The Hellish Weekend Begins

This weekend, we are driving from Columbus to Cincinnati tomorrow morning, doctor's appointment in the morning, work all day, drive to Valparaiso Indiana tomorrow night, wake up for a 7:30 tipoff of my little sister's first game of nationals, leave first thing Saturday morning and drive all the way to Marietta. Back Sunday night. Somewhere in there I need to knock out a bunch of final reads for JDR Issue III so I can focus on MPRE prep and JDR Note Selection next week. I hope C.J. does well in the two games we are able to see. There will be 13 of the Fitzgerald clan there, so we get to see more than just my siblings and Dad and Patti. That should be fun, even though it's too short. Then we get to see what Kelley gets for her big 25th birthday, other than the Ped Egg, telescoping camera lens, and dinner I'm getting her.

So I was going to post a poll before tonight to ask whether the Buckeyes would go farther in the NIT or The Well Hung Jury in the bowling playoffs. The debate still rages after both quarterfinals tonight, as the Buckeyes are going to NYC for the NIT semifinals, and good news - we are back in the semifinals again. That's as far as we've ever been (one semifinals loss, three quarterfinal losses, and one missed playoff appearance before now), and this time there will be no Bill Browne team to fret about. Tonight's results were as follows:

The Blev Stube (Ben Rose, Steve Hood) def. Penal Servitude (Bart, Avonte, Christy, Jen) 3-0
The Well Hung Jury (us) def. Prima Facial (Eckenrodes, Kominsky) 3-0
Pin Pals (Constantine, Glankler) def. Motion to Strike (Dobyns, Kyler, Derek Smith) 2-1
We Use Fingers (Spangler, Rich Helm) def. Capital Pinishment (1L's) 2-1

I have absolutely no idea who plays who in the semifinals, but the careers of the solid Eckenrode and Bart/Avonte teams is over. Three primarily 3L teams left with the 2L Pin Pals, and someone must win. None of the quarterfinals was particularly close except for ours. We won the first game by 1, and then lost our handicap edge in the second game within 3-4 frames (which is very bad news). We managed to hang tough through the 8th frame where we were practically tied going into the 9th. Then we had the most amazing and clutch foundation frame ever. Even if we don't win it all, this frame was one to remember, as we all but clinched with strikes by Daniel, Kelley, and myself and a spare by Brodie. A couple of splits and opens on the other side left it pretty much done. Way to have the killer instinct team. I bowled average (144-151) despite a staggering 4 splits in game 1 and 2 more in game 2, so that's OK with me. I think the most fitting final would be Spangler's team against ours, so hopefully we don't get paired next week and we have a chance to do that.

Two more notes: first, UPS blows big goats. So they show up sometime on Tuesday when Kelley is not home and leave the note saying the second attempt will be Wednesday and they check off the boxes for 2 PM - 5 PM and after 5 PM. OK, well we had no problem with that as Kelley was going to be home during that gigantic time window. Well nothing came and at 8 PM I call to see the status. They told me they showed up at 12:17 PM. What the fuck? So now they get to hold my package until Monday when I'll go pick it up. It just better not be returned to California.

Second, I called Chikezie leaving on AI. Yay on being 2 for 3 on who's going home. KKK Kristy, enjoy your one week out of the bottom three. And for the record, I'm going to stop putting Syesha in my Top 3 if the tween-tards insist on disagreeing with me about her every week.

See you after the hectic weekend, and next week...we have NIT hoops, bowling semifinals, American Idol Top 9, and the MPRE take two. Exciting!

Oh and before I forget...

Since I cannot do it justice, here's a link for you all to see. Go to 0:00-0:58 of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7aUxGK4WqM

'Nuff Said.

Bracket Busted?

Is your bracket busted before the first weekend is over? Yeah me too. As usual, my upset reads did not come in during the first round and I fell a couple off the pace. Then yesterday the coup de grace: thanks West Virginia, now I can cheer for Big Ten teams and underdogs the rest of the way. Back in high school, I used to run the regular bracket contest and my tennis buddy Brandon would run a Sweet 16 pool for those whose bracket is busted by the first weekend (that being 80% of the people who try to pick the Madness). Like many other years, it would be good to have one of those again...

Speaking of basketball, the Lady Buckeyes choked for the third straight year in March Madness last night. Two years ago they were a 1 seed and lost in the second round to #9 Boston College, last year they were a #4 and lost to #13 Marist in the first round, last night they were a #6 and were upset in the first round yet again by #11 Florida State. Jim Foster knows how to win Big Ten titles (4 in a row), but he's got to figure out something to do for the dance. I was correct about Ohio State's men's team being in better shape to learn for next year by going to the NIT, and after a solid game against UNCA they get California Monday night. I've got another credential, and Larry and I have tickets to the game as well (we're dragging along a third to sit in my paid seat). Should be good times, and hopefully next week we'll be looking forward to another trip to NYC for a NIT final four (the Buckeyes made the preseason NIT final as well this season).

Oh, before I forget...I promised this comment to a couple of people...

FUCK YOU TWEEN-TARDS!

Just when I thought American Idol fans had some modicum of taste and wanted some different styles of performers this season on the summer tour (the top 10 make that tour), they go and cut my girl Amanda this week. Well I hope all you tween-tards enjoy KKK-Kristy Lee Cook and her absolutely awesome Dolly Parton remakes of rock songs. Plus, the tween-tards inexplicably put Carly in the bottom 3...did we forget about her this week? So inconsistent...we'll hope the Top 10 does a better job this week than the Top 11 did this week. Wait, what am I saying, with the exception of Archuleta it simply has to be better!

Oh and one more thing, the result show seriously needs cut down to a half hour, or even better, a 3 minute press conference. The Idols they bring back to sing show how poor this season's contestants really are, and the quirky phone calls to say things to Simon or ask wank-wank questions to wank-wank contestants like Ramiele and Jason. Please stop.

On the bright side, REAL TV IS COMING BACK NEXT MONTH! Lost will be wrapping up its short season, House finally comes back for some regular episodes with the new team (which I will call Team Kumar now that I've realized one of the three is Kumar from Harold & Kumar), and the Moment of Truth will finally not be the second best show on Fox.

Watched I Am Legend last night. Pretty solid performance in Will Smith's version of Cast Away. Definitely worth watching a few more times. Also finally got through The Break-Up (bleh), Hot Fuzz (slow at first but pretty funny), and Michael Clayton (OK, need to see again to fully appreciate it) this week. Stick with the Blockbusters, and not the ones according to the Oscars, at least for now.

Spring break from law school was very relaxing, and now we'll be in the stretch run for the MPRE re-do in a couple weeks and then finals in 6-7 weeks. I ignored journal work too much while watching basketball, oh well. Just makes for busy evenings. We'll get Issues 3-4 out eventually. Everything seems calmer now that Issue 1 is in the hands of the subscribers. It also did not help that the first of 7 notes I have to read for good faith did not meet good faith at all. I swear sometimes people forget that writing a note is for a credit hour...I mean, how could you turn in something that has clearly never been spellchecked, let alone proofread? How unprofessional.

Spent last Sunday with Aaron and Larry, playing 4-player Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The game is very good as a party game, right up with the high standards of the other Wii titles so far. Now if they could just get some good sports and third-party support. Yes I mean Rock Band. The real reason we had them over was to hear about last weekend's ABA moot court competition (the other top moot court teams, along with our National teams from the fall). Well they have a lot of stories, which happens when you do moot court and especially with Brian. I'm not going to tell the stories myself, but needless to say the experience more than lived up to what happened at the Gibbons competition last year. At least I have five more people who completely understand what I wrote this time last year...big middle finger to Ms. Brewer and all others who decided to pitch a fit about speaking the truth in your own personal blog. Some people take small stuff too seriously, while neglecting their duties to investigate the real problems with the moot court program. But before I forget, props to Tiffany and Chad for Top 10 oralist awards and kudos to Aaron/Tiffany/Brodie for almost overcoming the inevitable crappy first round judging.

Bowling playoffs were pushed off a week very late on Wednesday, so only the teams who anticipated being in the playoffs showed up for the final regular season week. We swept without Brodie because we were going against Aaron's absent team, so we are in the Top 8 for sure and I think we'll bowl against the Eckenrode team. I think we've only bowled against them once if at all, so that will be nice to get in one battle against a fellow 3L team before hooding.

Roadtripping to Valparaiso Indiana this week for Lutheran March Madness. The national Lutheran invitational basketball tournament for 7-8th graders is next weekend, and my little sister C.J. is playing in her final games before high school. (Plus, it's as close as her traveling team gets to Ohio for games) She was pretty good the last time I saw her, and apparently she's tops on her team. We'll be able to see her first two games, and hopefully they place well in the 32 team tournament. So that's the big thing on tap for this week, that and Kelley's second doctor's appointment.

One more thing before I go: I promised a little about the house, and now we have the lease signed. It's over on the west side of town, about midway between I-74 and US-50 south of Cheviot. The drive is about 20 minutes to downtown, which is reasonable. The house has a nice big fenced-in yard and a paved patio to put the grill and a table on. The house itself has two floors and a basement. The first floor is relatively small, featuring two rooms and one walk-in closet. We'll use those rooms as the master bedroom and the baby's room. On the main floor there are four main rooms all connected to each other and a bathroom. I think our plan is to make a formal dining room, a living room similar to our upstairs living room now, and a regular dining room with our casual kitchen table and the piano. The kitchen is the other room. There's also a very small one car garage on the ground level, connected to the basement. Downstairs is like a cave, with winding passages a lots of room. Half the basement is finished, so that will be the second living room / poker and game room / bar. It actually has a bar in the finished half, so perhaps that will be a place to store our liquor. The unfinished half has a small back storage room under the garage which should be able to suit our storage needs, a laundry room, and a large unfinished space which can be more storage or utility space (since the garage is so small).

