Sorry I haven't posted in a while.

I'm not sure if it is because I have nothing really exciting to report, or if I just haven't had a ton of time, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still alive. And this might be my last chance to do that because my first Rugby game is on Saturday.

Rugby:
I just got back from practice and I am HURTIN. I have been moved back to second row and now I basically have to support a prop on my right shoulder. (The prop's are generally the largest girls on the field). So I have one girl sitting on my shoulder, I have one hand around the other second row, I have my other hand through the props leg and my head is shoved between the prop and the hooker. I'm not sure how else to explain this, it really does look as weird as it sounds. I'm pshyced for a first game, but I think I'm going to screw sokmething up. This will most likely lead to me being severely hurt.

Property Class:
I have an interesting, animated property professor who thinks that we are all idiots. And we are compared to him. In the middle of one of his rather passionate degrading sessions I suprised everyone in the class, even myself. I knew exactly what and how he wanted us to answer. I weakly muttered: "Property rights are relative?" YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! He screamed as slid down to his knees ala Brandy Chastain. So now, I'm known as the girl wo brought the prop teacher to his knees. It's a good kind of noteriety.

His & I:
Our first anniversary is coming up and we are heading on a weekend trip to Montreal. I'm so excited. We'll get to speak some French, go somewhere we've never been before and mange in a great city for gourmands. If you've been and have any suggestions let me know!

Section 9:
I have the greatest section (a group of 18 students who have all the same classes together). We all get along really well. We're all really supportive and everyone is really, really funny. To celebrate our greatness His and I are having a party for my section on Sunday. We will finally get to do some serious cooking and socializing.

Jewish Holidays and Italian Americans!
You might think that this is a weird pairing, but thanks to Yom Kippur and Columbus Day His and I have two three-day weekends coming up. The first is this weekend. We have alumni weekend at the law school, my first rugby game and our party. Should be a laid back weekend, huh?. The next weekend we will probably be doing nothing but reading and outling. So one fun weekend, one not so fun. I'll take that.

Distractions

A good slogan for law school is that it's better to fade away than burn out. With that in mind, Hers and I try to maintain some semblance of a normal life. I mean, we could spend all day in the library and, in fact, some days we do. But you can't spend every day in the library and be expected to think straight in class. So every once in awhile, we have to recharge the batteries and relax a bit. This may involve a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer depending on the circumstances. It may also involve some quality time in front of the television.

Fall isn't just about going back to school, it's also about new episodes of our favorite shows, which means The Office and Lost. The Office is, at times, painfully uncomfortable and last night's episode was one of the most uncomfortable episodes I've seen in awhile. It's a good, funny uncomfortable though.

There are several burning questions from last year's season finale of Lost. What's going to happen to Michael and his son (I can't imagine they're not coming back next season after all the hints about the Walt's "gifts.") If Michael does come back, will Hurley kick his ass? How are Jack and his friends going to escape "the others?" What exactly is Kate's problem anyway? Did Lock and Mr. Echo survive the hatch? In regards to the last question, I suspect Lock will make it back because we still haven't found out how he became paralyzed. Of course, considering that everyone on the island seems connected to one another somehow, we'll could learn how Lock got paralyzed through someone else's flashback (perhaps Jack's father operated on Lock and screwed something up). Every season, we find out that everyone on the island is more tightly connected than we thought.

Are these question as important as knowing the elements of battery? Certainly not, but thank God we have something else to think about.

We Will Survive

As of yesterday, we've been in law school for one month now. That means we're one third of the way through our first semester of law school. That also means we have another month before we begin to feel the pressure of finals weighing on us. It also means we're starting to get some practice tests in a few of our classes. In fact, I just finished a practice test in Civil Procedure. Civ Pro, if you remember, is the class that I thought was going to be the bane of my semester. Turns out I'm actually kind of digging Civ Pro. Sure it's bureaucratic and boring, but Professor Mayer does an excellent job of laying it all out and making it understandable (at least, I think I understand, but I'll find out next week when I get the practice exam back) and any class is more enjoyable when you (think) you understand it. We've finished personal jurisdiction, so I have some idea of what courts might have jurisdiction over me.

Contracts is a different story. The best thing I can say about Contracts is that we're moving slowly enough that my work load for that class is pretty light. Hopefully, when I start putting together my outline for that class, I'll realize I know more than I think.

Property is also going well for me. Again, I have a good professor for that class who does a good job of making everything clear. We just got done covering adverse possession, which is an idea that, for some reason, I love. Basically, adverse possession says that if you sit on a piece of land that isn't yours long enough and treat the land as if you did own it, you might eventually gain ownership of the land if the true owner doesn't do anything about it. We were thinking of grabbing some land up in the Adirondacks and seeing if we couldn't get ownership in 10 or 15 years (I can't remember what the New York statute of limitations is right now). Unfortunately, New York has this bothersome requirement called Claim of Right that basically says you have to believe you own the land. Blah!

Torts is always a fun class because personal injury cases, as a general rule, involve personal injury stories. Some stories are sad. For instance, one case involved a Nebraska boy who severed a foot playing on an unlocked railroad turntable. There's also the case of a mother who rolled her Volkswagen Beetle (the old school pieces of crap, not the expensive new ones). Battery acid dripped on the mother's small infant while the mother was unconscious for several hours (for some reason, back then Volkswagen thought it be a great idea to mount the battery on the floor of the passenger compartment). Some stories are a bit more entertaining. There's the old Iowa couple, for instance, who decided to rig a "spring gun" (a shotgun rigged to go off when a door opens) in an abandoned farm house they owned (note that they weren't even trying to protect their home, just an old farm house on land that the wife inherited from her family). Then there's the story of a Creighton athlete who claimed the school failed to provide him with an education. At on point, the athlete started throwing chairs out of a motel room imagining that each chair was a Creighton administrator who had done him wrong. Still sad in a way, but certainly more entertaining.

Then there's Introduction to Lawyering, every 1L's favorite class. This is the class where we learn all about research as well professional responsibility and other aspects of lawyering. Basically, you have to do a lot of work in this class and you only 2 credits for it in your first semester (next semester it's a 3 credit class).

So we have one month down and the clock is ticking toward finals. I think we better enjoy the next month as much as possible.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

OK, I know I'm not longer in Husker country, so perhaps I'm out of the loop, but can someone tell me why the Huskers got rid of Frank Solich again? If we wanted lackluster, predictable play calling, Steve Pederson could've saved Husker fans a lot of stress and aggrevation. You didn't need to be Pete Carroll last night to know that the Huskers were going to run the ball on first down. For one brief drive, Callahan broke out of his rut and the Huskers threw the ball downfield with some success. Why did it take so long?

I thought the players played well and they have nothing to be ashamed of. I just wish the coaches would've given the players a chance to win the game.

For all of you who are concerned

We haven't eaten any pre-packaged spinanch and do not have ecoli . We did however have a very tasy meatball sandwhich for lunch today and are in the processing of drinking several local brews this evening. Law school has led us to drinking.

Looking At The World Like A Lawyer

We're almost to the end of our fourth week in law school. Many students say law school changes you and it seems that's about right. There was a time when I'd hear someone say "Watch my bag for me" and not think anything of it. Now I instantly think "Gratuitous Bailment" and wonder if the bailee (the person watching the bag) will give the requisite amount of care (which, in the case of a gratuitous bailment, is only slight care). When I hear about a lawsuit, I wonder if the court has personal jurisdiction over person or company being sued. Now that we're starting negligence in torts, who knows where my mind might go.

