New Docs

Today, I ran nearly 11 miles. My route took me through the UW campus, down Ravenna Blvd to Greenlake, of which I did 1 lap, and then back. While running through campus I was surpised by a smallish crowd milling around the fountain and red square. Upon closer inspection, the larger crowd was made up of small bunches of people, usually a couple parents and a twenty-something-aged student. In the hands of each student was a box, in the box, a brand new stethoscope. Yup, it must be the welcoming orientation for the new med students.

I always love this time of year, seeing young student on campus, ready to start a new chapter in thier lives. These kids are about to embark on a expecially exciting chapter, med school. I wonder if the UW med school have benefited from the show Grey's Anatomy. It was a top notch school before, but I wonder if it now has a cool factor not attained in US News and World Reports.

Sometimes I wish I were starting school again - to be starting law school over or even to be an undergrad. Or, if I could do it again, would I have chosen med school? I was only 1 chemstiry class shy of having all my med school pre-reqs done. Alas, perhpas in another lifetime.

Some places, I just don’t belong …

My wife and I just returned from a long weekend in San Diego. The trip was a combination of a vacation and a scouting trip for a possible relocation to California. Yes, I might become a rare breed of reverse migratory Idahoans, starting out rural, moving to the City (Seattle) and eventually ending up in California. This is contrary to the flood of people who seem to be leaving California for Idaho.

We didn't do much scouting though. Instead we were occupied with the general tourist fare; i.e., the Zoo, Sea World, and the beaches. The highlight of the trip was a sea kayak tour of the sea caves of La Jolla. We had a great time and fell in love with town, what a great place to live.

The only negative of the trip was our hotel, The Ivy. It is a gorgeous hotel, don't get me wrong, and the staff is superb. The owners (a group out of Kirkland, WA) took a historic hotel, the first in San Diego to have a bathroom in each room, that had become run down and a home for transients and gutted the place. They created a chic new environment inside the traditional, turn of the century brick building. As part of the renovation, the hotel was equipped with several trendy, posh nightclubs and the marketing team skewered the hotel demographics toward the young, hip, and financially reckless crowd. The result is one of the most popular night spots in the city.

Come nightfall, the hotel throbs with activity. Crowds of club goers dressed for a night out in Vegas line up around the corner and loiter in the lobby. The security guards, dressed in black suits and ties monitor the elevators to make sure the only hotel guests and appropriately dressed women (tramp stamps and boob jobs preferred) can enter. Upstairs, on the roof around the hotel's chic, but rather non-functional, swimming pool is a hip bar where the waitress dress like strippers and bring two gin and tonics to you for $30. You can have a private table, if you pay $600 for bottle service. Inside the hotel, in our room, the feverish beats from the DJ in the bar and the din of raucous conversation echo off our 40 inch LCD TV until two in the morning.

It is an exciting place, ideal for a bachelorette or bachelor party, or for the traveling businessman looking to wear out his libido; but it was not for us. We didn't bring clubbing clothes; I don't even own any clubbing clothes. I only wear a collar at work or the golf course, not when getting a beer. I will be the first to admit that I am not cool, nor hip, nor trendy, but I never thought that day would come where just being me would make me feel uncomfortable at a hotel.

 

Sometimes, you find Gems…

I've been awol as of late because of finals but I'm in the home stretch now, one final, Trust & Estate exam, to go. While studying, I was going through my notes and found this little item, written, by me, on March 3, 2008:

"The issue involved an omitted child and the court used the concept of dependent relative revocation to revive the prior will written in 1954, I have no idea what we are talking about but he called on me and I did the problem in class. He seemed pleased with my answer. I still don't know what we are talking about…."

Blatant Rankism

Well, the US New 2008 rankings are out (I believe they publish these in June) and Seattle U has moved up again. Here is the blurb from the folks in PR:

Seattle University School of Law continues to climb in the US News & World Report rankings, moving up to 82 this year (from 85 last year and 93 just two years ago.) The law school's acclaimed Legal Writing Program continues to be ranked among the best in the country – second again this year – and the law school is still among the most diverse (19th highest diversity index).

I guess this mean were strongly mediocre now, which is vast improvement over marginal. I tease, everyone knows I love SU. The school has aggressively moved up from a marginal 3^rd tier institution to being a solid top 100 program in our short, 35 year history. Some of the plans in the future will further move us up. They are shrinking the size of the student body (which will drive up selectivity) and are expanding the size of the faculty (which will shore up the student: faculty ratio). I won't be surprised if we are in the top 60-70 within a year or two and perhaps in the top 50 in the next decade or two. I'm constantly impressed with my fellow students; many are razor sharp and found their way here from undergrad institutions such as Cornell, Norte Dame, and Penn. Yet, we still have a good mix of non-traditional students who have fought their way in via night classes at their local State U. Together, the two types of student blend well to create a great learning environment.

I'm not sold that this attempt to climb the ranks is the best use of our efforts though. Sure, it is nice to say that you went to a better school then so and so, but in the end does it really matter? No doubt, a student from a top ten program has something to brag about but anything beyond that is pointless elitism. If a law firm, or any other business for that matter, hires solely on the basis of school rankings then they are extremely lazy recruiters and probably miss a lot of good hires along the way, and if they are that lazy in hiring, what else are they lazy about, their clients cases perhaps? And would you really want to work in that kind of environment anyway? And, what will we lose by chasing rankings? Will we start denying applicants who didn't go to the right undergrad schools, who may not have come from a privileged background and could not pay the $3,000 - $5,000 for an LSAT tutor that so many student do (I was taken aback to find out how many of my fellow SU peers had paid for LSAT training!).

