Taco – Page 37

Stop Children What’s That Sound

December 12, 2014 by Taco

[This got posted early, then I took it down, then it posted itself again, I blame Comcast. Here it is again, updated with new stuff, in its proper glory]

[Taco’s Update – 12/5/14 – As this is posted I’m currently in the middle of my first ever law school examination period. This pretty much amounts to 10 solid days of hell. Each exam is 100% of your grade and each exam ranges between 4 and 8 hours. These are not essays, these are not multiple choice exams, they are an application of every tiny little rule you have learned over an entire semester to a fact pattern that might be between 1000 and 2000 words itself. In essence, these are the exams to end all exams. I would gladly take 10 full-length research papers over these exams. But I have no choice. So, I’m out. There will be no blog posts from me for the duration of the exam period. I also imagine that there will only be one more post from me after this one for the rest of the year. I intend for it to be the much referenced “So What Do I Think About Law School?” post. So, thanks for reading so far, I’ll see you in a bit. And now, back to to the regularly scheduled post below that I mostly wrote before the semester even started. Its crazy how time flies]

Hold Up There

I’m going to take a break from the regularly scheduled posts for a second to say that.. well, there are no more regularly scheduled posts. Up until this point, almost everything that has been posted on this blog (since its rebirth) has been after the fact (to some degree) and scheduled. So if you were wondering why some of the earlier things seemed really out of order, that would be why, it was all part of some some cosmic script by yours truly.

From here on out posts should be more related to whatever has transpired chronologically before them. Do not mistake that as meaning it will be immediately following the event, I might take a week (or more) to blog about something. What it does mean, is that instead of jumping around by a month or more, posts should be more linear and thus (hopefully) less confusing to follow. The downside to this, is that since I no longer have an entire reserve of blog posts built up (which I ironically still do as I write this, four months before it will be posted probably be posted, it just depends on how many posts I generate), posts will not be coming as frequently. Once I got back in the swing of things, posts came roughly every three days, I would not count on that continuing. My goal at this point is to generate one post per week, but that is not guaranteed in the least, see the rules.

In light of that, I feel like its a good time to remind you that there is a subscribe feature available. I know, I know, I’ve mentioned this multiple times already, this will be the last one for awhile. I don’t make any money off this blog and its microscopic audience, I just like people to stay informed of my posting and also I liked to play around with WordPress plugins, which are more fun when they are more populated. So, if you haven’t already subscribed, feel free to do so.

Also, and this is a (mostly) new one. Feel free to invite other people to my blog and to subscribe. This blog is not secretive, I removed personal details for privacy reasons, but the blog is welcome to be shared with anyone who you think might enjoy it. I’d prefer you not flagrantly advertise my blog, since then the spambots would come by the millions, but if you have friends, family, or acquaintances who you think might enjoy a post I wrote (or the blog at large) then you are more than welcome to share and they are more than welcome to subscribe. Good places to start if you are new to the blog might be the Returning to Blogging Post, The Moving Voyage Posts (1) (2) (3), the Salem Post, my Lawyering and Law School Posts, the Ivy League post, the Boston Pre-Game post, the New England Aquarium, my 5th Anniversary Post, or possibly one of the many beer blurbs. Of course there are lots of posts in between (and after) those worth checking out as well.

With that said, I’d always recommended subscribing (over at the side or at the bottom of the page). 🙂

That is really all I wanted to say. So look for a slightly more linear, albeit slower, pattern of posting and share the blog if you like. Additionally, if you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend reading the About Me and Who’s Who? sections of the blog, it might clear a few things up.

Until next time,
-Taco

In posts where I have no photo that ties into the subject, I might dip into my sizable archive from time to time to share something interesting. So, since I have no overly relevant picture for this post, here is a cool one:

Yes those are cars on a top of a roof. If you would like more information about why there are race cars on top of a roof, then read this interesting article about the Fiat automobile factory in Lingotto, a district in Turin, Italy.

Ivy League 101

December 7, 2014 by Taco

Consider this a further follow up to these posts: Law School 101 and Lawyerdom 101.