Holy promissory estoppel batman!

It is two o'clock and I'm sitting in contracts anxiously awaiting what will be the first of many PowerPoint questions that I don't understand. When all of a sudden I see a shadow go across the projection screen. If I'm not mistaken that shadow looks something like this:

I kid you not. We had a BAT flying around our classroom. And not just any bat. This was a kamikaze bat. The thing was diving towards us. Everybody starts getting a little jittery. I'm hiding under my contracts book. (At least I'm getting some use out of it =)). And then the teacher say's the best thing I've heard all year: Class is canceled.
I must have been the only one who heard her say this, because I was the only one who stood up. And since I was now taller than the rest of my classmates and not hiding under my book of contractual poetry (seriously poetry) I drew the attention of the bat. The bat buzzed me and I sat back down quickly. After that everyone started packing up there stuff to leave. I made a mad dash for the door. Went to find Chad and his computer so I could share this little bit of excitement with you.

My final thought:
Who is liable for the intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault and is the law school guilty of negligence? I would probably conclude that the owner of the bat would be responsible for negligence, but then one must determine who the owner is. In other words, "how does one occupy a bat?" The school owns that bat in as much as it was found within the confines of the school's property and will soon meet with a must definite taking of its natural liberties. In short if the school wants to settle this with me to forgo the cost of a lengthy trial, and it would be lengthy,(where exactly am I domiciled?), I would accept a settlement of a full tuition credit. Or a free cup of coffee. This line of reasoning would be quite entertaining if you were also a 1L. But since I don't know of any other 1Ls reading this, you'll just have to take my word for it.
Be good to yourselves and each other.

The poor Students Cookbook - Fried Fish Sandwiches

Those who know us also know that we love to cook. Unfortunately, like many students out there, we don't have money for good ingredients and we don't have time to cook really good meals. Occasionally, we'll post some of our favorite "student" recipies here (anything that's cheap and quick to make). We had some thawed fish on hand, some bread, and a few other miscellaneous ingredients. The result? Fried fish sandwiches.

Ingredients:
2 Fish filets (each about the size of about half a piece of bread)
2 slces of bread
Bread crumbs
Olive oil

(Optional)
Eggs
Flour
Cocktail sauce

Directions:
Start by coating the bottom of a non-stick frying pan with olive oil. Turn the heat onto medium and let the oil warm up. Turn the oven to broil. Place two slices of bread on a baking sheet and place some butter on top.

We bought a pack of frozen fish that we thawed before cooking the sandwich, but any fish filet will do. If you want, you can probably even substitute fish sticks for fish filets and skip this section entirely. Start by making sure the fish is completely thawed (if frozen). If you have eggs and flour on hand, dry the fish completely, roll it in flour, dip it in egg, and then roll it in bread crumbs. If you don't have eggs or flour, leave the fish damp and roll it in bread crumbs.

Place the fish in the hot oil and allow to cook for four or five minutes on each side. After flipping the fish, place the baking sheet in the oven. Keep an eye on the bread as it has a tendancy to burn easily. About one minute or so should do the trick.

Place the toasted side of the bread down and place the fish filets on top. If you have some cocktail sauce on hand, drizzle some over the top of the fish and place the second slice of bread over the top (toasted side up this time). Enjoy.

Why Did A Short Week Seem So Long?

Only four days this week. Seems like it should've been a piece of cake.

All first year students have to take an Introduction to Lawyering class. It's worth two credits, but it should be a four credit class for the amount of work we have to do (and I have it easier than Hers). The first week, we were asked to choose whether we wanted to represent a plaintiff or defendant in a hypothetical, semester-long case. I grabbed a folder marked "Plaintiff" on my way out the door. The file included a short memo with some basic information about the case. As it turns out, my "client" is a single mother with a daughter who was nearly three years old. The child was conceived via artificial insemination. The donor was someone the mother knew and had verbally agreed to release from any parental obligation. Now, almost three years after the birth, she wants the father to take some responsibility for the child.

Last week, we were given our first research path, which is essentially a scavenger hunt through the law library. We each received 20-pages with about 35 questions we had to answer using legal references in the library. Naturally, the questions all related to laws governing parental obligations and legal issues surrounding artificial insemination. We divided up into groups of three to work on the research path together. My group decided we'd all do the research separately and then get together to compare notes. Unfortunately, I didn't quite understand that we were supposed to each finish the project separately, so I ended up doing the majority of my research path Wednesday night. I got home about 8:00 Wednesday night.

The next day, we met to compare notes and it almost took longer to decide on final answers than it did for us to do the original research. Nothing like getting three lawyers together to argue why their answer is the right one. In the end though, I think our answers were the better for it.

The research actually wasn't too bad. The hardest part of the project was properly citing the sources. Put a comma in the wrong place and you'll lose points on the answer. We talked with the TA for the class and he told us the average for the research project is around 60%. Despite the time we've put into the first research path, we've resigned ourselves to the fact that it's going to come back covered in red ink.

Thursday night was Hers first Rugby practice. So that ended up being another late night. A four day week and two of those days we didn't get home from school until almost 8:00. Can't wait to see what next week brings.

Congratulations Lincoln!

No, not for the football game. Although it was encouraging. No our congratulations is offered to all of you that stuck with Lincoln for the past mayoral administration.
It looks like she's leaving politics behind her. YEEEEEAAAAAAAAA!
Anyway, I'm very thrilled that she's leaving because now she will have more time to devote to her cooking. I planned on linking you guys to her fabulous cheese strata recipe, but alas Time Warner wouldn't publish it. If you haven't checked out there cooking show, it is kind of cool. They talk to some local chef's in the area and get recipes. They also always throw in a Lincoln "celebrity". They went to the Mayor's house for one episode and she made this thing called Cheese strata. The ingredients:
White bread, processed ham, american cheese, frozen broccoli and cheese.
It looked delicious. In fact I would like to nominate her to take our place in our fabulous dinner group. Just kidding, we wouldn't do that to you. We miss your cooking so much =(

I'm suppose to do what to the Hooker?

I started Rugby this week. We had our first practice yesterday. I'm sitting in bed tonight instead of going out with my friends because I had practice yesterday and it kicked my butt. And everybody said it was an "easy" practice. What have I gotten myself into.
It has been decided that I am going to be a prop which means I literally "prop" up the Hooker. Which means I will probably end up looking like this guy.
I did have a lot of fun at practice. This is a totally new sport to me so I am starting at the very bottom level. We learned how to toss the ball yesterday and run a line. We learned about how to be tackled, what to do when there's a ruck, what "balls out" means (it means the balls out of the ruck) and several other things.
I also realized that I have a long way to go to get my body in Rugby shape. This is certainly going to be great stress relief for the school year.

It's not morals school...

Let me just say that I love my torts class. Our teacher, who you may have read about before, is really, really entertaining. And at 8:00 am on a Friday morning that's exactly what I need. Take today for example.
Our professor has canceled our class for the day before Thanksgiving (giving me a five day break!). We have to make up the two hours of class we are missing, so we had three hours of torts this morning. The professor gave us a 15 minute break half-way through class and gave us cookies and fruit. As a poor grad student I'll jump all over some free food.
We were discussing the tort of trespassers this morning and property damage. She asked a student (not me, I had already been grilled for about 30 minutes that morning. She was tough. But at least I wasn't the worst person in class) why the Supreme Court would make a certain decision when logically it wasn't correct. The students argument: "Well, morally it was right". And that's when she broke out with the motto of the next three years of my life:
"This isn't moral school, it's law school. Make me a legal argument".
For all of you out there who think that lawyers are nothing more than amoral parasites it's not our fault, we've been trained that way.

