And now for a random though on law school.

This might be a sacrilegious statement amongst my peers, but, the law doctorate, of all the doctorate degrees, is they easiest one to get.

When I think about my graduate schooling compared to what it takes to get a PhD or an MD, I am a little ashamed of that we get a doctorate too. We don’t have the research projects or advanced theses to pen, no, the heart of our education is simply reading and talking about what we’ve read. Sure, we have a testing period twice a year and there are memos and briefs to learn how to write and it you are a research assistant or member of law review you have to churn out a volume or two, but, compared with the rigors of anatomy or trying to isolate the DNA of microphages, this law stuff is cake.

It is, however, the most stressful of the doctorate degrees to get. The source of the stress is one simple item – competition. Every year law school admits thousands more students that the profession could possible need. This means that if you don’t come out of law school on top it will be a long hard slog to climb the ranks of the profession. For example, take the pay difference between recent graduates. A person graduating in the top 10% in Seattle could expect to earn 115-120K to start if they choose a big firm, the next 20-30% will probably take jobs at middle sized firm for 65-85K, this is could be a 55K difference for people with the very similar academic profiles. If you are in the bottom quartile it can sometimes take months, if ever, to find a foothold in the legal profession. Add on top to this the cost of going to law school and you can imagine the grade hungry feeding frenzy atmosphere at exam time.

Of course, it is possible to succeed without good grades. Every once and a while you will here of someone who graduated at the bottom of their class or from some 4th tier rinky-dink law school and went on to be one of the country’s best litigator’s, but I’m pretty sure this is just a local wives-tale cocked up by the administration to keep the bottom quartile enrolled and paying their tuition.

Even without the costs and the competition the very structure of law school instruction is stress inducing. The core of a legal education is reading cases and struggling to comprehend the rational and reason behind the court's decisions. In order to ensure that this largely solo activity, sitting at a desk pouring over pages and pages of legalese each day, is accomplished, law school is taught in the Socratic method. Although this method takes various form, it basically consists of an interchange between a student and the teacher with the teacher grilling the student about the material and their understanding of it. This exchange can some be between one student and the professor for the entire class period with the rest of the class simply listening and taking notes. Or it can be between the teacher and several student or, on the rare occasion, it may just be the professor having a conversation with themselves. Research has shown the Socratic method is an ineffective method for actual instruction for the majority of the students. But, instruction really isn’t the point of the Socratic method. Instruction in law school is the self taught kind, the Socratic method, instead, is designed to ensure you've read by introducing the possibility that you will have to prove your comprehension in front of the class at random times and to prepare you for the future verbal encounters you will have in practice. Therefore, the law school classroom’s primary purpose is not to serve as a setting for instruction, but rather, a stage for future performance.

A second source of stress in law school is the way we are evaluated. We have one instance, generally, for each class to prove ourselves. We have one test to earn a grade. So, if you have a bad day come test day all the time spent in class, all the reading, all the struggling with concepts could be for naught as there are no second chances. You can’t try again, there are no opportunities for redemption. On top of this, we have grading curves. Unlike a science subject, there are no right answers. There are wrong answer of course, there are misstatement of the law or complete misunderstandings, but there is not absolute right answers. There are popular right answers, there are right answers the professors tend to favor, there are right answers with or without justification, and there are even right answers that no one agrees with. Therefore, in grading, the law professors have to take all these answers that are right in their own way, as they represent knowledge of the law and might persuade a court, and choose the best ones. To do this, almost every law school imposes a stringent curve that the teachers must sort into. So, the difference between an A or a B is based not only upon how much you know but also, to some extent, upon the ability of your peers. This is a factor that can’t be controlled (unless you try to sabotage your classmates, which is known to happen from time to time, but that is another post).

So, is law school hard? No, understanding the properties of the Type B Histone Acetyltransferase Hat1: h4 tail interaction, site preference, and involvement in DNA repair is hard, understanding Chief Justice Marshall’s logic in the federal bank case is not. Is Law school stressful? Yes, realizing that if you don’t get a grade better then the kid sitting next to you that you won’t be able to pay off your student loans it enough to make your heart start beating and for you mind to question your every decision in life. I write this so that the next time a kid sits down next to me and starts complaining about how hard law school I’ll be able to explain to them that what they are feeling is an apprehension of stress, not difficulty.

Blogger

I've been meaning to post, but lately due to work and school I haven't had much energy left over for this thing. I went to a Ron Paul (R-Texas) rally the other day just for kicks and to see the man speak. I'll try to post a run down in a few days.

BTW - happy belated Constitution Day. Yesterday I went to a debate on the recent Supreme Court decision that found Seattle public schools use of race in school choice was unconstitutional. It was an interesting discussion and it deserves a blog post of it's own, but that probably won't happen.

The Lamest Couple in Seattle

Well, I think I can safely assert that my wife and I are the lamest two people in Seattle. A glorious sun filled weekend in the Puget Sound and what did we do with it. Nothing. Bring on the rain.

