying and outlining. Yesterday was my first exam (Evidence) and my only in-building exam for the quarter. 30 multiple-choice questions, each with 10 possible answers. Very, very intense. Halfway through, I lost interest in working on it, but still had to keep going. As it turns out, there were a few things that I didn't learn until I re-read that part of the book during the exam. Not the best time to learn, but there you go.

Now all I have left is two take-home exams and a paper, all due Friday. Which basically means that I have no reason to leave the house between now and then. I think this is going to get ugly.

2005-11-14T22:42:00.000-08:00

Other updates... First, the job search is over. I decided to go with the same firm as last summer. They all seemed pretty happy about that, which was nice to see.

Second, Trademarks is still not good. The class isn't all that organized, for one thing. It might be different if we had a textbook, but it's all based on things that he's thrown together from treatises, plus a somewhat random bunch of cases. And, we have a guy in the class who's very, very annoying. He always has something to say, and it's rarely as close to the topic as we might like. It's like being a 1L again. Worst of all, he's a 3L, so he really should know better. I wonder why no one ever stopped him before (ESpat and LQ, I'm looking at you guys.).

Prof Evidence, in addition to moving around a lot as he teaches, has another amusing quirk. If no one answers his questions, he waits. And waits. He will not move on until someone volunteers. He seems to be counting on someone in the class cracking under the pressure before he does. It works, too, although it sometimes leaves us with several minutes of dead air. It wouldn't be such a big deal, except that he doesn't let you go with one question when you answer. People who know the answer to the first question don't want to volunteer because they know they won't know the next 4 or 5. Also, I think I've had enough of hearsay exceptions. I know the syllabus says that we have another week of it, but I think I'm done now.

2005-11-14T22:10:00.000-08:00

OK, time for me to get a little perspective. Sure, it's going to be a pain to write my note for the journal - a lot of work and all that. Still, people have done harder things. For example, I now have my very own (electronic) copy of my brother's PhD thesis. It weighs in at 125 pages. Of course, he had a lot longer to work on it, but he also had to write to code to build the models and get the data. So, I'm thinking he had the harder task. 25 or 30 pages should be easy, in comparison.

I remain impressed by my brother's PhD. So very cool that he finished it so well. I'm about 25 pages into the thesis and I'm happy to say that I've understood everything so far. I'm still adjusting to the idea that my brother (economics major) knows significantly more math than I do (engineering major). I'm expecting that the remaining 100 pages will get harder to understand. I did appreciate being mentioned in the acknowledgements. I'm thanked one paragraph earlier than the 10-foot papier mache head. I'm so honored.

As for me, I'm getting ready to submit my topic proposal this week. I think it's a good topic, and I've already found an advisor to work with (my Patents prof), so I'm hoping it'll get approved without too much trouble. Then, Japanese law, here I come!

2005-10-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Oh, a few other things. I think I have a topic for my law review note now, or at least a really good idea for one. I talked to my Patents professor after class last Monday and she suggested it. It's timely, and I think I can get her to be my advisor for it.

The clinic is also coming together. It looks like we're going to be working with a policy group in DC to make bad things happen to bad people. For the public good. (Maybe I'll link to it at some point. I'm still thinking about it.)

D's birthday is this week, so I took her out to dinner yesterday. We went to this undergroud restaurant that calls itself Gypsy. Basically, well-known local chefs get together and cook for a small group of people in an undisclosed location. It's all very cloak-and-dagger. It may sound weird, but the food was spectacular. Of course, we were the youngest people there. The lady next to me guessed that we were in our early 20s.

2005-10-24T21:54:00.000-07:00

Law-related news first...

Those of you who loved Contracts should make sure to check out TG Daily's article RTF EULA (Read The End-User Licensing Agreement). Read it. Revel in the ways that "clever" lawyers try to contract their way around contract law. In particular, you 1Ls will enjoy the first one on the third page, where the license explains that it really, truly, honest-to-God isn't including a penalty clause. No really, I promise it's just a liquidated damages clause. (Non-lawyers, please ignore this.)

Then, for a helluva a good time in patent law, check out this article about litigation over condom patents. (It's Salon, so be ready to watch an ad.) I doubt I'll ever run across anything this fun.

I have to say, Evidence is really ruining Law and Order for me. I'm hoping it's like when I first started doing ballroom and couldn't help evaluating every song on the radio for which dance you could do. At least that wore off eventually...

Last Friday's callback was ....... ok. I really liked some of the people. I had a good time answering the technical questions (and apparently did a good job). But, I don't think it was quite good enough. So, I'm left at the same place I started - almost definitely going back to the firm from last summer.

2005-10-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

OK, so I think I was going to talk about my classes. Here's the list:

Patents - This is looking very good. The professor is pretty good, so far. And, of course, I already know I like the subject matter. The summer doing patent work is definitely going to help here. The fact that it starts at 8:30 two days a week would be really annoying, if it wasn't for...
Trademarks - which starts at 8:05 two days a week. Who wouldn't love that? (Um... me?) The professor didn't get particularly good reviews when I was picking classes last spring, and he's been pretty close to expectations - maybe slightly better. He's a practicing lawyer and in the first class he made sure to mention his billing rate and the fact that he was a "rainmaker". One of my friends dropped the class in the middle of the first meeting. However, if you want to learn trademarks, he's pretty much the only option, so here I stay.
Evidence - No, not the professor that has you writing songs and stuff. That one conflicted with Patents. Instead, I have the prof that LQ had for Fed Courts. The pacer. I'm not a nervous guy, but watching him makes me twitchy. However, when it comes to class, he does a very good job. Nothing will stop him from keeping up with the reading, even if it means he has to talk at double speed during the last 10 minutes. He wrote the book, which could have been bad news, but is actually well-written and easy to work with.
Tech Law Clinic - pretty cool, so far. It's a public policy clinic, so the prof is bringing in all sorts of people to help us understand the legislative process. In the first week, the heads of the state Republican and Democratic parties spoke to us. Last week, there was a guy who talked about how to testify before legislative committees. He may know a little bit about it, too - apparently he helped Anita Hill prepare for her testimony, back in the day. We haven't done a whole lot of clinic-y stuff, yet, though, so who knows what will happen next.

Having said all that, the schedule is ridiculous. No two classes next to each other - I have hour or two hour breaks all week. I guess at some point I'll spend that time studying, instead of sitting around bull-shitting, but that point hasn't come yet. Oh, and Evidence is a Tuesday through Friday class. What's up with that?

Everything's going fine right now, but I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like I said, we haven't done much clinic stuff, but I know that's going to be a time-suck when it ramps up. And I haven't been assigned anything for the journal yet, but that'll be even worse. Happily, I'm writing for the last book of the year, so I have a little more time to come up with a topic.

I got one callback out of OCI, scheduled for two weeks from now. I still haven't heard back from two firms, but I figure if I haven't heard by now, I'm not going to. Anyway, I had a great talk with a friend from the summer firm this evening, so I'm feeling really good about sticking with them. I've also convinced him and his wife to buy a house in my neighborhood.

2005-09-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

The Friday of OCI week I headed back East for a vacation. I had a wedding to go to in Maryland the following weekend, but I figured it would be fun to go back early and visit my friends. So, the plan was for me to head out on Friday, with D coming out the following Thursday.

But first, a little interlude in which I tell everyone how I'm a big idiot. I thought my plane was leaving at 11:55, when in fact it was supposed to leave at 10:55. As a bonus, it was raining that day, so the bus to the airport was delayed. I actually checked my bag at about 10:55. Then I went to the gate, where there was a sign saying that departure was delayed until 11:40. "Hmmm... That's strange. How could it be delayed until 11:40?" And only then did I look at my ticket. And felt sick to my stomach. The delay saved me from my own stupidity. Then, my connecting flight was delayed, too, so I had no problems making the connection. All in all, it was a pretty lucky day for me. (Not so for my sister, who had her flight to Italy cancelled.)

My first reaction when I got out of the airport was "Oh my God. How did I ever live with this humidity?" So, apparently, it doesn't even take a year of living out here to turn you into a weather wuss. In my defense, the temperature got up to 92 in DC last Friday. Ugh.

I used my vacation time well, I think. I went ballroom dancing on Saturday night. Some of my local friends came along, and there were a ton of college students to dance with as well. (And to make me feel old.) Then the family and I went to my dad's weekend place on the Eastern Shore for a few days. I went sailing with my dad and my stepmom's nephew. I don't know why they bring me along - I'm bad luck. Most of the time, my presence means that there will be no wind. And then there was the time with all the rain. This time, there wasn't much wind, so our trip that we thought would take 4 hours took 7 hours instead. Still, it was a nice trip, and I managed to make it through with minimal sunburn. It would have been better if we'd brought beer, but that's what happens when my stepmom packs, I guess.

Anyway, this post has already gone on too long, so I'll summarize the rest of the week. I visited the old office on Tuesday and wasted many productive programmer hours talking to them. I had lunch with my grandmother and dinner with my best friend from high school. And, we went to the wedding on Saturday. I had a nice time, and it was great to see that group of friends (from college), since I don't get to see them often these days. D and I danced a little bit, including a very fun Lindy Hop (although she wouldn't let me do any lifts).

Then back to TVPNM on Sunday, just in time to start school yesterday. But, that's for another post, cuz I'm done now.

2005-09-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I wrote about OCI, I actually have some results to report. Mostly bad, but still... There was one firm that I'd heard enough bad things about that I was sure I didn't want to work there. After the interview, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be a good fit there. Luckily, they felt the same way and sent me a rejection within two days. I've also gotten rejections from 2 other places. Only one callback, so far.

The most exciting bit of the week was when my bus got stuck in traffic and I almost missed my first interview of the day. That was with the firm that I have the callback for (a patent boutique). They spent a large part of the time making fun of one of the partners I worked for this summer. It was joking, since he used to work for them, but it was still a little weird. The same day, I had another odd one. The guy they sent had only been with the firm for 6 months. He spent the whole time telling me other firms I should be interviewing with. Then he closed out by telling me that they probably wouldn't be hiring anyone for the summer anyway. Everybody I've talked to had about the same experience. Surprisingly (ha), I still haven't heard back from them.

The summer firm is looking better all the time. Maybe I'll just go for a few extra days on the beach in Greece...

2005-09-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

After 2 weeks of slacking off, I finally have something to do today. Specifically, my first two interviews for OCI are this afternoon. Inconveniently, I probably don't want to work for one of them and I'm doubtful about the other. Both firms have their good points and they're fine, prestige-wise, but what I've heard about them leads me to think that they won't be good matches to my personality. Actually, there's only one firm that I think could be a good fit. I'm interviewing with them on Wednesday. Regardless, this should be fun.

I'm not too worked up about this because my fallback option is pretty damn good. My summer firm called me on Thursday to invite me back for next summer (and to work during the year, if I want). As I've said before, I really liked working for them and I think there are huge opportunities to build a really good career there. In addition, one of the partners I worked for would be a great mentor (and expressed some interest, in fact). So, tell me again why I should look at other firms? Plus, there's the trip to Greece to think about....

2005-09-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

OK, so what have I been doing with my time since I last posted? Well, I had my last day of work a week and a half ago. My final week ended up being pretty dull. I finished up my major assignments the middle of the second-to-last week, so I picked up a time-filler assignment. Basically, read all the comments on a particular proposed rule-making by an administrative agency and then summarize them. The subject matter was very interesting, but the actual work was pretty brain-dead, which is not such a bad thing going into the final week. At least there was no danger of not finishing. As it happened, I finished on Wednesday morning and had a day and a half with nothing much to do. Like any good summer associate, I filled it with coffee, smoothies and free lunch.