Anyway, although I rail against these ranking, I can't help but be fascinated by them. Here is my annual dissection of the list pulling out law schools in the Western US and comparing them. Why the West Coast? Because everyone knows it's the best coast!

So, without further adieu, the Word Forge 2^nd Annual Western States Law School Rankings (the following is my personal ranking of the law schools in the Western US based in part on US News & World Report's Survey, Undergraduate strength, and the general reputation these school have among law students)

Of the top Law School in America, here are the top 20 in the West:

08 Rank	School	07 Rank	Movement	Comments
1	Stanford	1	None	Let's face it, Stanford dominates any academic pursuit on the west coast.
2	Berkley	2	None	Stanford might dominate, but wouldn't you rather attend Berkley too?
3	UCLA	3	None	LA baby, LA.
4	USC (Gould)	4	None	Every graduate gets a BMW with their diploma.
5	U Washington	5	None	Good school, but their greatest benefactor's most significant accomplishment was in the bedroom not the courtroom …
6	U Colorado (Boulder)	7	Up
7	U California (Hasting)	7	None
8	U Arizona	9	Up	Arizona might be the better school, but everyone knows ASU has the better football team, a SCOTUS alumni, and hotter co-eds.
9	UC Davis	6	Down
10	BYU	9	Down	Great school with oodles of oddly hot co-eds all looking to get married.
11	U Utah	12	Up	BYU's poorer yet cooler brother.
12	Arizona State (O'Connor)	11	Down	You might be down, but see Arizona.
13	Pepperdine	13	None	We have the most beautiful location of any school anywhere, what do we care about rankings? Oh, and conservatism is too cool.
14	Loyola Marymount	??
15	U New Mexico	14	Down	Still the sleeper hit of the Western States.
16	Lewis & Clark (Oregon)	16	None	One the Sr partners at my law firm went to school here, so I'll refrain from commenting.
17	Santa Clara	20	Up
18	Seattle U	18	None	I go there, 'nuff said.
19	U Hawaii, U Oregon, U San Diego	21 16 18	Up Down None	Can't go wrong, you go to school in Hawaii. Perhaps Phil can push some money toward the academic side of the house?
20	U Denver Pacific	15 22	Down Up

Those schools that didn't quite make the top 100:

08 Rank	School	07 Rank	Movement	Comment
3rd Tier	U San Francisco U Idaho Gonzaga Chapman (Calif) U Montana U Wyoming Willamette (Ore)	22	Down None None Up None None Up	Ouch, out of the top 100! Go Vandals! They are opening a campus in Boise, it should help them climb up into the top 100. Who cares, they can't ever get past the elite 8 anyway. Hippies study law, who knew?
4th Tier	California Western Golden Gate U Southwestern (Calif) Thomas Jefferson (Calif) Whittier		None None Down None None

Why can’t you just say you are sorry…

I had a lot of interest in my recent encounter with Best Buy and wanted to post an update. I received an email from an employee named xxxx who basically said tough, it wasn't our fault, and you should be lucky you made a scene or you wouldn't have gotten anything (at least that is what I read in between the lines of their response). It appears that Best Buy only considers "defects" to include hardware or specific parts; any software issues are not their problem. Of course, they don't define this anywhere that a consumer could learn of before making a purchase.

It's a crock. They know it, they just won't admit it. If they want to confine their return policy to hardware issues then they should say so instead of using a generic term like "defect," as far as I'm concerned a software or operating system error is a defect if it occurs during the return period. If they want try to say it isn't, then they need to point to somewhere in their return policy that says so. If anyone else has a similar issue - be sure to fight for your rights or these people will walk all over you.

Here is the actual email, let me know what you think.

Thank you for emailing Best Buy about your recent computer purchase and subsequent exchange. I'm xxxx with Consumer Relations.
As you are aware, Best Buy assesses a 15% restocking fee for the return of an opened notebook computer unless defective. Once the seal has been broken on the packaging of the item, we are no longer able to sell it as new and must re-sell it at a discount, often below cost. It is my understanding that our Geek Squad's initial review of the unit was unable to find a material defect with any hardware components of the unit, and you were unable to provide any indication of what specific parts were defective. Still, I was pleased to read that upon further review of the matter Kevin authorized the replacement of your computer without a restocking fee for customer service reasons.

Thanks for sharing your comments with Best Buy. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any future questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
xxxx
Consumer Relations

PS - is the restocking fee line complete bull or what? When I worked in retail to pay for college we never restocked returns, even on computers. We boxed them up and shipped them back to the vendor who would eventually re-sell them. The store was just re-credited by the vendor for their purchase. I doubt Best Buy actually re-sells this junk; of course, they could have a different SOP (my previous employer would never sell shoddy computers to customers, maybe Best Buy doesn't have such compunctions?).

Service failure? Or am I just a whiner?

The following is a letter that I am writing to the management of a local Best Buy store explaining how I was treated during a recent enounter. Am I overreacting, is the letter too long, have you been treated similarly? Anyone have any comments?