I did go for a 13 mile run on Saturday through the neighborhood; through the UW campus and greek row, to greenlake which I lapped twice and back. On my trip I ran through a sea of men, women and children garbed in orange and blue all over campus and the neighborhood streets. The Boise State Broncos were in town. Bronco fans sure do show up in force, you have to give 'em credit for that. They still lost though, proving that despite all their bravado they are still merely a mid-major, not a national player. A program that hasn't beaten a BCS team on the road in 13 games can not call itself a national caliber program. True, they are better than in-state rival Idaho, and they are one of the better mid-majors in the nation, but they still have a long, long way to go before they can be mentioned in the same breath as Ohio, Florida or hell, even, Washington State. They still bring credit to the WAC though and for that I'll give them praise, but I don't see their domination of the WAC or Idaho for that matter lasting more than a year or two.

It did make me thankful to live in a college neighborhood though. I love living so close to the UW when the fall changes the colors on the trees and the campus comes to life. Not sure what it is but I wouldn't ever want to live in a town without a college.

Of Wal-Mart, Lower Prices, and Toy Safety

The Toy Industry is asking the fed to issue some tighter regulations after the recent spat of toy recalls. They industry claims that this is to restore customer faith in their products, the customer, as the toy industry argues, will see that the government is acting and be reassured in their future purchases. I don’t think, however, that this is the only reason that the toy industry wants tighter regulations, they want the government to help protect their customers from the market, a market that the toy industry is powerless to standup to on their own.

Protecting customer from the market, you ask? Shouldn’t they be doing that, isn’t this the toymakers fault, how can you blame the market? Easy. Think Wal-Mart.

I’ve been surprised that Wal-Mart has escaped any press in latest toy scandal. The toy market is dominated by Wal-Mart, if you don’t believe me, just ask Toys-R-Us. And in toys, just like anything Wal-Mart does, it has one relentless pursuit, lower prices. I imagine the conversation in Bentonville goes something like this:

Wal-Mart to the toy industry: We need lower prices?
Mattel: How?
Wal-Mart: We don’t care, just find a way if you want to sell to us.
Mattel: Okay.

Mattel to supplier in china: We need lower costs?
Supplier: How?
Mattel: We don’t care, just find a way if you want to sell to us.
Supplier: Okay

Apparently, in China cutting cost means lead paint and shoddy parts. But this is nothing new, remember the dog food scare. If you went into a Wal-Mart during the crisis did you notice the dog food shelves, empty? Thus, we have the biggest buyer forcing the lowest production costs possible and the market responding, should we be surprised at the results. In a market obsessed with price and no regulatory enforcement, safety is apparently the first to go.

I’m not a huge Wal-Mart basher, I know there are those who rail against everything the store stands for. I will admit that Wal-Mart has a place in our economy as a growth engine and has brought a new level of efficiency to the consumer markets. These are things that the company should be lauded for. And I’m not really certain that we can place the blame on Wal-Mart for these recalls, Wal-Mart didn’t make the decision to hire these suppliers or use shoddy production materials. However, I think I’m safe in concluding that Wal-Mart is the strongest source of market pressure that resulted in the shoddy decision making at Mattel.

So, to bring this short diatribe full circle. Mattel should be seeking regulation. When there is one force in the market bringing so much pressure to bear that these type of cost cutting measure are the result, the only tool they have is regulation to rebut this force and level the playing field against a powerful, one sided consumer. This fact, coupled with the chance that regulation might help restore customer confidence a little, would make regulation worth it to save their struggling company. But, yet in this discussion we must not loose track of a bigger point. This is, nothing is free. Prices can not be reduced infinitum, something must give, and if market pressures are left to batter companies and consumers for the sake of profit than often consumer safety is that thing which gives.

I Live But I Do Not Blog

For some reason I just haven't been up to blogging since I left on vacation. Since returning back from southern Idaho, the fall semester of law school has started, I've been busy applying for a new clerkship next summer, and I just haven't cared about put endless amount of bullshit on this here computer screen. I'm sure it's just a phase, though, I'll be back to various diatribe before long.

Anyway, the the trip was okay, went to Yellowstone, saw some bison and some hot, stinky water jetting out of the ground, super. Here's some pics

Undergraduate Rankism

The US News and World Report college issue came out just in time to put those new freshmen into a state of apprehension over choosing the wrong school as they head off to campus at the end of this month. Thanks guys.

Anyway, I took the time this morning (while putting off editing some contract language) to sift through the data and give you a ranking of major schools in the West (Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, & Utah). I haven't ranked every school and if I didn't get to yours, tough.
Anyway, I have created a ranking based on the nat'l ranking and where school tied, I used selectivity (on the assumption that the more selective a school is the larger the applicant pool it has and therefore the market has endorsed it) and endowment size (as a larger endowment = more resources per student and a better ability to invest in the core mission of the school.) So, without further adieu, here are the rankings:

Group 1 - Nat'l Universities or the school that have a national research impact and produce Doctoral degrees. The only surprises in this group was the size of UW's endowment, over a billion, wow; and that Portland State is the biggest school in Oregon surpassing both U of O and OSU.