Blogger Bugs

Many of our friends and family are checking our blog on a regular basis, which we really appreciate. Some of our friends who check the Web site on a regular basis have mentioned that they're not seeing regular updates on the blog. Than, one day, there's suddenly three or four new updates that appear to have been posted some time ago.

The problem is that the browser saves a copy of the Web site on the computer's hard drive and instead of loading the latest version, it loads the copy off the hard drive. I've added some HTML that will hopefully take care of the problem, but if you notice that it's been a few days between updates, you might want to want to open our blog and press SHIFT-F5. This will force the browser to load the latest version from from Blogger instead of loading a saved version from your hard drive. Alternatively, you can place a question mark (?) at the end of our URL and this should do the same thing (you can add this to your bookmark if you want).

Hope this helps,

-Legallyboundblog's Technical Adviser

New York DMV's Office Moto: "Good Luck"

Hell is the New York State DMV. We've lived in this state for less than a month and we've been to the DMV five times. That averages out to more than once a week. I know going to the DMV, wherever you happen to live, is never a fun experience, but believe me when I say that the New York State DMV is one of the more hellish experiences any person can ever hope to endure.

Just before school started, we dropped by the DMV to get our New York State driver's licenses. The DMV is setup so that everyone has to pass through an information counter first. The clerks at the information counter make sure all your paperwork is in order and, if you're lucky, they'll issue you a number so you can sit down and wait a bit longer. You can think of the information counter as Cerberus perched on the river Styx. We presented our applications along with our passports and Nebraska driver's licenses as proof of ID. The New York State DMV, however, requires an additional non-picture ID (a Social Security Card was about our only option). Dejected, we returned home determined to return the next day.

With our applications, Nebraska driver's licenses, and Social Security Cards in hand, we returned the next day and managed to get past the information desk. They took our pictures , gave us a number, and told us to have a seat. The one positive thing I can say about the DMV is that it was the easiest eye test I've ever had. Hers and I went up together and they had Hers take the eye exam first. They had her step back and read the first line on an eye chart posted behind the counter. While she read the letters back, I began memorizing the first several lines (figuring that, surely, the guy wouldn't ask me to read the same line as Hers). Sure enough, when it was my turn, I was asked to read same line as Hers. By that time, I could've read the line with my eyes closed.

Of course, New York doesn't possess the requisite technology to print out a drivers license at the DMV. They took our Nebraska licenses and gave us a piece of paper to use as a temporary license. They told us we'd have our real licenses in about a week. Until then, we had to make sure to bring out passports if we needed ID.

Then came the car registration. Last week, we returned to the DMV with an envelop full of paperwork for registering our car. We offered up the envelop to the DMV Gods who began sorting out what was required and what was not. The woman who was helping us inspected our lease agreement and quickly folded it up and handed it back to us. She finished going through our paperwork, setting aside the paperwork we needed to register the car. At the end, she told us we had everything in place except for a certified copy of the title from GMAC. She gave us the DMV's fax number and told us we could have GMAC fax a copy directly to the DMV. She also pointed out that the effective date on our insurance policy was too old. The effective date had to be within 45-days of the current date. Dejected, we returned home, called our insurance company and asked them to issue new proof of insurance cards with a more recent effective date, and then called GMAC to ask them to fax a copy of the title to the DMV.

With everything in place, we went back to the DMV after classes this afternoon. Once again, we waited patiently to get to the information desk. We talked to people in line and found that most of them were recently rejected by the information desk as well. We wished each other luck as we headed up to the information desk. Once again, we offered up our folder containing all the documents we were told we needed and the gentleman at the information desk went through them all, found the copy of our title in the back, and said we had everything we needed with the exception of the lease agreement (yea, that's right, the same lease agreement they tossed aside so quickly during our last visit). Because we're registering a vehicle leased in another state, we have to pay sales tax for the remaining payments in New York all at once. As it turns out, they need the lease agreement to figure out sales tax.

We left the DMV at 3:30. They close at 4:30 on Wednesday. We raced all the way across town, grabbed the lease agreement, and raced back. We walked through the doors about 4:15 or so and once again got in line at the information desk. We watched as the people in front of us wished each other good luck before going up to the desk.

When we made it to the front, the lady who originally told us we didn't need our lease agreement began going through our paperwork again. "You guys are having a tough time with this car."

"Well, it's not easy when different people tell us we need different forms" we replied.

She went through everything and pressed the button to issue us a number. "If they reject you up there, don't come back to me because every thing's in place. If they reject you, it's because they can't figure out the sales tax." A ringing endorsement of DMV employees if I ever heard one.

We grabbed a seat and watched the big-board waiting for our number to come. As we waited, we wondered which lucky employee was going to get stuck with us. Finally, we had our answer as we made our way to window 4.

The clerk began going through the information and looked instantly perplexed. She called over a manager to help her figure out the sales tax. They took the monthly payment specified in the lease agreement and multiplied it by the number of payments remaining. Makes sense but there's just one problem: in Nebraska, we paid sales tax on a monthly basis and the figure they used for their computations included the sales tax we were paying in Nebraska. WhenHers, smart cookie that she is, brought this to the manager's attention, she started rambling on about tax credits or something completely unrelated to the point we were trying to make.

"OK, recently we received a letter from GMAC explaining that our monthly payments decreased by about $15 because they were no longer charging us Nebraska sales tax with our monthly payment," I offered. "The payment on the lease agreement is outdated and about $15 higher than what we're actually paying a month."

Finally, some kind of light flickered on and the manager explained that we had two options. They could either compute the tax using the figures on the lease agreement, in which case we could file for a refund, or we could return with the notice from GMAC specifying our new monthly payment. There was no way we wanted to make a seventh trip (I don't think either of us had the strength to try and explain everything again), so we paid the taxes and will send off a request for a $50 refund this weekend.

We did get to leave the DMV with our new plates in hand. Considering all that we've gone through to get them, I don't think I've ever been more proud of a set of license plates. They're even good quality license plates. You know, the kind that have been stamped at some penitentiary somewhere (not those cheap Nebraska plates). With any luck, we won't have to set foot in a New York State DMV anytime soon.

Everything I Thought It Could Be

I know there are at least a few people from Sandhill's visiting the blog (thanks everyone). To all of my old work colleagues I just wanted to point out that it's been over a month since I've had to wear a suit and tie. And yes, it is everything I thought it would be, it's just too bad it's only a temporary reprieve.

The law does have a sense of humor... or I'm just a dork, whatever.

I just finished reading a case for my favorite class: torts.
The case was Henderson v. The Times Mirror Company. I am not kidding you, this case is laugh out loud funny. Well, it is for a 2nd week 1L who isn't really sure that she is even spelling her name correctly anymore.
I tried a quick google search and couldn't find any good links to the case so I'll just include some snippets. The background of the case is that Henderson (the plaintiff) is suing The Times Mirror Company, et al (the defendant) for liable and other charges. Henderson is a football agent and the defendants are a coach and two newspapers who published his epithets. The coach specifically said that Henderson was a "sleaze-bag agent" who "slimed up from the bayou...."
The District Court of Colorado had way too much fun drafting its opinion. The first thing they do is site several sources on the definition of both sleaze bag and slime. Then they somehow find precedent with regards to scum and go off about the difference between sleaze and scum.
But the best part of this case is the history of the anglo-american insult which included one of my favorite Winston Churchill quotes in regards to being called a drunkard: "... Madam, you are ugly and the difference between you and me is that in the morning I shall be sober; but you will still be ugly!"
So this is just another sign of how I've submitted to the process. I am actually finding legal documents funny. And, yes, I am aware of how pathetic this makes me.


