The First Week

Nothing quite like the first day of school, and this will be the last time (one would hope) that a summer ends and school begins for me. Quite a difference 18 years makes though, as I remember being so scared and excited with a brand new backpack in one hand and a box lunch in the other as a 5 year old kid in New Matamoras, OH. Now I just grab my satchel of law books and laptop and rush out the door to prevent being late.

The first class of the new term was Securities Regulation with Professor Rose. Rose is a new guy who just came from Northwestern Law School, and the law school is really happy to get this guy. He calls on people alphabetically with a third of the alphabet on call each day of the week (MTW), so I guess we early alphabet people only need to care about Mondays. He not only is a powerpoint professor who puts his slides online, he seems to know a great deal what he is teaching from his experience as a broker. A good corporate professor not named Oesterle, who would have thought? I think I will enjoy that class, which is why I'm taking corporate type classes to fill the time this year anyways.

Sales with Professor Johnson is interesting also. There is plenty of mixed opinion out there on Professor Johnson, but she seemed OK in one class this week (Tuesday was cancelled). This is another Whaley book so I'm going to treat it as remedial Contracts since our 1L contracts was essentially UCC Article II anyways with common law mixed in. It should be easy but Contracts didn't turn out so hot, so I'll have to keep on it. The subject is kind of boring...however, with Professor Johnson being the only random Socratic method teacher this semester, that should be enough motivation to do the reading. Lots of my 1L class in there as well. Happy to have Larry in the class and maybe we'll study group despite our terribly different study styles (me being last minute and him starting early). More on this class later when we've had more of them as Professor Johnson is hard to get a read on this early.

AK and I were late to Johnson's class and she is a stickler about attendance and being on time (whatever floats your boat), so we got our proverbial tongue lashings at the beginning of class. Shouldn't be too hard to make a class after an hour and a half lunch break, unless you go to Eddie George's Grill apparently. I like EG's place, but on this day they were not very busy and took literally 55 minutes from the time we ordered to the time the food arrived. Then half the food had to be sent back because the orders of chicken wings were ice cold and the steak was medium rare for somebody who dislikes the sight of any pink. So I wolfed down mine and AK had his boxed up to go when the wings were warmed again, but still we were late. Thanks EG's. Word to the wise...maybe avoid that lunch destination until they get quicker service (probably when the undergrads come back). Even though that's Johnson's pet peeve, at least AK and I got our customary tardiness out of the way on the first class.

The other two classes are only scheduled once a week, which is unfortunate considering they are going to be my two favorite classes. Supreme Court Lit with Judge Sutton should be as much fun as the State Con Law seminar was. I'll take a more active role in class too as I was all but dead silent in class discussions last semester (too many very assertive 3L's in his seminars). This seminar is all 3L's and would be chock-full of A's even if there were a regular curve on seminars because there are tons of people from our 1L section and tons of OSLJ people in there. There should be plenty of good class discussion though with the people that are in there, which makes for a good seminar. I'll be writing on Justice Alito, so kind of a fresh slate there to work with. International IP with Lee should be a good time, and hopefully I will not need to miss any more class after missing the second hour this week to go to Cincinnati. The usual suspects are in that one for one more IP go-round with Lee.

All the JDR things seem to be going well finally. Got one of the two late articles and passed it off to associate editors. The other one is AWOL, but Erik finally is contacting the author to say "Where is it?" I'm hopeful that they just decide to not get published, but probably not. Just another year where the publication schedule will be pushed off by one author...we're used to it. This week the articles go to the authors, which means I'll need to work on my note for the last time as an author. Also in journal related news, Daniel and I got the Nintendo room up and running (well minus a TV) so that's good. In honor of the Nintendo room and because I was bored enough surfing the net to find some top 25 lists, I'm going to post one countdown a day this week of top games for each system. I'm sure nobody will agree but you can only go by your own experiences. we'll go backwards in time, so Monday look for the Top 10 Wii games (as you might imagine, this list is still preliminary). Tuesday Top 15 Gamecube, Wednesday Top 10 N64 (because there just are not 15 good games for that system), Thursday Top 15 SNES, and Friday Feature Top 15 NES.

Football season had officially returned with the high schoolers this past weekend. Marietta busted Parkersburg South for 25 unanswered points in the final quarter to win on the road 38-20. That's absolutely remarkable and might mean Marietta could seriously compete for the SEOAL title. The other team I follow (Frontier) got crushed in a league game week one 39-12, so another poor season for the tiny school I started in. But more importantly, this means we are only 6 days from BUCKEYE FOOTBALL! We have such an easy schedule for the first 8 weeks that barring a meltdown in Purdue or Washington, we should be 8-0 entering the beef of our schedule. Then we finish at Penn State, home against Wisconsin and Illinois, and at Michigan. The Big Ten schedule is also backloaded like the Big East was last year, as the last three weeks have the top three teams visiting each other (11/3 Wisconsin at OSU, 11/10 Michigan at Wisconsin, 11/17 OSU at Michigan). While I'm looking forward to November, just getting out there this weekend to watch the new Buckeyes grow up against Tressel's old school Youngstown State.

Went down to Cincinnati this week on Wednesday to watch the Reds play the Braves and go to dinner at the ballpark with the firm. It's nice that they move around their quarterly partner-associate dinner to various different places around the metro area, but of course any time I get free Reds tickets I'm not complaining. I could seriously tell that Keith and the guys wanted me to accept the offer, and of course Keith tells me about who he is interviewing at OSU OCI. Turns out Jim (the other summer) accepted his offer and we had a long chat after the game in the firm's parking garage. Kelley and I discussed things over after I received a couple more important rejection letters on Wednesday night...and we have big news. I ACCEPTED THE OFFER! Had to call and turn down 3 callbacks, but 2 of those were firms I was not particularly interested in anymore based on location. We are happy to be done with it and be in a great firm in a good local city. Did not think last year at this time that I would be taking the Ohio bar exam, but that's how it is. Sharing Reds season tickets with Jim and his wife should be nice too. Now we can start looking at neighborhoods and houses to rent. Fun!

So now that those decisions are off the table and football season is starting, it really feels like school time again. That's all for now, but hopefully some of you will enjoy the lists coming this week (or will comment back with your own favorites). Have a good week!