Forge Rankings School Enrollment Selectivity Endowment (M) Student Body Endowment/Student Ranking
1 U of Wash. More Selective  $ 1,786.594        27,836   $  64,182.86  Nat'l - #42
2 BYU         More Selective       -        30,480                    Nat'l - #79
3 U of Colorado More Selective  $    290.700        26,165   $  11,110.26  Nat'l - #79
4 U of Ore. Selective  $    454.873        16,529   $  27,519.69  Nat'l - #112
5 Wash. State More Selective  $    351.162        19,554   $  17,958.58  Nat'l  - #118
6 Colorado State Selective  $    161.316        21,283   $    7,579.57  Nat'l - #124
7 Ore. State Selective  $    440.042        15,829   $  27,799.73  Nat'l - 3rd Tier
8 U of Utah More Selective  $    425.319        22,155   $  19,197.43  Nat'l - 3rd Tier
9 U of Idaho Selective  $    177.774          9,127   $  19,477.81  Nat'l - 3rd Tier
10 U of Hawaii Selective  $    142.000        14,037   $  10,116.12  Nat'l - 3rd Tier
11 Utah State More Selective  $    110.072        12,779   $    8,613.51  Nat'l - 3rd Tier
12 Montana State Selective  $      72.893        10,832   $    6,729.41  Nat'l - 3rd Tier
13 U of Montana Selective  $      17.134        10,357   $    1,654.34  Nat'l - 3rd Tier
14 Idaho State Selective  $      28.306        10,640   $    2,660.34  Nat'l - 4th Tier
15 Portland State Less Selective  $      34.508        17,998   $    1,917.32  Nat'l - 4th Tier

The next group is of Master's School, these are school that provide, for the most part, education that is regionally based with limited research and doctoral programs. (yes, despite BSU's prowess on the fball field, this is still where it lives). The surprise here, who knew BSU would be tied with EWU, probably not all those Broncos down in Boise. Also, I thought U of Alaska would be higher.

Forge Rankings School Enrollment Selectivity Endowment (M) Student Body Endowment/Student Ranking
1 Gonzaga U.  More Selective  $    128.881          4,275   $  30,147.60  Master's West - #3
2 U of Portland More Selective  $      81.212          2,907   $  27,936.70  Master's West - #5
3 Seattle U. More Selective  $    182.290          4,160   $  43,819.71  Master's West - #6
4 Boise State Selective  $      64.763          17,042   $  3,800.20  Master's West - #43
5 E. Wash.  Less Selective  $        6.376   9,838   $  648.10  Master's West - #43
6 U. Of Alaska Less Selective  $      14.880        16,242   $   916.14  Master's West - 3rd Tier

Finally, is Whitman, in the lonely liberal arts group. What was surprising here is the size of the endowment for this tiny school, over 200K per student!!! Makes you wonder why they have to charge 40K+ a year?

Forge Rankings School Enrollment Selectivity Endowment (M) Student Body Endowment/Student Ranking
1 Whitman More    Selective         $    340.802 1,455   $ 234,228.18         Liberal Arts - #37

BTW - I'm heading off for vacation to see the fam in Pocatello Idaho so I might be posting some pics of our trip or I might not post at all, I guess you have to wait and see. Thanks.

Update to UI-Sandpoint

Well, according to U of I Pres. Tim White, the foundation that the UI is selling it's land to will, after a period of time, gift the land and the buildings back to the UI. However, how long a period of time and exactly why the sell of the land and then re-gifting needs to happen in the first place is still a question mark?

It's a gift, who doesn't like a gift?

I know I'm supposed to be all happy about the recent gift to the U of Idaho by the founder of Coldwater Creek. He has agreed to give the University over 30 million so that they can build a 4 building extension campus is Sandpoint. Sounds great, no?

But this is more than a simple donation. As part of the "gift", the U of Idaho is going to sell over 70 acres it owns near downtown to his non-profit organization. The organization will then "allow" the University to construct it's campus on a portion of the land. As part of the deal, the city of Sandpoint will have to construct a high school on remaining portion of the parcel or it will revert back to University ownership. Sounds good, huh? The University is allowed to expand, full-fill it's mission of educating the state, it brings much needed higher education opportunities to the region, and the city secures core downtown land for a future high school.

But I can't help but be skeptical. I'm not sure why the University had to transfer possession of land in order to build on the land. Why couldn’t the donation merely be stipulated on the construction of the extension campus? Why did the school have to transfer possession of such a potentially valuable strip of property? In 100 years, with as fast as Sandpoint is growing, when the city by the lake will be over 100,000 people, will the "foundation" break the lease with the University and develop on the prime real estate it has acquired? Is this simply a way to set up a nice family trust and avoid tax consequences? What is being done to protect the University in the long term?

Even without the transfer of property, the construction of the school itself benefits the benefactor. He is trying to develop a fortune 500 smack dab in the middle of nowhere. This, no doubt, complicates the already incredibly difficult task of finding smart, educated workers. Even here in Seattle, in the supposed "best educated city" in America, Microsoft and other employers struggle to find educated labor. I can only imagine the difficulty faced by the shortage of skill, educated labor in North Idaho that Coldwater Creek must work with. It is much cheaper, for Coldwater Creek, if it can find a way to educate the labor force it already has rather than try to import them from somewhere else. So, the presence of the school is a direct benefit to his company and his personal fortunes. So why did he need to require the U of I to sell the land to his organization?