That weekend, my brother Andy, my sister Christina, and Christina's boyfriend Alfio came to visit. This was the first time any of them had come to visit since we got to town. We had a great time, although it wasn't really long enough. Christina and Alfio have a lot of ground to cover before they head back to Europe, so they couldn't really stay. And Andy started a new job in a new city last Thursday, so he definitely didn't have much time to spare. He's just started a new blog, so maybe I'll be able to point you to his side of the story soon. Anyway, the visit was excellent. We didn't do much in the way of activities, as such. We did more of just walking around the cool neighborhoods in the city and looking a street art and stuff. Christina and Alfio particularly liked the used record stores - Alfio even bought Inagadda Da Vida on vinyl. I'm not even sure he has a turntable, but there you go. I was sad to see them go.

My dad has a plan for next summer that could be even better, though. He's decided that he wants to get the whole family together for a vacation - in Greece. He's even offering to pay for housing and food while we're there. This sounds so good that I've decided that whatever work I do next summer will just have to fit in around the trip. Some things are just too important. I'm sure I'll be writing more about this in the coming months.

Finally, OCI is next week. I have interviews with 6 firms, out of the 10 I bid for. (11, actually, but one decided they weren't hiring.) I'm only really interested in one of them, but I'm at least going to see what they have to say for themselves. A really big part of me wants to just blow them all off and go back to the same place as this summer. (Assuming they make me an offer. I'm supposed to get word on Thursday or Friday. So far, things are looking good.) Anyway, it'll be two per day Monday through Wednesday and then done after that. I have a friend who has 15 interviews, including 5 on Thursday. He's a really good guy, so I'm happy for him, but I hope he doesn't forget who he's talking to by interview 10.

This week, however, I have exciting plans to get in some quality video game playing. I started playing God of War last week and it's definitely living up to the reviews.

2005-09-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

A lot of things have combined to keep me from blogging for the last couple weeks. Katrina is the most significant of them. It just feels ridiculous to talk about what's going on in my life in the face of that horror. So, I've spent the last week reading, praying for the survivors and getting angry. I didn't think it was possible to dislike the President any more than I already did, but somehow the Bush administration managed to take it to the next level. D and I have already made one donation to the Red Cross and I think we're going to make another one soon. I hope that everyone who has the ability to do so, will.

2005-08-21T23:09:00.000-07:00

OK, I guess I may get the patent application out after all. After giving me a bajillion comments on my last draft (requiring a complete rewrite of one section), they came back on Friday with 2 comments, both of which were trivial to deal with. Now, if we can get the forms signed, I think I'll actually managed to get it filed before I leave. Very exciting. Of course, the chances of getting it granted aren't great, but that's not really my problem.

So, I mentioned a while back that I was trying to pick a topic for the tech law clinic this year. Back in June, I mentioned one idea to the professor running the clinic. He mentioned that he knew a lawyer in town who did a lot of work in that area. Of course, then I got caught up in the summer work and never followed up on it. The other day, I suddenly realized two things. First, that lawyer that the professor knew? He's a nationally known expert in the area. Second? He works at my summer firm, one floor up from where I've been sitting all summer. Yep, I'm an idiot. The only reason I figured it out is that I took an assignment from him on Thursday. Anyway, I'm going to try to have coffee with him before I'm done on Friday.

Apparently, the OCI firms needed a little more time to decide, so we have to wait till next Monday to find out what interviews we get. I've already discovered that I didn't request one firm that I thought I had requested. Now, I can't remember if that was intentional, or just me being forgetful (as usual).

2005-08-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

Family, family, family.

I guess this is what happens when you make a big move. Everyone comes to visit. First, my mom came to visit for a week back in June. Then my dad and my stepmom were here at the end of July and beginning of August. Happily, we had a good time with both visits. They're all good at entertaining themselves, so D and I didn't have to worry too much about scheduling them. When we did get together, we did nice stuff like take the ferry over to one of the islands and walk around there, instead of the same old tourist stuff. So, both visits by parents were successful. And now, but my mom and my stepmom want to move here. In my mom's case, it might happen. I think it's a lot less likely with my dad and stepmom.

D's parents came to visit over the weekend. Actually, they came partially to see us and partially on their yearly pilgrimage to the Asian grocery (there's not one in the town they live in). They got here Saturday afternoon and left after lunch on Sunday, so it wasn't a long trip. They're really nice people, so it was good having them around. They do tend to drive D a little crazy, though.

And, in less than 2 weeks, my brother, my sister and my sister's boyfriend are all coming to visit. That's gonna be a great time. My only regret is that they can't stay longer. But, my sister is only in the US for a month and she has a lot to do. And my brother is starting a new job in a new city on September 1, so he doesn't have a lot of time to spare either. So far my only plan is to show them the place where a large part of one of our favorite movies was filmed. To my surprise, when I moved here, I found out that it's just a couple blocks from my house. (I wonder if I've said enough to ruin the surprise.)

One final thing, since we're on the subject of my brother. He deserves a big high-five for defending and getting his PhD. So, now he's Dr. Andy, which is damn cool. He's headed off to a post-doc-ish job in TVPNM's sister city, Thinly-Veiled Midwest Metropolis. Then he'll be off to take over the world.

2005-08-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the patent application isn't filed yet. One of the inventors had a whooooole lot of comments that resulted in me having to rewrite a whole section. Now, I'm worried about finishing it before I'm done work. I'm sure I'll finish writing, but I'm a little doubtful that I'll be able to get the inventors to sign off in time. That would be a little disappointing, but not really the worst thing in the world.

Work remains really great. Because of the unfinished application, I'm having a little trouble getting my other work done in a timely manner, which is a problem, but I'll deal. The partner I'm doing the application for just asked me (again) if I want to work for them during the school year. I'm not sure about that, mostly because of the journal. I told him I'll get back to him in November when I have a better of what my year is like.

I put in requests for 11 firms for OCI. Now, I have two kinds of regret. One, there are a couple picks that aren't such a great idea. In particular, there's on firm that's famous for associates billing 3000 hours. Second, I'm starting to wonder if I'd be happier just coming back to the same firm next summer. Everyone says I should split my summer with the old firm and somewhere else, but I'm not too excited about that choice. The main reason is, I really like the people at this one. They remind me of the people I worked with at the old company, who were a pretty exceptional group. It would be pretty fun to come back when I have a better idea of what's going on both in the firm and in the areas of law that I'm working in.

By the way, transmogriflaw just said a lot of the things I've been thinking. (Except maybe the bit about doing estate law.)

2005-07-26T22:20:00.000-07:00

Well, like I said, I sure do know how to have a good time. I spent much of Saturday reading Book 6. Foolishly, I tried to go to bed at midnight with 100 pages to go. I was so keyed up that it took me at least an hour to fall asleep. I would have gotten the same result if I had just finished it in the first place. But, I very much enjoyed it. The ending left me sad and concerned, so I think she did it just right. I'm already looking forward to re-reading it. In fact, I might already be re-reading it, if my dad hadn't claimed it. It took him 10 minutes in the house (he and my step-mom are visiting for a bit) to grab the book. I'd complain more, except that I still have 3 of his Patrick O'Brien books.

So, we got the results of the law review write-on over the weekend. I got invited to join the Asia/Pacific Rim journal. I'll admit, I was a little disappointed not to make it onto the main journal. But, I'm also pretty excited about this one. For one thing, I really like the people from my class that got invited to join. And, as a bonus, the most annoying guy in my section made it onto the main journal. I'm just as happy that I won't have to put up with his crap. In addition, this is a nice opportunity to pay attention to my interest in Asia. I studied Japanese for 9 years, but every time I've ever had to make a choice between Japanese and something else, the something else has always won. Now, I had good reasons for that, such as not wanting to move to the other side of the world from D. But, this is a nice chance to do something with it.

I'm within a day or so of filing my first patent. The partner I'm working for gave me the go-ahead today, so I just need to get the inventor's approval and then we can send it off. So, I definitely have something to show for the summer. I also had my midpoint review today. Basically, they told me good things and just reminded me that I should keep the lawyers appraised of how things are going when I'm working on stuff with soft deadlines.

2005-07-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Our copy of the new Harry Potter book arrived yesterday. Not bad, given that it had to come from England (courtesy of amazon.co.uk).

If I'd written this yesterday, I would have said "Great! Now I just have to read 350 pages of Neal Stephenson in the time it takes D to read 608 pages of JK Rowling." Instead, I'm stuck saying "Great. How long is it going to take me to read 280 pages of Neal Stephenson, since D is already finished the book." She's a super-fast reader and she had the day off. When I got home, she had already started rereading...

Unfortunately, all of this reading is keeping me from the one thing I should be working on - getting my OCI stuff together. My resume is fine, especially once I gave up on the idea that I could do it in one page. All of my possible writing samples are pretty lame, so I'm just going to pick the least sucky of them and go with it. It's the damn cover letter that is bugging me. I don't know what to write and I just don't feel like it. A big part of me wants to just skip it and count on working at the same place next summer. Anyway, I guess I'll get to it over the weekend. I'll tell you, I sure know how to have a good time.

2005-07-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I posted that I'm not even going to bother with a summary of the last few weeks. The short version is that I'm celebrating not being in school by reading and watching TV, instead of spending the evening on the computer. It's not such a bad thing.

The problem is, I may have actually taken on too much reading. I celebrated my paycheck by buying books two and three of the Baroque Cycle. Of course, since I haven't read the first book in a year, I figured I ought to go back and read that, too. So, I've basically assigned myself 2500 pages of reading. And that doesn't even include the new Harry Potter book, which we have on pre-order from amazon.co.uk (it's all about the authenticity for us). Luckily, D's going to read it first, so I have a little longer to finish the books.

So, work itself is still pretty great. Patents work is still interesting. In a weird way, I feel more like an electrical engineer now than I have in years, maybe even since college. I've been assigned projects that require me to look at (and relearn) areas of EE that I haven't thought about in years. In fact, today I was relearning basic circuit theory - the sort of thing that was second nature to me 10 years ago. (Geez. 10 years since I took that class. That's disturbing.)

I'm still enjoying all of the summer associate program bonuses, too. (Mandatory disclaimer: don't worry, I'm not fooled by it. I'm just reveling in it because I know that it'll never be this good again.) We've had several nice visits to the sites of big clients. And the free lunches, of course.

Oh, and the high point of it all? The firm was vilified by name on a big news site a couple weeks ago. I'm still trying to be slightly anonymous, so I won't point to the article. In short, it's sort of like if Fox News says that you suck. Sure, you don't like to be told that you suck, but the fact that they care is kinda a point of pride.

Victory - 1L Year Is Done

2005-06-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

I turned in the law review write-on at about 3 on Friday. By the end, it didn't even suck. Or, it sucked a lot less than it did the week before. And, at least I didn't have to stay up all night to finish, like one of my friends did.

D is very happy with that. She understands why law review is important, but that didn't really make her any happier that I was still working on school things after exams were over. Inconveniently, my mom arrived just 5 hours after I turned in the write-on. It's nice to have her visiting, but it would be nice to have a little quiet time with D, too.

So, now I get to move on to the next crisis. The bid period is approaching for OCI. I'm going to have to put together a cover letter, I guess. Really, though, I don't know what to do with all of the firms. Even after an initial filter - only including local firms and eliminating the ones that don't do technology-related work (not necessarily patent prosecution) - there's still 20-25 firms. It's hard to muster up any enthusiasm for the whole thing. That's particularly true since my first 2 weeks of work this summer have been so interesting and fun. Why should I look somewhere else if these guys are so great? Of course, I know that I'll be happier if I try somewhere else, too, even if it just confirms that the first firm is right for me. But, sometimes it's hard to fight laziness.

Daily Update

2005-06-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

I accidentally picked up two new assignments yesterday. I volunteered for one in the morning, helping a partner update a presentation on trade secrets. Then another partner stopped by in the afternoon with another assignment. I didn't want to say no both because I really like him and because he's the lead for our group, so I definitely want to impress him. Also, the assignment is to write a patent from scratch, which is an experience I'd love to have. He's going to take me through it step-by-step, so it shouldn't be too scary. (At least until I get to writing the claims.) However, it does mean that I'd better not pick up any new work for the next week or two.