This post might be better entitled “Everything you never wanted to know about the Ivy League and didn’t ask because you didn’t care.”

At least that is what we will pretend.

I kid, and really this entire post is meant to be tongue-in-cheek (so keep that in mind). But its actually sort of interesting, the history of the Ivy League and all that stuff. But I’m not going to go into a big historical discussion here, that is all easily available via Google if you are interested. What I’m going to do here is do a very brief overview of what the Ivy League is, and subsequently a bit of what it isn’t, with a dash of my personal opinion thrown in for good measure.

For starters, the Ivy League is actually an athletic conference. Its not some mythical group of schools that form some academic bond based on ivy, well it is, but technically that isn’t what the name is about. In fact, the term “Ivy,” when used in reference to the group of schools as whole, has only been around since 1933. Sure, schools have spoke of their ivy-clad greatness since their founding, but using the term to refer to a group is a relatively new thing. So what schools comprise the Ivy League? Go ahead, try to think name the ones you can think of. Yes, I get it that with the huge imagine below its going to be hard to not “know” them all. But be honest with yourself and think about whether or not you could actually name them all.

I couldn’t, at least not until all that long ago.

If you are like me, then some of these are given, some of them are an “Oh yeah, that place” and one of them is “What?” (*cough* Penn). You might even have thought about places like Stanford or MIT (I thought they were Ivies as well, but they are not). But lets not live in our plebeian ignorance for any longer than necessary. Without further ado.. “The Ancient Eight:”

Listed As: Name – Year Founded – Original Name – Motto

Harvard – 1636 – New College – Veritas (Truth)
Yale – 1701 –Collegiate School – Lux et veritas (Light and truth)
University of Pennsylvania- 1740 –Unnamed Charity School – Leges sine moribus vanae (Laws without morals are usless)
Princeton University – 1746 –College of New Jersey – Dei sub numine viget (Under God’s power she flourishes)
Columbia University- 1754 –King’s College – In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen (In Thy light shall we see the light)
Brown University – 1764 – College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations – In Deo Speramus (In God We Hope)
Dartmouth College – 1769 – Dartmouth – Vox clamantis in deserto (The voice of one crying in the wilderness)
Cornell University – 1865 – Cornell – I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study

So from looking over that list a few things should become apparent.

1. For all except Dartmouth and Cornell, they were founded under different names. Some of them even changed their names more than once. I have to say, Brown takes the cake here: “College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” give me a freaking break. However, Penn gets the dishonorable mention because they didn’t even have a name..

2. Yale copied Harvard, from day 1. Though to be fair Harvard copied the University of Cambridge, which itself copied the University of Oxford.

3. They all have fancy Latin mottos, except Cornell. By the time Cornell came around they were like “screw this poo” and just did everyone the favor of using English. Also, WTF Dartmouth? It sounds like some 13 year old angst-ridden teen wrote their motto. (Before you rage, yes I get it that its from the Bible, but its still emo).

Progressing onwards, where are all these places located? Well, obviously the Northeast, but not exclusively New England. I am stupid and literally thought until this year that New York was in New England. Its not. And even if it was, you’d still have Penn and Princeton as outliers. So just say its the Northeast.

Its pretty obvious why they are all in the Northeast, that is where the aliens put us when they used us to colonize this planet.

Moving on.

These schools are hard to get into. And at this point you take a drink of your coffee, finishing off its wholesome goodness. You then get up and walk to go rinse your our your cup. As you do, you think to yourself “Well no shit Sherlock” You then never return to this blog.

But really, they are.

Here are some approximate admission rates for the most recent classes, bearing in mind that for a few graduate schools (such as business, medicine, law, etc.) these might be even lower.

Harvard – 5.9%
Yale – 6.3%
Columbia – 7%
Princeton – 7.3%
Brown – 8.6%
Penn – 9.9%
Dartmouth – 11.5%
Cornell – 14.0%

For comparison, lets look at a University that I knew quite well growing up:

Indiana University – 72.2%

I think that sort of brings it into perspective a bit.