I know I should be more trusting. I'm sure that there are no nefarious motives and that this gift was truly that, a gift, for the benefit of the University, the citizens of Sandpoint, and the people of Idaho. But, yet, I'm still skeptical? As proud alumni, I ask why this couldn’t have been done without the school having to give up a valuable asset. Anyone have any answers?

Social Entropy

I still think about them and wonder if they think about me? Do they still remember me, have they found someone to replace me, and if so do they like who they have now better then me? I wonder why I left the relationship in the first place, what was wrong that made me desire to leave; I can’t seem to remember now. What would my life be like if I had stayed in the relationship, would I be happy or still miserable? Was I even miserable? Questions like these, sometimes, enter my mind when I think about former employers.

I was browsing the internet, and for some reason I can’t recall, I started searching the job postings at Eddie Bauer, my first corporate HR gig after college, and noticed that my old job is posted. It made me think of my old co-workers. I wondered if they were still there working on our old eternal projects, or if they had left and how life was like without me. Conceited, I know, to wonder what my impact on their life was, but all too human I suppose.

I also saw that Eddie Bauer has moved to a new location after selling their corporate campus to Microsoft. The new headquarters is in a skyscraper in Bellevue and I got the urge to drop by the new digs. I stopped myself before going though. Would they remember me, could I get someone vogue for me to get past security, would they want to talk to me, would they be angry at me for leaving them, for allowing myself to be lured away by a former director to a new employer. Would I be perceived as the lame former employee who just couldn't move on?

The new Eddie Bauer HQ in downtown Bellevue.

Are old employers like old girlfriends? Each of whom, after breaking apart the relationship, it is impossible to remain friends with? Is it just too hard, is it unnatural, our we just supposed to move on?

It isn’t surprising, at least to me, that I would have similar emotions regarding former employers as to former girlfriends. If you think about work most Americans spend more waking hours with their coworkers than with their spouse/sig. others, they work through problems together, they revel in business victories and march through defeats, and throughout all of this, people can become very close through work.

My last job was with the Medial System division of Philips Electronics and while there I made some good friend with a couple guys. We would go out and have a beers, bitch about our projects and inept management, and talk about our families. We tried to do this a few time after I left, but the periods between outings grew from every couple months to once every six months and now it has been more than six months since I’ve even talked with them. Have we lost touch because we no longer share the common experience of work, is it because I’ve completely left the field of HR and moved into law, or was our relationship simply based on our shared work that it couldn’t survive without the common connection?

Life is supposed to be a continual forward progression, and I suppose, if you let it, it is easy for the currents of time pull you away from former employer, former loves, and people who once, at that moment in life, were essential to who you were. So, I guess I am left with the question of how hard should you try to fight the essential tide of life, how hard do you press to keep in touch with those to whom your common thread has been cut? I suppose, the answer is how much is it worth to you, how valuable are those friends gained through work and will you spend the energy required to fight the basic entropy that seems to be the underlying ingredient of modern social relationships.

Anyway, ramble off.

Color Catastrophe

Well, I haven't been posting for a while because I have been repainting the exterior trim work/molding on our house.

After living in our house for over a year, we just couldn't stomach the dark pink color that the previous owner had loved (in addition to the pink trim, she had painted the interior walls pink and had the kitchen done up in two shades of pink) so we decided to bite the bullet and finish this project before the end of the summer.

My wife, picked out a really cool color palette consisting of three colors; a very light cream blue for the soffits and columns supporting our front stoop, a middle hue gray-blue for the window trim and crown moldings, and then a dark blackish blue for the surface of the stoop steps. The three colors looked very cool on the color swatch thingy and we were very excited to put brush to wood.

So, after spending all last week power washing, sanding, taping and other prep work we got to work painting on Saturday morning. We decided to start with the lightest color and then add the other colors as we worked. After the entire day of painting, we completed the painting all the soffit, columns and some of the moldings on the front of the house by about 9 pm Saturday night. We packed up our gear and went in for the night.

Sunday, we rose early again and headed outside to work. My wife, as I was starting to paint the trim work around the molding asked in a way that could only be a statement rather than a question, "What do you think of the color?"

I took a step back and looked at the house. Agreeing with the doubtful tone of her question I answered, "I don't like it."

Crap.

While the color combination looked good on the color swatches, it just didn't work with the existing color of our siding or the color of the roof. It was too blue for a color palette that should have stayed in the browns. We stood for a couple minutes looking at the house, moving into the street to get a better vantage point, and then coming back in close to reexamine all the while trying to convince ourselves that the colors would work out.

"I was having doubts yesterday when you started painting the soffits. I should have said something." She finally confided to me.

I agreed but there was nothing that we could do about it. We decided that it was simply best just to start over. So, back to Lowe's we went, to pick new colors that would work better on the house we had rather than some house we wished we had. It took a while, there was a lot of comparing this color to that, of buying quart cans of various colors and trying them on the walls (we should have done the first time) and then finally settling on brown and green palette. However, by the time we started painting again, Sunday afternoon was all but gone. By the end of the weekend we were basically in the same position where we had started on Saturday morning. Two days wasted.

Thus, my plan this week was to paint everyday after work and hopefully I'll have the front done by this weekend and then I can move to the back and sides next week. Unfortunately, it has clouded up and it looks as though it might rain, so painting might be delayed yet again. It seems, as my wife commented this morning, "our house is never going to get painted." I'm starting to share her fear.