I'm still getting free lunches. That's nice, but it's not the reason I like the firm as much as I do. That's more about the people. Just about everyone seems to be both smart and nice. The people in the patent group are great, but so are the other summer associates (even the ones from hoity-toity law schools). And so are the lawyers from other groups. I'm into it enough that I'm thinking about teaching ballroom classes for the rest of the summer, if enough people are interested.

The law review writeon continues. After a couple major revisions, it's starting to look ok. Maybe not spectacular, but not bad either. Unfortunately, I forgot to pick up my number for grading, so I'm going to have to run up to school on Thursday to get that. And then again on Friday to turn it in. But after that, I'll be done! And I can do all those things I've been putting off, like watching the last two episodes of The OC.

Enjoy It and Quit Whining

2005-06-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

The retreat was a lot of fun. Despite forecasts of thunderstorms for yesterday, we had a cloudy day that turned to partly cloudy by the evening. I went out kayaking in the afternoon, while D got an aromatherapy massage. As previously seen, I'm incapable of remembering to put on sunscreen, so I got another sunburn. My shoulders and back are a little sore, too, but not as much as I expected. I met some cool people at the retreat, including a bunch of summer associates from other offices. After talking about ballroom with a bunch of people over the weekend, I'm thinking of starting up dance classes for the summer. We'll see if anything comes of that.

I'm still working on the write-on. I'm revising now, which is a little easier than doing the initial draft. Also, it's come to my attention that one of the other summer associates is studying for the bar while she's working, which makes my complaints seem trifling. She came along on the retreat, but spent many hours of it listening to Barbri tapes (on CivPro, I think).

Write-on Update

2005-06-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

On the topic of the write-on, I should note that I just finished my first draft this evening. It's terrible. Just awful. I had a bad case of writer's block earlier in the week and I was looking for a way out. Since I tend to do my best thinking when I'm running my mouth, I decided to go for the next best thing - freeform writing whatever seemed to work without worrying about silly things like wordiness and proper citation. Hence, terrible. But, at least I have something to work with as I revise. Hopefully, it'll turn out easier the second time through. At least I'm trying my best to follow the directions. I hear that's a real problem. (In fact, one of the other summer associates is also grading write-ons for Michigan Law Review and had the exact same complaint. Go figure.)

3-0

2005-06-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

Yup, today's my thirtieth birthday. I celebrated by working on the law review write-on. Yay.

Actually, that's not entirely true. A couple of the lawyers in my group took me out to lunch, which was thoughtful. Then one of the summer associates who started with me this week organized a happy hour in my honor, which was even nicer. Despite the short notice, a bunch of people stopped by. They're turning out to be a pretty cool bunch. (They'd better be, since we're all going on the summer associate retreat this weekend.)

The prize for best birthday wishes goes to my sister, who sent me an e-card featuring a naked, dancing monkey. And, as everyone knows, monkeys are automatically funny.

D and I are postponing celebration until after the law review thing is done. It'll be just like our anniversary celebration.

Despite the importance of the day, work continued, mostly unaffected. I spent the afternoon reading patents, which is not the easiest thing to do. I'm still adjusting to the language and everything. Tomorrow I'm sitting in on a meeting with an inventor. Which is to say, work is still going great.

CrimLaw? Ugh. First Day? Good.

2005-06-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

OK, so the Crimlaw exam sucked. The Prof has his own special way of writing exams, which is like no exam I've ever taken. He gives you plenty of warning about it, but it's still crazy. And closed book. The worst part is that his exam problems are based on real cases, and you're expected to predict how the court ruled. I predicted wrong. Now, I'm not the kind of person that would look up the answer after the exam was over, but that's unfortunately not true of everybody. Someone in my class looked it up right after the exam was over and then blabbed it at the end-of-year picnic a half-hour later. I don't know if it'll matter, but it certainly doesn't make me feel better about the whole experience.

The first day of work, however, was pretty nice. Not overly exciting, since it was all computer training and stuff, but still good. Despite the late start, there were actually 11 other summer associates starting today. 5 of us from TVPNU and 1 from Chicago, which is another quarter system school. The rest just wanted a longer vacation, I think. (And good for them if that's the reason!) Strangely, there's only one other guy in the group. I don't know what to make of that. Anyway, it was a frenzy of training and filling out forms, basically. I did stop in to see my office at the end of the day, and let me just say: Wow. When I worked at the consulting firm, I had an office the same size, but I shared it with 2 other people. And the view from the office is spectacular. Don't get me wrong, that's not a reason I would choose the firm or not, but it is a nice little bonus. Certainly more than I was expecting.

Even better, I don't even have to be in until 9:30 tomorrow. There's a diversity breakfast, but since I'm not diverse, I don't have to go. Not so bad, really.

Dancing With the Stars

2005-06-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

I love this show! The dancing is actually quite good. I'm not sure who my favorite is yet. I will say that making the male stars lead quickstep is rough. It's not easy to lead when you're moving that fast. Joey McIntyre did a really good job, though. The judges were right - he does need to work on his posture. But he kept it together really well and did some nice footwork.

Rachel Hunter was even more impressive doing rumba. She looked like someone who had been dancing for a lot more than the few weeks that they've been training. And, as D noted, "She's really flexible."

Update: Trista was ok. Whatever. Didn't really knock me out.

But, John O'Hurley did an excellent job. The mean British just said what I was about to say, but I'll repeat. He had excellent posture. They did an excellent job moving together. The feet looked nice. (To me, the posture is the most important thing. Mostly because it took me so long to get the hang of it.)

Update 2: Yeah, Kelly Monaco is really stiff. Good-looking, but not much with the dancing.

Evander Holyfield may just be too big for some of these dances. He seems too used to the style of movement of boxing to switch over to that of dancing.

I think these last two were the worst of the bunch. So, let's see who gets eliminated...

Final Update: Trista gone. That's wrong. She wasn't the best, but she was definitely better then Kelly. Maybe if I'd been watching American Idol, I'd be used to this.

Also

2005-06-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

By the way, did I mention how great it is that we're the last law students in America who aren't done with school yet? It's the best.

ConLaw? Odd

2005-06-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

I guess any ConLaw exam is bound to be odd when it excludes the Commerce Clause and the Constitutional Common Market. We accounted for the Commerce Clause in a writing assignment a couple weeks ago and we took care of the Common Market in the take-home portion of the exam. That sounds annoying, but it was kind of a relief to go into today's exam knowing that it was only worth 60% of the whole exam grade.

But, still. It was a little weird. Three hours for ten short answer questions with strict line limits. No typed answer could be longer than 9 lines. After an hour and 20 minutes, I had something written for all 10. I spent another half hour making sure I was happy with my answers and waiting for someone else to finish before me. For some reason, I feel weird being the first person to finish an exam. Anyway, I turned in the exam after 2 hours. I spent the rest of the time hanging out and wondering what everyone else was doing that was taking so long. (One person actually read all of Marbury v. Madison during the exam, so I guess that explains some of it.)

I also had a talk with the prof who runs the tech law clinic. I'm trying to pick a topic for a project for next year. The problem is, there are so many options that I'm having trouble narrowing things down. Anyway, I still have a while to think about it. Of course, ideas are welcome.

Classes Next Year

2005-06-07T23:23:00.000-07:00

OK, I think I've finally figured out what I'm taking in the fall. (I just registered for the last class today.) I have a general idea of what's happening in the winter and spring, but I stil have a few decisions to make there.

So, for the fall:
Tech Law and Public Policy Clinic
Tech Law and Public Policy (with Energy Spatula, yay!)
Patents
Trademarks
Evidence

A nice, sensible schedule, I think. It'll all depend on how the clinic is. It runs all year, so that's one thing I don't have to worry about for the winter and spring.

This post is proof that I'd happily do anything except study for ConLaw. (Except for studying for CrimLaw, of course.)

Songs of Inspiration?

2005-06-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

As much as I try, exams still make me nervous. Not incredibly so, but still not so fun. One thing that seems to help is to listen really high energy, jump-around-like-an-idiot music. Up till now, that's mostly been Andrew W.K. songs with the volume turned up. (My favorite is "Party Hard" although "It's Time to Party" is a contender, too. And "Get Ready to Die" is surprisingly uplifting as well.) I'm trying to broaden the selection a little bit, so I'm looking for suggestions. Does anyone out there have any ideas for songs I should add to the list? I'll post the playlist at some point.

Property? Meh

2005-06-06T22:49:00.000-07:00

It was ok. I was surprised that there was no adverse possession on it. Not a whole lot else to say. I ended up taking the rest of the day off, pretty much. I did read a lot of the commentary on Raich, since it was decided today and ConLaw is my next exam. The prof gave us a writing assignment on the Commerce Clause and told us that he wouldn't test us on it on the exam, so it wasn't studying as such, but it was still interesting. Sadly, tomorrow I'll have to be productive.

Whoops

2005-06-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

I really like the local public library. The new building for the main library is really cool. It allows me to indulge my penchant for light reading without spending tons of money. Just as important, it lets me read a lot of books without have to find the shelf space to put it in. Oh, and they've got a nice web page. You can go there, search through their catalog and then click on the "Hold" button and they'll add you to the wait list. Then they send you an e-mail when the book is in.

The problem is, sometimes it's so easy that I get a little carried away, which is maybe not the best thing to do while school is going on. A couple months ago, I got a little carried away and added a bunch of books to my hold list. At least one of them, Collapse by Jared Diamond, is probably a bad choice to have to read in three weeks during law school. The good news is, there's still several hundred people ahead of me for that one. But, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is now ready for me. I can wait until after exams to pick it up, but I think this is going to be hell on my law review write-on.

With A Whimper (and a Whine)

2005-06-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

Almost without being noticed, the last class of my 1L year happened on Wednesday. It was a little anti-climactic, since it was followed with a review session for Property. We applauded ProfConLaw and ProfProperty. We would have applauded ProfCrimLaw if he hadn't fled so fast. He read us a little poem he wrote, then turned red and left the room. It was actually kind of endearing.

I think the girls are going to miss ProfProperty. Apparently, they've been checking out his butt every time he writes something on the board. Me, I wouldn't know about that, but I will miss his class. He actually won a teaching award at the prom last week. He also said something about me being one of his better students, but I'm pretty sure he has me confused with the woman who sits next to me in class. Still, nice to hear.

So, I told you the whimper. The whining comes next. There's the 3.5 hour ConLaw review session that I just got home from. Useful, but soooooooo tiring. I mean, after a while, you just don't want to hear about the dormant commerce clause anymore. I have exams next week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then I get to pick up the law review write-on packet. We have two weeks to get it done. Of course, during those same two weeks, I'll be working, too. And, the middle weekend there's a retreat kind of thing for the summer associates, which I would hate to miss. Oh, and my 30th birthday. I think I'm going to officially postpone that until the law review thing is done. Wish me luck!

Finally

2005-05-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

Since I'm reveling in all of the non-school things I'm doing, I'll throw out one more. We're going to see the new Star Wars this weekend, too. It's a delayed anniversary celebration. Or a very spread-out celebration, anyway, since we did go out to a very nice dinner last weekend. But the Star Wars part is special. We saw Attack of the Clones the day after our wedding three years ago, so a special trip to this one seems appropriate.

I should note that I'm not the big geek in that story. Going to see Attack of the Clones that weekend was D's idea. Although I certainly didn't fight it...

I Don't Know How I'm Expected To Concentrate

2005-05-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

So, when I say wonderful weather, this is what I'm talking about.

Red

2005-05-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's hot around here. It got into the upper 80s today. And best of all, no humidity. I know I've said it before, but it's great around here when the sun is shining. All I want to do is lay out on the lawn and do nothing. In fact, that's what I did at lunchtime yesterday. I went outside at 11:30 and didn't come inside until it was time to go to ConLaw at 1:30. People came and went, but I stayed.