April 22, 2008

Best Buy, Inc. – Seattle Store #470
330 NE Northgate Way
Seattle, WA 98125

To the Management Team – Seattle/Northgate Best Buy,

I would like to inform you of a recent customer service failure that I encountered in the Best Buy Seattle location and to acknowledge the efforts of an employee, Kevin, who was the company’s only saving grace in the transaction. My hope is that you will use it to reexamine some of your operating policies and that you will give a good employee the recognition he deserves.

I had purchased a new lap top computer, a Gateway M-1625 (transaction #: 0470 054 3293) on Monday, April 14, 2008 in the Seattle/Northgate store. Exactly a week later, the computer had a major system crash when I launched a program for taking exams at my grad school. The error led to a major file corruption that prevented Internet Explorer from operating and a host of other issues. The help desk at my University assured me that it was not operator error, that the program I had tried to launch was certified compatible with Vista OS, that there was nothing installed on my computer that would have caused a conflict, and that they believed that it was a defect in the machine. To be sure, we did a system restore to the manufacturer’s settings but the same failures occurred.

I returned the computer to the Seattle Store that evening in reliance of the statements in your return policy that “we accept … exchanges 14 days from original purchase on … notebook computers” and that “a restocking fee of 15% will be charged … unless defective.” See Store Return Policy. My intention was to simply exchange my defective machine for the same model.

During the exchange transaction, the customer service employee, Kevin, told me that the “Geek Squad” would have to look over the computer before we could effectuate an exchange. The “Geek Squad” employee powered on the computer but then stopped when he realized that I had not included the systems disk. At this point, I completely understood the refusal to conduct the exchange (it was my mistake) and told them that I would return shortly with the disk (I had simply forgotten it when I repacked the machine). Before leaving, however, I asked Kevin if I would be “hassled” when I returned. He said no, that they had reviewed the computer, and that Best Buy would honor their exchange policy. I took the laptop back and went home.

When I returned with the systems disk, fifteen to twenty minutes later, a new employee was working the customer service desk. The same “Geek Squad” employee, who had “inspected” my computer before, was still working in the return area. I informed the customer service employee of my discussion with Kevin, that the “Geek Squad” employee had reviewed my computer, and that I wanted to make the exchange. She consulted with the “Geek Squad” employee for a moment and then told me that Best Buy would make the exchange, but that they were going to charge me the 15% “restocking fee.” I refused and told her that I would not pay the “fee” nor would I accept a defective machine. She informed me that it was your policy that if the “Geek Squad” does certify the machine defective than you will not effectuate an exchange per your policy. I told her that, in my opinion, the “Geek Squad” employee had no basis to make a decision regarding the machine, he had simply powered it on, and that the defect was a major system error and not readily apparent from the mere act of pushing the “power” button. I then asked if we could take a moment and I could show them the defect.

It was at this point where I felt that the transaction fell apart. The minute that I had told your customer service employee “no” and that I did not accept the “expert” opinion of your “Geek Squad,” I felt that the employees took on the attitude that it was “them against me” and that it would be a battle of wills to determine who would win. After listening to my discussion with the customer service employee, the “Geek Squad” employee who had made the decision to refuse the exchange fled to somewhere else in the store (I do not know this employee’s name, he never actually spoke to me) and they handed me off to another member of the “Geek Squad.” Rather than simply allow me to show them the defect, he tried to insinuate that it was the program I had tried to launch, that it was something I had done, or any other excuse rather than to simply accept the machine was defective.

I persisted and he eventually agreed to try and run the program which had uncovered the defect. Unfortunately, he was called away and I was left alone at the counter to wait. I watched as he demonstrated the Apple Laptops to some prospective customers and hustled about the store helping people (he never did make a sell, by the way) while I waited. This wait-period lasted about twenty to thirty minutes. During this time, not one of the other employees, who had been working in the area and were aware that I was having a problem, offered to help.

During my wait, I realized that I had made a mistake purchasing from Best Buy. Had I made the purchase at Costco or even online at Newegg, I would not have had these exchange problems. Yet, I have been a loyal customer of Best Buy for years. During my patronage, I have bought countless CDs, DVDs, videogames, cables, a home theatre system, and software from your stores. I have recommended Best Buy to my friends and co-workers, I have given Best Buy gift cards as presents, and often get Best Buy gift cards in return as people know that I loved your stores. As a result of this experience, however, you have lost that loyalty.

Luckily, your employee Kevin returned to the Customer Service desk and I told him about the situation; had he not returned, I honestly have no idea how long your “Geek Squad” would have tried to put me off. He tracked down the “Geek Squad” employee who had been given my issue to find out why I hadn’t been helped. The “Geek Squad” employee told him that he was busy and that there was nothing wrong with my machine – this is despite the fact that he had not spent more then one or two minutes with it. Kevin then went to speak to a manager who approved making the exchange. When the “Geek Squad” employee saw that Kevin was making the exchange, he actually seemed disgusted that the store had given into the customer.

In the end, thanks to Kevin, I was able to make the exchange (transaction #: 0470 050 8267). The new computer, the exact same model, works fine and runs the all the programs I have loaded onto it, including the one that your “Geek Squad” tried to blame for the failure. There is now no doubt that the machine was defective and your employees, had I conceded to their cursory review and judgment, would have cheated me out of my rights as a consumer.