Bellingham, the city of subdued excitement.

So, I was listening to KUOW on my IPOD while taking a running break from studying (I ran 8 miles today, thank you very much) and heard the best nickname ever for the lovely city to our north and home to Western Washington U: Bellingham, the city of subdued excitement. I liked it so much that I decided to further procrastinate from studying for my Professional Responsibility exam (btw, procrastination is technically forbidden for lawyer. Rule 1.3 of the general rules of professional conduct state that a lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness, yes that's right, promptness in representing a client. I'm entering a career where the I'm technically forbidden from procrastinating. I'm fucked. Anywhoo...) to research where that nickname came from. I came across this hilarious, or perhaps just mildly amusing, well, no, I'm pretty sure it is hilarious, but probably only for a long time resident of pugetopia, from the Seattle Time April 1 edition. I can't believe I missed it the first time, but hey, who doesn't like a good rerun of four month old newspaper media.

Enjoy: Our City by the Numbers. (just to wet your appetite, come on, click it, you know you want to, here is a short excerpt:

12 STEPS ON THE ROAD TO SEATTLE DEMOCRACY
If only Iraqis could learn the Seattle Way. No Saddams here. A primer:
• All decision-makers must be elected.
• No elected official is capable of making a decision.
• All decisions will be submitted to a public vote.
• All votes are advisory.
• There will be a public hearing to interpret the meaning of the results.
• All interpretations will be appealed.
• Repeat as infinitely necessary.

or how about this little tid bit:

666 WAYS WE'RE SAVING THE WORLDLet's face it, from airliners to software, Seattle has pretty much fixed the world. Have we gotten the credit we deserve? Hardly. Billions of dollars, yes, but that's not exactly thanks. So let's recap how Seattle saved civilization:

How 'bout that Dreamliner? Higher ceiling. Bigger windows. Jetson curves. And airline seats crammed so tightly together that you still have to balance your plastic-wrapped snack on a 1-inch armrest while climbing over a fat man to stand in line for a dirty restroom while someone complains you're blocking their 6-inch movie screen. Can't wait!

Windows Vista! Can you feel the excitement? See-through graphics and a whole new set of commands to learn for only $239, plus $1,200 for a machine capable of running it. Does Microsoft ever sleep?

Priapus! Another miracle drug from Seattle biotech, guaranteed to keep things up for six days at a time! Next task: genetically engineering a wife who cares.

Wiich one shall it PS3?

I admit it, I love video games. I always have. My early childhood consisted of playing countless hours of Atari 2600 games like Adventure, Pitfall, and yes, even ET. Later, I remember pining for the NES in grade school and walking the five miles to Eric’s (a boy I hardly knew) house so that I could play his. When my parent’s finally gave a NES for Christmas in the sixth grade, I jumped up and ran around the house like a wild hare. Later, when I had my first job working as a groundkeeper at a Condo complex in Pocatello, I turned my first two weeks of scraping railings, mowing grass, and replacing sprinkler heads into a SNES and a strangely unforgettable title, Xardion, and the obligatory copy of Pilot Wings.

From then on countless weekends were spent in front of the television in the basement beating game after game. My regular weekend routine would consist of my mom stopping by the movie place on her way home from work and renting me a game that I would spend the weekend (including the wee hours of the morning) beating, wearing my thumbs raw on the familiar, square controller of the SNES. In college, I was lucky to be living with fraternity brothers with better financial means than I who offered up their N64’s and Playstation and faster computers to my addiction. One weekend, when the house emptied out for a President’s day weekend ski trip and trips home to do laundry, I stayed behind to beat Metal Gear Solid. Later, in my final years of college, I turned my scholarship money into the Playstation 2, getting the last one in the store and taking home a shitty release title racing game. I later supplemented the PS2 with the Xbox and a Halo addiction. Most recently, I turned this interest into project for my legal research class by researching copyright issues in game publishing. My professor thought it was good work but thought that I was joking when, in my projects introduction, I compared video games to great works of art. I wasn’t.

Anyway, here it is, well into the seventh generation of video game consoles and I have yet to purchase one. I have valid reasons why I haven't. One, I decided to grow up and go back to law, which meant cutting our take home pay in half. Two, my wife really doesn’t enable my habit like my mother; she does not stop buy the game store after work and pick me up a copy of the latest game and a pizza. And third, well, there is no third, it basically comes down to me no longer working and my wife's disapproval of the hobby.

This all changed this week, however, when my wife finally gave her tacit approval for me to purchase a new system. I have been diligently working as a law clerk bringing in a little extra income and I had a good year in school, cracking at least the top 15%, thus she thinks I’ve earned one. But, unlike when I was a corporate drone, I can’t afford each of them and can only buy one. So, I am torn, which console should I buy?

One option is the market darling, the Wii. True, it does look like fun. Who can resist failing around your living room, swinging at the screen, and the bright colors that are the hallmarks of Nintendo’s offering. Even my wife has said that she would like to play it. This, coupled with it being the cheapest of the three, makes it a contender. But, and this is a big but, I think Nintendo has abandoned the hardcore gameer. When a company touts the new Mario game as their keystone, hardcore game you know they’ve left us serious players behind. I have played part of Zelda and thought it was fun, but Zelda, Mario, and the new version of Metroid are just-not-going-to-cut-it. Were I still working I would, no doubt, own a Wii-box (common term for buying both the Xbox 360 and the Wii), but I just don’t think Nintendo will get this student's money.