Which is why my arms and face are all red now. I even have a little tan (burn) line on my nose from where my glasses are. But, you know what, it was totally worth it. I still have a quarter's worth of outlining to do in all of my classes, as well as a paper on the Commerce Clause for ConLaw, but somehow I don't mind so much.

Law School Prom is this weekend. I have high hopes of showing off my dancing skills.

So Cool

2005-05-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is great. In addition to being able to walk to the Safeway across the street and the [deleted name of organic market] 5 blocks away, I just found out that there's a farmer's market opening up 3 blocks from my house. I love city living.

Update: I put a little too much info on my address in this post, so I edited slightly. Sorry.

Competition Results

2005-05-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

Well, we didn't make the cut. We lost on the second night. Although I'm happy to have my free time left, I am a little disappointed. There was no question in my mind that the best argument was on the other side. But there was also no question in my mind that the worst argument was on the other side. I think that the judges gave the latter a little too much credit, which pushed them over the top.

However, years of involvement in ballroom dancing competitions has given me a lot of perspective on this kind of subjectively-judged competition. First of all, sometimes judges make bad decisions. Often, however, they just have a different set of criteria from what you think they should. That may or may not be the appropriate criteria, but you can't really make them change it, no matter what you think. (That's why they're the judges.)

One team made the cut and then withdrew. They couldn't deal with all the extra time it would take. A couple other teams were not thrilled to make it, for the same reason. As for me, I have a wife who was much happier to have me at home yesterday evening. I did have way more fun doing the arguments than I expected. And I got to watch the finale of Gilmore Girls yesterday. Now all I need to do is catch up on the episodes of The OC that I missed.

Happy Anniversary!!!

2005-05-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

Three years ago today, D and I got married. I still think it was the best choice I ever made. The fact that she's still willing to put up with me is a great reassurance.

Unfortunately, because of the competition, we couldn't do anything to celebrate. We do have big plans for Saturday - dinner and Star Wars. We saw Attack of the Clones the day after our wedding, so it seems appropriate to celebrate the anniversary with the third movie.

Appellate Advocacy

2005-05-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, I tried to write a post complaining about the upcoming appellate advocacy competition. Loosely summarized, it said "whine whine whine no time whine whine whine". Of course, I said basically the same thing before the other two competitions also. But, Blogger lost the post. That sucked.

I just got home from the second night of the competition. Everybody does two nights, then the best teams advance to the elite 8. (Actually, there are three ladders, so there are three Elite 8s.) You do one night on-brief and one night off.

And, I have to say, both nights were a huge amount of fun. We had a hot panel, yesterday, so I barely covered any of the stuff on my outline. One of the judges had something like 20 years of appellate criminal experience, so he knew a lot more about the topic than any of us did. He asked a ton of really good questions. The other two judges weren't shy either. It was intense, but really exciting. Both teams did well, but my team won by a few points. As for me, I was just happy that I kept my hands under control and wasn't flailing everywhere. (D is always moving drinks out of my gesticulation range when I talk.)

Tonight the panel was pretty cold. We went on at 8 and they had already done one argument, as well as working the whole day, so they were a little tired. We were arguing on-brief, representing the government. I stood up, responded to all of the petitioner's points and sat down with two minutes remaining because I had nothing left to say. Actually, the high point was in the first minute. When my partner was up, she got asked a question that had more to do with my issue. She said "My co-counsel will be addressing that in more detail, but here's the short answer..." and did the best she could. Then the hand grenade ended up in my lap. So, I answered the question before I went into my argument. The same judge asked a followup question. I didn't know the answer and told him so. The judges told me later that they respected my bravery for answering the question before starting my argument and that I got more credibility for telling them when I didn't know the answer. That felt pretty good.

I don't know if we won tonight. I thought we were a little better, but it's always hard to say. I'm also pretty sure that I don't want to advance to the next round. I've done well enough to feel satisfied with my performance. I don't need any more validation.

Anyway, what I really want to do is watch the season finale of Gilmore Girls. (which I missed for the competition)

Class Selection

2005-05-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

It a pain in my butt. (Luckily I have a new couch to sit it on.)

So, I put in my request for the Tech Law clinic. I ended up number 2 on the waitlist. The good news there is that I talked to the prof running it and he says that "If you're really interested, I'll let you in." I told him I am, in fact, really interested, so he said I'm in. This is excellent. The work for the class seems really interesting and the professor's pretty cool, as a bonus. He's a fellow East-coaster, which is good. I feel like I need to hang out with a few people from the East Coast, just so I don't end up with a fragile, avoid-confrontation-at-all-costs TVPNM psyche. (You can tell the natives around here. They're the ones who complain about how abrasive the New York people are. Me, I'm not abrasive, but somtimes I like hanging out with people who are.)

Anyway, today was the due date for submitting class requests for next year. It's not exactly registration, just putting in for the lottery in the popular classes. Regardless, I spent a while yesterday trying to figure out how to make it all fit together. Unfortunately, the school seems to be into letting the professors pick the times for their classes without much rhyme or reason. So, you end not able to take two classes because they overlap by 10 minutes. Very annoying.

Anyway, one way or the other, I'm not going to get to take everything I want next year. Hopefully, that won't be too big a deal in the long run.

I have been spending the last day or so breaking in the new couch. Yesterday, I took a nap on it. Today I watched an episode of The OC on it. And the very good news is that now that the furniture is all in place, I've confirmed that the PS2 and XBox controllers reach to the couch. So, life is good.

How Did This Happen?

2005-05-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Somehow I've reached the point in my life where I own two sofas. And they're both in the garage. I don't understand.

Actually, what happened is that we finally got around to buying a sofa, after 8 months sitting on the floor. The new one arrived on Saturday, but the people who delivered it can't get it inside the house. It's the same problem we had back in the fall - the stairs are too narrow for the sofa to get inside. So, tomorrow, some other guys are going to come and hoist it in through the doors to our deck. It means a couch that was already pretty expensive is going to be even a bit more expensive. But, then I'll have a comfy place to watch "The OC" so it'll all be worth it.

Hit With the Stick (Self-Inflicted)

2005-05-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I needed something to get me blogging again, so when Evan went looking for someone to pass the book meme to, I had to grab the chance.

So, on to the questions...

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
Hmmm... that's a toughie, especially considering that everyone's probably claimed all the really trendy books. OK, I'll go for Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brien. Because sometimes what you really need is a fun novel that can also teach you how to sail an 18th century warship.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Lorelai Gilmore. Oh, and Thursday Next.

The last book you bought is: The Transparent Society by David Brin. I got it at the book-signing, but I've been so busy since then that I haven't had a chance to read it. I usually try to stick to fiction during school, so it's probably going to have to wait until after exams.

The last book you read: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. It was my second time through the book, I think and the first time reading the British version we got in the Great White North. I finished it last week, which put me in the position to move on to....

What are you currently reading? The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde. After my fever dreams about federalism a couple weeks ago, I have to make sure to read something light before I actually go to sleep.

Five books you would take to a deserted island: Difficult question. If I'm going to be stuck with these, I'd better not pick something that I can read too quickly. I'm going to cheat a little bit and include a series or two.
First, the obvious - The Lord of the Rings.
The Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brien. There's 20 of them and I've only read 3, so I'd have a lot more to read. Also, see above for the practical value of the books. I'm not sure what to go for after that, so I'm going to take a quick walk around the house and look at the bookcases.
Practical Chinese Reader. This was the textbook I used when I was taking Chinese classes a couple years ago. I stopped as law school got nearer, but I figure if I'm going to be stuck on a deserted island, I might have more time to study again. I'd probably want to cheat and bring the language tapes, too.
How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. They're not kidding. Well, maybe exaggerating a little bit.
I'm not sure about the last book. I'll come back tomorrow after I get some sleep and fill this in. (Appellate brief is due tomorrow morning. We just finished.)

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why? Well, most everybody I read who would do this has already done it, so I'm going to go a little further afield. So, this goes out to my brother Andy, who should have started a blog by now anyway. And to D, who blogs at Livejournal but won't let me link to her. And to whatever third person would like to claim it.

Now that's enough for me. Time for bed.

Could Be Worse

2005-04-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

On the down side, I'm sitting here working on my appellate brief. Actually, editing my partner's section.

On the up side, I'm sitting out on the balcony doing it. (This new deck furniture is great!) The weather's in the 60s. Weather.com claims that it's partly cloudy, but I don't see more than wisps of clouds from here. There's a little bit of a breeze. The air even smells sweet, which is surprising given that I'm in the middle of the city.

Yup, it definitely could be worse.

That's My Town!

2005-04-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, me, my brother and my friends M and J tried to go cow-tipping. This is not the sort of thing that you learn how to do when you grow up in Baltimore City, so we had a lot of unexpected problems. First, we had a hard time finding cows (see the previous sentence about our location). We ended up looking for them in the Pikesville area. I'm just glad we didn't run into these guys instead.

Police dispatched more than a dozen cruisers and one helicopter. They shut down roads, and state highway workers closed a Beltway ramp.

All to round up a herd of American bison disrupting rush hour and roaming through the upscale neighborhoods of Baltimore County's Greenspring Valley.

...

For going on three hours, more than a dozen officers and a handful of volunteers worked to load the animals on a trailer, which could hold a few at a time, for the ride back to the farm.

Each time one climbed aboard, the crowd cheered and clapped. But when the bison did what animals inevitably do, the crowd let out a collective "Eww."

"I called the Health Department," said Joan Magill, agent for the homeowners association at the complex. "They said we need to use a disinfectant."

Don't forget to check out the pictures, too.

CFP 2005: Government CPOs and Privacy in Europe

2005-04-19T19:05:00.000-07:00

Actually, those were two separate panels. I don't really have enough to justify separate posts on both, though, so I'm combining.

Also, before I go on, if you're more interested in the RFID passports panel, The Practical Nomad was also at the panel and has a much better summary.

Moving along to the government CPO (Chief Privacy Officer) panel. The question for the panel was whether a CPO is any use in terms of actually protecting privacy. Given that all the panelists were government privacy officers of some kind, it's not surprising that the answer was yes. Their reasons are convincing enough, though. They see their role as providing a focus for privacy issues within the organization. The idea is pretty new, so they haven't made much progress, but I think that making someone accountable for this kind of thing should help at least a little bit. Of course, that's only true so far as the agency as a whole is willing to go along, and not all of them are. Homeland Security, for example, doesn't have one yet. But, at least the woman from the Postal Service seemed to be having an impact.

Following that was a panel called "Terrorising Privacy". Their topic was privacy issues in Europe. The panelists said a lot of interesting things, but the number one thing to take away from the panel was that Europe is actually much worse at protecting privacy than the US. They attributed that to a lack of a strong civil society (in the form of NGOs applying pressure). There's no independent funding available for those groups, so the people who run them are basically doing it in their spare time. I've heard about the problem of lack of private philanthropy in Europe for funding museums; this seems to be another side of the same issue. The lack of civil society means that where groups in the US complain loudly about government taking on new surveillance powers, the same laws don't get any objection at all in Europe.

Sick and Other Notes

2005-04-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Ugh. The rough draft of my appellate brief is due on Friday, so of course I got sick. This is not making it easier to recover from last week's slacking.

The worst part, actually, is the dreams. I had a fever last night, which tends to make me have weird dreams. This time, I dreamt about ConLaw. I'm not sure what was going on, but I'm pretty sure federalism was involved. I may even have dreamed about Lopez. It was horrible.

So, it's now been over a month since we finished our exams and exactly one grade is posted. Apparently, they're holding off releasing 1L grades until all the professors have turned in grades. ProfTorts just submitted his grades today (a week after the deadline). The remaining contracts prof could still be working, for all I know. As for CivPro, well, I'm not complaining.