We've just started the process of prepping for the move in a couple months. Kelley is going through all her clothes and donating a bunch she doesn't wear anymore. My first downsizing project was video games. There's a lot of NES/SNES/N64 stuff I'm never going to pull out again unless it's right there on the shelf, so I ordered a NES/SNES retro duo combo system this week and pared through my collection of games to keep the best and the ones I will play again (plus a lot I can get rid of thanks to downloading them on Wii's virtual console). So that's over one storage tote gone for me sometime in the next two weeks once it sells, and we'll finally have a retor gaming system out that we can play with friends. Yes this means I'll have Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam Daniel and Larry, so I'll expect regular visits to Cincinnati to relive our Nintendo closet days in the journal suite. I think the next thing after that will be clothes for me as well, as there's definitely some stuff that can go for me as well. Then it will be onto storage boxes in the storage space...there's got to be stuff packed away I don't want anymore. One thing that will be nice once we get to the new house is buying 3-4 more bookshelves to put out all our books instead of storing them in boxes. But enough on that, back to the super-exciting Villanova blowout of Siena. I love when the CBS schedule fails miserably...

A Long-Awaited Update

Well I couldn't just have an American Idol blog entry, so here's a brief update on the past month and a half. As usual, things have gotten busy around the law school world but not too busy like last semester. Journal work is the primary background busywork that some days makes me want to scream…but other days it's actually entertaining. On the whole, Issues I/II were nightmares and led to what I figure is a yearly "Do Better!" meeting like we had in January and like Dave Shelton had the year before. I'm just starting Issue III accuracy checks, but the Witkin Note (which got moved up to Issue II due to problems with an Issue II note) was done really well so I have high hopes. It seems like the ME's really put in the extra effort even if the staff did not. Issue I finally shipped out last week, and it's nice to finally see a JDR journal that we brought out. It might be a couple months later than usual, but hopefully it's a good one. Larry and I found quite a few errors when just paging through it, but most of them will not show up online because they are formatting things. And quite frankly, I did not do the formatting on Issue I so that's not really making me feel bad (other than the fact that I should have probably manned up and done that on all the issues...but at the time Erik offered to do the work and I was only too happy to let him take it). Issues II/III should be better anyways because Erik and I are getting better I'm sure.

Issue II is at the publisher now, so we should have a Blueline by the end of this week and get that turned back around so printing can start and maybe finish by the end of March. If I write a little more often (say weekly if I liveblog American Idol), perhaps I'll let you know how those Issue III final reads are going.

Picked up Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Wii 2 days ago. Definitely a fun fighting game for parties (which means I'll suck at it compared to the general gamer), but the one-player mode is pretty fun so far. Pit/Kid Icarus kicks serious ass with his arrows from long distances and smashes up close. I still think the Ice Climbers are the best, as you cannot get more annoying than them. Also picked up Super Monkey Ball for GCN, which has an OK single player mode and a great bowling mini-game Kelley and I played for hours two nights ago.

Speaking of bowling, nearly the entire season has passed by without a peep from me. Our final chance for MFR to win the championship (although I argue being the #1 seed going into the playoffs twice counts as "real" bowling league victories because no regular league has a playoff) was a little bumpy, as we hit teams on hot streaks seemingly every week. We could never put 3 wins together in a week, but we limited the damages and sat at 11.5-9.5 going into last week. That was a half-game out of the playoffs, but last week was position week so 3rd and 4th were bowling each other (both 12-9) and we could pass one of them for sure with at least a 2-1 against the 6th place team, Larry's team. Brodie rolled a 180+ the first game and got 4 strikes in a row, and combined with my 150+ game...we won the first by a decent margin. Generally this has brought out the best in our opponents, but we were not to be denied this time. Everson rolled one of the best games of his life (140+) and I rolled above average again to carry the team...Everson beat everyone else on the 2 lanes scratch but me which is amazing. We finally got our 3-0 and improved to 14.5-9.5. The half a game was a classic 3 weeks ago as well, as I had a spare in the 9th and we were down by 27 with only me left to bowl. I go up and get a 7 with the first ball, meaning I will need the spare and a strike to tie. I deliver the spare, and then pull a Brooklyn strike out of my ass to get 2.5 games that week [over Abbie for the last time].

So the playoff picture looks like 8 teams, and it's a pretty loaded field. The usual 3L suspects are there (all of this assumes the bowling league gets the standings right...), a couple of 2L teams, and one 1L team. The big misses are both the finalists from last semester, the neo-Middleton squad and Dobyns & Co's Motion to Strike...but you cannot make it every time. We only made the playoffs 5 times out of 6. The first two times there were 16 teams and we made the quarterfinals once and the semifinals once. The last two times there have been 8 teams and we've lost in the first week to the eventual playoff champion both times. I'd like to think we can get to at least the semis again, so hopefully fates smiles on Longsleeve and Company this week.

Watched the Grammys and the Oscars in recent weeks. The Grammys were pretty good this year, especially considering they went outside the box and gave the highest award to a Jazz musician for only the second time in 50 years (yay Herbie Hancock). Kanye West is a certifiable psychopath, and you know you've hit rock bottom when Vince Gill makes fun of you as he accepts the best Country Album award. I had to pull out my Carlos Mencia Season 1 and show Kelley his parody of Golddigger. It is one of the funniest bits I've ever seen on TV, and so true as it turns out. "He's not Jesus...He's not Jesus, yeah." The Oscars on the other hand...hmmm. I'd like to blame it on the WGA strike, but that is just not true. As usual, have not seen any of the Best Picture nominees (but watching Michael Clayton as we speak). Juno looks fantastic, but did not win the awards. There will be Blood and No Country For Old Men just do not look all that great to me, but they took the major awards. George Clooney and the girl form Juno got robbed in my opinion. I have no opinion on Atonement. Crash and The Departed were both very good, spanning the distance between artsy and good to the normal consumer. I don't know if No Country For Old Men can say the same. Maybe we'll buy it used someday and find out.

The Columbus Blue Jackets are such a joke. Ten years and no playoff appearances. This is the NHL, where half the teams in the league make it...but the ol' CBJ cannot get it together for enough of a season to make that happen. I love having the NHL in town, but you have to do something eventually or else we'll stop watching. If I want to suffer, I'd prefer to watch the Reds. Speaking of terrible, how bout my Knicks? Worst franchise in NBA history is not out of reach as long as Isaiah runs things in NYC. Moving onto teams I care about that actually do well, congratulations to the Packers on getting one last good run with Brett before he retired. I wish they would've knocked off the Patriots instead of the Giants, but as long as Sunny-Side Up Belichick doesn't win, we all win. Actually I'm going to broaden that...as long as Boston in general doesn't win, we all win. Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots...ugh. Even the Yankees are better than the Red Sox, and that's hard for me to admit. Here's hoping the Reds get it going in my first summer in Cincy. At least there's one team in that town I can cheer for.

March Madness is upon us, which means it's time for the bracket pools. I ran one every year from high school through undergrad, but stopped in law school thanks to not wanting to compete with a friend's pool. Kelley came in 4th I think last year, so maybe we'll break through and win some cash this season. No clear front runner like Florida was last year, and tons of mediocre teams from seed line 4 to seed line 12. Maybe some real madness a la George Mason again this year, after last season's super-chalky finish.

We got over 20 inches of snow in Columbus Friday and Saturday. 16 inches in 24 hours is the most ever for the town, but as it turns out it was not all that bad. The weather is pretty warm this week so things have melted nicely in the three days post-snow. We've gone from knee high snow down to boot high, but you should've seen Chip bounding through the snow. That was absolutely too funny. I'm pretty happy it occurred right before spring break so that the warm temperatures can work on the snow and ice and I only have to deal with one week of hellish parking on campus this school year. That's a lot less than last year, when we got 3-4 inches of snow but then it would freeze and everything would be icy for weeks at a time. At least it gives everybody something to talk about (The Blizzard of '08, as it were).

The blizzard knocked out the MPRE which was supposed to be this past Saturday. Sigh. I still have one undone pratice test I'm saving for the rescheduled test week, and I may have to redo one of the 3 I've already done to get ready again. What a pain, but at least this helps me get ready for the Professional Responsibility law school exam in May. Yay BarBri. The rest of law school is going well, spending more time in the Journal Game Closet with Larry, Brodie, and Daniel than before which is good bonding in our last few weeks together. Brodie and Cheggs are ridiculous at Mortal Kombat, and Daniel, Larry, and I are a second tier. Some NBA Jam also occurs in said closet, but to save Daniel's eyes from rolling too far into the back of his head...we'll start talking about other things such as how tasty milk is.

There are funny moments all the time, but one happened today in class. Greenbaum calls on me in Civil Procedure and asks if I will help him, to which I respond "sure, why not" in a very unenthusiastic voice. Greenbaum them says "that's the spirit, even though I know you probably would like to think about basketball instead right now...let's talk about the work product doctrine." Larry starts busting up laughing beside me because I was looking at Ken Pomeroy's college basketball articles and rankings leading up to Selection Sunday right then, and it was all I could do to keep a straight face as Greenbaum had me pegged (whether he knew it or not). Also, VNES has made class far more bearable, as the Java game requires no solid internet connection which is good since my computer has trouble with the law school network. Looking through my collection of Nintendo systems, I really don't want to get rid of all my old games but I also will likely never set up a singular old Nintendo system again (Wii plays GCN games, so I have like 75 games playable on Wii and Xbox with another 20 or so downloaded on Virtual Console). Then I saw in the past 2 years new hardware has come out which plays SNES and NES games and has improved hardware for reading the games...so no more fighting the old equipment. These systems are super-cheap too, so I think I'm downsizing to one of those and getting rid of NES, SNES, N64, and GCN. The only real loss is N64, but I've got the most important games [Zelda, Mario] on a GCN disc or on Virtual Console. The only ones I will miss are Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, but those types of games are kind of a dime-a-dozen now. So that's the plan...and maybe save whatever I make on the deals for Wii Rock Band, supposedly coming out later this year.