Speaking of the Xbox, I am leaning toward buying console. It has a pretty good library at the moment and with Metal Gear, Halo 3, and GTA on the horizon, this console a tough choice to resist. However, I know the price will drop soon and I am aghast to purchase within the next week or so only to have the price drop the next month. Come on Microsoft, word is out, everyone knows you are going to rearrange your pricing scheme, so just do it already!!!

Yet, there is still that black temptress, the PS3. Sure, the library sucks and as Microsoft is fond of saying, “it’s the software stupid.” Sony should know this. The original Xbox just couldn’t match the sheer depth of the PS2’s library and that is why they trailed market volume war in the last generation. But, Sony had a great showing at E3. The new titles look amazing, better than what is on deck for the Xbox, and as developers get used to the new architecture scheme, I think we will see some truly amazing titles in the future. This coupled with the fact that the hardware is better (note to Microsoft: I used to buy all my multiplatform titles in the Xbox version because they just ran better on your beefier system. Conversely, I think the same would be true today if I had both the PS3 and the 360; I would purchase multiplatform title on the PS3 vs the 360 because they would probably run better.) But is it worth it to wait to buy the PS3 on the mere chance that the titles might pan out given the costs and the wait until said title appear? Probably not.

Decision. Decisions. Decisions. What is a console purchaser to do? Perhaps just be content with PC? Readers, any thought?

If Only, If Only

Another Plug for Pluggd

Not too often that I plug things on this blog but I thought I would post this story about my brother-in-law's company in the PI and encourage everyone to check website here: pluggd.com.

Pluggd's audio player debuts on ZDNET

Seattle-based Pluggd has inked its first deal with a major media company, bringing its audio search technology to select podcasts on ZDNET.
It is currently available on Dan Farber & Larry Dignan's recent podcast on the iPhone and other topics, allowing users to type keywords into Pluggd's search box in order to find specific information.

A colleague of mine just used it, searching for words such as "iPhone," "Jobs" and "Microsoft." Doing so, returns a color-coded "heat map" of the frequency in which those words appear at certain periods in the audio file. Pluggd's HearHere technology also is available on the MonkCast program.
Cornelius Willis, chief marketing officer at Pluggd, said that he believes this is the first time that a major online publisher "has provided the ability to search within rich media."
Pluggd raised $1.65 million in venture funding last December from a group of angel investors that included Scott Oki, Paul Maritz and Bill Bryant. Intel Capital also participated.
Founded by former Amazon.com manager Alex Castro, Pluggd has been winning plenty of attention since launching the audio search technology, with write-ups in Wired and The Economist.
VentureBeat has more details, saying that Pluggd is in the process of raising a big round of capital. That's something I am hearing as well. But as I have mentioned before, I wouldn't be surprised to see one of the search giants eventually pick up Pluggd.

-John Cook, Seattle PI June 29, 2007

Even if the company does eventually get bought about by Google, Yahoo, as some are predicting I’m still expecting for he and my sister in law to watch my dog no matter how many millions they get.

Ranking of Law School (Western States)

I recently pulled all of the Western State's (in my book if you are western state if you are West of, or touch, the Rockies) law schools from the recent US New and World Report to see how the various school compared within the region. I know I've rallied against these ranking in the past, but I'll admit it, I'm a hypocrite and that part of me really loves lists of things (weird, huh). So, despite not wanting to give too much authority to these type of things, here it is anyway.


Top 100 Western Law Schools (Nat'l Rank)(US News allows ties but the ranking number continues after tie, for example Stanford and Harvard are number both ranked #2 so there is no #3, NYU is number #4):
1 Stanford (#2)
2 UC – Berkley (#8)
3 UC - LA (#15)
4 USC (#16)
5 U Washington (#28)
6 UC- Davis (#34)
7 UC (Hastings) (#36)
7 U Colorado (#36)
9 BYU (#44)
9 U Arizona (#44)
11 ASU (#51)
12 U of Utah (#57)
13 Pepperdine (#66)
14 U New Mexico (#70)
15 U Denver (#77)
16 Lewis & Clark (#82)
16 U Oregon (#82)
18 Seattle U (#85)
18 U San Diego (#85)
20 Santa Clara (#91)
21 U Hawaii (#91)
22 UNLV (#100)
22 U San Francisco (#100)
22 U of Pacific (#100)

Tier 3 - Unranked Nationally
25 Gonzaga U (WA)
25 Southwestern (CA)
25 U Idaho
25 U Montana
25 U Wyoming

Tier 4 - Unranked Nationally
31 California Western
31 Chapman (CA)
31 Golden Gate (CA)
31 Thomas Jefferson (CA)
31 Whittier (CA)
31 Willamette U (OR)

Why Does Google Want Me To Fail? Or, Why The Dog Ate My Homework.

