The beginning and middle of summer

This week on the calendar we officially moved into summer, but around Cincy it's been hot and extremely dry for weeks anyways (spring showers, what spring showers?). Of course on the school semester schedule, we are at the halfway point of summer vacation. Hard to believe but when you are working and staying busy, time flies as usual. I've worked for 7 weeks already at the firm, and only have 5 1/2 weeks left. It's actually 5 weeks spread over the next six as I'll be off the 4th-6th of July for Origins and I'm stopping full time work on August 1 (a Wednesday) to go to the Loyola Patent Interview Program in Chicago and get ready for JDR Orientation which starts that weekend. Then it's back into the grind 2 weeks later. Woo-hoo.

For anybody still scheduling, here's what it looks like for next year.
AUTUMN
Securities (Rose) MTW 11:10-12:00
Sales (Johnson) MT 1:30-2:45
Supreme Court Seminar (Sutton) T 5:15-7:05
International Intellectual Property (Lee) W 1:30-3:20

SPRING
Wills Trusts Estates (Johnson) MTW 9:10-10:00
Mergers and Acquisitions (Oesterle) MTW 10:10-11:00
Professional Responsibility (Greenbaum) MTW 11:10-12:00
Criminal Procedure Adjudication (Michaels) MTW 2:55-3:45

What a wonderful schedule. Should open up plenty of time to go work for WHE 1-2 days a week during the autumn if they decide to have me back and make me an offer. Speaking of WHE, the past three weeks has been busy, and I've finally gotten pretty busy with work. Marked off most of the hiring committee partners on the list of must-work-for these people, still have 3 more to go though. The Washington DC trip was interesting to say the least. Got out of work on Tuesday three weeks ago and rushed home to pick up my suitcase and back into Kentucky to the airport. Steve, Adam, and I met at Outback in the airport and had a good light meal before getting on the plane. I was in the middle seat but both I had the smallest little Asian lady beside me so there was plenty of room. The firm puts each of us in our own separate hotel rooms with two beds (enough room for 4 comfortably, or if you were at a convention like Origins...enough room for 8-10). Woke up way too early the next day to catch the Metro to the Patent Office, which is now in a very nice complex. The public search facility requires two badges to get into, so I had about an hour wasted on getting in the PSF and figuring out EAST, the examiner search system we use to pull up patents and review them. 10 hours of clicking through patents is quite draining and almost soul-crushing in the late afternoon hours, but I got my first ever search done and started work on a second with Steve. We did go out to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for dinner and had a bill before tip of $299 for the three of us. So expensive, but then again $100 of that was a bunch of white russians for me and Jack and Cokes for the other two guys. The steak was certainly one of the two best I've ever had though, and their barbeque shrimp appetizer comes in some of the most delicious sauce I've ever tasted. Also nice views of DC and Ronald Reagan airport from the restaurant. Then it was back to the hotel and the USPTO for another day (half-day for me due to flight availability) and rushed off to the airport after lunch. I ended up waiting forever to check in and almost did not get on the flight at all. This was a smaller plane and so I was the aisle seat in a 2 seat row...then even later than me comes the window seat. This girl needed the extra lap belt, so you can imagine how lovely our flight was back to Cincinnati (sigh). That's life though and I was just happy to be back in Ohio (Kentucky) when we got off the plane.

The next week the firm found suite tickets for the 3 summer clerks and Dave Dorton and off we went to the Reds game Tuesday night. We actually beat the Angels and the suite is something else. Unlimited food, drinks, air conditioning, private bathroom, etc. Seats are kind of crappy which makes the diamond seats I'm getting for our anniversary better, but the suites are nice as well. Went to the next night's game with Kelley and of course the Reds couldn't win two in a row. But we did get a Harang bobblehead, so we did not walk away empty handed. At work I've actually gotten to work with a couple client matters now (writing them letters, teleconfrencing with an inventor, etc), as well as more office action responses, patent applications, and legal research projects.

Today is the big attorney and guest formal dinner and cocktail party. Should be interesting and hopefully fun. Not as much fun as Barrister's Ball, but maybe a little fun. More on this later. The first week of school I'm going to have to cut out early of Int'l IP to go to the next partner-associate dinner event because they are having dinner at Great American Ball Park and then going to the Braves-Reds game. How could I say no to that? One other thing in the past three weeks was a day-long new associate training at the Cincinnati Bar Association. Some interesting speakers and some very boring ones, but that's how these events usually go. It was a free paid day away from work though so that's good enough for me, and I got to see Avonte and Paige from OSU...seems like all the OSU people working at Cincinnati firms are either from there or married to someone from there. No wonder I'm having trouble accepting the city.

The softball team has also sucked bad, but I missed the two weeks for the summer associate Reds game and the USPTO trip to DC. This past week I finally got to play again and played first base which I'm planning on keeping. We made some stupid errors and made a close game into a royal blowout 16-1 in five innings. Next week is the last week I can go to as they are done in 2 weeks...so hopefully we'll have a decent game.

So the apartment drama continues. They found a family that needed our apartment badly and immediately, so the landlord decided to let these guys move into a smaller 2 bedroom apartment for the remainder of their lease (which solves the absent third roommate problem). So two weeks ago we get less than a week's notice to pack up because these new people are going to move everything for us. The move was supposed to happen this past M-W, but come each day they just don't show up. The new people also do not return Stephanie's calls so we did not know what the hell was going on. I finally unpacked half my stuff on thursday because I decided I'm not living out of suitcases. Turns out that the landlord figured out Heather wanted to prorate the rent since they were moving us to a cheaper apartment for half the month, and the landlord did not want to so she told this family to wait another week and let us know. But the family and the landlord did not bother to tell any of us...so we were just packed up a week early. This sucks. So now they are saying this monday and tuesday, but I will not believe it until stuff starts getting moved. Also had a neighborhood disturbance Tuesday morning as a guy from across the street comes banging on our doors saying "Call the Police!" this white guy and his next door black neighbor had a fight or something and so six cop cars show up and investigate. This made me an hour late for work, but it was softball night so I just took my softball stuff to work and worked later. I'm just happy neither of them had a gun because we had about 12 people shot in those first two days of the week this week. Crazy.

As much as it pains me to say it, the Reds need to give up on this lame season and trade Adam Dunn and maybe even Ken Griffey Jr. for some good pitching. They need to get it figured out, as Harang, Arroyo, and Homer Bailey need some bullpen help. If we end up in Cincinnati I'd like to think I'm paying for good season tickets in 2009, not a joke team. It's like buying season tickets to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Yes I like hockey, but why do I need to suffer through cheering for a team going nowhere with management that just doesn't care?

Our anniversary and Origins is right around the corner, the best part of the summer. Kelley and I are thinking of going on a cruise for fall break this year since we have not done anything big like that for any of my fall or spring breaks thus far in law school. Anybody want to come along?

This past week I got the ebaying of Magic cards done and sorted the rest of the collection for sale at Origins. Finally done with that. This week I've got to update the resume, writing sample, etc. and apply for the OSU Chicago interview program as well as OCI. I'll also work out financial aid for this school year for the final time thankfully. Maybe I'll send out some cold-call letters to my favored markets as well. The only other thing on my plate is finishing up my JDR note, but I've got some flex time for that if necessary.

Also trying to read through the Harry Potter series in time for movie 5 and the final book. I doubt I'll get them done, but I'll work on it. Well have a good week or two or three, depending on when I update again. See you around.