Anyways, gotta get back to jumping through hoops to take the bar exam, and all other interesting stuff in the law school life. PS - got a house in Cincy, more on that next time.

Breaking Political News

Just when things started to get interesting in the presidential primary, news has broken which simplifies things considerably. First, Mitt Romney has decided to "suspend" his candidacy after the dismal Super Tuesday showing. Based on the differing state laws, many of his delegates will now go to John McCain, solidfying a nearly insurmountable lead on Mike Huckabee in the GOP primary. The so-called conservative block will now not be split between Huckabee and Romney, so expect Huckabee to gain some ground in future primaries. It will not be enough to derail McCain, especially with all the delegates he will inherit from Romney. So the GOP goes to McCain.

All that doesn't even matter though, as we have late breaking news from an undisclosed location between Columbus and Belpre, Ohio. At 5:02 EST, Aaron Applebaum, famed editor of the Ohio State Journal on Criminal Law, has formally announced his endorsement of Barack Obama for the presidential race. With $7.2 million dollars raised in the 48 hours following Super Tuesday and this blockbuster endorsement (as well as Hillary running out of money), Obama will be the first black, oops I mean African American president in US history in 2008.

When asked why he endorsed Obama, Applebaum was kind enough to elaborate: "Well I was kind of leaning toward McCain as a centrist candidate, but then I went to his website looking for his stance on the issue I care most about, that being education. In the list of Issues on the McCain homepage, there are 13 separate listed issues but education is nowhere to be found. This troubled me too much to ever think about endorsing Mr. McCain. Huckabee is a religious right psycho, Ron Paul's supporters scare me, and as for Clinton...well if Bill were running then OK but this country is not quite ready for her to be the first woman president, as my good buddy Oprah Winfrey says."

There you have it: the most important endorsement of the campaign trail has come in, and Obama should certainly expect another jump in fundraising following this monumental achievement.

Stay tuned tomorrow as we cover: Indiana Hoosiers, fraud or contender; and we have an insider scoop on where Bob Knight is going next (heads up Kelvin Sampson, better get the resume going). Until then, this has been breaking news brought to you by ANN, the Apple-Bottom News Network.

Happy New Year

Let's face it everyone. There's nothing better than my entries concerning moot court competition weekends. But alas, I've heard from many quarters many times over that it is just time to move on. So where to start...lots of fun in two months to report. After finishing up moot court duties, it was time to turn right into exam preparations. I had fallen behind in reading in some classes which is the first time that it had happened in law school, so I did not know how cramming would go. Spent about 8 hours preparing an outline for the back of my Sales supplement, and really could not see wasting more time on the exam. I have been brutally honest on professor evaluations ever since I got sick of them third year of engineering at OSU (the law ones are the same), but I've never written anything so mean as I did to Creola Johnson. To reflect my true feelings on the class, I wrote "taking this class makes me wish I left learning Sales to Bar/Bri." I could not sum up my feelings better. Although I still kind of dislike Professor Crandall for quitting on his class and giving us an unfair final exam, I have to give him credit for teaching us the UCC way more than a normal contracts professor. Sales ended up being a waste of time in part thanks to him. The Sales exam was a 75 question multiple choice test, with an extra essay question "optional." It was not very optional as I think everybody but one person in the class took the essay. Professor Johnson only reads your essay if you are borderline A/B or B/C or if you've failed...but everything in law is a gray area so you never really know how well you will do on a multiple choice test. She says she tests this way to prepare you for the bar (a portion of which is multiple choice), but I just call it lazy. Not only is the teaching in the class simply reading the answers to textbook problems, but then exams are not even graded by her...it makes me question what she gets paid for on some level. I know she's probably great in Consumer Protection law, but for Sales it's just bad. I got through 73 of the 75 questions on the multiple choice, which was farther than most people I talked to. I figured I would do OK in there, but it really could be anything from a high A to a C.

The next exam on deck was Securities a week later. I worked the two days following the Sales exam because money around Christmas-time was a little tight (and to get away from exam stress), which left me only 4 days to prep for the exam. It does not make sense to me how we learn probably more than 10 times as much information in one 3 credit hour class (Securities) as we do in another 3 credit hour class (Sales). I had another study break on the Saturday before the exam for my first Magic tournament since Regionals 2007 in June. The format was Lorwyn limited and the PTQ was for a Pro Tour in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, which would've been awesome because I could have seen family over there. Still, I did not really study the format and the Marietta boys (Shep, Joey, etc.) had been going to a few PTQ's before this one and knew the format much better. Still, I managed to start 4-0 before running into a couple of buzzsaw decks that my mediocre card pile could not hold up to. The highlight was my first ever feature match against the 2006 Ohio state champ and 2007 state runner-up in Round 1, who I bashed 2-0. I played two people who ended up in the Top 8, so it was a better than expected performance and a nice study break. I left after 6 rounds instead of playing it out to drive home in the foot of snow that had fallen in 2-3 hours that afternoon and study some more. Aaron, Derek, Dom, and I got together for a little study group on Sunday, but it only lasted a couple hours since Derek and I needed to outline the second half of the class still. I spent the rest of Sunday doing just that. The exam was about as expected with a few in-depth essay questions touching on some major themes in the course. Professor Rose's policy question I did not really get into, so I figured that would sabotage my grade...he said he values consistency over 3 goods answers and one incomplete answer (which is exactly what I delivered...sigh).

I had one day to prep for International IP law, but that did not seem problematic as we covered even less than we did in Trademark and Copyright, and I know how to study for a Lee exam quickly. Everything seemed straightforward, and doing a lot of practical international patent work at WHE helped during the semester to reinforce what we learned. The exam was typical Lee, some short answers that were very easy and an essay which was long, involved, and tough to finish for a methodical thinker/slow typer. I had a great answer outlined in my head, but just like Securities, I could not quite get it all out before time was up. I figured I did OK, but no better than Copyright and Trademark (both low A's). At least exams were over, and only one more semester to go. Worked for another couple of days and on Saturday, it was off to Iowa for Christmas.

Another interesting thing during finals was getting new phones. We shopped around at T-Mobile and Verizon before settling on staying with AT&T. Kelley got her Blackberry Pearl she's been coveting and I got a Blackberry Pearl. It's really not much bigger than the Pearl, and it has a full QWERTY keyboard to make texting easier. I highly recommend it even after a month, and the Blackberry internet service was a life-saver in the internet wasteland that is visiting our families at Christmas. Yes, there are people not connected to the internet...and we're related to them.

My Dad called early in the week to ask if we could drive out on Friday instead of Saturday since Iowa was under a winter storm warning for Saturday. Unlike Ohio, in Iowa a winter storm warning is a big deal. We could not change the plans, so we drove on Saturday and hit nothing but clouds and rain until a few miles into Iowa. It literally turned from rain to snow in a little under a minute of driving, and the effect was dramatic. We stopped for dinner and new wiper blades at Coralville mall just outside Iowa City, and in the hour we were stopped...the roads went from clear to nearly impassable. I drove the rest of the way to my Dad's, and it took forever due to the road conditions. It snowed all night so we likely made it just in time. The next day we were supposed to go to Grandpa Norm's, but the snow was blowing with the steady 30 MPH winds and drifitng over the roads quicker than it could be dealt with...so the family gathering and church was cancelled the next day. Kelley and I ended up staying just at Dad's the entire 3 days we were there with the exception of one escape to Wal-mart and Half Price Books for cold medicine. The siblings are doing well, and they absolutely LOVED the Wii. Kelley and I are thinking we'll try to get Dad and Patti to go in with us on a Wii gift for the siblings next year. Nevertheless, it was fun watching them play Warioware and Guitar Hero. The roads were finally clear enough on Christmas Day and the plans to have people over to my Dad's got the whole family out for games and a big dinner. Nothing special to speak of, but it's always good to see the Iowa family and sit around the Fitzgerald game table. That reminds me, we need to track down a copy of Tribond. As for Christmas, we got the usual gift cards from the Iowa family. Moving on...

Cleaning out the Cavalier was fun thanks to the snow. Those 30 MPH winds I was referring to, completely packed the car with snow so that I had to dig the wheels out from the undercarriage and opened the hood to find no engine, just a bed of packed snow with an engine hidden somewhere inside. Still, we got on the road to Ohio the day after Christmas to continue our busy week. We started at Kathy's place (mother-in-law), and had a fun evening with the 4 dogs all trying to find purchase on one little full sized bed with Kelley and I. Thank God for the nighttime cold medicine to knock us out. Kathy and Bruce always get tools for me for Christmas, and this year was no exception. Got myself a power drill and a craftsman jack and jack stands for a car. Kelley also got me a nifty four bottle liquor shot dispenser that will go well in the future bar. Next it was my grandparents in New Matamoras, and we had a nice afternoon with some snacks and discussion with them. Left with some more stuff from the auctions/sales they go to all the time as well as our Christmas present (hand-made placemats). Then it was off to Kelley's Dad's and grandparents' house. Got the usual lot of nice house stuff from them, the big present being a wine cooler that now resides downstairs in our apartment as a shortcut to going upstairs :-) The final stop on our whirlwind tour was my Mom's place, which was more fun than last year when the weddings abd fallout were still a raw wound. Mom and Steve seem to be doing well, and it was nice to see my old cat Muffin again...I swear Siamese cats refuse to die for like 20 years. Muffin was one day from being put down at the vet's this year, but is now recovered. My Mom actually gets us some fun gifts which is a nice alternative after getting house stuff and tools and gift cards all week (balance is good). The truck was stuffed full to the brim when we made our trek back to Columbus a week after starting for Iowa.