I suppose you could call me a Google fan. I’m currently blogging on blogger, I put my blog photos in Picasa, I have a gmail account, I use Google Earth to plan running courses around the city, I’ve played around with the online spreadsheet and document, and I’ve even occasionally clicked on one of the ubiquitous ads that pay for it all. The little company has come a long way from the nondescript search page that I heard about from my brother in the computer labs at U of Idaho in 1997.

Before Google we had search engines like Alta Vista, Lycos, and others that I’ve forgotten. Remember them? When you searched for anything with them they invariably brought you back porn. It didn’t matter what you were looking for, you could input “puppies” and they would fetch you German bestiality pics. Of course in the middle nineties the only thing on the internet was porn and a few research papers, but, nonetheless, it was pretty insufferable. Then Google came and actually brought you stuff that, although not what you were looking for, it at least had a puppy or two in it. Since then, Google has been churning out product after product to keep our minds and eyeballs hovering over their ad space. It’s been pretty effective.

Their latest product that I’ve fallen for is Google Reader (GR). This little gem is basically an RSS reader, but it so much more than that. Like other RSS readers, GR brings you back RSS feeds you have selected. GR also has prepackaged interest bundles that bring collections of sites, and if you choose to, stores them on your hard-drive so you can click through the internet even when you are not online. It also organizes the sites and puts them neatly into their respective categories, allows you to scroll quickly through the headers and pictures, and monitors which stories you actually click on to read or just pass by, all the while keeping stats on what you've read, what type of stuff you've read, how many time a day you read. Wow. And all of it worthless.

I love Google Reader and I find myself spending hours with it numbingly clicking through stories that interest me and even those that don’t. But, I actually read very few of them, I just scan the header and the intro paragraphs, look at the pictures, and then move on. I should click on the stories and read them, but I don’t, because I have hundred of these things waiting for me to peruse. If I actually read them I’d never get on with my day. Therefore, I don't think GR has resulted in a more "informed" me, it has just made me more aware of the fact that there is an awful lot of content on the web (and most of it is awful) and I need to quit my job and become a full time internet addict.

This is what technology seems to have brought us, thousands and thousand of tiny distractions. Instead of the promise of improve productivity so that we could work for a few hours a day and spend the rest of our hours enjoying life, I spend hours blogging or on tool like GR that I should have been using for work, spending time with my family, or studying. And I’m pretty sure that there are other our their like me who spend way to much time enjoying these productivity and internet “life aid” tools rather than actually working.

Oh well, time is up on this rant, I have to get off blogger and put some time over on Google Reader, or I could actually do some work …

Another Meth Lab in Paradise

I've had to drive down to Mason County Courthouse twice this week for work. I've never been to Mason county before but it is a gorgeous little piece of Washington. The county has the more miles of coastline than any other county in Washington, the geography is rolling hills covered in forests and dotted by grassy clearings. But, this ideal little county is crime ridden; Meth, poverty, car jacking, you name it. Sad that someplace so beautiful can be such mess.

Anyway, here is the beautiful county courthouse in Shelton.


On the drive back to Seattle, I got stuck in traffic, of course, and I wonder why I rarely leave the city on a weekday!

As you can tell I was a little bored staring at the steering wheel


Thank goodness for Ipod.

What's for dinner?

Here is something I haven’t done before on this blog; share a recipe. I really like this one, and it is super simple, so why not share?

Mandarin Beef Medallions – beef, honey, soy sauce, ginger and garlic - what more could you want?

Ingredients:
• 4 beef medallions – the recipe calls to trim them but I say, hey, why get rid of tasty beef fat?
• 3 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 4 teaspoons Asian (dark) sesame oil – I use toasted.
• 1 garlic close, minced
• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger – I’ve used both minced fresh ginger and ground ginger, I prefer the fresh but the ground will do if you are pressed for time or just don’t have any ginger around. The same princple holds true for the garlic.
• ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
• ½ teaspoon salt – I use sea-salt, of course.

The process is pretty simple.
1. Trim the medallions or leave the fat on, your choice. Combine the rest of the ingredients (except the salt) into shallow dish that all your steaks will fit in. Be sure to stir the honey so that it dissolves into the liquid. Then put the steak into the liquid, turn a few time to coat, cover, and then let stand for 10 minutes at room temp.
2. Meanwhile, heat a nonstick ridged grill pan (or a non stick pan if you don’t have a grill pan, I personally haven’t seen my ridge pan since we moved and a flat pan works just fine although sans grill marks. I have yet to try this on a grill but it should work out well there too) over high heat. When a drop of water skitters across the pan (this is important, your grill must be hot enough to boil water on contact!!!) put the steaks onto the pan and sear each side of the steak for one minute.
3. Reduce the heat to medium high, salt the steaks, and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes to your desired doneness (and I hope that is rare).
4. Pour the left over marinade over the steaks, turning the steaks a couple times, until the sauce thickens into a light glaze. Remove from heat and let the steaks rest for ten minutes or so. Top the steaks with the glaze before serving.

The result is tasty, sweet and salty steak with a nice crust. I’m currently in the ten minute sitting process while the steak get happy in the marinade, it’s actually been a bit longer than that, so, off to the stove for me! I might post a pic when they are done.

Update;
Here is how it turned out ...