Oh, I shouldn't be complaining about making up for my slacking. One of my classmates went to a wedding in Denver the weekend before last. She was planning to come back Sunday but got stuck there until Wednesday because of a big blizzard. Then she got really sick, so she didn't come in to class on Thursday or Friday. Basically, she didn't do any work at all for a week and a half. Of course, I could look at this as an experiment - how essential is that week of class? Can a smart person recover without losing her mind? (My money's on yes.)

CFP 2005: Intelligent Video Surveillance*

2005-04-16T22:53:00.000-07:00

So, this is the panel that interested me the most. My pre-law school job was as a software engineer for an intelligent video surveillance company. We were mentioned during the panel, but we didn't get as much airtime as some of our competitors. Specifically, one of our competitors sent a sales guy to participate in the panel. He did an OK job talking about what their product can do - alert you when someone in the video does something unexpected or unusual, that sort of thing. Of course, being a sales guy, he exaggerated, but that's the way of the world. After him, another panelist gave an overview of the state of the industry. Then they had an academic researcher talk about the technical capabilities of the technology in more detail. It was a relief to hear him talking, because I think the previous people were giving the audience a sense that the technology is further along than it really is. I mean, they can do lots of interesting things, but it's not as Big Brother-ish as it sounds. Face recognition technology, for example, is horrible. Classification of objects is another area where people are much better than computers and will be for quite a while. The panel was closed out with a guy from the Electronic Privacy Information Center talking about privacy concerns. I was happy to see that he didn't get carried away with the doom and gloom. He correctly pointed out that you don't really have a problem unless the surveilers try to match behavior with specific people. He followed with some other concerns, in particular the problem of what patterns are being detected. If the algorithms are designed with some kind of inherent bias in them, you could have a civil liberties problem. Happily, I think that's not a problem at this stage.

* Rather than look for a strict definition, here's a rough version - intelligent video surveillance is what you get when you have a computer watching your surveillance cameras instead of getting people to do it. Face recognition is an example, but far from the best. The better stuff involves tracking behavior without trying to track people.

CFP 2005: RFIDs in Your Passports

2005-04-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

Actually, I have to admit, I missed the good part of this panel. The battery in my laptop was running a little low and I wanted to charge it up a little before the next panel. So, I left after about 20 minutes. Professor Felten has already what sounds like a pretty good description of what happened. I'll just add that he doesn't mention the fun part, which was the yelling that I could hear from outside the room. I give the government a lot of credit for bravery for showing up at all, but there was no way that he was going to make this crowd happy. The biggest damage to his credibility came from his claim that the RFID tag they are planning to put in passports will only be readable within 10 cm. The next panelist, Barry Steinhardt from the ACLU, then demonstrated with his own RFID and reader how you could read it from farther away than that. He had a pretty limited setup and the tag was being read from a couple feet away. It's not hard to imagine that someone could do better than that with more powerful equipment.

Anyway, like I said, if you're interested in the substance of the panel, check out Prof. Felten's post.

CFP 2005: Opening Debate

2005-04-15T22:59:00.000-07:00

I'm going to preface my summary post titles with CFP 2005 so people who don't care can skip them. I'll try not to make these too long. This post will be the hardest to do that for.

Although this was billed as a debate, it didn't really work out that way. Each speaker had some interesting things to say, but they only overlapped a little. The general theme was sousveillance, which is basically the idea of putting the cameras into the hands of ordinary people, instead of letting governments and businesses do all the watching.

The first speaker was Steve Mann, or as I think of him, cyborg guy. (Maybe even crazy cyborg guy, although he seems pretty nice.) He had a camera attached to his face the whole time he was there. (Literally. I'm not joking about the cyborg thing.) He thinks that it's just a matter of time before everyone is keeping a record of their daily lives, given how the hardware for it is getting cheaper all the time. He compared it to when you sign a contract. If you sign a contract, you expect to keep a copy of it. Similarly, why should everyone else get to keep a copy of the record of your daily life, but not you? He believes that the process will start as an assist to the visually impaired and will progress to the point that it becomes normal for everyone, to the point that you don't even notice it. I'm not sure whether that will happen in my lifetime, but it's not too hard to imagine, if the cameras (and storage media) get small enough and cheap enough. We're already headed in that direction with cameraphones.

Next was David Brin. His talk was similar to what he'd said the night before at the reading I went to. He's the kind of person who rants a bit, so he's a little hard to summarize. He started off talking about the fundamental characteristic of Americans. The result of the most successful propaganda program in America. Suspicion of authority. You see it in every movie for the last several decades. And that's a good thing. That suspicion leads to criticism, which makes things better. He thinks that what we really need is not to focus on privacy (heretical, given the setting), but to focus on openness. The government is going to be watching, so amateurs should be watching right back. The worst thing about Big Brother's viewscreen wasn't that he was watching. It was that nobody could watch him back.

After that, was Latanya Sweeney. She talked about a project that her lab has been working on. They looked on the Internet for publicly available camera feeds. These are more common than you might think. A lot of the time, people put a network-enabled camera on the network and than don't give any thought to security. Anyway, they used some of those feeds to analyze people-traffic through some heavily trafficked areas, in particular Times Square. They then used that analysis to predict the usual number of people they'd expect to see at a given time. The idea was that they could detect a bioterror attack based on a lower than expected number of people passing by the camera.

This summary is going on a little long, so I'll rush through the next two people. First, there was Ivan Szekely. He talked about the changes in ideas of privacy in Eastern Europe since the fall of communism. The state has lost it's control over people's information and citizens have gained it. Accountability has moved in the opposite direction.

Finally, there was Simon Davies from Privacy International. He stood up to remind us why privacy is important. The more we're watched, the more that we change. So, you have to ask whether we want to create a world where you have to watch your behavior at all times because someone's probably watching you. He wants to see more from government to protect privacy.

Alright. That's all for tonight. I'll pick this up tomorrow.

Conference Over

2005-04-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

The conference was excellent. I wish I didn't have this stupid school thing that kept me from going to more of it. I took lots of notes, so I may write up some stuff about what went on. I'll try not to overburden you all, since I know all this law talk can be too much for some of you. (Little brother, I'm looking at you...)

I introduced myself to the panelists after a particularly good panel yesterday. My nametag said I was a law student, but I also mentioned that I was an ex-engineer. One of the panelists, a guy from the Center for Democracy and Technology said (jokingly, mostly) "An engineer? Well, I hope you do something worthwhile with that, like civil rights. Better that than patents." Of course, that's what I'll be doing this summer. But, the other reason I came to law school was because I was interested in things like he was talking about. So, I bugged him for some advice today about what to do if I wanted to go in the direction of what he's working on. He didn't have a lot of specific advice, but he was encouraging generally and he did have some good ideas. I'm thinking of trying to do an externship with his group sometime in the next year or two, if I can convince D that it's ok for me to be out of town for 2 months. I think the quarter system makes it easier to consider this because it involves a shorter commitment.

So, in the midst of all the conference stuff, I skipped all my classes Wednesday and just went to CrimLaw on Thursday. So, yeah, there's a lot to catch up on.

School? What School?

2005-04-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I went to an event at the Science Fiction Museum. David Brin, who is my favorite science fiction author, and Cory Doctorow (of BoingBoing, among other things) did a combined event. They read from their writing and mainly just talked about the world as they see it. It was very interesting. I also chatted with both of them while I was in line waiting for Brin to sign my book. I managed to avoid saying anything overly embarrassing or fanboy-ish. I did tell Brin that I was 11 when I read my first book that he wrote.

Anyway, the two of them are in town to attend the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference. This is exactly the sort of topic that brought me to law school. As it happens, I even know a little something about the topic, since I used to work for a company on video surveillance stuff. (Sure, that makes me part of the problem from their perspective, but even so...) Anyway, I volunteered to help out with it. They've assigned me the best possible job for a volunteer. I'm supposed to go to the sessions and write up a paragraph about what happened. Then they'll combine it all into a single sheet summary of the day and give it to everyone the following day.

I'll be doing it all day tomorrow and part of the day on Thursday. Classes will be skipped. That research I'm supposed to be doing for our appellate brief? Well, I'll get to it, but it won't be easy.

Oh, since I'm going to be taking notes on the sessions anyway, I'll probably post my impressions when it's all over. Maybe over the weekend.

A Question

2005-04-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

If it's a half hour before bedtime and you've spent the last few hours working on an assignment that's only 5% of the grade, is it worth it to try to edit? Or is it better to declare victory and go to sleep? Bear in mind that the person who's doing the grading is the same person responsible for Friday's review class fiasco. Also bear in mind that mediocrity is a perfectly acceptable outcome here.

Wow. I think I just answered my own question.

Let's Hear It for the Unitarians

2005-04-08T23:09:00.000-07:00

First, a Unitarian joke (the only one I've ever heard):

How does a Unitarian begin his prayers? "To whom it may concern..."

Now that I've prepared you, go learn about the Unitarian Jihad. Then, join by going to the Unitarian Jihad Name Generator. I will be called Brother Pepper Spray of Moderation. (Seriously, read the first link. It's hilarious.)

(via Electrolite)

P.S. I give the Unitarians a lot of credit for sustaining small-time arts programs all over the country. They're regularly willing to allow little theater groups to practice there. When I was in college, we ran ballroom classes at the local Unitarian parish.

Times Change

2005-04-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

12 hours ago, I started thinking about a post I was going to write. I was going to explain how I was annoyed at my Conlaw professor. Apparently not satisfied to have us in class 4 days a week, he scheduled a review session for Fridays at 1:30. The review was to be run by someone who seems to be serving the same function as a TA. I'm not sure what her formal position at the school is. Anyway, I was going to complain about how it annoys me that he's trying to cut into my time that could be spent doing any number of other things. (e.g. Studying, sleeping, drinking with my friends, playing Halo 2...) Plus, it was encouraging very law school-type thinking like "What if I don't go? Will everyone else have an advantage over me?"

In fact, that annoyance (and a little laziness) led me to skip the review. Apparently it was the best choice I could have made. The people who went say that it actually took them backwards in their understanding of the class and the writing assignment we have due Monday. I guess they spent the whole time struggling to figure out what she's talking about.

So, instead of complaining, I'm just giving thanks. And let that be a lesson to you super-competitive types - sometimes it's better to let laziness win.

Oh My

2005-04-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

Prof Property just showed up with a DVD to show us today. Body Heat. I'm looking forward to Kathleen Turner's discussion of the Rule against Perpetuities. I hear it's hot.

Update: Some other guy talking about the rule. Oh, well.

That's It!

2005-04-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

It's not often that you find something on the internet that describes you perfectly. Today, however, I learned that I'm a stealth geek.

An SG looks pretty much like anyone else. It could be said that an SG is a geek who has developed some fashion sense. Not that an SG will ever look like something out of Vogue or GQ, but SGs have learned not to look too out of it, either. Because hey still lack supreme confidence in their fashion know-how, they may not take risks, settling for the standard business suit or simple jeans and shirt combination for casual wear.
Often the watershed in the transition from geek to stealth geek is the purchase of contact lenses, but this is not always the case. A more stylish pair of glasses may replace the sturdy, practical pair worn in the past.

...

the main test is that no one should think upon an initial encounter with a stealth geek, "What a geek!" They may think that when Star Trek finds its way into a conversation, but they don't think it because of general behavioral characteristics.

Yup, jeans and solid colors are the rule for me. And if you could only see the glasses I used to wear......

Yesterday, someone in my section was talking about a bumper sticker he'd seen on the back of a car. It was red and said "If this is blue, you're driving too fast." I laughed out loud, then explained the joke to everyone else. And, as we all know, nothing's geeky like explaining a science joke.

Lucky for me, D's almost definitely a stealth geek, too.