It was nice to be home, and I decided to take the whole next week off from work to relax and detox from life basically. We had a small New Year's get together where we played non-poker games such as Dirty Minds, Trivial Pursuit, and Apples to Apples. Also hammered through the last of the final reads for JDR Issue 1 (way overdue, but oh well). Then it was time to go back to the routine of school 3 days a week, work 2 days a week, and weekend days. We had another small party for the OSU-LSU game, which obviously was about as exciting as last year's National Title game. What I find funny is how people have lost perspective and forget how awful it was to lost to Michigan basically every year and almost every bowl game under John Cooper. Now we get 5 BCS bowls (3 title games) and a 6-1 record in 7 years against Michigan, and sportswriters and other Columbus geniuses want to run Tressel out for not being good enough to win the big one. I've never seen so much whining about losing a game we really should not have been in, but in this crazy season a rebuilding Buckeye squad was just as good as most teams. LSU was just better, and thanks to all the juniors coming back the Bucks will have another good chance in 2008. That September road trip to LA against USC will be titanic!

Also went to see the basketball Buckeyes with Mom and Steve, and they are doing decent for how young they are. The Northwestern game we went to was a joke, as the Buckeyes played like crap all game and still had so much more talent than Northwestern to win by 11. We'll see if the basketball Buckeyes can continue the Big Ten title streaks the football and basketball teams have put up lately. It's a great time to be a Buckeye, even if we cannot win national title games against SEC teams. Oh, and for the record, anybody who thinks the SEC is faster than the Big Ten...please put the tape in of the LSU game and watch Beanie Wells burn the whole LSU defense in the first quarter. Now if Tressel can get Terrelle Pryor away from Rich Rod and UM, we'll be set for years.

Work has been about normal, with more international appeal briefs and office action responses. Also got to supervise a meeting with opposing counsel in a document review for a litigation, so it was nice to do that. I defnitely get most of my work from my mentor now, so I'll probably get really good at bedding systems and mechanical processes to make storage systems. I realize why they brought in 5 new associates last year and at least Jim and I this year...they promoted 4 associates to partner this year at the Holiday party. In a firm of 45 attorneys, that's a big swing. All the new associates passed the bar exam, so hopefully Jim and I will have the same success this year.

The new class schedule is nice a breezy-easy. Most of my friends seem to be loaded up, but then they did not all do the full-on moot court and journal together run that got me 10 credit hours. I only need 9 more credit hours, so I managed to only take 3 classes: Professional Responsibility, Civil Procedure II (both with Greenbaum), and Wills (B. Johnson). Both professors are pretty entertaining, and both go methodically through the material. Not too much reading to do, and the subject material in the classes is not too bad. Should give me plenty of time to do JDR stuff to finally get some issues published and also time to relax that will not exist this summer thank to the bar exam. Signed up for Bar/Bri with the DVD upgrade last week, and starting to look at the Ohio bar exam application to take the exam (not to be confused with the ridiculous character and fitness application). So I'm planning on working 5 weeks after Hooding and then taking 8 weeks off. 6 to study for the bar, 1 for the bar exam itself, and 1 for vacation with the in-laws in North Carolina to unwind from the bar on the beach with beer and sunshine. There might be a little overlap from BarBri and the last couple weeks of work, so I'll have the DVD's just in case. It should be a real fun couple of months. But for now, the classes are easy.

Got grades finally this week, and ended up about exactly on my average for the semester. Managed somehow to get low A's in Securities and Sales, so I kept the "no-C" streak going. The seminar grade was no surprise, and I did get a pleasant surprise in International IP by getting a CALI. This is my fourth CALI (Legal Writing, App Ad, and Federal Income Tax being the others), and finally I get a super grade in my practice area! All in all, another successful semester at Moritz, made even sweeter by the fact that it all does not matter anymore. I guess I'll have a chance at top 5-10% at graduation, which would be cool. Law school is definitely a hard challenge academically, but our class is finally within breathing range of being done with it. That will be a sweet feeling.

Finished up the publishing files for Issue 1 this weekend for JDR, and that feels like a big accomplishment. It hopefully will be all downhill from here as nothing could be as bad as symposium articles. Plus, Issue 2 has my own Note in it...so I have a little special motivation to make that issue a good clean one. About a month from now we'll finally have replacements picked from the staff for next year, and then I can share how much fun it is to be exec ed with a poor 2L! Also went to a Magic pre-release this past weekend with Shep to play some 2HG team Magic...Villa and Burton (also retired from the game) also played, and we all stunk it up but had fun doing it. Got home in time to watch both NFL conference championship games go opposite how I wanted them to...damn you New York Giants!

Bowling started this past week, and MFR (now called Well Hung Jury) will make one more grab for the title. We started with a solid 2-1 against Aaron and Chad's team...and we may have a lump or two in the coming weeks due to minor sandbagging at best. I've averaged over 150 with the new bowling ball which actually hooks, and it looks like I'll be able to be more successful without throwing my arm out of whack like I did with the old ball.

Well now comes the juicy part of my entry...there are three things more I'd like to write about but the fun one where I bitch out things in the world I hate (Al Sharpton, Global Warming, and the WGA strike included) will have to wait for another entry if ever.

So first we'll have the bad news. Finally figured out why Tom and Heather basically cut all their friends off from contact including us since September. Turns out Tom cheated on Heather and there are some tough consequences he has to face. It's really unbelievable, but he's really remorseful and I don't think he'll make the same fuck-up again...whether Heather stays with him or they move on to other people. It makes me happy to be in such a stable relationship where I don't have to deal with life ruining crap like that. He'll make it, but it's a tough time. He also finally quit Magic and I'm selling his cards on ebay for him. but that's enough of the bad news...

The good news is absolutely awesome. I'm sure it will take some of you by surprise, and others may already have guessed what it is. Kelley and I found out this past weekend that we will be parents in about September 2008. Kelley has had baby fever for years, so it's a very exciting time. It's almost perfect timing as well since a month and a half after the bar exam gives us some leeway for early deliveries without me having to miss it for the bar exam or something crazy like that. So in the course of 2008, I will go from student and newly married to working man and father. It should be a great and interesting year with all the changes.

That's all I got for you for now. I need to get the six hours of sleep I've left myself to function on a Tuesday at Moritz. We'll see you around, and I promise more frequent entries with all this time I have. After all, one cannot look at JDR articles all day!

The Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance

The moot court season was about the opposite of last school year, with a couple exceptions. Instead of crapping out the brief in one night and getting in one practice argument with Berman, this year we did numerous practice arguments (thanks to everyone who helped with those BTW) and spent a lot of time on the brief. Instead of having one of the worst weekends of my law school career, this past weekend was one of the best. In both competitions I had to miss things I would not normally miss under any circumstances (Kelley’s Birthday and Barrister’s Ball last year, OSU v. UM this year). However, the more things change the more they stay the same…at least for the team I was on.

Both Team Scarlet (Lee, Tom, myself) and Team Gray (Holly, Justin, Erik) did an absolute ton of practice arguments the past three weeks to get ready, and I think we all finally were confident and ready to go. Our team decided to ride up together Friday evening to the Regional competition in Cleveland, and there were plenty of laughs on the ride up. I do not recall what context Tom gave for this comment, but the funniest thing said on the ride up was something getting called “The Shining Jewel of Crowning Ignorance.” Little did we know that this would be the theme for the weekend (we changed Crowning to Colossal over time, but the meaning is the same…the dumbest things you can think of fit into this theme). The ride to Cleveland flew by which is remarkable given how boring that drive can be at night. We checked into the Hampton and had a Team Scarlet pow-wow for a couple hours to finalize our argument outlines and answers to tough questions. There were quite a few 2nd Amendment issues they discussed (which my lack of knowledge allowed me to chime in what were probably not very helpful comments), and a couple in my preemption issue. Looking at how the other competitor briefs dealt with my toughest issue, we decided on an answer but had to laugh at how bad the Petitioner briefs were on that point. Headed to bed around 12:30, with the Hawaii football game in the background.

If you watch college football, you will understand this bit. If not, then you’ll figure it out. Every week in college football, ESPN nominates a handful of plays to be the Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the week…so in that mold, I present the Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance of the weekend award. There are quite a few nominees, but the first came on Friday night while we were discussing these tougher issues. A local TV station in Cleveland (channel 5 I think) has the cheesiest newscast in the world. One of the two anchors had on some colorful suspenders and every few minutes the newscast would cut to a wide-angle view of the anchors, then do a fast zoom in right up to the anchors, where they would say something dramatic. This is perhaps the worst TV news strategy I’ve ever seen, and apparently those comedy movies making fun of the fast zoom were grounded in fact! So the ridiculous TV news in Cleveland is the first nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

Surprisingly I slept well (Lee not so much I hear), but I still shot out of bed at 7 AM due to excitement/nervousness over the competition. As it was OSU-UM Saturday, I wore the closest thing to Scarlet and Gray that Beazley would allow (scarlet tie, white shirt, black suit). I also threw in the Teddy Ginn Jr. jersey and a Buckeye necklace for later. Plus it is always good to have the lucky Buckeye gear. Met the teammates for the complimentary breakfast in the hotel and the six of us with Beazley made our way to the Cleveland Justice Center. Let’s just say the building is dated, much like the hallways in Moritz. 23 stories of courtrooms, so they must be churning through a lot of litigation in Cleveland. We received our brief orientation from the competition director (who wore plum-colored shoes, as Holly pointed out) and our courtroom assignments for the two preliminary rounds. We decided to have Beazley watch Team Gray’s morning round and then our afternoon round. There was enough pressure on Lee who was arguing first in the morning argument, so we did not need Beazley there if that added any pressure.