Note, things can get pretty smoky when you are searing. Hopefully, you, unlike me, have good kitchen ventilation. I really, really need to get to Albert Lee next weekned and buy a stove hood!!!

Well, The Police concert was pretty good. It wasn’t great, the U2 concert last year was great, but The Police was just pretty good. The first song, Message in a Bottle, was pretty rough. Sting was trying to keep it slow and Stewart and Andy were trying to speed things up, the result was very hard to listen to. At first, I thought this was going to be a repeat that Stewart described in his blog.

But, they pulled things together about halfway through the second song, Synchronicity II, and the rest of the concert was fantastic. The crowd was so old that I seemed young in comparison, which was nice. Despite the review in the PI , the concert did have empty seats. I’m sure they were all sold but there were continuous row of empty seats which is a tell-tale sign of scalper’s touch. The fact that these seats were empty means the scalpers got screwed, they couldn’t sell the blocks of seats they bought, and that notion brought a smile to my face. It is horrible that scalper buy up tickets in bulk such that the average purchaser can’t get tickets to “sold out” shows and then turn around and sell them at huge mark-ups. I had several friends who couldn’t get tickets but wanted to go; thus I’m just glad these scalpers lost money, but still, it sad that those seats went empty when there were certainly people who would have wanted to see the show.

Anyway, I ran in the Sound to Narrow 12K yesterday. I had been hoping to break 60 minutes but I think I was just shy at 62 minutes. I stopped in one place while climbing the last hill and I’m sure that was where I screwed up. It rained through the entire race. By the time I was done I was soaked to the bone and then I had to wait for another 20-30 minutes until the people I came with finished standing in the cold and soaking up the rain with every piece of clothing on me. By the end I was pretty chilled and it took me a long hot bath to feel normal. I’m feeling pretty good today, my butt it a tad sore but none the worse for where. I’m already looking for my next run to help me to get to my end goal, the Seattle Marathon in November.

Well, I should get back to my homework. I currently doubt my rational for taking a course this summer. I’m not sure why I did it. I won’t graduate early, I’m not taking a reduced class load in the fall, and all I’ve done is ruin my summer. Oh well. Live and Learn. Later.

Yawn ...

Man, am I tired.

We didn't get a weekend this week, not really anyway. My mother-in-law's mother, Grandma C, fell and broke her hip and we drove to Spokane to see her. While Grandma C is recuperating in a facility in Spokane, her daughter (my mother in law) has decided that it is high time to clean her house. Like a lot of elderly folks, Grandma C is a pack rat. She never throws away anything and she has a bad habit of buying dolls/coins/etc off the TV, from magazine ads, and any other source of cheap crap. The problem is that the various items she buys, from her limited income, are marketed as collectibles that will only increase in value when; in fact, the only thing they collect is dust. I swear that these companies must consciously prey on unsophisticated consumers like Grandma C who are suckered into buying this junk as a form of investment; people who prey on weak consumers should be dragged out and shot. Anyway, as a result of her weakness for these sales pitches, and her inability to let things go, her four bedroom house has only one usable room and floor space is a rare commodity. Thus, there will be a few long months of sorting through everything, determining what is pure junk, what is valuable (either emotionally or financially) and giving away (or dumping) the rest. We got a start on Saturday by removing the big items, a 35 year old broken television that must have weighed 100+ lbs, a moldy waterbed, etc … All stuff that, had Grandma C been there, she would not have let us throw out.

With all the driving and working in Grandma C's house, I didn’t really get a chance to recharge this weekend and, as a result, I'm really dragging this week. My work day is just too long, from about 7 – 10. Here is my typical weekday. I get up at 6:00 am and leave the house by about 6:45 to get to work by 7:00, I stay until 4:30 pm, drive home and let the dog out, I then drive to the law school at 5:00 pm to do some last minute preparing for the class I'm taking for the summer, class start's at 6:00 pm and goes until 7:35 or so, then I go home and eat dinner and then read/study until 10:00 pm when I go to bed. Repeat. I can't wait until school starts in the fall so I can take a rest! I shouldn't complain. It is not going to get any easier when I'm actually in practice. Take for example this excerpt from my textbook on Professional Responsibility:

"You will end up billing only about two hours for every three hours that you spend at "work." And thus, to bill 2000 hours per year, you will have to spend about sixty hours per week at the office, and take no more than two weeks vacation/sick time/personal leave. If it takes you, say, forty-five minutes to get to work, and another forty-five minutes to get home, billing 2000 per year will mean leaving home at 7:45 am, working at the office from 8:30 a.m. until 6:30 pm, and then arriving home at 7:15 p.m - and doing this six days per week, every week. That make for long days, and for long weeks, and you will have to work these hours not just for a month or two, but year after year after year" Patrick J. Schiltz, "On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession. Vanderbilt Law Review. 1999.

Good for me that I would rather be overworked than bored.

Anyway, the one respite I have during the week are Wednesdays (because I don't have class on Wednesdays) and this Wednesday (tonight) I'm going to see The Police in concert at the Key. I'm pretty excited (as anyone who walked by my room in Fraternity house and could hear music coming from the room could probably attest) to see them. I heard they sucked in their show up in Vancouver, but here’s to hoping they have the kinks worked out by tonight. I'll post a review tomorrow. Hopefully.