(Courtesy of GeekPress)

The New Schedule

2005-04-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

So, I'm done with Torts, Contracts and Civpro. (Still no grades, though.) Property is a two quarter class, so that's picked up again. To go with that, we have Constitutional Law and Criminal Law. The two couldn't be more different from each other. Prof CrimLaw is the most socratic prof we've had so far. He's not as bad as bad as some, of course, but it's still a little rough. It's getting easier now that we've figured out a few things about him. For one thing, nobody's ever right. Since everybody's wrong, it's not embarassing when he tells you so. It's only embarassing when you try to come back and prove that you weren't actually wrong. He also has a weird system for calling on people. It's by row, but somehow some people get called on a lot more than others. I just got called on for the first time today, but the people who sit in front of me have been called on 4 times.

Prof ConLaw, on the other hand, is all about the lecture. It's been almost all historical stuff so far, with brief interludes to talk about Marbury v. Madison and Martin v. Hunter's Lessee. He'll show us Powerpoint slides and talk for most of class. I don't really mind that much yet, since he has a pleasant voice and the slides are pretty well-done. On the other hand, I'm not thrilled with the writing assignment, even though it's only 5 pages.

Prof Property is still super-cool. He really seems to be enjoying teaching us the rule against perpetuities. The best part is that he really seems to appreciate the absurd arbitrariness of it.

Getting Better, Bit by Bit

2005-04-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

Last week I took a huge step (for me). I bought a new couch! We haven't had a couch in our house since we moved in back in September. Our old couch didn't fit up the stairs, so we gave up and put it in the garage. The plan was to get a new couch and pay some movers to hoist it up the outside of the house. All we had to do was find someone to do it. (In the meantime, we've been sitting on cushions on the floor.)

Time passed....

And passed...

Finally, I found someone over spring break. It's gonna cost $240, which is about what we were expecting. And then I bought the couch (in Sage, if you're wondering). It's not cheap, but my grandmother always said that buying cheap was false economy, so I think we made the right choice. Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait a month or so for it to come in. Having made it this long without, I'm not too worried.

We also finally got an estimate for someone to trim the tree that's growing into the side of the house. It rubs against the house when it's windy and makes a noise even worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. And that's not even including the special thrill from knowing that it's my house that's being damaged. (The tree is on my neighbor's property.)

Anyway, I'm really procrastinating from reading parts of the Federalist Papers for Conlaw. Time to get back to it, I guess.

Lucky Me

2005-04-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

The 9th Circuit is hearing cases at the law school this morning, but I'm going to be stuck in CrimLaw instead. *sigh*

At least the protesters made the walk in slightly more interesting. Everyone said that the big issue would be a Navy abortion case, but the biggest sign I see out there says "Stop the Back Door Draft". I'm not sure if there's a particular case or if it's just a good occasion for protest.

On the bright side, the state supreme court is going to be here in a couple weeks, so I'll try to go to that.

Update: Apparently I was misled about the abortion case. The Back Door Draft sign is referring to Santiago v. Rumsfeld. Santiago is challenging the military's stop loss policy.

Update 2: Yeah, I'm a moron. I looked around the website a little more and found the abortion case. Doe v. United States.

So Bad I Had to Leave the Country

2005-03-23T23:20:00.000-08:00

Well, not quite that bad. Contracts was not fun. The fact pattern question was absurdly long and took up 3.5 out of the 4 hours we were given. The policy question got the rest. On the bright side, everyone else was in the same boat. And given that she did the same thing for the midterm, it's not really a big surprise.

The one nice thing was that it put us all in the mood to go drinking afterwards. SBA even paid for the first couple pitchers, which was pretty nice. Probably a third of the class passed through the bar at some point during the day, so there was much bonding. I found out some about who people like and who they don't in my section. (The good news is, at least I'm not in the second category.) I drank more than I had drunk in one sitting in 10 years. My friends were still disappointed, though, because they really wanted to see me drunk. My friend M even offered to buy all my drinks for the rest of the night if I stayed to drink with them. Sadly, I had to disappoint them.

On Saturday, we did actually flee the country. After D's knitting class in the morning (she's learning continental style), we set off for Vancouver. We were only going to be there one night, so we stayed at a pretty classy hotel. They had a turn-down service and everything. I had tried to convince D that we needed to stay at the Four Seasons, but I didn't win with that one. We were only there for 24 hours and it rained almost the whole time, so we were limited in what we could do. We had a very nice dinner at a restaurant called Cin Cin. We chose it based on convenience and looks, but it turned out to be surprisingly good. And they didn't seem to mind that I wasn't really dressed nice enough for the decor. After dinner, we got dessert at the appropriately named Death by Chocolate, which was spectacular. We were so full from dinner that we had to split dessert, but it was all worth it.

On Sunday, we walked around town a little more and did a little shopping on Robson St. We actually got the British editions of all of the Thursday Next books. I don't know if they're actually different, but D feels that the authenticity is important. (We have the British versions of Bridget Jones's Diary and the Harry Potter books for the same reason.)

I was a little surprised by the border crossing. There was a really long wait to get into Canada and a semi-long wait to get back to the US. The guy in Canada asked what we came to do, but never asked for any ID. The US guy just checked our passports and asked if we bought anything. He didn't even look in our trunk.

Of course, the rain stopped as soon as we got home. *sigh* At least I have nice weather for spring break.

Where Have I Been?

2005-03-17T21:51:00.000-08:00

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourFlorida travel guide

Clearly I've missed a few in the middle. This map would have a lot less red if it wasn't for the drive out here last summer. That accounts for almost everything in the middle except for Colorado and Utah.

Close Call

2005-03-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

As I was writing the last post, I got an IM from my classmate who lives in the house next door to me. All she told me was that someone ran a car through our fence. I had heard a loud noise earlier, but we live pretty near a main road so I didn't think much of it. But, I went out to investigate and sure enough, a car had gone right through the fence. Basically, somone parked a van in a driveway across the street from our little community and forgot to put the parking break on. The van rolled down the driveway and across the street, possibly hitting a car in the process. It went through the fence by another neighbor's house, hit their car and drove the car into the side of the house. The car is probably going to be totalled and there's a big bulge in the inside wall of their garage from where the car hit it.

It could have been worse, though. If the van had missed the house, it would have picked up a lot more speed heading downhill and could have done some serious damage to the house at the bottom of the hill. And, just as important, there were no pedestrians in the way either.

Anyway, such is the joy of city living. Never a dull moment, even when you're studying.

One Left

2005-03-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

Civpro was ok. As exams go, it was pretty dull and seemed straightforward. In a way, it was kinda disappointing, because it was so much like our midterm. Some of the prof's old exams were pretty interesting, so it was a letdown to get what we ended up with.

I kept up my pattern of showing up several hours early for afternoon exams. I'm a pretty strong extrovert, so I've found that being around people and talking settles me down. Of course, that only works if we don't spend the whole time talking about the exam. Happily, on Monday and Wednesday, I ended up talking with O, who's a pretty laid-back guy about class stuff. We were doing fine until our class gunner showed up to hang out. I do actually like him, but he's kind of a pain. In this case, he couldn't seem to stop talking about the exam. I tried to distract him by asking about his kids, which works on every parent I've ever met, but it only distracted him for a few minutes before he was back to talking about compulsory counterclaims. One of my classmates think's he does it to psych out the competition, but I'm not sure. He was even worse on Monday - he came up to us and started talking about secondary implied assumption of risk 20 minutes before the exam. I walked away after 3 sentences of it. So, I've decided that if he is doing it intentionally, I should take it as a compliment and move on.

All I have left is Contracts tomorrow morning. I'm not sure I know it all, but I'm pretty sure that I can't do much more studying. Instead, I foresee a pleasant night of watching The OC, so I can spend my brainpower more usefully to answer questions like "Could I ever be as cool as Sandy Cohen?" (Answer: no)

If you happen to think of it before 12:30 PT, send happy Contracts thoughts.

Uh oh

2005-03-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

I think I may have peaked too early. Or just spent too much time studying this weekend. I just can't force my brain to think about this anymore. Apparently, the intricacies of subject-matter jurisdiction are no longer worth considering. Venue is a lost cause. And as for discovery, forget it. My brain just keeps reminding me how comfortable my bed is. And wouldn't it be nice to go to sleep.........

Oh, but I forgot to mention the most inspiring moment yesterday. As we're sitting in the law school cafe in the morning (around 10, I think), a 3L comes up:

3L: "OK, I need some help with this, cuz my brain is totally fried. The exam started at 8:30 and I'm supposed to have 3 1/4 hours. Does that mean I'm done at 11:45?"

Us: "Um, yes......"

3L: "Great! That means I have time for a smoke break. I am taking the shit out of this exam....."

So, now I have something to aspire to. It's important to have goals.

Torts? Done!

2005-03-14T18:47:00.000-08:00

I just got back from my Torts final. Actually, I got back, watched the second half of Gilmore Girls, and caught up with blog reading. But, regardless...

The morning was particularly nice. I never know what to do before these afternoon exams. I've taken to coming in a couple hours early and hoping that someone I know will show up to talk to (about things other than the exam). Today I found a couple people complaining about how they run our BLS class. I figured it was better to be annoyed then nervous, so I joined in.

Oh, but before that, I came really close to locking myself out. I had the computer and I was at the door, ready to head in to school. I stepped outside and was about to close the (already locked) door when I did a quick pocket check. And sure enough, no keys. In fact, not only didn't I have my keys, I didn't have my wallet (with my bus pass). And, I didn't have my cell phone since D took it for the day. That would have made the exam a lot more fun, I guess.

Anyway, the exam was alright. So far, I've been pretty good at not dwelling on my exams after they're done, so I'm going to try to maintain that pattern. There was a small issue-spotter, a big issue-spotter and a policy question. We didn't really talk much policy during the class, so I have no idea how that'll come out. I also wasted 20 minutes talking about issues that weren't part of the question for the smaller issue-spotter. I'm pretty thrilled with myself for that. But, I feel like I did alright, generally, which is the best I could hope for.

So, onward to Civpro.....

Why?

2005-03-10T15:07:00.000-08:00

My class has one kind of experimental section that's taking a combined Contracts/Torts class. The people in it self-selected, so they're a little bit odd. To celebrate the last day of class today, they got section T-shirts made. It's especially disturbing when they're all hanging out in a group. It's like a very dorky cult, minutes away from a really annoying form of mass suicide..

Eek

2005-03-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, another set of exams is approaching. We had our last Torts class today. Tomorrow is the end of the line for Contracts and Civpro. And unlike the fall quarter exams (which account for about 10% of the grade in those classes), these exams really count.

After the last set of exams, I decided that I was going to do better in the winter with outlining and reviewing classes as I went along. This resolution, like so many others made at New Year's, didn't really work out as I hoped. I think I did a little bit of outlining at the end of January, but aside from that, it's all happened in the last week or so. Happily, I'm almost there. Contracts has been the hardest, just like it was in the fall. I've spent a lot of time bonding with the Examples and Explanations book. I'm starting to feel like I understand parol evidence. This probably means that I'm doomed.

At least I don't have to worry about looking for a job. Half of my class is worrying about their application to the state AG's office, which is due by Friday.

Oh, and a little shout-out to my Prof Property, who is the best professor ever. On top of being really smart and really excited about the subject (how often does that happen?), he's being extra-nice to us this week. He stopped by to say hi to a couple of us on Monday morning and found out that we didn't have any time off to study. Within 20 minutes, he had sent out an e-mail halving the reading for the week. He's also let us out of class early the last 2 days. And did I mention how he's managed to make property interesting? (not covenants. I don't think anything could help with covenants.)

Movie Quotes Game

2005-03-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

Just give the first 5 movie quotes that come to mind. Don't think - just write.

"Your overconfidence is your weakness."
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
"Show me the Paso Doble."
"Teach me to dance, will you?" "Did you say dance? Come on, my boy!"
"Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously."