So we go up to the courtroom a few minutes early and meet our opponents from Case Western (the host of the competition). There is also just one judge, an older gentlemen. Around the time of argument, the bailiff decided to go see where our other judge is, as every courtroom was to have two. The competition directors could not contact the other judge, so the bailiff came back to explain the situation. This is what she said: “Since our second judge could not be contacted and we cannot slow the competition, what we will do is proceed with just one judge and adjust your scores accordingly.” The four of us arguing all probably wanted to ask what adjustment of scores meant, but Lee was the first to speak up and ask the bailiff. The bailiff says, “we will take the score from this judge and double it, and then we will divide your overall score by 2 to find your average.” At this point she realized just how stupid that was, so she qualifies it by saying “it’s kind of like just taking the one score as the average.” No, that would not be kind of like the one judge score, THAT IS the one judge score! We were stifling the giggles on this one. This adjustment of scores (doubling the score and then dividing by 2 to find the average) is the second nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

As it turns out, the second judge was running late and made it just in time to sit for our argument. For those of you who don’t know moot court, the judges are grading you on your style and form and how you react under pressure of questions in an appellate argument. Their relatively subjective scores are added to you team brief score (60/40 percent) to find out which team wins the round. The more judges you have, the better it is. This is because one judge may grade you down unfairly for something, and fewer judges means fewer questions and a “cold court,” which is tougher than responding to questions of a “hot court.” We were happy to have the extra judge. Before getting into the argument, let me illuminate the issues we covered. Petitioner was the State of Old York, who passed a handgun restriction law that was challenged on Second Amendment right to bear arms grounds as well as federal preemption under the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (which stops states from regulating motor carriers). The Respondents are Sun Longone, a guy who is asserting his second amendment right to bear arms…and York Loading Company, a package delivery service like UPS or FedEx who lost profits due to needing to comply with Old York’s Law. So those are the sides, and clearly the Second Amendment is a sexier issue than preemption. There’s also a lot more research of historical cases on the 2nd Amendment, so that’s why both OSU teams set two team members to write and argue for that issue, and one team member who wrote the preemption part of the brief and argued both sides at competition.

Our first argument was Petitioner side against Case Western, where Lee does 2nd Amendment and I argue preemption. Lee argued very well despite a fairly cold court, with one bump in the ride. At one point the older justice asked Lee to distinguish this case from McGee v. Connecticut. I’m sure Lee’s face must have shown absolute devastation at not knowing the case, but he just rolled with it and told the court he was not familiar with that case and moved on. Later in the argument Lee was talking about the most recent Supreme Court case Miller from 1939, and the judge asked if Lee would disregard the case because it is so old, and Lee disagreed with that sentiment, which led the older justice to say “As someone who happens to be 68 years old, I’m happy to see that you don’t think old opinions should be discarded.” My argument was one of my best ones I had done for that side of preemption. The only struggles were when the older justice brought up the parts of the State Law challenged under the 2nd Amendment (but not under preemption for some reason) and forced me to explain to him why those State law provisions not at issue were not preempted. I explained those were not at issue and tried to give a substantive answer for his question, at which point the justice tells me to stop and he calls the bailiff up to the bar to ask the bailiff something. He then asks me to proceed and I continue, trying to forget about this line of questioning. Near the end of my argument the younger justice asked me if the criminal liability on delivery drivers is a heavy burden and I said no…then he repeated the question in a menacing tone, so I realized my error and explained that it was a heavy burden, but that did not make the state law automatically preempted. The opposing team then went, and each of them did well. The 2nd amendment guy was asked by the older justice, “are you a member of a militia?” and when the guy said no, the justice asked “why not?” The guy actually had a quick-witted response saying he was registered for selective service but not yet called. Later in the argument the guy was arguing that the State Law was not a restriction on handguns but an outright prohibition, and the older justice asked “Didn’t prohibition end back in the 1920’s?” The girl doing preemption also did well, but she spoke so fast it was hard to follow her points. At one point in the argument, the older justice said “Now hold on a minute honey, what evidence do you have in the record for significant economic effect?” Yeah that’s a little demeaning, but she rolled with it and went on. Lee gave a great rebuttal, including answering a question about preemption which was his biggest fear about rebuttal.

Once the argument was over, we left the room to let the judges deliberate and Tom and Lee were freaking out about the Connecticut case he cited. We go back into the room and receive commentary from the judges. The older guy then told us he fucked with each of us to see how we perform under pressure. Nice. So the McGee v Connecticut case was completely made up, he called the bailiff during my argument to disrupt me, he asked the militia questions to mess with the Case guy, and he said “honey” to see how the Case girl would react. He preached from the bench that judges who are demeaning to women still exist today and they need to be reported because that language is unacceptable. I can see wanting to teach a point in a classroom, but this is an advocacy competition and messing with people like that seems awful. I presume he wouldn’t interrupt a black competitor with the N-word, so this guy was something else. The critiques were about even. Lee was criticized for starting a little shaky before the court asked questions. I was criticized for wearing a red tie (no reason given) and smiling too much (I got that same comment last year in competition and Lee thinks it is because I naturally smile a little when I talk to people, not because I’m going out of my way to smile…I just don’t get it but I cannot seem to control it). The second judge also said that I got the short straw of the four arguments to make and did a nice job overcoming that. The comments were similar on the other side, but the girl got absolutely blasted for speaking way too fast. We figured that with those comments that it was a close argument but we probably won narrowly. Still, the result came back from the bailiff for respondents (Case Western) and we had to walk back to lunch with an 0-1 record. Beazley and Team Gray came out with a win, so at least we had one win and one loss. Still, this older justice fucking with each competitor is clearly the third nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

During lunch we went over to a hotel bar across the street and watched the first quarter of the OSU-UM game. We stayed until OSU scored a touchdown early in the second quarter to go up 7-3. It looked like it was going to be a good game, but we had to go argue. C’est la vie.

Onto the afternoon session, which now has Tom and I arguing for Respondents against a team from Detroit Mercy. Beazley and Lee settled down in the background, and we had a couple judges again this time. Detroit Mercy got up there and had some serious problems. The court was relatively hot, and the 2nd amendment guy on Detroit kept conceding points to the court and struggling with questions. With 3 minutes left in the argument, the court explicitly asked why he was conceding so much away? How could he win if he conceded these points? He had no answer for that. The Detroit preemption girl got up there and was clearly a little shaky in responding to questions and getting back on track in her argument. She at least did not concede so much, but she also used cases that were only in my preemption brief (no other team used these cases to make the points she made) and fell into traps of relying on a presidential signing statement and the federal handgun act. Considering that I wrote that brief and knew exactly how to kill those points from 3 weeks of practice, I was ready to rebut all those points in my argument. Tom gave a very good argument, certainly one of his best that I’ve seen. Then I got up there and gave what we thought was a good argument, hammering all of opposing counsel’s faults while making my affirmative case for preemption. The Detroit team waived rebuttal, which is a huge opportunity lost for extra points at the end. Needless to say, our solid arguments and their terrible ones led to a conclusion that Beazley and the three of us all thought we would win for sure. We go back into the room and get criticism from the judges. Nothing terribly unfair here, but they did slam the Detroit guy for conceding his case away. Oh and one more very interesting comment for me: this judge said I got the short straw of the four arguments, but did well with it. Sound familiar? Apparently I’m really good at playing the victim, since I got the “short straw” of the arguments on BOTH SIDES OF THE SAME ISSUE! Unbelievable. The bailiff came back with the verdict, and handed the folded piece of paper to the judges. When the judges opened the verdict, the one I was watching was visibly taken aback or shocked. They read: petitioner wins. We couldn’t believe it (and apparently the judges couldn’t either), but we wished Detroit good luck and went to sulk in the hotel bar across the street. We got to watch the last 7 minutes of the OSU 14-3 victory and that combined with a couple beers helped ease the sting and shock of going 0-2 in arguments. Team Gray also lost their second round so we had one team who did not know if they were going to make Sunday’s quarterfinals and another already eliminated. Despite thinking our brief was one of the top 5-6 out of 18 teams, we concluded that we must have not gotten a good brief score and it brought us down.

We went back to the hotel and got ready for the House of Blues banquet. I had thrown on my Ginn jersey and Buckeyes over my white dress shirt and scarlet tie, and it looked so good that I decided to not change into something else for the banquet (other than switching suit pants for jeans). The dress shirt and tie under a jersey is not quite sweater vest, but it does remind you of Tressel according to my teammates. The banquet took it’s sweet time, and no open bar like last year’s competition…so it was just interesting conversation with Beazley and all the OSU people. The ribs at House of Blues were very good, and I was happy I got them after seeing how awful the chicken and noodles dish ended up. The cornbread was the highlight of the meal though. A Case Western professor gave a speech about how to lose an appeal which was sometimes funny but not really. At least he was brief in his remarks, so the competition director could get to announcing the quarterfinals. The Best Brief award was also given out first, and guess who got best brief…of course it was the Case team that beat us in the first round! Both teams we faced made the quarterfinals, and thankfully so did Team Gray from OSU. Holly won the double-coin toss (more on that later) and picked Respondent side so they would be on-brief for the Sunday morning quarterfinals.

