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.