On another note:
After 1.5 weeks of law school His and I have depleted the following:
1 ream of paper
2 highlighters
4 pens (just me)
1 pad of legal paper.
And our toner is almost completely out (although that has been used for more than just the past week)

So if any of you are shopping for Xmas early, there is a list for you.

Musings from my first week

Well, the week is finally over. And as His implied, it really was the longest week. By Tuesday I was sure it was Friday. By Thursday, I thought it had to be October. And then Friday came. I love Friday. I only have one class on Fridays: Torts. Torts as you may have read is entertaining. My two hours flew by in that class. And then it was over. The first week is done.
Law School is much more challenging and demanding than I could expect, but it's doable. I've started to realize that I might, eventually, learn this stuff. It is getting easier.
But I will also say that I have never in my life felt less intelligent. (Except when playing trivial pursuit with a few of our blog readers. You know who you are.) It's an entirely new language and teaching style. And at times it's hard to adjust.
They told us in orientation to just "submit to the process". Allow yourself to be broken down. The longer you fight it, the more painful it will be. I'm not sure I'm ready to fully submit yet, but in reading through McAdams v. Windham I came across the following phrase:
"violenti non fit injuria"
Translated it means: to a willing person no injury is done.
I was willing to go to law school, so I have to put up with the constant backaches (from 50lbs of books), the headaches from all the reading, the feelings of inferiority. I signed up for law school as a willing participant and in doing so I gave up any and all rights to damages, both punitive and actual.

The Longest Week

OK, so my last post may have been prematurely cheerful. When I posted it Tuesday afternoon, I was still fresh. That evening I read Pennoyer v. Neff and that case really started grinding me down. My eyes are tired from the reading and I'm exhausted from the effort. My back is tired of lugging my laptop and heavy case book between school and the parking lot. Yesterday felt it should've been a Friday.

Hers said that Intro to Lawyering was going to be the bane of her semester. After reading Pennoyer v. Neff, I thought Civil Procedure was going to be mine. The case is ridiculous. Not only is it long, but the language is so convulated you have to really, really concentrate to figure out what the decision is trying to say. For example, here's one sentence from the case:

In all the case brought in the State and Federal courts, where attempts have been made under the act of Congress to give effect in one State to personal judgments rendered in another State against non-residents, without service upon them, or upon substituted service by publication, or in some other form, it has been held, without an exception, so far as we are aware, that such judgments were without any binding force, except as to property, or interests in property, within the State, to reach and affect which was the object of the action in which the judgment was rendered, and which property was brought under control of the court in connection with the process against the person.

Can you get any more clauses in one sentence? You can imagine entire paragraphs of this kind of stuff going on for four pages (luckily, our case book gave us a condensed version of the case; it could've been much more painful).

Luckily, Professor Mayer is a good tracher and I left my first Civ Pro class with a good understanding of Pennoyer v. Neff. Of course, as we're learning now, the courts have pretty much torn Pennoyer apart, so in a way, I read that case for nothing. Some people have suggested that the case amounts to nothing more than hazing for first year Civ Pro students.

As tiring as its been, I do think it has been a good week in many respects. I feel like I've learned alot already. Most cases (with Pennoyer being the exception) are becoming easier to read and understand and I feel like it's getting easier to brief the individual cases. The good news is that it's an early day for us. Hers is in class as I write this and my Civ Pro class starts at 9:00. As soon as I'm done (11:00), we're getting out of here for the weekend.

Torts...short for torture?

Who would think Torts could be so scary?

There is this class called Torts. It is a required class and it involves more case briefings than most. And I have what I have heard rumored to be the meanest torts teacher around. She is tough, strict and demanding. Whatever you do, I’ve been warned, don’t piss her off.

We had 15 pages to read for the first day. (That may not sound like a lot to a non-law student, but it consisted of 5 cases. There was no filler just 15 pages of judicial wonderment to read) I read and re-read them diligently. I wish I could have said the same for all of my colleagues.

There was a girl, who we will call “Elle”. She was called on and didn’t know a very simple question, she asked the professor to repeat the question. The professor refused and asked her another, somewhat easy question to which “Elle” was completely wrong.

So the next question comes, “Elle, did you even read this?”



“Well, I thought that since this was the first day of class you weren’t really going to call on anyone.”



Everyone in the class collectively held their breath waiting for the fury of the Professor to come down.

And then the professor went off:

“The assignment was out there, did you think it was a fake assignment? No, well I’m reminded of this movie… where there is a letter written saying ‘what are you, stupid?’. We’ll are you stupid. Yes, you are. STUPID STUPID STUPID!”

Now the professor grabs a hat that she had behind the podium and walks towards.



“Elle this might help you. It’s a thinking cap, why don’t you put it on so that you at least have some semblance of a brain. And while I’m at it, here’s a quarter go call your mother and tell her that law school isn’t for you”.

Everyone in the class starts slouching down in their chairs, trying desperately not to draw the wrath of the professor. All except for the girl sitting behind me. Her hand shot up.

The professor glares my way and asks why her hand is up. She replies “Well, I want to help Elle out”.



“Butt out and mind your own business”.



“Well, I think you’re being unreasonably rude and bitchy.” We were all kind of thinking the same thing, but no one wanted to be on the receiving end of this.

Then the professor returns to the podium and tells the class “I would like to introduce my two teaching assistants”.


That’s right the whole thing was a set up. The two “students” were actually her T.As. The woman knows she’s feared and she loves it. She just wanted to mess with us. On the one hand I find this hilarious; on the other hand, I think she may just be a bit sadistic. Regardless I will definitely do my reading for this class.

Why it’s so hard to be a Cubs fan:

My first couple of days has been a little more taxing than his’ it would seem. I have a few professors who seem to enjoy the Kensington persona a bit too much.

First instance: Property.

I have a feeling that properties will be the bane of my existence this semester (Along with intro to lawyering…don’t get me started on that). I have no idea where our professor is going with anything and I have the sinking feeling that he is actually teaching the class via an inner monologue that we don’t have access to. He loves to humiliate his students, but he does so in a “jovial” way. You know the kind that would say “you’re fat and ugly” but not to get upset because they were “just kidding”.

Well I made the mistake of wearing a sweatshirt on Tuesday. You wouldn’t think, since the temperatures in our law school hovers near artic, that this would call any undue attention to me. I was wrong. Before I had even finished opening my notes the professor says “Oh, I’m going to have to pick on the Cubs Fan” (I’m wearing my Wrigley Field Sweatshirt). My heart sank.

He then proceeded to ask me the question that he left us with during the previous class. I know he didn’t pose any question at the end of the last class, perhaps the little voices in his head can answer them better than I.

“Why don’t you have a Yankee’s shirt on.”

“Well, because I don’t have one.”

“What did you major in?”

“Political Science.”

“Well, that’s not very practical”.

“No sir, that’s why I’m here.”

“What do you do for fun?”

“Well, nothing now.”

“Do you listen to music?”

“Sometimes, but not often”

“Who do you listen to?”

“No one in particular, just whatever is on”

“Name an ‘artist”’.

I have no idea how long he is going to keep after me. What could I possibly say that will end this line of questioning? And then it dawned on me: “K-Fed”

After that, the professor moved on to a Yankee’s fan.