This came dangerously close to being all Star Wars.

(via Begging to Differ)

Random Bits

2005-03-07T16:55:00.000-08:00

In the comments for this post, my brother Andy suggests semidefenestrate as the right word for what we did to that couch.

I had never heard of Dr. 90210 until ESpat mentioned it the other day. Then yesterday I found out that D knows one of the doctors on the show. Weird, but not enough to make me watch the show.

Food Blogging

2005-02-24T16:20:00.000-08:00

I don't know that I'd consider myself a "foodie", but D and I definitely appreciate good food. We've had a few excellent meals over the years, mostly for special occasions. Some of the best in DC were Vidalia, Kinkead's, Colvin Run Tavern and 2941. The best meal I've ever had (and the most expensive) was at Galileo.

So, one problem of being in a new city has been figuring out where the really good places to eat are. (The other problem has been having less money to spend on food cuz of that whole tuition thing.) In the last few days, I've come across a few blogs that are helpful in that area. First, Venkat at Begging to Differ (which I already read) posted some of his favorite places in town. Then, I found Seattle Bon Vivant. I think I've gotten more good restaurant recommendations from there in the last day than any other time since we got here. Particularly nice is that they both seem to live fairly near me, so their idea of where to go matches up with what I'm willing to go to. (As opposed to driving way south to go to the dim sum place my in-laws took us to last summer.)

As a special bonus, a new restaurant just opened around the corner from us. I read about them last week in one of the alternative papers and thought "Hey, that address looks familiar..." They're already on my good side because they made their next door neighbor tear down this building that was a blight on the whole neighborhood. Anyway, they had a little open house last Saturday where they gave out free samples of their appetizers. If they're able to maintain that level of quality we got there, I think they'll do ok. It's too expensive to be a regular thing, but it could be good for a special treat.

If you're a competent cook with grand pretensions (like me), you might want to try the recipe I made for D for Valentine's Day - Baked Scallops and Seared Beef Tournedos with Artichoke Hearts and Asparagus Tips. It was probably the best meal I've ever made and it's definitely proof that better ingredients make for better-tasting food.

Mmmm.... now I'm hungry...

I'll Bet Someone Else Could Do Better At This

2005-02-21T22:49:00.000-08:00

I've now seen this on two different blogs, so it must be a meme.

10 Things I've Done That You Haven't*

1. Been in a plane that got struck by lightning.
2. Gotten a song named after me.
3. Flown thousands of miles to go to a ballroom dance camp.
4. Slept a night on the National Mall. (And it rained......)
5. Kept a doctor alive and healthy.
6. Thrown a couch halfway out an eighth-floor window.
7. Been the first foreigner ever to come to a small Japanese mountain town. (Or so they told me. This one may not be true.)
8. Talked so much my jaw hurt.
9. Celebrated the 4th of July with a rijstafel in Amsterdam
10. Done a flip at my wedding reception.

* Unless you're my brother, who was there for a couple of these.

Negotiation Competition

2005-02-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

We just finished the second night of the negotiation competition. I definitely enjoyed it more than the mediation competition back in the fall, but I'm still pretty drained from the whole thing.

We were given the scenario for our side about two weeks ago. On Monday, they assigned us the team that we'd be negotiating with. Yesterday and today we had negotiation sessions. Now, we have to write a contract by Tuesday. Half of our score comes from the negotiation and half comes from the contract. At this point, I don't care all that much, though. I achieved my main goal of the event, which was to just do a good job. Anything beyond that would be a bonus, but not expected. I'm happy to say that my partnership with E worked out very well, so hopefully she'll be interested in teaming up for the appellate argument competition in the spring.

I discovered that I'm pretty good at what I think of as the soft skills. I did a pretty good job of keeping the parties talking and keeping the negotiations moving when it looked like we were near an impasse. On the other hand, I'm not a very good hard-ass. I was just way too wishy-washy when it came to pushing hard on particular terms. E did a much better job with that part.

Oh, and I think LQ saw firsthand proof that some in the 1L class need to learn how to dress up right for these things. She's a nice person, but the fishnets were probably not the best way to go.

Bundle of Links

2005-02-16T22:53:00.000-08:00

Bollywood for the Skeptical - for those of you who enjoy a good dance number, even if it seems completely unrelated to the story. (via BoingBoing)

The 10 Geekiest Hobbies - at my old job, we figured that LARPing (Live Action Role-Playing) was the geekiest activity of all time. It was nice, because you always knew that no matter what you were doing, there was someone out there doing something geekier. This list confirms that for us. (can't remember where I found this)

The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager - graphs the popularity of any name over the last hundred years or so. Apparently, it's been downhill for Jims since the 1940s. (via GeekPress)

Two Great Lawyers

2005-02-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

One of my biggest regrets about working before law school is that my grandfather died before I started. I'm named after him and I always felt a special connection with him because of that (although my brother is more like he was, personality-wise). He died 4 years ago today. It feels wrong to be sad when someone dies at age 82, but I think the world is worse off without him. As I go through this year, I've been thinking about how much I learned from him about being a lawyer and a person.

He was a trial court judge for a decade before he reached the mandatory retirement age. Six hundred people came to his retirement dinner and every one of them loved him. After he retired, he kept working 3 days a week in the settlement court. He used to tell us (me and my siblings) about the cases that he'd heard and ask what we would have done in his place. He never let us take the easy way out, either. He understood the defendant's side as well as the plaintiff's and he made sure that we were thinking about fairness and justice for both sides.

The local paper did a great obituary about him that I've used my handy Lexis access to read again. It was a good reminder of some things I'd forgotten and some things that I wasn't around for. It reminded me that during his time in private practice, he was a constant trial to my grandmother because he didn't bill his clients everything they owed. If he thought they needed a break, he never hesitated to give him one. It also reminded me of something he used to say: "A lawyer needs one of these to be a success: integrity, intelligence and industry. But to be a great lawyer, he needs all three." I'm trying my best to to live up to that. But, sometimes I wish he were here to talk about school.

He was also a huge Maryland basketball fan, so he would have been thrilled about today.

The other great lawyer is my dad. Today is his birthday. He's given me an idea of how to follow in my grandfather's footsteps. He didn't push any of us to become lawyers. All he wanted was for us to take some time off after undergrad to be real people for a while. When I told him a couple years ago that I was going to apply to law school, he was thrilled, but he was also happy that I hadn't defaulted into it. He didn't figure out what kind of lawyer to be until a couple years after graduation, but once he found it, he became an expert in the field. (Actually, one of his friends describes him as "the world's foremost authority on everything". I think I'm headed that way, too. :-) )

So, either I have a lot to live up to or I have a lot to inspire me. On most days, it's a little bit of both. Lucky for me, I'm going to need a little bit of inspiration to get me through the next week or two.

My Favorite Lists (For the Moment)

2005-01-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

Things to say when you're losing a tech argument (via GeekPress) Of course, this would have been even funnier if I'd read it when I could still use those lines in meetings.

And, for some reason the previous list made me thing of my favorite internet list of all time: The Grand List of Console Role-Playing Game Cliches. My favorite is "Wait! That Was A Load-Bearing Boss!" (Final Fantasy VII, I'm looking at you.)

Just Not Feeling It

2005-01-30T22:44:00.000-08:00

Half-Cocked describes exactly how I've been feeling in Property the last 2 weeks. We spent the whole time discussing civil rights acts and the ADA. For some reason, even though I'm really interested in the history of the Civil Rights Era, I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe because I wasn't expecting to run across these things in the first month of Property. I'm actually way more excited to be talking about adverse possession tomorrow.

Speaking of adverse possession... One of my classmates owns the house next door to ours. I think I better start watching where she puts in fencing...

Cats, Cats and More Cats

2005-01-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

D is the cat lover in the family, while I mostly just indulge her. I love this though:

The Infinite Cat Project

(From Eric Gunnerson)

I Like a Challenge

2005-01-27T21:25:00.000-08:00

Speaking of MegaCoffeeCorp, some bloggers have posted a challenge to see who has the most branches within 5 miles of them. Since I live in the home city, I thought I'd give it a try. Would you believe 94 within 5 miles of my home?

Easy Day

2005-01-27T18:04:00.000-08:00

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have 4 classes for a total of 4.5 hours. It's pretty tiring, especially at the end of the second class when I realize I'm only halfway done.

Today was pretty nice, though. ProfContracts took the class to go over the problem from the midterm. It really helped to see how she would have organized her thinking on it, which will be good for the final. On the other hand, with each new thing she pointed out, I thought, "I don't think I saw that one." After a while, I started to wonder if I had gotten anything right on the exam, even though my grade seems to suggest I got something right.

ProfTorts brought in a guest speaker, a friend of his who is assistant general counsel at a local coffee chain I'll call MegaCoffeeCorp. He had been well-coached beforehand by ProfTorts, so he structured his talk around the elements of negligence. It was pretty interesting seeing how the things we're discussing in class turn into business considerations for him. There was also an interesting diversion into the appropriate temperature to serve coffee.

Property didn't have any special events, but it was still pretty nice. We've gotten to a topic that ProfProperty finds really fascinating. Most of the time, he runs the class at a pretty even energy level, but when we started talking about public trust doctrine and navigation rights, his eyes just lit up.

In Civpro, we spent the whole class talking about how Dioguardi should have written his complaint. Then ProfCivpro gave us a pep talk about life and stuff in the hallway afterwards.

On the down side, I made a girl cry today. I asked about her husband and she told me they were splitting up. I felt terrible. I offered to change the subject, but I couldn't come up with anything, so we just sat there for a few minutes before the other conversation at the table drew us back in.

When All Else Fails...

2005-01-26T15:28:00.000-08:00

There's always another quiz to take:

You are 67% Gemini

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

It's probably pretty accurate, although I had some trouble answering some of the questions about dating. It's been a long time since I was actually dating people, for one thing, and I was never very good at it when I was.

(via Legal Quandary)

Getting the Hang of It?

2005-01-23T22:46:00.000-08:00

I got my grades last week. I have to say, I'm pleased with the results. On the other hand, it's just midterms, so there's no point in getting too excited about it. Now I just have to figure out whether it was a fluke.

The reading hasn't been too hard to keep up with, so far. I've been studying during all that extra time on Friday before D gets home from work, so I've been able to get done much of my reading before the weekend even starts. Unfortunately, law school has created this feeling of foreboding that leaves me certain that disaster is just steps away. In this context, disaster will probably come in the form of a really long, annoying assignment for BLS.

Or disaster will come from signing up for another moot court competition. The mediation competition in the fall was pretty tiring, so I wasn't going to do another one. But then one of my friends asked me if I wanted to do the contract competition with her. It's not often that you get asked to team up with one of the smartest people in the class (as I think she is), so I figured I'd give it a shot. This one might be only two days, so it won't kill me.

A Post for My Wife

2005-01-05T23:02:00.000-08:00

D was complaining the other day that I don't mention her very much in my posts. I told her that part of the problem is that she doesn't want me to mention her occupation on the blog.

However, despite that limitation, I will mention that she finally started work at her new job just before Christmas, three months after accepting their offer. The job seems to be pretty good, although she's still ramping up at this point. She's pretty happy with the support staff and the infrastructure in general. She's not so happy with the 45 minute commute, unfortunately. The current plan is for her to work there for a while and keep an eye out for positions opening closer to home. The people she works for have a whole bunch of locations, including one within walking distance, so she might be able to find something. But, she's going to have to put up with the current location for a little while.

Her parents drove up to visit while I was back east visiting my family. The left a bunch of things when the drove back, including 7 rolls of toilet paper. We're not sure why.

Sweeeeeeet

2005-01-05T22:47:00.000-08:00

I got an e-mail yesterday from one of the partners from the law firm I interviewed with last week. It came in right at the beginning of CivPro. Basically, he said they were making me an offer and the formal letter was on its way. I was so excited it was all I could do not to shout and run out of the room right then. I managed to confine myself to excited IMs to DG, who was sitting next to me.