I realize the fine line between having effective loss prevention policies and the risk of upsetting customers. But, in this situation, I think your staff suffered from two major problems. One, your “Geek Squad” staff was presumptuous and arrogant to dismiss possibility of a defect just because they could not see it by powering on the computer. In the end, they made the wrong call and the quality of their decision was equal to the amount of time they put into making it. This is either a failure of training or hiring. Second, was the attitude your staff; upon encountering a recalcitrant customer they decided to take an “us versus him” posture. Instead of taking on the task of resolving my issue, they decided to simply wait me out.

Although I was able to complete the return, the cost to me was fair amount of time, well over an hour for a simple exchange, and stress. This is in addition to the original purchase price of the laptop. I have subsequently told more than ten people about my ordeal and have posted about the matter of several “blogs,” moreover; my attitude toward your brand has been completely eroded by the experience. I will no longer be a promoter of Best Buy. I hope that the management team reviews this transaction for whatever training purposes they can determine and that they recognize Kevin for his efforts at solving the problem.

Sincerely,

I'm good karma...

At least for schools that I attend. It seems that every higher education institution I attend gets lots of cool shit after I graduate.

Case in point, when I was at the U of Idaho I attended my business classes in the gloriously decrepit Administration Building. Like any great 100 year old building, the goal was to make you as uncomfortable as possible when inside so you would try to get outside and work in the fields as soon as possible (hey, it's a land grant school, got encourage ag people). Hence, the classrooms hovered around 125F in the late spring and early fall and plummeted to around -273C during the cold months (the physics department was really jealous.) I also had to work out in the dome, a 70's era plywood indoor football stadium for those of you not in the know, with workout equipment that was original to the dome's date of construction. After I graduated, the business department built a new building with all the modern bells and whistles (I'm sure it's neat, all the students get laptops now, we got a piece of chalk). The school also got a new rec center with fancy equipment, the tallest climbing wall west of the Mississippi, etc... I'm sure everyone is campus is all buff and hot now.

Admin Building, where I had business classes



The new business school that opened up right after I graduated


My streak has continued. Seattle U had announced a new capital campaign (they've already raised 135 million and are entering the public phase.) It will be using the money to revamp the library, expand the college, move up to Div I sports, and build a fancy new rec center for the students.

Likewise, the new student rec center which opened right after I graduated


Your welcome various student bodies, it all should be done just in time for me to walk off with my doctorate in hand.

I should farm myself out to various student bodies around the nation. Hey, have a crappy campus? Give me a scholarship and I guarantee, things will be much better, just in time for me not to enjoy any of it.

Brrrr...

It is cold in Seattle. At least, colder than it should be. The temperature won't break 50 degrees today and for April that is miserable. I can't tell if I'm more cantankerous about the weather because we recently came back from Mexico than I would be had I not recently experienced sunshine and warm weather. Anyway, here are some pic from our trip.

Pic from our hotel room...


Quintessential Sunset, replete with horseback riding on the beach and a boat in the distance.


Downtown, old Puerto Vallarta

There is No Justice In Biology

I have always been fascinated by biology. I was only one chemistry class shy of picking up biology minor as an undergrad. Had I taken that class, I might be sitting in the medical school’s library typing out this blog post instead of the law school’s

It isn’t difficult to be fascinated with life though. Life is simply a marvel. At a basic level all biological life forms are merely a collection of cells; an amalgamation of proteins, salts, chemicals and water. Yet, we are so much more. These simple building blocks form more complicated organs, muscles, tendons and other structures that allow us to breathe, to see, to run, allow us to type on little black keyboards, and, not least of all, to think.

Our brains are probably the most fascinating biological phenomenon ever. A simple mass of soft tissue consisting of billion of neurons, a complex web of electrochemical reactions that not only regulates are complex internal organs and systems, but allows us to perceive, to understand, to form thoughts, and to communicate. Amazing, truly. A mammalian brain is the definition of something greater than the sum of its parts.

At the heart of all this complexity is a mere system of acids that direct the coding of proteins at the molecular level, our DNA, which drives the whole thing. Again, it is awe inspiring that something like DNA could lead to something like us.

It does amaze me that life exists at all. When you think about the complexity in even the simplest mammal or reptile, it seems outrageous that it could all work. Yet, it does, for the most part. It is this essential mystery and marvel that is our existence that is at the heart, I believe, of most of the basic philosophical questions that man has posed over time. It is this awe inspiring notion of our own improbability, I also believe, that drives our collective sense of spirituality.

Despite the awe inspiring realization of our own biological complexity, I can’t escape the notion that the body is fatally flawed. From inception it is bound to expire and it is often weak or susceptible for no good reason. My first real experience with this truism was when my father-in-law died from cancer. A kind and gentle man in the prime of his life suddenly succumbed to his own body. His own cells turned on him, slowly choking off important systems until he could no longer live. One year he was with us, another example of an incredible biological machine, and the next year he was gone. Done-in by biology.

A spat of recent events had also reminded me of the failings of biology. A great blogger, whom I greatly admire, recently discovered that she had a brain tumor and had to under go surgery to have the tumor removed. A brilliant, young girl of quick wit and incite hindered by a biological mystery.