Classes

Somehow, I've managed to survive my first two days of law school completely unscathed. I shouldn't brag as I know this won't last, but so far so good.

Yesterday started with Professor Davis' Property class at 8:00am. This is one place where actual work experience helps. In undergrad, an 8:00am class would've killed me, but I'm used to my days starting at 8:00am. We got to the school around 7:30 and I started reviewing Property and Contracts (contracts coming directly after Property).

I think I'll enjoy Professor Davis' class. She can be strict (if you don't come prepared, she'll mark you absent), but she seems more than fair and she isn't too intimidating in class. The first class focused mostly on administrative issues (the syllabus, for instance) and some background information. As it turns out, I didn't even need to finish the reading for the first day let alone review, but it's always nice to start off ahead.

After Property is Professor Seita's Contract class. I have to move four seats down for this class, so it works out well. Professor Seita seems very laid back, so two classes in I was still looking for that prototypical abusive law school professor. Seita had just got back in town on Sunday and was suffering from six hours of jet lag, so he came across as a little distracted. Again, we focused on a lot of administrative issues, but we did cover the case we read.

After Contracts, I meet Hers for lunch and we studied in the library until my 1:00pm Torts class with Professor Stevenson. We didn't have any reading due for Monday although I did have Wednesday's assignment finished already. This was supposed to be a two hour class (mondays and Wednesdays) so I figured we might get into the cases for Wednesday a little and I wanted to make sure I was prepared. Again, we covered administrative issues and some basic background. Professor Stevenson has what will probably be one of my favorite rules of any professor. It's Professor Stevenson's exclusive ability to introduce hypotheticals. She will not answer any hypothetical posed by a student in class.

Professor Stevenson dismissed us more than an hour early and that's when it hit, I really am a non-traditional student. My first thought was "Can I get a refund for the second half of the class?"

Today was Property and Contracts again. This time, we got more into the issues in both classes. Both were interesting although I'm probably going to go back over my briefs in Property.

Well, I'm writing this from the foyer and upperclassmen are beginning to crowd me out, so it's time to move along. Classes are finished for the day for me, but Hers has a few more to go so it's about time to hit the library.

Did Socrates have a good personality?

Our first week is over! His and I are just sitting here doing some light reading. His-contracts, me Property. And I think I've discovered a pattern: the best time for blogging is when I'm procrastinating on property. Blah, so boring.
Anway, orientation was great. We actually learned a lot. But I couldn't help but think that the faculty was encouraged to take it easy on us. Nobody yelled, nobody cried and when someone would say something really, really wrong the professors would just reply "well, that's not quite right, but that shows a good thought process. I'm starting to think that a "good thought process" is law school's way of saying you have a "good personality".
The classes were really helpful. Its always nice to get that first Socratic moment out of the way. I can formulate what I think is an intelligent thought in my mind, but as soon as I here my name called, I go blank. Its like I have to teach myself to talk all over again. And I'm not necessarily a shy person, nor do I tend to have many trepidation about public speaking. But this is law school and I'm suppose to be a nervous wreck.
I blame the media, and the internets. (And the two are different, because blogs don't have editors, or something.) Seriously, they can get you so worked up and anxious about the Socratic method you don't know which way is up. But I've become more familiar with it this week and even volunteered a few times. Which is great, but come Monday I'll be wishing that they would just say "no, but that does show a good thought process".

Comments

We just wanted to thank everyone who's actually taken the time to read our blog. As many of you probably know, there is a Comment link beneath each article where you can leave comments for us. We love getting comments and we try to respond to every one (eventually). Obviously, that might be a little difficult in the months ahead. We'll try to respond to as many comments as possible, but just know we do appreciate all the comments even if we don't have time to reply.

We'll Sleep When We're Dead

His and I have been really lucky the last few weeks. It's been a relatively calm time and we seem to have had enough time to get things done. Well, Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. (We learned this phrase in Pierson v. Post and it was really one of the only interesting parts of the case). We're both trying to get better at our Latin.

His and I will be starting classes officially on Monday which means that we will need to start our studying in earnest soon. I should probably be doing some reading right now. I decided to attach a picture of our general schedule for this semester. My schedule is in red, his' in blue. The green times are lunch, dinner, and a few workouts. The black squares are our free time. Its kind of like a where's Waldo game. Can you spot our free time.

Our posts my be a bit sporadic for the next couple of weeks, but we will do the best that we can keeping up the blog. If not just to save our sanity.

I’m Going To Regret Having Said This . . .

But I can’t wait for orientation to be over so we can get down to business. There are just so many alumni panels and “surviving your first semester” sessions you can listen to. Don’t get me wrong, I think some of the stuff has been very helpful and I’m glad they didn’t just toss us into the fire, but it’s starting to get old. Even our “sample class” this afternoon wasn’t as good.

As Hers mentioned yesterday, we have our assignments for the first day already and it’s not pretty. I have 29 pages to read for the first day and Hers has even more I think. Plus, we’re going to have to brief the cases we read, which for us takes some time (although I think we’re getting better at it).

At any rate, tomorrow we’re looking at more sample classes. This time we’re covering exam essays. Plus, I think we have some more assembly style discussions tomorrow. At least we can look forward to a short day on Friday (which is good because we’re going to have a lot of reading to get done).

Day 2 . . .

. . . and counting. Hers recapped our evening, so I'll talk a little about our day, or at least my day as we were separated for most of the morning. For some reason, we still got up at 6:30 in the morning despite the fact that we didn't need to be at the school until 9:45. No sense getting soft on the sleeping schedules at this point. Next week we're going to need to be at the school before 8:00.

Our day started with an assembly style greeting. The aggregate IQ of any group of people seems to fall as the number of people in the group increases. We started with a typical greeting and a few of those inane questions Hers mentioned yesterday.

Next on the agenda was a discussion about how to succeed in law school and then we broke into smaller groups to discuss reading and briefing cases. For those that aren't up on all the law school lingo, a brief is a summary of a case you use for your own purpose. That way when the professor calls on you, you have an answer in front of you (notice I said an answer, not the answer; I'm not that presumptiuous). This was actually the highlight of my day as it was closer to an actual class.

For lunch, we broke into our sections for the first time. Again, for those who aren't familiar with the concept, a section is essentially the group of people you'll be spending the next year with. Everyone in a section has the same schedule so we're all in the same class at the same time. We also all share the same advisor, who we meet and had lunch with this afternoon. We got out of lunch a bit early and with Hers still having fun with her section, I broke out Webster v. Blue Ship Tea House and started reading about the cullinary standards of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was the most entertaining case we've read yet.

We ended the day with a discussion of the school's technology resources and a diversity pep talk.Tomorrow it's more of the same with a sample class to look forward too.(and an Alumni Panel that I'm sure will be fascinating). The reading schedule for next week is intimidating, but it should be certainly be interesting.

So you’re implying what, exactly….

Today marked our second day of orientation. We actually got to delve into some cases. As dorky as it makes us sound I think we both enjoyed it. We were assigned two cases for today and then two cases for tomorrow. All four cases have to do with the implied warranty of merchantability. Ever heard of it? Yeah, me neither. But I’m sure I will be saying it in my sleep tonight. I’ll say it again, implied warranty of merchantability. Sounds sexy, huh? At the very least it sounds impressive.