It's pretty great that I know what I'll be doing for the summer. It's one less thing to worry about, at least. And, I'm really looking forward to working with these people. I talked to 10 lawyers there over 2 days and I really liked all of them. Everyone was interesting, personable and incredibly enthusiastic about their job and about the firm. It's also downtown, which means I won't have any trouble taking the bus to work. That's pretty important, given that we're a one-car family and D has started work again.

Hmmmm...

2005-01-05T22:43:00.000-08:00

I don't seem to have done a very good job of stopping myself. I've watched more episodes of The OC in the last few days than I care to admit. But, I still love the show, so it must not be too much. I can't help feeling that it's a sign of my age that my favorite characters are the parents. :-)

On the bright side, I haven't fallen behind in my reading yet...

Better Things to Do Than Blogging

2005-01-01T15:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, in the course of returning/exchanging some Christmas gifts, I managed to persuade D that it was worth spending $50 on The OC Season 1 to make me stop whining. So, in lieu of writing about my life, I'm going to enjoy a pleasant afternoon of watching kids and adults with delightfully screwy lives. Hopefully, I'll be able to stop myself before it goes to far.

Interview Update

2004-12-30T23:24:00.000-08:00

I had the second interview with the big lawfirm today. (As rescheduled from last week.) It wasn't quite as good as the first interview, but I still think it went well. There were 6 half hour interviews with lawyers from the patent group, then I had lunch with 2 more from the group. Just about everybody was pleasant and interesting to talk to, but I did run low on energy after a while.

On the other hand, they continue to impress with their speedy follow-up. Last time, it took them 45 minutes to get back to me. This time, I got a phone call within 4 hours. The recruiter said they were happy with how things went and wanted references. Actually, she didn't even want to talk to my professors - just someone from my old job is enough.

I actually came into law school thinking that I would prefer to work for a small firm. That may still be true for the long term, but this interviewing experience has been so nice that these guys are looking like a pretty good choice, even though they're definitely not small. Everyone seems smart and they really seem to love what they're doing.

I'm Back

2004-12-30T23:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I got back Tuesday, but I'm still in vacation mode, so I haven't been doing a whole lot.

Travel was relatively uneventful for me, but my sister got caught up in the ugliness at USAirways on the 23rd. First, her flight from Italy to Philadelphia had to be diverted to DC because of bad weather. Of course, they couldn't let her off the plane there, even though someone in the family could have picked her up easily. After 3 hours on the ground (and one incident where the paramedics took someone off the plane) they flew to Philly. Of course, she had already missed her flight to Baltimore, so they put her on the next one they had, scheduled to arrive at 9:30. They then proceeded to delay the flight in 40 minute to 1 hour increments. My brother and I got to the airport at 10:30 to pick her up, but we didn't actually leave with her until 2:30 AM. Her baggage didn't catch up with her until the afternoon on Christmas day. On the bright side, we went to pick her up in my dad's new car, so every time the flight was delayed we took it out for a spin. Not a bad way to pass the time.

As for me, I didn't accomplish a whole lot. My triumph was watching all 10 hours of Band of Brothers on DVD. It's pretty amazing. I would recommend that everyone watch it, unless you're squeamish about realistic depictions of people's legs being blown off (e.g. my mom). The show follows one company in the 101st Airborne from their training, through the landing at D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, to the end of the war. My grandfather was in the 13th Airborne, which never saw combat. I'm happy he never had to go through what those guys did.

Christmas dinner was our usual all-American blend. My dad and my stepmom hosted. My brother, sister, stepbrother and stepsister were all there. My mom was there, as was my grandmother (mom's mother), and my aunt and uncle (mom's brother and his wife). The great thing is, we make it work. I love my family.

And...... Done

2004-12-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

Torts wasn't so bad. Of course, everyone felt that way, so it'll probably work out the same as the others when the curve gets factored in. But, at least we didn't come away with that "What did we do to make the professor hate us?" feeling, like in Contracts.

At least this week hasn't provided me with an exam horror story like these. Happily, I have 8 more sets of exams that are bound to give me a story or two. (Quarter system, you know.)

We all went to the bar at 11 after the exam. About 2/3 of my section showed up, which was pretty great. I like my section a lot, even though we've acquired an (undeserved) reputation in the law school as the super-competitive, type-A section. However, I have to say - beer before lunch is probably not my thing.

Number Two - Done

2004-12-15T22:34:00.000-08:00

Contracts was ok. I thought it was a little better than the Civpro, but the consensus from the class is that I'm crazy, so there you go. I didn't feel like I was running out of time like in the Civpro exam. Unfortunately, it didn't help that much. I had more time to consult my notes, but I was so confused by the end of the first question that I couldn't really add anything more to it, even with the extra time. I have no doubt that I missed something, but as before, I have no idea what. On the bright side, I'm pretty happy with my answer to the policy question. I think I hit some of the ideas she really likes to talk about. And, there's the constant mantra "Only a midterm, only a midterm."

On the bright side, the weather was amazing today. Hardly a cloud in the sky. I could see the mountains to the west (snow-capped, of course) for the whole bus ride in and I even saw a little bit of the mountains to the east when I was crossing the bridge. We spent the hour before the exam started hanging out in the sun and talking about anything but school. Not a bad way to go.

Some enterprising classmates found a bar in the area that opens at 10:30, so the post-Torts beer is on. And it will be good.

The Geek Mind

2004-12-13T23:03:00.000-08:00

Every geek should see this comic. More importantly, every spouse/girlfriend of a geek guy should read it. I'm pretty sure this is how D sees me.

First One Down

2004-12-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

The Civpro exam was ok. I haven't thought of anything I missed, which is a good sign. Of course, I haven't really thought very much about it at all. I definitely didn't walk out of it feeling cocky. The prof claimed that each problem (there were 2) should take about an hour, but he was giving us 3 hours to do it. Very generous. :-) As it was, I worked on problem 1 for an hour and a half, switched to problem 2 for an hour, then switched back to 1 for the last half hour. So, yeah, not so much with the 2 hour exam for me.

So, on to Contracts. We'll have to see how things go when I have to throw policy into the mix, too. I'll be happy when its over.....

Some Good News

2004-12-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

On the bright side, I just had my best game ever of Spider Solitaire.

Oh, and this site has the best t-shirts ever*. (via BoingBoing) I can't decide which Blue Screen of Death shirt I'd want the most.

* if you're me.

Worst Assignment Ever

2004-12-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

***** Below is a post that may walk a little bit on the wrong side of that line between ranting and whining. Please feel free to ignore it. ***

I just finished a required self-evaluation sort of thing for BLS (Basic Legal Skills). The people running the program, in a brilliant move, decided to make the thing due the same day as our first exam. That's pretty sensible to me - I mean, what could we possibly have to do the day before our Civpro exam other than answer their ridiculous questions. Luckily, they decided to help us out by giving us questions that were pointless and almost insulting. Somewhere in the middle of the thing, I started to think that it would be better to just drop out of law school, rather than finish this idiotic assignment.

First we had to evaluate ourselves on a series of questions that are basically how well we understand "lawyer stuff" and list the thing that we've worked on for the class that best shows our ability for each question. (e.g. how well do you understand stare decisis?) Then we get stupid, middle-school level questions about whether we've learned to be better people in the last quarter.

The sad thing is, this isn't a bad class. I definitely know a lot more about legal writing now than I did 3 months ago. I produced a couple memos that were pretty good (I think). They're just obsessed with this self-evaluation/reflection thing, which really sucks away my enjoyment of the good parts.

However, I've made it through the thing without dropping out of law school, so it could be worse. I'll have to think about whether to leave this post up. Back to studying......

Study, Study, Study

2004-12-11T16:57:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of problems with being on the quarter system, but there is one advantage for 1Ls. Our first set of exams are only mid-terms, so they all count for no more than 10% of our grade. In the case of CivPro, the test doesn't count at all if you do better on the final. Despite that, I'm still stressing, for some reason. Maybe I can't help myself, or maybe it's a side effect of hanging out around other people who are stressed.

Anyway, I finished my last outline (Contracts) on Thursday. It was nice to see that remedies made a lot more sense now than when we were learning about them back in October. Some 2Ls have told me that ProfContracts likes to see policy incorporated into our analysis. I guess I should have realized this before, but I hadn't given it much thought before, so now I'm looking through all of my notes for any nugget of policy that I should be thinking about. So, we'll see how that goes.

The CivPro exam is Monday. I just took a practice exam that went pretty well, so I'm feeling OK about it. Contracts is on Wednesday. I'm less sure what to do about that, but I guess I have a little more time to think about it. And, Torts is Friday morning. We're planning to go out drinking afterwards. Some people might say that 10:30 is too early to go drinking, but we'll show them. Oh, and my second interview with these people was originally scheduled for next Monday, but they had to reschedule, so I'll be doing it on Dec 30, instead. Given how well the first interview went, it can only be downhill from here.

Oh, and I'm heading back to the East Coast for Christmas. D can't come because her first day of work is next Monday. I wish she could come, but I know she's been incredibly bored sitting around the house for the last 3 months. And, it'll be a nice switch to have some money coming in for a change.

An Interlude of 1L Geekiness

2004-12-11T16:54:00.000-08:00

According to this article, the Palsgraf family has had nothing but bad luck since the famous case was decided. They sound a little bitter about it, too. (Thanks to ProfTorts for the story, thanks to Orin Kerr for the link to the story.)

Joy and Pain

2004-12-04T18:39:00.000-08:00

The stress around school is getting thicker and thicker. There's definitely been a touch of panic, even though it's all midterms for 1Ls, so exams only count for 10% or so of our final grade. Somehow, I can't get past the worry.

On the other hand, I was extremely productive over Thanksgiving. There's not a lot to do in D's home town and there was no internet access, so I really didn't have a lot to do except study (and play on the Game Boy). So, I used the time to catch up on my outlining.

As a bonus, the final memo for BLS is due Monday and we have some weird quiz on Tuesday. The memo's almost done, although I'm skating at the edge of the word limit (21 words under, but I think I have a few more cites to add).

On the other hand, I do have some pretty good news. Thanks to super-mentor, I got an interview with the patent group at one of the biggest law firms in town. I went to lunch with two of their lawyers yesterday and I had been invited back for a full interview within 45 minutes of leaving. Since I'm not a jerk (I think), I'm avoiding talking about this at school. Hopefully, my one reader from school will ignore this little bit of bragging. :-)

Fame and Fortune

2004-11-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

Well, fame anyway. And not really for me. My torts professor (and, by extension, my torts class) was featured on the front page of one of the local newspapers today. I'm not the sort that sits in the front of the class, so I didn't make either of the pictures in the paper. ProfTorts is a really interesting guy. The article itself is not so much. It seems like a pretty standard day-before-Thanksgiving human interest kind of thing. I think they have a template for this type of story and he didn't deviate much. The article's right about one thing, though. We were in tears from laughter when he showed us the law student's version of the ending of "The Sun Also Rises".

I'm off to the other side of the state tomorrow morning to have Thanksgiving with the in-laws. They don't have much in the way of internet access, so posting will be exactly as infrequent as it's been. We're going to be flying there, probably in a 12-seater. It'll be fun and exciting.

IM Conversation of the Week

2004-11-15T22:57:00.000-08:00

Involving Jim, M and several others: (BLS = Basic Legal Skills)

M says: By the way...BLS is a whore....
M says: ...Or maybe its a pimp.
D says: matt, BLS is the whore, and you its pimp
Jim says: I think it's more likely that BLS is the pimp and we're all its bitches.
D says: i ain't nobody's bitch, bitch
M says: I agree with Jim, but I must say, vis a vis BLS, don't hate the player, hate the game.

The last line was the high point of my day. (Yes, my day was that pathetic.)