Now this double-coin flip procedure. To decide in every round who does which argument, the competition director gets a representative from both teams and has one of them call a first coin flip. Whoever wins the first coin flip calls a second coin flip. The winner of the second coin flip gets to pick which side they want to argue. This statistically makes no sense whatsoever, as the coin flip is fair and 50/50 every time you do it. I’m guessing one year in the past something happened during a coin flip…and the losing team said the coin flip was unfair because they were not able to call it or whatnot. So instead of arbitrarily picking one team to call the coin toss, they use a coin toss to decide who gets the right to call. There’s one problem…they still have to arbitrarily pick who calls the first coin toss! Not only is there no statistical difference in the double coin flip, it has the exact same arbitrariness as before! The double-coin flip procedure by its very nature is the fourth nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

Both teams hung out in Lee and Tom’s hotel room after the banquet, kicking back with a couple beers (not so much for Team Gray) and lively discussion. It was fun to reconnect a little with Justin and Erik who were in my 1L section and to get to know Tom, Lee, and Holly even better. My two teammates had not read the infamous blog entry about my other moot court competition, so some good Brian stories went around with all the other law school stuff. There of course were more “Shining Jewel” comments and other inside jokes that I will spare the readers. We’ll just say it was a good time. Tom’s wife dropped by the hotel, and she and Team Scarlet went out to the Cleveland Panini’s bar while Team Gray went to study and get a good night’s sleep. At the bar we watched a couple of good football games (WVU-Cincy, Oklahoma-Texas Tech) and talked all things moot court, law school, and Buckeyes. The bar in Cleveland had the most eclectic crowd I’ve ever seen. People of all ages and walks of life, as well as all races were in the bar at one time. There were a couple people getting jiggy or interpretive dancing to the music behind us, and there were some professional-looking people having a quiet drink a few tables down. The drunkest guy in the bar and the drunkest girl were making out near us at the bar (nasty) and when she walked away we noticed this guy was pimpin with his fly open on his jeans. He was sitting in such a way to show it off to the whole world that he is just too cool to zip his fly. That guy also makes it in as the fifth nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

Woke up Sunday morning, went down to grab a quick breakfast and ride over to the courthouse to watch and support Team Gray in their quarterfinals. What was funny about this round was that Team Gray ran into the same problem that we did on day 1, that being there were only 2 judges when there were supposed to be 3 for each quarterfinal. The third judge was called and said he forgot. Nice. So the competition director comes up to explain the situation, and said the teams could decide to go ahead with only two judges or that the competition director would be the third judge because she was the only person qualified. The teams decided quickly to add her as the third judge, which she was stunned about because she did not expect them to take her up on the offer. After delaying a bit more to get some score sheets for herself, the competition director sat down and was the third judge. Don’t offer something you are not willing to give! Both teams in the quarterfinals did a nice job, and the court was relatively hot which helps. Holly and Justin gave really good arguments in my opinion. There was one judge who asked very probing questions and tough questions to each competitor, and was by far the best judge in the entire competition that I saw. The arguments were pretty close in this round and it was really too close to call. The verdict came in: Respondents (OSU) wins.

The team immediately went to the semifinal round, which would determine who makes the Top 2 and goes to National competition. Holly lost the double coin flip, but the opponent shockingly chose to be Petitioner, despite that being a harder argument and that put themselves off-brief against the OSU team who would be on-brief. In any event, the team they were facing for nationals was the Detroit Mercy team that Tom and I lost to inexplicably. This was favorable as Holly and Justin have been arguing Respondent side against us for a couple weeks (and our brief’s argument for Petitioner was clearly used by the Detroit team). The Court consisted of 2 real judges and a practitioner, but they were as cold as a cucumber. They asked the Detroit guy one question in 14 minutes of argument! They did not warm up to ask many more questions of the Detroit girl, Holly, or Justin. The problem was that the Detroit team are great oralists, and they delivered an amazing argument for a cold court. This was a polar opposite from what they did against Tom and I (struggled mightily against a hot court). Holly and Justin gave solid arguments, but after the Detroit team beat us so shockingly I just assumed they had a pretty good brief. Detroit had a slightly better argument and so I figured they would knock out the other OSU team. Sure enough, the judges came back with the verdict for Petitioner. We all congratulated Detroit and Lee, Tom, and I left the building immediately. Tom and his wife were riding back together, so Lee and I hopped in his SUV and hit the road.

Just when the weekend seemed over, Lee gets a call right before we stopped for lunch 15 minutes out of Cleveland. It’s the other team. Turns out the after we left and Erik, Justin, and Beazley left, Holly was putting on her boots to leave the building and got stopped on the way out by the competition director. They told Holly a terrible mistake had been made and that OSU had actually won the semifinal round. Holly called Beazley and tracked down Erik, but could not get in contact with Justin (who was the only person who knew the preemption arguments). Beazley waited for Justin at the hotel just in case he went back to get his car out of valet, and she managed to get Justin back to the courthouse just in time to argue with Erik in the finals (Holly lost the double coin toss again and was put on Petitioner side this time). Lee and I obviously did not go back for the finals, but it turns out OSU lost that one. Still, second place in Regionals and a trip to Nationals for OSU, the first time in 7 years. Oh, and messing up the verdict in the most critical round of Regionals…definitely a sixth and final nominee for Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance!

Congratulations to Holly, Erik, and Justin. Professor Beazley and Monte Smith both noted that you need good briefs, good arguments, and good luck to do well. Team Scarlet did not have the luck for sure, but I’d rather go out with our best arguments and a good brief as opposed to messing up arguments. We went out with guns blazing, losing to a team who won best brief and a team who lost a nationals berth by a hair. Plus OSU could only send one team to nationals anyway, so as a group of 6 we did exactly what we went to Cleveland to do. This moot court weekend was a great time, made even better by the OSU thrashing of Michigan. I know Holly and the rest of my 5 teammates were terribly worried about what I would write about them (LOL), but other than going 0-2 personally…the weekend was fantastic. Looking forward to helping Team Gray go win OSU some pride at national competition.

Before I put a wrap on this entry for good, there still is one item of unfinished business. We must declare a winner of The Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance! To remind you, here were our nominees:

1. The TV newscast in Cleveland, with the suspenders and fast zoom in from a wide angle shot
2. Score adjustment: Taking your score from one judge, doubling it, then dividing that by two to find your average
3. The judge from Team Scarlet’s loss to Case Western who intentionally fucked with each competitor
4. The double-coin flip procedure for determining who argues what side
5. The guy at the bar with the fly wide open, sending a big pimp message to all of Cleveland
6. Announcing the wrong winner of the semifinal round, then crushing the happiness right out of the real loser (Detroit)

The competition is fierce, but there can only be one winner. The TV newscast and guy at the bar just don’t stand up to the rest. The judge from our first round might be a royal prick, but not really ignorant. You could really take your pick from the other nominees, but the winner is…

Petitioner!

…

Wait. There seems to have been a mistake. The winner is Respondent!

That’s right: your Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance is announcing the wrong winner of the semifinal round. Way to mess up your most important job at the most important time CWRU, and call into question all your other “decisions” on the weekend. For all that, CWRU gets the crown! Congratulations to them on achieving the Shining Jewel of Colossal Ignorance.

All of a sudden, a slow down!

It has been so busy since going on vacation for fall break that blogging just kept slipping down the list of priorities. Too bad, because lots has happened in the interim. This entry will go back and try to cover vacation forward to this weekend, which deserves it's own entry just like last year. But thankfully moot court weekend was absolutely awesome this time, as it should be!

So details from the Florida vacation left out from the short entry in October. The cruise was good as mentioned back then. A couple highlights were watching a magician-comedian and finally figuring out the grand old game of Craps. The shows are generally decent on a cruise ship, but they brought this guy in when we were in port at Nassau and he was outstanding. The whole schtick was him failing miserably at a bunch of tricks and then working a real trick into the act at the end of each "failure." Craps is an incredibly simple game once you figure out what all the bets you can make are. Sticking with the Pass Line, the odds bet, and the 6/8 single number bets are the way to go and we had some hot shooters with the dice who won me enough money to make us almost even in the casino for the entire cruise. That's a success when you play as much Roulette as we did! The craps table also is a neat big piece of furniture, and Kelley and I decided that we may have a couple professional casino tables in our future home (in my classy poker room with the bar). That should be nifty.

We returned to Florida to spend 2 days with Angela. She lives in the center of Florida now about 45 minutes north of Orlando and she had an appointment in Jacksonville the morning we returned from the cruise to Canaveral, so we took our time driving from Canaveral to there, dropping by where NASA is. Once we made it back to her little town, guess who was driving her? Her ex-husband Jim. Nice. So we went out to a bar called the Blue Martini that evening and finally got a chance to knock back some drinks and just relax. I dropped 4 shots of Bacardi 151 with no chaser at all, just because I like the burn. The bar was incredibly classy and upscale for being at a mall in Orlando (the bouncers literally walked around and made people take their feet off chairs, etc.) So Jim showed some of his true colors at the bar. Let's just say he's around Angela to try and get back in her pants...and he acts like it too. Jim is a perfectly nice guy to me, but he doesn't really listen to Angela, or treat her well. So once they sell their house, I'm pretty sure he'll be officially kicked to the curb for good. It could be worse...

So we saw Chris at Burton's wedding the weekend before the cruise, and he seemed to be doing a lot better. He said he had broken it off with his girlfriend for good, and they have been on and off for years so I thought no big deal. Well Kelley came across Connie's blog and she had written a nice entry about what happened. So Connie writes that Chris is such an ass because he never did half the chores when he was in school and she worked for 2 years...but let's see, that's what you do for someone you love. Anyways, he kicked her out because she told him she was pregnant with some other guy's baby. So he told her to get the hell out, and she had to go stay with her parents. She said "who kicks a pregnant girl out?" and called him a heartless son of a bitch. Well honestly, that's exactly what he should have done. To continue their relationship would be hurtful, fake, and ridiculous. Then in the SAME BLOG ENTRY, Connie goes on to brag about how hot the guy she cheated with was (if you had to cheat, damn did I pick the hottest blah blah blah...you get the point). And how she's so happy about having his baby, but clearly Chris was in the fault. All her friends were supporting her in the comments, calling Chris the biggest jerk in the world for this. I'm so happy he is finally away from that psycho. So in retrospect, Angela could have it worse. Let's hope it does not get as bad as Chris.