Just to demonstrate how far his and I have fallen I’ll recap our evening for you:

We got home around 4:00. We raced online not to check our email, or our blog hits, but to check out our reading assignments for the first week. Now we can put those impressive looking books to use! Then in all of our excitement, we planned out our attack for studying this weekend and next week. Next we decided to brief our two cases for tomorrow. We read, and re-read the cases. (Webster v. Blue Ship Tea Room was about the culinary integrity of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Perfect for a couple of wannabe gourmand’s like ourselves). Then we discussed and briefed them. During dinner we continued to discuss the cases and then the very thing typical to law students happened. We began posing hypothetical scenarios to each other. We couldn’t even get away from it during our dinner “break”. We are turning into two wild and crazy law students. (I’ll see your foreign/natural test and raise you a reasonable expectation)

Anyway just thought you might all want to know how annoying we will be if anyone ever decides to invite us over to dinner again.

I'm off to bed and to sweet, sweet dreams of implied warranty of merchantability.

Back to School

Today was our first day of law school. Classes officially start next week, but we are getting ourselves oriented this week. My first thought is law school is a lot like high school, although it does have one big advantage: School sanctioned drinking. Anyway, we got our locker assignments, dropped a grand on books and had some free food and drinks.

We also had to listen to several inane questions that could have easily been found by looking through the plethora of papers they had given us. You’re a law student, do a little research.

We also got our schedules today. And it is no joke they I got the WORST schedule possible. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have 4 back to back classes. One in the only classroom that doesn’t have outlets and my battery won’t last for two hours. Thus I have to take notes by hand. Then on Wed I have one class at 8:00 am and one at 3:00pm. I wish I could move one of my TTh classes to MW.

All around me I listened to kids excited about how they had such a great schedule, 3 day weekends, no classes before nine and I had to wonder who did I piss off. His and I have completely opposite schedules. The days that I don’t have an 8:00am class he does. No sleeping in for us.

But other than all of that, I’m still looking forward to the first day of class. I’m off to read our assignment for tomorrow.

In The City

On Saturday, June 10, we snagged a hotel room in Queens and set off to the city, which was a bus ride and a subway ride away (at least an hour, sometimes more depending on the bus schedule). We took the subway right into the Times Square affording us this view coming up from the subway.

We went into a few stores including Toys 'R' Us. Among the displays is this giant animated T-Rex. There's also a huge farriswheel and plenty of other cool displays.

While we were in "tourist" mode, we headed to the Empire State Building. We recommend avoiding this tourist trap if you can. The line, for us at least, was much, much longer than it appeared. After three hours in line, we finally made it to the top of building where we had to fight with crowds for views like this.

On Sunday, we decided to take the subway into Brooklyn and walk across the bridge back into Manhattan. This turned out to be one of the coolest things we did.

The walk afforded us some incredible views of the Manhattan skyline such as the one below.

After our walk, we grabbed a dog and headed to the park. It's hard to imagine a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than on a row boat in the middle of New York City.

Monday, we got into town early and caught the end The Today Show. I suspect the man on the right is smartest of the entire group.

After knocking around Rockerfeller Center, we headed to the Financial District where we saw the New Stock Exchange as well as the building below. The Federal Building is where George Washington took the first Presidential Oath of Office.

Next up was Little Italy. You'd think a place like New York City would have an amazing Little Italy. Actually, Chinatown has nibbled away at Little Italy over the years reducing it to a single street. The amount of food packed into that street, however, was truly amazing. Every shop sold some sort of food whether it was cold cuts, canolis, or gilato. We had a nice lunch and actually came back after dinner just for a canoli.

Grand Central Station was one one of the last places we visited. The architecture was very impressive.

All told, we had a great time in the city and we're looking forward sneaking back between semesters.

Home Sweet Apartment…

Eventually we unloaded the truck and then the decorating could begin. And for those of you who know me (and my mother) this is my favorite part.

The apartment is actually bigger than we expected. However, with radiators and AC units our layouts were somewhat limited.

Here’s our bedroom:

The bathroom is off to the right. Notice the chairs, they’re new. Also look up and to the right. Doesn’t that TV stand look perfect? It should be on the list of the seven engineering marvels of the world. We have metals studs in our apartment. They wouldn’t come close to supporting the weight of the TV. So we hired an engineer from Nebraska to come in and asses the situation.



Here’s the guestroom:

That’s right we have a guestroom. So just give us a little warning and if you’re ever out in New York….look us up. We need the warning to cool down the room. There isn’t any AC. Chances are if you do make it out here your picture is located somewhere in this room.

Here’s the main bathroom:

The reason I’m including the bathroom is to tell you about our shower curtain. Not the one you can see, but the one behind it. We unpacked the shower curtain the first day we moved in. We desperately needed a shower. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the shower curtain rings. We ended up using packing tape to hold up the shower curtain for over a week. Oh, we went and bought shower curtain rings but then we promptly lost them. And we still haven’t found the rings we packed. It’s probably in the same box as my hair dryer and straight iron. Have you seen it?

Here’s our office:

The Frank Sinatra poster was a wedding gift from my Aunt and Uncle. The bulletin board and dry erase board are our attempts at staying organized. The bookshelves will soon be overloaded by impressive looking law books.

Here’s our living room and dining room:

Notice all the wedding pictures. We kind of went a little overboard.

Here’s our kitchen:

It’s a little smaller than what we are use to. As you can see, it has spilled a little into our dining room. We just have way too much kitchen stuff. In fact, we are only about an hour away from the Culinary Institute of America. If the whole law school thing doesn’t work out we might be heading there.

Also note the amazing wine decanter.

So that’s our apartment. Hopefully some of you will stop by. After the trauma of moving we will be here for quite some time.

Thank You Jebus!

The phone rang a little before 12:00. It was an automated message from Verizon telling us our DSL line was now active (and a full two days before it was scheduled). Hers and I sprang into action. Hers tacked down the phone wires while I configured our connection. Getting our account setup took way longer than it should’ve thanks to Verizon’s crummy software, but who’s complaining? As you can tell, we’re back online and we’ve posted the backlog of entries we’ve accumulated over the last couple of weeks. Glad to be back in the 21^st century.

Now we’re cooking

His and I used our time before the craziness of law school starts to stock our freezer with ready to eat foods. We grilled chicken and turkey. Made up taco and enchilada meat, froze lasagna, cooked up some pancakes and made some serious pasta sauce. The grocery stores out here are amazing. A lot of things that we use to have to order online are available in the stores out here. Our favorite find was the “meatloaf mix” It’s a mix of ground pork, veal and hamburger. It made the BEST meatballs his and I have ever had. The have whole meat sections of veal, entire aisles of pasta. I think his and I are gonna like it out here.

Living in exile:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are without internet connection. We are also now without cable. We had it for the first week we were here, but now they shut it off and we won’t get it set up until next week. (The same time we get our internet connection). All we’ve been able to do is watch a lot of DVD’s and the two channels we get in with our rabbit ears. Judge Judy is quite entertaining. The Tyra Banks show is not.

Damn The Turf

For those who don’t know, Saratoga Springs is home to a major horse track. My inlaws, who were nice enough to drive out car out to New York for us, took us to the track on the 6th so we could put some money on the ponies.

None of us are really gamblers, so $3 is a lot when it comes to betting on the races, but we wanted to get things off to a quick start, so I put $5 down on a horse to show and put another $2 down on a horse named True Crimson to win. I was a bit nervous as I approached the betting window. I told them I wanted $2 on True Crimson and the guy behind the counter scolded me for not using the horse’s program number. I apologized noting the formula posted on the front of the window. “Sorry, $2 to win on number 5.”

Finally, the horses trotted out onto the track for the first race when suddenly, we heard the announced call “and here comes a horse without a rider.” Somehow, we knew it was True Crimson before we even saw the number 5. At least you get your money back on a scratch.