A few weeks ago one, of my wife’s friend’s one-year old daughter developed a condition called Lymphoid Hyperplasia where the lymph nodes develop on the intestine rather than on the surrounding blood vessels. The condition, if caught early, can be treated with steroids and overtime will probably correct itself, but it seems so odd that a vital structure like that would develop incorrectly and send an innocent young child into the hospital for days while her family struggles to cope with the fears brought on by this biological flaw.

Finally, a few weeks ago, a member of my law school class was stricken with an illness. In this case we have a young man in his early twenties who is at the same time brilliant (probably one of the top five in our class, member of law review, went to undergrad at Notre Dame) and healthy (an avid soccer player). This combination of youth, health, and potential was inexplicably brought down by a random lung disease with no apparent cause that has deprived him of the use of his own lungs, bed ridden him, and may put his future into question. Again, this is another example of a senseless flaw of biology.

All these things remind me that we are, despite the complexity, mere biological machines. Machines that despite of (or probably because of) our complexity are prone to break or be broken for no apparent reason. This does trouble me, to know that so many who are deserving of so much better should suffer, and yet we must accept it. It is the nature of living to know that we and others may die. In my heart, I think this is why I didn’t finish my biology minor and why I found myself in law school rather than med school. Despite my fascination and admiration of life, I know that life is capricious and that there is no justice in biology.

Pics 'n Tid-Bits

My lack of posting can be explained by simply saying that life has gotten in the way. It's been a busy semester full of writing legal briefs, making oral arguments, and reading cases; the gristle of a second year law student.

A couple weeks ago my wife and I took a weekend trip into the Cascades to do some snow-shoeing at B&B outside Leavenworth. It was a great trip. We highly recommend the Mountain Home Lodge to anyone. The staff was friendly, the food superb, and the entire weekend was rejuvenating.

Here are some pics:
Just a shot from up in the mountains

The owners of the lodge have a number of dogs who will follow you out on your day's hike. Dog rental = no charge
this is me, once again, proving that I take a horrible picture

For those of you paying attention...

It has been over a month since my last post and I've been considering abandoning the whole blog altogether. For some reason, this e-forum has just lost my attention. I've had lost of stuff to blog about but not the desire... As a result, this blog is on the marginal side of mediocre and I'm not proud of it. Therefore, if I'm not proud of the work, I shouldn't be doing it. I'm not saying this is the end of the 'ol forge, but it might be?

Just in case any of you were left on a cliffhanger with my last post, the semester came out okay; there was no crying during my final tests. I got all A's (well, I had one A- in a two credit course, but I give myself a mulligan and consider it an all A semester anyway). I don't know if I should be proud or worried though. Generally, I don't feel smart enough to be a lawyer, I don't know half the stuff that I should. If I'm getting A's, I would hate to think what I would feel like if I were struggling... Well, enough of the immodesty.

I might tune in again; perhaps a little politics as the election proceeds, or if the economy starts to really tank I might be back to talk about economics, or maybe, I'll just start posting pictures, they are easier then words. Pretty Pictures.

Anyway, thanks to those who have been reading and to those who have stopped by regularly. Later.

Half way through the half way point.

Well, I had two finals the first day of the test period. The school offers the opportunity to reschedule finals if you have such a conflict, but the optional day to take the test was the last Friday before X-Mas so I decided to suck it up and take them both. Well, if I could go back and rethink my decisions, I would change my mind. Ugh. It was a rough day.

Anyway, no time to complain, have to climb right back on the horse, two finals left to go. These ones are doosies too; Constitutional Law and Business Entities. Someone was telling me that the B. Entities test made someone cry last year! Unfortunately, I just can't seem to focus on school today and haven't gotten past Agency yet...alas, perhaps I should have stayed a corporate drone.

Well, after these next two tests I'll be officially half way to a Juris Doctor (not that the world needs another one...) I'll check back in before x-mas.

Winter

Apt, on this first day of December, truly a winter month, that Seattle gets a snow fall. I am currently on the fourth floor of the law school in the Justice James Dolliver reading room watching the snow blow around the building. The flakes are large, like bits of shredded paper caught in a fast breeze. It doesn't seem to be sticking, the pavement and the plants at the base of the law school are merely wet and seem snow free. Snow doesn't come often to Seattle. When it does it causes havoc. Schools close, freeways clog up, and people loose power. Generally the citizens take on a weird hysteria, half excitement and half dread. The mindset is spurred by the weather reports as suit clad weatherman tell us they have spotted doomsday on the Doppler radar, stay tuned.

In the bowels of the school young students are taking the LSAT, the qualifying test needed to apply to law school. There must be a two hundred or more taking the test. I am always surprised that so many people want to come to law school, then again, I'm here aren't I.

Anyway, I'm putting of writing a paper for my constitutional law class. The topic is simple and vague, discuss the political processes' role in the light of the constitutional topics we've discussed. Sure, why not, it seems like an easy task but I'm feeling somewhat rudderless sifting through my notes for the past semester trying to create a persuasive argument of the various flotsam commentary on politics by the Supreme Court overtime. I'm sure I'll survive the task …

It is knee deep time, where I have to wade through all the notes I've taken, re-read all the cases I've read thus far, and open to study guides and treatises in preparation for finals. So, as you can tell by my posting frequency as of late, it might be a while before I post again, or it might be tomorrow if I desperately need to procrastinate some more. I just can't ever tell.

Where are all the engineers?

Once again, Bill Gates, laments that the sky is about to fall over the national economy if we don't start churning out engineers soon. Yet, we've heard this for years and nothing is changing in the education system.