Guitar Hero III finally came out right after vacation, and it was nice to finally have that for Wii. The guitar feels a lot better because when you hook the Wii-mote into it, it gives the plastic guitar a more appropriate weight than the other systems. Also wireless is way better, but anyways on to the game itself. The song set has a few weak points and there are no good bonus songs, but the regular lineup of songs is way better than anything else they had brought out in the first two games. Plus the vast majority of the songs are the originals done by the artists instead of covers. Highlights include Bulls on Parade by Rage, One by Metallica, Same Old song and Dance by Aerosmith, Stricken by Disturbed, and Welcome to the Jungle by GnR. Also the new boss battles are challenging but good (original riffs by Tom Morello and Slash, and a final battle agains the devil which happens to be The Devil Went Down to Georgia). I blew through all the songs on Medium and have been struggling through Hard. Kelley is way better than me at the game, but I'm sure it will get many more hours of gameplay this year alone. Now I need to find a friend who has the game for Wii so we can figure out what co-op mode is like.

The other good thing about Guitar Hero is that you can fit it in to blow a few minutes when you have them, with no real time committment. I'll have more time for my other games now, but the past few weeks it's just been forcing it in wherever. As of this week, we have 15 games for the Wii, many of which I have not had a chance to fully get into. These include Super Mario Galaxy, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, and Zack and Wiki. All of those are the best games for the Wii, so we'll have to see how far I get through those during break. At least I've gotten good at Guitar Hero on Hard and beaten Super Paper Mario...

School has been kind of a constant drone in the background. Finally got the first and second accuracy checks finalized and made it through the third accuracy check for JDR. Now we are on final reads for Issue I (and II when we get to it), while Issue III is through the first steps. I was going to be diligent and get Issue I final reads done by mid-November, but I am just starting them this week. Securities class is now getting blown off in every regard, as I skim the readings and read the slides. Lots of friends apparently in the same boat for that class, so we'll need to pull it together. I made it through my last two days on call in Sales, and of course they were the first day after fall break and the day after Veteran's Day. Nice. It would be cool if she would send out the assignments in those cases before the evening before! At least that class is easy, but the multiple choice exam will be kind of random. International IP ended last week, and we'll have an exam in about a month. That should be easy enough, patent and copyright is interesting stuff. Seminar is done this Tuesday, but it has been essentially done for a couple weeks with both papers turned in and final presentations left. Despite writing each paper for Judge Sutton's two seminars in a day or two before it is due, I managed to get the same decent grade on all of them. Nice consistency. This seminar has been better though because all 20 of us are giving oral arguments on our assigned current SCOTUS cases with a devil's advocate giving the other side. C.J. and I actually managed to make a securities case manageable last week, and this week I get to explain my death penalty racial discrimination case (Snyder v Louisiana). The best so far was after Chad gave a very serious explanation of a voting 1st amendment case, Everson was his Devil's Advocate and dropped some absolutely hillarious lines in his rebuttal. Let's just say the opening was "The Romans threw Christians to the lions, and that's what is happening in this case because Washington is throwing political parties to the lions, destroying them." He also tied in Utah, putting cats and dogs in a room together for 2 days, and the Real Slim Shady. Some days, academic conversation needs a little humor. So two classes are all but finished (except for the IP final), and two others need to be cracked down on all of a sudden now that moot court is over. But more on that later.

So the Writer's Guild strike actually came about and all of a sudden we are facing a long winter of reality TV. Maybe that will be good for the country and we'll all go hang out at the gym. Or maybe not. It's really disappointing that 24 will not come back MLK weekend now due to the strike...the preview for Season 7 was amazing. No more CTU, and now Tony Almeida is back...apparently as a villain. This could be a return to greatness after the first disappointing season in series history. The only good fall shows we've found are Kitchen Nightmares based solely on Gordon Ramsey...and House of course. The House story arc leading into the holiday break has been fun, but now it's time to pick our 2-3 new doctors and get on with it. Clearly Foreman, Chase, and Cameron are staying on as a part of the series, so it should only get better with more characters in prominent roles. I've also grown attached to Don't Forget the Lyrics and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, as well as Cash Cab. Game shows that require some general knowledge but not Jeopardy knowledge. Perfect to watch. Still, once House goes off the air it will get nice and redundant...Fox has to be salivating though as American Idol will dominate the airwaves even more than usual this year.

Bowling season ends this week with the finals, but we don't know who's in it and we don't really care. Our hopes for a title come down to the final semester, as we went into the playoffs as the second best team in the league (tied for first, but lost to them 2-1) and lost in the quarterfinals. Brodie had a serious cramp up in his neck and could barely throw the ball in the quarterfinals. Still, he did better than I did. Daniel carried the team game 1 and Kelley beat my scratch series for the first time ever. We bowled decent as a team but it did not matter because the team we faced bowled way over average. Still, we've entered the last three playoffs in 1st, 4th, and 2nd overall in a league of 24 teams (32 last year). In a real bowling league that would be successful because there are no playoffs...just the regular season. Fun times nonetheless, and hopefully we do better next semester. But much like moot court, it take s a little luck to match up in the playoffs with teams that are not bowling out of their minds that week. Brodie and Daniel came with the costumes this year, so that's what we are known for.

College Football has been crazy. The four games in a row were fun, including the road trip to PSU. A guy just randomly messaged me on the Buckeye Ticket Forum and got me a ticket in the Buckeye section for face value. He was a nice guy to hang out with in Happy Valley all day as well. The Beaver Stadium is very large and impressive, much more room than what we have in the Shoe or Michigan's Big House. The home schedule got a lot more interesting too, as Michigan State only lost by 7, Wisconsin led by 7 in the fourth quarter before surrendering 28 straight points, and Illinois shocked the Buckeyes. I'm a little upset that my last game as a student was a loss, but it seemed like the fate of 2001 when we lost our last home game to Illinois (the last time they were decent) and followed it up with a road win in Ann Arbor. Well of course the Buckeyes got that again this year, in the most impressive fashion. Michigan held under 100 yards total for first time in 50 years, Beanie Wells sets an OSU record against Michigan with 222 rushing yards, Mike Hart and Chad Henne stuffed terribly to go 0-4 in their careers against OSU, and Lloyd Carr retiring after being the first Michigan coach to lose 6 out of 7 to OSU and the third to lose 4 in a row. It will be interesting to see how the rivalry goes under a new Michigan coach. I did get a press pass to the WVU-Louisville game, and that was quite the experience. Sitting with a bunch of local newspaper writers and NFL scouts is something else, especially in a climate controlled pressbox with a buffet. Morgantown is a great college town and I loved that first trip to see a game there. Now that the Buckeyes are in the clubhouse at 11-1, the Rose bowl is certain while another BCS Championship game is possible with one more big upset of LSU or WVU (assuming the Big XII is won by Oklahoma). It's been a great 7 years as a Buckeye student. 1 National Title, 5 BCS Bowls, 2-3 National Title Game appearances, 4-2 bowl record, 6-1 Michigan record, 4 Big Ten titles and 3 in a row during law school. Absolutely awesome. Living in Cincinnati will allow us to continue to follow our favorite team, which is good because Cincinnati Bengals football blows. Enough said.

Sportswriting still going well. By all means, see my articles weekly at www.southerncollegesports.com. This week I explained why Tim Tebow should win the Heisman, and the argument would be a lot easier now that Dennis Dixon of Oregon is out for the season. But you can read that at your own leisure...

Work has been decent when I get a chance to go down there. I've been set up permanently at a "law clerk desk" which Jim Carey works at on Tuesdays while I come in for R-F some weeks. The assignments have been OK this fall, not as good as summer but it is hard to do time-sensitive stuff when you are only there periodicially. All 5 of the new class of associates passed the Ohio Bar, so that was great news. No OSU 3L's made it through interview season with another offer from WHE, but the two 2L's I heavily supported got offers. I know one person declined and the other is debating, but I hope he decides to spend next summer there. The firm is the best IP firm in Ohio, hands down. It's a good place to be.

All of a sudden, I have time again. No more bowling, football Saturdays, moot court, seminar, IP class, etc. JDR final reads and finals. Anybody want to go out for a drink?

So I've left out moot court, but I think everything else has been covered effectively. I've got a fair bit to say about this past weekend, but it is getting late and so I'll write tomorrow evening. I know my moot court teammates are on pins and needles waiting to see if I bash them thoroughly like the last time I went on a Moot Court trip, but this will not happen. The story is still pretty funny and needs to be told when I can tell it well, so come back tomorrow for that one. See you then (all 10 of you readers, and that's just because 5 of you are my moot court teammates!)

Oh and in case you were wondering, the title of tomorrow's article will not be something generic like "Bowling Semifinals and Gibbons Weekend." No, it will be far greater than that. It will be The Shining Jewel of Crowning Ignorance. And when that's the theme of the weekend, you know it was fun.

It's all tied together...

Moot court competition is this weekend. Last year's moot court competition used Saved by the Bell characters, and I was trying to prove AC Slater was nuts so he did not get the death penalty. Then I come across this gem right before this year's competition:

Guys this is probably the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. I was at my girlfriend’s house tonight for dinner, and shortly after I had to go #2. My Gf's brother was in the downstairs bathroom, so I went upstairs to use the master bathroom. I was about to take a dump, and I remembered something my friend told me called AC Slatering. AC Slatering is when you take a dump facing backwards on the toilet, just how on saved by the bell AC Slater always sat backwards on a chair. So when I was taking a dump, my stomach was facing the back of the toilet, and my back was facing the door. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and began to get nervous. Since AC Slatering is a tough position to get into, it requires taking off your pants. So there I am sitting in my GF's parent’s bathroom taking a dump with my pants off and facing the wrong way on the toilet. My dump was about halfway out when the footsteps became closer. I then turned around to see that I had not locked the door. Trying to finish as quickly as I could, I began pushing harder and harder. Suddenly, the door opened, and my gf's mom stood there in shock staring at me. We made eye contact for a split second, and I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. I quickly finished up, got dressed, and ran out of the house as quickly as I could. I am expecting my gf to break up with me tomorrow. I am so embarrassed and I hope my gf doesn’t blabber about this, Ill die if anyone else finds out.”