Our other bet didn’t pan out, but the rest of the day went relatively well. We usually placed one bet on a horse to win and one to show. In a couple of the middle races, both bets paid off and we celebrated with some genuine Saratoga Potato Chips (if you don’t know Saratoga Springs is the home of the potato chip).

We did realize one thing, we suck when it comes to turf races. Out of the two races we saw ran on turf, we didn’t make a single dollar. We still managed to leave the track up by $12. Not bad for a couple of poor college students.

The Best $60 We Ever Spent

Unloading is never fun, but it’s even less fun with heat indexes above 100-degrees. The hallways and stairways of our apartment complex aren’t air conditioned. We broke into a sweat just walking up to the apartment. By the time we started unloading the truck, however, the hallways were feeling more than comfortable.

The humidity was brutal outside and the back of the moving van was particularly harsh. Although we had a couple of carts to help us move items in, the process was still exhausting. Most of the items fit nicely into the elevator, but our couch was too large. We managed to get the couch to the narrow stairwell, but getting it up the stairway was an entirely different matter. We managed to get the couch wedged into the stairwell before even reaching the first flight. Hers had to squat the couch from the top while I pried it loose from the bottom. In the end, we paid a contractor in the complex $60 to help us get the couch upstairs.

We got most of the truck unloaded the first day, but our mattresses were against the front of the truck, so we slept on the floor the first night (not that it mattered, we could’ve slept anywhere).

By the time we were done unpacking the next day, we were battered and bruised. Hers had bruises on her upper arms and I had bruises on my left elbow and both knees. Luckily, we healed before our first day of class.

King Of The Road

Well, thanks to Verizon losing our DSL order, this post is a bit delayed, but we did manage to make it from Lincoln, Nebraska to Albany, New York. We both grew accustomed to driving the 22-foot moving van, but it was still harrowing at times. South of Chicago along I-80 is a short toll road. As it turned out, they were working on the booths leaving only two lanes opened and backing up traffic for 5 miles at 7:30 PM on a Sunday night. It took us two hours to make it past the tollbooths and we were rewarded with more road construction. Driving an extremely wide moving van at night with a retaining wall on my right side and traffic all to close on my left made for a nerve wracking drive. We finally found an open exit and pulled off for the night. We found a motel with a hot tub that was a welcome relief after the drive.

Trying to hunt down diesel for the truck was also a pain. It’s not like the moving van was able to turn on a dime, so once we located the diesel pump (not always easy) we had to devise an intro and exit strategy. All told, it usually took about 20-30 minutes to find the gas, make our way to the correct pump, fill up, and pay for our gas. We usually tried to combine our gas stops with our food breaks (which was easy to do with a 50-gallon gas tank).

Diesel is readily available along the Interstate, of course, but we did run into a small scare while trying to score cheap diesel in Indiana. We waited until the last stop to fill up and the pumps were down. The next fuel stop in Ohio was closed and the low-fuel light did come on (meaning we had enough gas left to take us roughly 75-miles). We made it, of course, with plenty of gas left to spare.

The second day went smoother than the first and we made it all the way to Syracuse. did get stuck driving through Cleveland, however. We went around most major cities, but our route took us right through the heart of Cleveland. The Interstate has a couple of surprisingly sharp turns through the Cleveland area, but handled the truck like a champ.

We made it into Albany by 10:00 on August 1. All that was left was the unloading.

Hers Behind The Wheel

I can't drive this thing another day

Unplugged

Just a quick post to let everyone know we made it. We will recap our fun-filled adventure as soon as we have our DSL up and running. This is the first time either of us have been online in over a week. The first few days were tough, but eventually the shakes and the cold sweats went away. Just when we thought we had kicked the habit we found a Panera Bread. Free (or for the cost of a bagle) wi-fi for us.

Get Me Out Of Here

The top five Netflix local favorites for Lincoln, Nebraska:

5) The Oprah Winfrey Show: 20th Anniversary Collection (6-Disc Series)
4) Hope Floats
3) The Perfect Storm
2) Northern Exposure : Season 1 (4-Disc Series)
1) Wrestlemania Anthology: Vol 1 (5-Disc Series)

The top five Netflix local favorites for Albany, New York:

5) Pulp Fiction
4) The Sopranos Season 2 (4-Disc Series)
3) Queer As Folk: The Final Season (5-Disc Series)
2) Mallrats
1) Gremlins

OK, so Gremlins is a rather random number 1, but it's hard to get any worse than a top five that includes both Oprah and Wrestlemania.

An Ad Agency Tool

OK, I'm going to law school so it's not exactly like I have a sharply honed sense of cool, but I know one thing that isn't cool: driving a car with 2006 plates that read WASSAP. That wasn't cool five years ago and it hasn't improved with age. Anyone willing to put that on a license plate probably still answers the phone with a loud, drawn out "WAAASSSSUPPPPP!!!!" (which I now realize was never cool).

Pack It Up

Our home in Lincoln is gone. Yes, we still have a roof over our head and a place to sleep at night, but the place we called home is gone. Our dining room table is buried beneath paper, packing material, and other assorted stuff. Empty boxes liter the living room and packed boxes sit patiently stacked against the walls of our living room and in our guest room. Everyday, more of our stuff disappears from the walls, counters, and dressers. Our warm little house is looking bare and white and it’s never going to be the same again.

It’s amazing some of the things you remember when you’re packing up. Some of them are little things. As I walked up the basement stairs, I remembered putting the banister back up after moving in. I remember hauling the mattress from the guest room downstairs to cuddle up and watch movies for the day. And then, of course, there are the big things. I remember tying a rose to the front door and decorating the living room with candles and flowers on the day we got engaged.

We’ve had more than our share of good memories in our duplex and they do tend to come flooding back as you pack everything up. The thing is, after you move enough times, you realize that your memories aren’t tied to geography. We’re leaving the duplex behind, not our past. And even as we look back on the great times we’ve had in the duplex, we know there are plenty of good times waiting for us in Albany. It’s nice to look back and remember the good times, but you can’t ever miss the fact that there’s always more to come.

Ah, New England

The two-letter state code for Nebraska is NE. It’s the first two letters in the name of the state, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising. So why do people insist that NE stands for New England?

I called Time Warner to schedule a time for them to connect our cable (yes, we did eventually find a place to live). The rep on the line, Jason, insisted that our current address was in New England.

“Lets see, your current address is in New England?”

“Ah, no, NE stands for Nebraska.”

“No, NE stands for New England.”

Now I can see thinking there was a typo in the address, but don't try and tell a customer that they live in some mythical state after they correct your mistake the first time. Sadly, Jason isn’t the only person I’ve ran across who believed that NE was short for New England, but most people won't argue with you about it.

Exploring Upstate

We plan to get into Albany on August 1. That gives us less than two weeks to unpack and settle in before orientation starts. In other words, we’re not going to have a whole lot of time to explore Upstate New York (and we’ll have even less money to do so). So we made it a priority to get out of Albany and explore more of Upstate New York.

After the frustration of trying to find a place to live, we more than welcomed the distraction of exploring a new place. We started with Saratoga Springs, home to world famous horseracing. The town itself is quaint. Congress Park, in the middle of town, is a beautiful small park right in the middle of downtown Saratoga Springs. We had an amazing breakfast at Beverly's including the most amazing Eggs Benedict I’ve ever seen. After that, we explored the old mansions along Union Ave and drove by the racetrack (which we’ll be exploring more after we get out there).

