It’s noticeably cooler now. The days are shorter, but I still make time to take the dogs to the lakes.
It’s noticeably cooler now. The days are shorter, but I still make time to take the dogs to the lakes.
My blackberry keeps seizing and restarting so I decide to take it to the Sprint store near work. The Sprint store is busy and understaffed. The Sprint tech tells me to leave my phone and come back, so I decide to walk my dogs at a park near my office building.
I arrive at the park and get 10 steps from my car when a security SUV swoops down from a hill and informs me that no dogs are allowed on campus.
So I throw the dogs back in the car and unsuccessfully try to find parking near the Mississippi trail. I try Minnehaha park next, realize that I forgot quarters for the meters, and then end up back in Minneapolis.
The dogs and I eventually tumble into Loring Park.
I listen to Pandora at work, and I’m pretty good at ignoring the advertisments, but this Glee photoshop disaster caught my eye.
Click the image for a closer view of this messitude:
I got permission to record Dra Matica, one of my favorite performers at the Townhouse Classafrass drag show. The video is here:
The Minnesota Veterans’ Home has been on my “to see” list for a while now. I’m a sucker for historic buildings.
The buildings were nice, but more impressive from a distance.
I read for my federal tax law procedure class at the Freighthouse Dunn Brothers, which is one of the cutest cafes in Minneapolis (pictures here).
Things got real bad on Friday night.
I come back from work around 10pm and find Mark, who lives on the second floor, waiting by the building door. Mark tells me that his sink kitchen clogged, so I call the emergency plumber.
The plumber dredges Mark’s sink while Alesus and I skip over to the Showplace ICON theater and watch the new Resident Evil1 movie.
We come back to my apartment, watch Jersey Shore, and go to bed around 2am.
I hear a knock on my at 4am. It’s Heidi, the tenant who lives under Mark. Her kitchen is completely flooded with stinky black water that is shooting from her kitchen sink. Heidi’s bathroom ceiling is also leaking.
I’m a PC user, but I can still appreciate the cool design of the Uptown Minneapolis Apple store.
Tonight we moseyed down to Classafrass, which is what I call the Pumps and Pearls Revue at the Townhouse Bar. We even got some No Doubt realness:
I run into strange characters during my dog walks. One of these characters is a short man that I always find near the Wedge Co-Op on my morning dog walks to Lake of the Isles.
He usually sits on a retention wall with a large beer can. This is usually around 9am so I guess these are his breakfast beers. This guy continually tries to start conversations with me. I smile and avoid eye contact.
He told me that he is from Mississippi. He just got out of prison and he doesn’t know anyone up here. He also likes rottweilers.
I now avoid that area on my morning dog walks and haven’t seen the felon in a month.
So I was surprised this afternoon when I opened my apartment building’s door and saw the felon and a cracked-out woman. They were lurking by the door, waiting to be let in.
I had already opened the door when I noticed them, so I was screwed. They rushed the door:
Crackella: “Excuse me, I left my shrimp upstairs.”
I started my 3L year today. My first class is called “Great Cases” and it is a survey of 22 noteworthy Supreme Court cases and sensational trials. The class has an interesting mix of students: there are 3 Scandinavian exchange students, two Chinese LLMs, and some people randomly auditing the class including a Chinese girl from Dartmouth and a former state attorney.
We spent most of our time on course mechanics and trotting through the United States Constitution. I’ve taken two constitutional law classes but this is the first time that I was assigned the entire constitution. The only surprising thing was its brevity and how seemingly unrelated things are clumped together.
The second class of the day was a Death Penalty seminar taught by Professor D.
Law school orientation dominated the past week.
I was an orientation leader and spent the majority of my week convincing 1Ls that they can survive their first year of law school without being crazy. I also squeezed in some hours at the office, a movie, and even went to the Minnesota State Fair with Alesus.
It was my first time at the fair. I went primarily because the state fair is the only place I can buy Shoe MGK cleaner for my tacky white Aldo shoes. I also wanted to try camel on a stick.
Apparently the camel-sellers left the fair early, but I managed to buy the shoe cleaner, which was a life changing experience.
The Minnesota State Fair was surprisingly fun and great people watching.
There were cows:
Crowds:
Fancy kiosks with enormous light bills:
“You got served” style dance-offs:
Yesterday was the last day of orientation. It was only a half-day and the 1Ls were very grateful.
During the last session with our 1L section, we made sure to drive home the three main rules for law school:
…and hopefully some of those stick. I think they are ready for this Jelly.
The 1Ls were stuck in lecture sessions for most of the morning, so the orientation leaders just sat around, chatted, and stared at the Mondalelisa, which is the glamor shot of Walter Mondale in the law school entrance.
Mondale always seems to stare right at you, and his smile becomes a sneer after a while.
Creepy.
After orientation I went to work, and ended the night watching Machete with Alesus.
Today was a slightly shorter day of orientation. The 1Ls are still good troopers, but it was a personally frustrating day for some orientation leaders because we were constantly undermined by presenters:
On homework:
Orientation Leaders: “You’ll get your assignments on Friday, don’t worry about them now.”
10 minutes later:
Professor: “Read pages 1-5, 7-20, 30-36. Read EVERY WORD of the first case. It’s mostly Latin…”
On Professors:
1L: “I read on Rate My Professor that Professor Palsgraff is a horrible person who can’t teach and tortures bunnies. Is that true?!”
Orientation Leaders: “Well, everyone has different learning styles and everyone’s favorite professor is someone else’s least favorite. And although Professor Palsgraff may not be the most energetic speaker, she is at the top of her field, dedicated to her students, and surely only kicks the bunnies who deserve it.”
10 minutes later:
Student Speaker: “Oh and I heard you had Palsgraff for one of your classes! HAH! Lemme tell ya – you won’t learn SQUAT from Palsgraff, she’s a horrible teacher and wrings bunnies’ necks till the light leaves their eyes…”