Here's a suggestion. How about a new post-graduate education program to educate non engineers into engineers. As it is now, if you graduated with a non-engineering degree you are locked out of any higher education for engineers. Why? Why can't engineering be more like med or law school that will look for aptitude and then train? Perhaps there could be a new engineering masters or doctorate degree that takes people with policy sci degrees; fast tracks them and reteaches them math and physics and engineering principles so that they can be engineers. You might not be able to do it in two years, but perhaps a three program? Perhaps, instead of lamenting that not enough people have chosen the established path to engineering jobs, we should blaze a new one?

Grey Drizzle

I a pretty bleak day here in Seattle, the sky is gray and the nice fine northwest drizzle is soaking the earth. A perfect day to be in the library, which is exactly where I am.

Finals are rapidly approaching and I'm trying to get a leg up on studying before Thanksgiving break as I have family coming and studying might take a back seat. This explains the lack of posting lately as well. I was two kids shy of making it into the top 10% of my class last year, and this year I've committed myself to doing a little better and edging my way up in class rank. As they say, "Good is the Enemy of Great" and I'm trying to prevent myself from settling, one of my worst character flaws. this translates into more hours with the books at less on the computer. So, if you like this blog, I apologize.

Anyway, not much has been going on. The only personal news of note was a conference I went to the other day on the Pakistani Constitutional crisis. It was essentially a panel discussion between a bunch of SU law professors; 2 constitutional scholars (1 of which is Indian) and one mid-east law expert; a Pakistani who is also a professor at Evergreen College; and a Pakistani Lawyer. The talk was informative and helped put the coup into perspective. There is nothing new about military coups like this, there have been 4 in Pakistan in the last 70 years, however, this is the first time a coup has ever been directed at the Judiciary. The crowd was pretty sparse, which prompted one of the professors to lament that it was too bad no one "gives a damn". Most of the crowd was professors and a few students.

Seattle University, oh, where's that?

Caution: this post tends to ramble more than others and I don’t have time to edit, you’ve been forewarned.

There was an article in the PI today about Seattle U's (SU) basketball team playing Kentucky today in an exhibition/celebration game for their national championship battle 50 years ago. The article dropped a few tidbits about Seattle U plans to move into Div I sport and a return to a more traditional collegiate atmosphere after an experiment at being a commuter campus in the 70-90s.

To be honest, I am not very connected to Seattle U. It is, merely, the school where my law school is located. I don't feel that connected to SU that I do to the U of Idaho, the campus isn't my home like Moscow's was, and I don't really know much about the school aside from the quadrant where the law school is. So, I decided to ponder SU a little more than I normally do and wonder what it is like to be an undergrad here.

As the article states, the school is moving back toward a traditional, residential campus. The campus itself, is truly urban. No other major institution in Seattle has a similar city feel. The U of Washington (UW) and Seattle Pacific University (SPU) are both "classified" as urban schools, but it isn't the same setting as SU. The UW sits on a sprawling, wooded campus on the shores of Lake Washington. While still in the city, UW's large and park-like setting make it quite possible for student to stay on campus and completely ignore the city if they chose to. Similarly, SPU, while technically within the city limits, sits in a quite neighborhood nestled between the Lake Union ship canal placid waters and the base of Queen Anne hill (quickly becoming one of Seattle poshest neighborhoods).

SU, however, is located in between First Hill (also know as Pill Hill for all the Hospitals or formely as Curse Hill) and Capitol Hill (home to Seattle oldest neighborhoods) and surround by the various Hospitals (which help explain the school stellar nursing program) that dominate the Eastern half of Seattle skyline. Yesterday, I went downtown for a haircut and it was a quick 10 minute walk to the heart of the Seattle business district and the base of the city's tallest skyscrapers. From here, I could walk ten more minutes to the shopping district or climb aboard a bus in the the city's ride free zone and move about the interior of the city with ease. It is impossible, from here, to not realize you are in one of America’s major cities.

For college freshmen, who live on campus, this must be an exciting place to be an 18 year old. At U of Idaho, a large campus in the middle of nowhere, the school is the city of Moscow. Everything in Moscow revolves around the school and it is impossible to ever leave the fact that you are a student, the you at University. Even if you leave campus the city still feels like an extension of campus, if you drive a few miles to Pullman you are still on another college campus (WSU). Thus, a student who leaves home to spend for four of five years in Moscow will have a brief respite from the rest of the world while they focus on their studies, the classmates, and the University. I don’t think that is the same experience here. A young student here basically lives in a beautiful garden in the middle of a city. A city, unlike Moscow, does not revolve around anyone institution but bustles with continuous activity. A student can simply take a step of the campus and forget their studies, their classes, and their university troubles.

I’m not sure which setting is better, I don’t really think that either is better, rather, they are different. Had I a second choice, I’m pretty sure I would choose another rural school but there are definite advantages for the urban setting.

You know you've been in law school too long when...

You start dreaming about lectures you never attended and arguing with professors who you never had. I won't go into the gory detail but I had a very vivid dream of sitting in a class and arguing with Professor Skover about, of all things, the subject of creativity. Wierd.

Tidbit: sore glutes and achy thighs

It was a pretty busy weekend involving a visit by a fraternity brother currently living in California and a super-half marathon.