Wow. AC Slater is nuts. But not as nuts as someone who forgets to lock the bathroom door in these circumstances. I think finding this story is a good sign for this year's moot court competition. Don't ask me how...it just feels good. Much like I'm sure AC Slatering feels good.

National TV

Went to the Penn State-OSU game this weekend. Fun times as we bash them 37-17. Went to watch taping of Gameday Final on ESPN afterwards, and got on TV for about 0.3 seconds. It's at the beginning of the video in the post below. For your convenience, here's a screenshot.

Video

Back from Vacation

An update...simply because I'm sitting in Securities class listening to another fascinating discussion of the only case worth mentioning that ever came out on Section 11 liability, the bowling alley case. Funny how we always do this one on a Wednesday. Bowling night tonight should be fun, as we get into the stretch run before the playoffs. We are 13-2 after five weeks and should probably have the playoffs locked up tonight if not already. Then it is all a game of week to week luck.

Interestingly enough, the baseball playoffs have been going pretty much as I envisioned, with the glaring exception that the Cubs did not make win a game, let alone make it into the NLCS. The Rockies are on some kind of roll, and I think it will be interesting seeing them face a team with far superior hitting and pitching (both the Indians and the Red Sox are just better). Go with the underdog though, as the Rockies are just too hot to lose the Series.

I do not know how I still have a winning record in my game of the week picks on Southern College Sports. I'm 13-11 now which is far worse than other seasons but given how half the Top 10 teams have been losing every week, it's too unpredictable. I should have an article up later today which is one of my better ones this season. Two weeks ago I wrote an absolute monster around working on my moot court brief and seminar paper, but then last week was a short one due to vacation. I'm hoping the PSU-OSU press credential comes through later this week, but the WVU-Louisville game is still out there waiting for a response. At least I've got a press pass for Ohio University's finale against Miami (OH)...never would have guessed the team fighting for a MAC title in that game would be the RedHawks, but that's how it looks now. In any event, I'm planning on going to the next 4 Buckeye games after missing the past 3 (2 road games and Kent State due to vacation). I'd like to be confident that the Buckeyes could take care of their schedule and keep that #1 ranking they have now, but in this season it should surprise nobody that I still think we lose somewhere.

The Big Ten actually might have 8-9 bowl eligible teams for their 7 spots this year, which is a flip from the past 3 years where the Big Ten got 2 BCS bowls and only had 6-7 bowl eligible teams (leaving 1-2 bowl spots open for others). Here's guessing those conferences jumping in on the Big Ten's spots the past few years don't open up spots for teams like Northwestern and Indiana this year. There are currently an astounding seven teams at 5-2 (Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Penn State, Indiana, Michigan St, Purdue) and each of them will likely join the Buckeyes as bowl eligible. Even Northwestern at 4-3 and Iowa at 3-4 are threats to get to 6 wins, so this should be an interesting back half of the Big Ten schedule. Every team left on OSU's schedule is 5-2, but the teams couldn't be more different. I have about 98% confidence the Bucks win at home against a team like Michigan State, but only about 35% confidence that we can escape Happy Valley next weekend with a win.

Wouldn't it just be great is the Buckeyes played against BC or USF for the title? It will not happen but we can dream while those teams remain undefeated behind us.

Vacation was nice, until the drive home! The cruise was so much better than three years ago, highlights being no jellyfish infesting all beaches this time, sunny skies, smooth seas, nothing boarded up in Nassau, etc. Added another HRC bear to the collection, and this one is the most different so far (bright green bird jump suit on a bear, it's interesting). It was so great to absolutely not think about law school in any meaningful way for 7 days, but it was not to last. There just is nothing better than an all-inclusive resort/casino/etc on the high seas. It would be nice to actually get some friends to go with next time, so we'll have to start bugging them to save up some money sooner rather than later.

The drive home was going well until Virginia. Virginia is 66 miles long on I-77, ending in a tunnel to West Virginia. We stopped at mile marker 56. Three hours later we'd finally moved ten miles and went through the tunnel (pushed down to one lane), and it appeared there was no reason. WTF Virginia and West Virginia? But whatever, got back at 4 AM, got awake the next day and turned in the mooot court brief on time. So that's that. Back to the grind, class is over.

A long awaited update

Well it's been far too long, but I feel that I must write before vacation and I'm having writer's block on the moot court brief again. We are already into Week 7 of the school year and much has happened since the last time I wrote. Let's start with school...

Classes are whoop-de-doo fun. Securities is hard to read for anymore but still better than Sales. I hope I can sludge through Securities like I did in BA, but it seems like so much statutory material every week to outline. Might have to start early. Rose is an awesome professor though, and his auction for money envelopes was classic good stuff. Sales class makes me dumber every time, but we have to go because of the enforced attendance policy. Seeing some Creola Johnson questions on quizzes also indicates that her all multiple choice test will be a nightmare. All this for bar prep or remedial contracts...at least I have many friends in there suffering with me. International IP is the highlight of my reading for each week, especially since we are starting the patent half of the class this week. Copyright was OK too, but I'm happy to be moving back into my field again. Lee is good as always. I guess Mike the new IPLS president is passing around a petition to get the school to run a patent drafting class next semester. I do not know if I can sign it in good faith because that class does not seem useful to me now that I'm working part time and learning how to do it for WHE on the job (which is all that matters for the future, not some academic notion of perfection). Finally we have Seminar, and as usual I am happy keeping the same grade on the first paper this semester as I got in all my assignments for him last year (when over half the class serves on boards of the top 3 journals at the school, it's tough to stay in the median let alone on the top). Judge Sutton is the absolute bomb, and I cannot wait to have him grill us national teams for moot court class later in the semester.

Speaking of moot court, hopefully the Michigan game is another 3:30 or 4:00 kick this year as we should be done with our preliminary rounds on Saturday by 3 in Cleveland. Our team has had a bit of bad luck with computers...as I have wireless problems slowing my process, Tom had half of one side of his computer ripped out by a would-be computer thief, and Lee's laptop actually has been stolen. Crazy times...not even a lock stopped this thief. We are slogging through the brief and will hopefully be done before I go cruising. The topic is a good one, with the first issue being whether the 2nd amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms, and the second issue being federal premeption of state laws. I am doing the preemption issue and will be doing both the argument for premeption on both sides. It's quite a bit less sexy than the second amendment, but I like the challenge. Journal is going OK, as we finally got the Pope article today (3 weeks late) and we will move seamlessly from the end of the first acc-checks to the second round for Issue III two weeks after fall break. Thankfully the administrative duties of my job will slow significantly after October as I only have 1 more acc-check to prepare and then the 2L notes to read and grade. Everything else will now move to the substantive portion of my job, that being final reads and publishing. More work for me, but it's all stuff I can do at my leisure thank God.

Well Kelley got fired from the church job because they found someone eight months early. Whatever. Her last week was a hymn sing this past Sunday and it was nice to hear her play so many songs one last time on the old pipe organ. Maybe she will take up a little more piano at the house now...I think she's hoping to get on at COSI with Sarah, where she will get more hours than she is getting from the daycare job. Plus she hates that job. Sarah is finally moving out late this month as she bought a condo across town. Will be absolutely lovely to have all the space and home office back for sure. I do a lot of work at school in my office, but for writing papers and home work I like to have a place to get away not consisting of my comfy chair and our bed. I'm also working most weeks R-F down in Cincinnati. OSU callbacks are going on now and Laura came through last Thursday while I was there, some other guy on Friday, Dave L. went today and Keith will be down there with me on Thursday. It's greedy but I really want Dave and either Keith or Laura to receive and accept offers there...I want coworkers I know from my school days! I'm just now getting back into the swing of things at work and getting more efficient. The money is good and necessary until Kelley gets back on her feet but really I'm just glad for the break from school life. Plus it is nice to build up a repertoire with the work friends before getting there full-time.

Bowling is off to a great start. We've already bowled against Aaron's team and Bart's team in the first four weeks, and we lead the division with a 10-2 record. Hopefully things will keep up but I do not think we will need much more to make the playoffs this semester. Then it's all a luckfest from there. Ohio State football swept through the joke schedule of September and is now #4 ranked. We'll see how appropriate that rank is with the tough roadie at Purdue this weekend. I wrote perhaps my longest non-preview article ever this week because I just had lots to write about, so feel free to scoot on over to southerncollegesports and check it out. In TV Solitary ended this week and I can only hope for Solitary 3.0! House is back and looks to be quite entertaining as House cuts through 40 interns to find 3 apprentices to replace Chase, Cameron, and Foreman. I think we will continue to get the occassional appearance by Chase and Cameron also, so perhaps not all is lost and changing in House world. It's the only thing to sustain us until 24 and Lost come back.

We watched the premiere of Cavemen tonight. That was quite possibly the worst pilot I've ever seen. Just outright BORING the whole way through and not very funny. I had bet that the show would be awful, but I figured it would at least be novel and funny for a couple weeks. Oh well.

Baseball playoffs start tomorrow night, and boy what a finish in the National League. Anyways, here are my predictions sure to go wrong as always!
Chicago Cubs over Arizona Diamondbacks in 4
Colorado Rockies over Philadelphia Phillies in 5
Boston Red Sox over Los Angeles Angels in 3
Cleveland over New York Yankees in 5
Colorado Rockies over Chicago Cubs in 6
Boston Red Sox over Cleveland Indians in 7
Boston Red Sox over Colorado Rockies in 5

Wouldn't it be sweet if the Indians played against the Rockies in a super low-budget market world series, or the Indians against the Cubs in a battle for one team to end a LONG world series drought. Probably will not happen, but we can hope.

Well hey I cannot think of anything else to speak of and it is getting late, so it must be time to wrap this entry up. Cruise to Bahamas and out of the country next week, so probably will not update until middle of the week 2 weeks from now at the earliest. Have a good fall break law school people and everyone else, see you next time.