After exploring the town, we headed out to the Saratoga Battlefield. In 1777, the British commander, Burgoyne, was marching his army south toward Albany. The Colonials effectively funneled Burgoyne’s forces toward the Hudson River dictating the terms of the battle. Burgoyne won a hard fought battle against the Colonials on September 19, 1777, but the victory was so costly that Burgoyne decided to entrench his forces and wait for reinforcements from New York City. The reinforcements never came and on October 7, Burgoyne decided to try and fight his way through the Colonial lines. The decision was a mistake. After losing 1,000 men, Burgoyne had to surrender when almost 20,000 Colonials surrounded his exhausted army of 6,000.

Above is a Colonial canon. The fence post in front of the canon indicates the Colonial front. Red fence posts, like the one below, indicate the British front.

After exploring the battlefield, it was off to the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks is the largest National Park in New York and comprises a huge portion of the state. We took Interstate 87 into the Adirondacks, but eventually got off the Interstate to explore the small, twisting roads that run through the region. Many follow old mountain strems such as the one below.

We continued heading north in the Adirondacks until we reached the Lake Placid, home of the 1980 Winter Olympics. We grabbed a bite to eat at a local pub and snapped this shot of Mirror Lake.

As it turns out, we spent too much time at the battlefield. We missed being able to take a run down the bobsled course by about 30-minutes (the sleds run on rollers in the summer). We headed home from Lake Placid and went out to conqueror the Catskills the next day.

In some ways, the Catskills were very similar to the Adirondacks. Mountain streams and lakes were everywhere and thanks to all the recent rain, all the creeks were up and the trees were a beautiful green. The highlight of the trip was the Kaaterskills Falls.

While Niagara may be better known, the Kaaterskills Falls are taller. In fact, they are the tallest falls in the state at 260-feet. As you can see from the pictures below, the falls are not well developed. There is not even a handrail to protect visitors. You can dangle your feet over the edge or snap a shot from above (as I did in the picture below).

Unfortunately, roadwork closed off the only access to the bottom of the falls that we knew of, so we couldn’t get any pictures from below. Obviously, there is a way to get to the bottom. If you look at a larger version of the image above, you can see pople standing at the base of the falls looking up.

From the Catskills, we headed back to New York City. We’ll talk more about our city experience later.

I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve been “missing it”, Bob.

And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire...

I never thought that Milton Waddams could summarize my feelings on my employment so perfectly….I am in my last week here at the cubicle farm. I have been moved three times in the past 2 weeks. I was moved out of my big luxurious cubicle with a window (and you know what, the squirrels were merry), to a smaller cube sans window and finally to a half cube stuck in a corner, with no privacy. I am no longer able to hide my internet usage. If I had work to do I would do it, but they have taken it all away. I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason my security card still lets me in the building is through some sort of “glitch” I am in constant fear that they will fix the glitch, or that I’ll be moved yet again, and this time I will only have a flashlight and a bottle of Raid. And, I kid you not, they have actually taken away my Swingline stapler.

Albany

Last month, we got our first look at our new home, Albany, NY. In order to use our hard-earned ticket vouchers, we had to fly into LaGuardia rather than Albany. So we spent our first night in Queens, picked up the rental car the next day, and headed north along the Hudson.

Traffic heading out of the city wasn’t too bad and once we got across the Whitestone Bridge, the scenery quickly changed from urban to rustic. After living in Nebraska for so long, I think we were both excited to see so many trees and mountains. We passed through several small towns that could’ve easily been nestled in rural Vermont or New Hampshire. After stopping for breakfast at the CIA (Culinary Institute Of America). The campus, which is nestled just off the Hudson, is lush, green, and beautiful. Of course, the appearance of the campus couldn’t compare to the smells of French, Italian, and American cuisine that centered around the CIA’s five restaurants. We grabbed a croissant, a scone, and freshly squeezed OJ at the bakery before heading north again along the east side of the Hudson.

Along the way, we stopped at the Vanderbilt Mansion. We didn’t go inside, but had some fun exploring the property. The Hudson is beautiful north of NYC. This picture was shot from the Vanderbilt’s backyeard.

We approached Albany from the east and weren’t too impressed with the neighborhoods near the river. As we got up the hill and away from the river, however, the city began to improve. We parked the car and explored the Center Square neighborhood around Lark Street. The area has plenty of well-kept brownstones and Lark St. is a popular college hangout filled with small shops and bars.

After exploring the city a bit more and grabbing a bite to eat at a local pizzeria, we explored the Empire State Plaza.

The performing arts center, known as The Egg, is the most unique structure in the plaza.

Here's another view of the Egg and the plaza from the observation deck of the Corning Building.

We started the next day with a tour of Albany Law School. We spoke to Gail Benson, Director Of Admissions, and got a nice tour of the campus including both the 1928 building and the 2000 building. The buildings had a nice mix of modern and classical architecture and I think we both liked the feel of the school, which was a relief considering we had already made a commitment to attend.

After our tour the apartment search oficially began. Our plan was to walk through Center Square and call on any For Rent signs we found. Unfortunately, it rained the entire day making it difficult to talk on the phone, take notes, and stay dry at the same time.

Apartment hunting is never fun and it was even less fun in Albany. Few landlords we contacted returned our call. When we were able to schedule an appointment to view an apartment, it seems like we either didn’t like the neighborhood, the apartment, the landlord, or all of the above. One apartment rented by an old Italian couple stands out for in particular. The husband wasn’t home to show the apartment, so his wife, who spoke broken english, attempted to let us in. She claimed the front door to the basement apartment was stuck and asked me to open it. Turns out the door wasn’t so much stuck as locked, so she took us around to the back door. We continued walking through an unfinished basement and eventually got to the apartment. Even if we liked the look of the apartment, we couldn't have gotten by the dank, dusty, smell. I unlocked the front door to let us out and we practically ran back to the car.

The downtown apartments that we did like didn’t stay empty very long. We found an apartment on Madison Ave near Washington Park that we loved. We talked it over on the ride back to the motel and called the landlord 20-minutes after seeing the apartment. He never called us back. We found another apartment right off Washington Park that we loved. Unfortunately, someone was already looking at it when we came in and he took the place before we even had a chance.

After the frustration of dealing with landlords, we decided it was time to look at a few apartment complexes to use as last resorts and vowed to continue searching once we got back to Lincoln.

We had fun with the rest of trip. We explored the Adirondacks, the Catskills, and we still got to spend almost three days in the city.

Deal or No Deal

We had our big garage sale this weekend. Things went pretty well. (read as: we made enough money to compensate for our misery). It was hot this weekend. The temperature reached triple digits both days and the humidity was, um, humid. And we had a lot of stuff to sell.

I felt a little like Weird Wally trying to dispose of items that His and I have had for so long, but couldn’t justify hauling across the country. I don’t like to haggle and that made this weekend tough. If only someone had asked us to throw in some rope and strap it to their car!

I’m amazed by what people will actually buy at a garage sale. We had one guy buy His’ entire box of CD’s. Did he know the artists? Well, maybe a few put he wanted the whole box. What is he going to do with these? What must his house look like if he is just going around buying all of this random stuff? Why did a bunch of thugged out Gangsters want two-dozen glass hurricanes and a gilded gold mirror? Why would somebody want to refinish wicker? These are the questions that have haunted me.

The highlight of the sale: The boy who bought Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Thank you for buying that movie, but if you were really that patriotic, why didn’t you buy the flag desk?

And for the guys who bought our refrigerator: Its still there, please pick it up.