The visit from the fraternity brother resulted in two late nights and a realization of how old we are, or conversely, how young we once were. Anyway, it was a great break from the doldrums that normally define my weekends and involved drinking, Guitar Hero, and a trip to Cowgirl Inc (a bar whose concept I don't get - if you have seen the movie Coyote Ugly than you have a pretty good idea of the place: packed, full of men staring at women dancing on the bar, and bouncers pushing you around. Some of my friend love the place but I just don't get it.)

Despite late nights on Friday and Saturday, I woke up at 5:45 Sunday morning so that I could run a half marathon at 7 AM. It was an experiment by Nike to allow users of their Nike+ technology (their partnership device with the Apple Ipod) to run a marathon in conjunction with the Women's Marathon in San Francisco. The event was coordinated by the great running store, Road Runner Sports. The store staff hosted the event, mapped out a course, provided us with aid/water stations on the course, and made the marathon seem like more than just a training run. The event, however, wasn't very well publicized and only 6 or 7 people showed up to run Sunday morning. The store manager has said 20 or so signed up. Despite the attendance issue, it was a great event with one little caveat.

I called it a super half marathon because of a mistake by the course planner that made the 13.1 mile course into a 15.1 mile course. So, it was a half marathon plus 2 miles. I had thought something was wrong when I realized before the turn around that I had already ran 6 miles and I still would have to do 6 miles back and run a 2+ miles loop around Greenlake. Regardless, I ran the whole course (I came in 1st by the way) and mentioned to the store manager that I thought the course seemed long. He cheerfully admitted to me the mistake. It was a pretty funny in retrospect. In the end, I managed to do it a little over 2 hours and averaged a 8.25 min/mile pace. Not to bad for my first super half marathon and it came with a Nike t-shirt and Tiffany key chain for my wife.

.com.bust

There was another article in the NYTimes about the resurgence of cash flowing through Silicon Valley (and other location of the high tech economy) flooding over internet start ups that don’t have revenue models to speak of. It poses two possibilities, one a return to the irrational exuberance of the late ‘90s before the .com bust or a sensible investment strategy as capitalists position themselves to be part of the largest market ever known to man.

I for one am an internet optimist. I use this media everyday from blogging here, to researching, to reading the news, or engaging in debate on various forums. The massive amounts of content generated everyday by users in mind boggling. Surely, there has never been a time in our history where the volume of human creation was higher then now with the advent of video, blogs, podcasts, news articles online and the terabytes of data being generated daily. (The quality of these human creations, however, is another topic that I will address later.) The capitalists are right to see this burgeoning phenomenon and recognize the force it has on the economy. To ignore it would be negligent.

The fundamental technology and infrastructure is different then it was in the ‘90s. The speed and capacity of the internet has grown exponentially since the turn of the millennia. Businesses now have the ability to push and pull amazing amounts of data around the net allowing for more and more sophisticated applications that can assist us in enumerable ways. Further, the reach of the net is expanding so that we are no longer tethered to our desks or laptops but can access the net from an increasing variety of advanced and increasing portable devices. Thus, the internet, as the market for information and customers is, indeed, the future.

Despite the existence of this new technology, however, commerce is still, and always will be, the same. Goods and services will always be exchanged for some price and that price economically, remembering back to Econ 101, will be set where the supply and demand curves intersect. I find the concept of commerce, however, best explained in the psychological term of “value perception”. Commerce will always be fueled by perceptions of value. For example, early on in man’s existence, I assume, that someone who had meat but not shelter would value shelter higher than meat. They would search until they came across a person with excess shelter but a grumbling stomach. Then, given the value placed on each good by the other party, they would make an exchange; meat for shelter, shelter for meat. This exchange of value still persists today although facilitated with the exchange of money. For example, I go into McDonald’s with a number of dollars in my pocket. McDonalds has a number of McChicken sandwiches on their shelves. They value the dollar in my pocket more than the McChicken sandwiches on their heat rack and I value the McChicken more than dollar in my pocket and so we make an exchange. If these values were ever equal or switched, we would never engage in commerce. Thus, commerce still depends upon value perceptions (There are a lot of economics behind how value is created and earned and distributed and takes up thousands upon thousands of pages, but for moment I’ll just focus on the high level concept).

The basic problem with the internet is that most of the content is pretty worthless, aka lacking value. When I think of all the sites generating content that I go to on a daily basis; Google, HBO, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, various podcasting services, etc… I have to question if anything they produce has much value.

In aggregate, I think they do. I go to these sites almost daily and I would not do so if I didn’t enjoy them, if I didn’t place some value on their content. But, if I had to pay for it, would I, what price would I place, where would the supply and demand curve intersect? If Google charged me to blog I would probably stop. If HBO charged me to read and comment I would spend more time studying for law school. If MySpace charged, well, I would just have human interaction again. If I did pay, I would probably only give pennies and thus, if I were the source of income, they would need billions of me to make any sort of profit. Yet, in an increasing bifurcated consumption model generating significant volume is the biggest challenge of all. End the end, all these sites do is generate viewer-ship, they produce hits, and the only consumers who values viewers more than the dollars in it’s pocket are advertisers.

Which is why the revolution of commerce some have promised with the internet has failed to occur. The internet, thus far, has only managed to provide an audience for advertisers, this is not revolutionary* (*the internet has also done great things at providing a new forum for traditional transactions – think Ebay or Costco.com, a new sales channel, yes, but hardly a great new economic society). Ultimately, this just means that customers who were previously spending money on traditional sources of viewers like television, radio and print are just moving to this money to new, more profitable forums. More profitable, yes; more efficient, perhaps; larger markets, possibly; yet, in a rational world this does not explain why Google is a $600 stock with revenues 1/36th of IBMs or why Facebook should be a billion dollar acquisition.

The resurgence of companies without revenue models and the millions pouring into them is and is not troubling. The internet is a powerful media that will be the most important marketplace during my lifetime. Companies involved in creating and expanding this new market need to grow and foster new capabilities and if investors ignore them is at their and our own collective peril. Yet, commerce is still commerce. It will always be driven by value exchanges and so far the only value the current crop of internet companies seems to know how to create is for advertisers. I have no doubt, that somewhere, there is a revolutionary who will un-tap a new source of value from the internet, but I also have some fear that if this current bubble of exuberance bursts that this revolutionary might crushed by the stampeding investors out of the marketplace.

The $2000 bag of saline.

Over on HBO, like other places in cyberspace or the local coffee shop, there is a good deal of discussion around the issue of health care. Between the unveiling on Hilary-Care redux bringing the topic back into the presidential race or the recent veto by President Bush of S-CHIP, it seems to be forefront in our collective minds right now. The debate rages between those who believe that our system of health care is the greatest in the world and the intrusion of government will only ruin it to those that believe that we are mired in some sort of dark age of humor treatments and leeching and that we need government to swoop in and safe us all. The truth is, we are somewhere in between. Our medical system is still the best in the world in some respects, high end surgery and expensive cancer treatment, and bottom of the pack in others, ER care and primary care services.

Of course, this debate is rather remote for most of us who have insurance and are healthy. It isn’t until you get sick and have to interact with health care system that you can see that there truly is a problem.

Recently, my wife got sick. Nothing life threatening, just a simple flu that had her bed ridden for a week where she was unable to go to work, eat much of anything, and left her in a general state of misery. After about 6 or 7 days of dealing with it, she finally gave in and decided to seek assistance from our much vaunted medical establishment. We made an appointment and went to see a doctor at one of the various Swedish operated medical centers around Seattle. Having insurance, we went to the upstairs clinic with an expansive waiting room littered with the latest magazines and a separate play area for the tykes. We didn’t wait long before we saw a fresh young doctor who, after 10 minutes, decided that the case might be serious and he sent us down the ER for tests. We left the posh upper floor of the hospital where the clinic resided next to a state-of the-art heart institute with plush leather chairs, new carpet smell, and crisp metal signage to the bowel of the hospital. The ER was quite the contrast. It was old, dingy, there was a faint smell of urine in the waiting room, and the all the signs were simple printed pieces of paper. Here in the ER, we waited for three hours before being seen by a nurse and subsequently, a few hours later, a doctor. The treatment cumulated in a saline IV, a couple tablets of potassium, and a prescription.

The whole ordeal took about 8 hours. Of course, about 20 minutes of that was spent with doctors, about 30 minutes with a nurse, and the rest was just waiting. So, over 7 hours of waiting for 50 minutes of healthcare. We recently got our bill and before insurance that total was over $2,000. Of course we pay only a fraction of that, around $600, but I’m puzzled by those that say that our system of healthcare is okay when it takes 8 hours and $2000 to administer an IV of saline. I ask how much lower could their standards be? Do they really fear government that much that they would choose this over upsetting the status quo?

Of course, I’m sure there is a lot more to this $2,000 bill than simply the IV and the 50 minutes of labor we saw. There are behind the scenes tests, administration, and the Dr and staffs do work on patient files, etc… And, as we were setting in a bed in the hallway since all the rooms were full, we could see that nurses and doctors spent a lot of time dealing with a computer problem as they all stared puzzled at the digital board (a 60 inch plasma on the wall that listed all the patients in the ER, etc.) and said, “Can someone call the EPIC people, the system isn’t working right.” Of course, the computer isn’t a patent, but I’m sure the patients were charged for the time. And then, of course, there are overhead expenses baked into the bill and the fact that bill is marked up to cover non-payments and shortcoming from the Medicare system. In fact, that $2,000 bill probably really doesn’t have any connection to cost realities of treatment at all.

Regardless of how academic the $2000 bill is, it doesn’t really matter because the hospital knew it would probably never see that much anyway when it created the invoice. It knows that when it sends it to my insurance carrier or to Medicare that the bill will be negotiated down (usually subject to previous negotiated terms between the carriers) to a lower amount. In fact, the only person who would ever have to pay the full $2000 is someone who had no coverage at all and, in all likelihood, would be the person in the system the least likely to be able to afford it. As it was, the insurance company paid their portion, the hospital reduced the total bill by a similar portion, and we were charged the difference, the $600 bucks.

Now, for us, $600 bucks isn’t pocket change, but we can pay it without any change in our daily lives, but what about those who are not so fortunate. I can only imagine someone who lives pay check to pay check that probably doesn’t get sick day and how they would be in a similar situation (if she had health insurance). They might be faced with a $600 dollar bills in addition to a week from work without pay and now they have to make a choice between the mortgage and their hospital bill. Something as simple as a bag of saline could throw a life, already on the edge, into havoc. This is our vaunted health care system, should something not be done?