Now, if it wasn’t obvious based on the barrier to entry, all of these schools are famous, in fact the “Ivy League” has so many connotations with it, from the rich WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) folk of yesteryear, to yuppies, snobs, the 1% and of course to Presidents. In fact, I’d argue that the “Legend” of the Ivy League is a bit bigger than the schools that make it up, at least most of them (but more on that in a moment). So that gets me to the next point, these schools are loaded. And I don’t just mean loaded with lots of smart people (they are) I mean they have gold piles that would make Smaug jealous. One of them in particular is the equivalent of a small nation.

The Ivy League Endowments:

Harvard – 36.4 Billion
Yale – 23.9 Billion
Princeton – 21 Billion
University of Pennsylvania – 9.6 Billion
Columbia University – 9.2 Billion
Cornell University – 6.2 Billion
Dartmouth College – 4.5 Billion
Brown University – 3.2 Billion

[For reference Stanford’s is 21.4 Billion]

And again, here is:

Indiana University – 1.7 Billion (System-wide)

That means that Harvard has an endowment worth approximately 21.5 entire Indiana University networks. Think about that for a second, everything that Indiana University owns, Harvard could theoretically buy 21.5 times. That is kind of hard to wrap your mind around. In fact, Harvard’s endowment is the largest in the entire world of any educational institution anywhere.

But back to the Ivy League. You’ll notice quite a large discrepancy between the top three schools and everyone else. Further, you see an additional discrepancy between Harvard, then Yale and Princeton. Depending on who you talk to, these endowments roughly correlate to the “power” that each school possess. Some people would go apeshit over this statement, others would say “Yep, dats right” and a person’s position may or may not depend on which school they go to. But I think that we can all agree, that money does indeed bring with it great power.

It comes as no surprise then, that not all Ivy League schools are created equal. While all of these schools rank within the top 15 schools in the country (with the exception of Brown, currently sitting at 16) some are “More Equal” than others. Namely: Harvard, Princeton, and Yale – who make up the top three spots and have for a long, long time.

In fact, so removed from the other Ivies are these three that some people call them “True Ivies,” or more commonly the “Big Three.”

Naturally, this creates a bit of rivalry, not only between these Ivies and those Ivies, but within the Big Three themselves. [In case you were curious, yes there is indeed a “Little Three” as well, but they aren’t Ivies]

These rivalries extend far beyond academia and professional issues, they are also firmly grounded in sports. I’m honestly not hip to the jive on all the rivalries, a lot of them vary and are dependent on sport. For instance in lacrosse Cornell and Pinceton are bitter rivals, but not in hockey. On the flipside, Cornell and Harvard are ultra hockey rivals. But, generally speaking, if one of the Big Three is involved with another of the Big Three, you can rest assured that there is a rivalry and it runs deep. And thus “The Game” was born.

My point is, while the Ivy League is awesome, these three are especially awesome, yes even Yale. Remember how earlier I mentioned that the entire Ivy League took up over nearly 1/2 of the top 15 schools in the US? (lol Brown). Well, why just look at the US when you can look at the world. So, lets do it. Here are the top 15 Universities in the entire world.

1. Harvard
2. MIT (Massachussetts Institute of Technology)
3. Stanford
4. Cambridge
5. Oxford
6. Princeton
7. Yale
8. UC Berkeley
9. Caltech
10. UCLA
11. Johns Hopkins
12. Columbia
13. Imperial College London
14. Kings College London
15. Cornell

So your first question might be, why are so many of the US top 15 not in the top 15 of the worldwide ranking? Well, these ranking systems have flaws. But also the measuring systems are different on a global vs. US-centric scale. For instance, the University of Chicago has a strong base in the United States, but globally it has much less recognition. If you were wondering why schools like Berkeley and UCLA were so high up the worldwide list, but not on the US list, its because of Asia. No really, a big factor in the “World” rankings is the power a school has in Asia since that is a HUGE and growing sector of our international.. well.. everything. The west coast schools have it going on it that regard. But once you focus exclusively on the US, they lose out to say.. Duke. Either way, its pretty clear that the US is dominating the educational arena, at least as far as universities go. Our primary schools pretty much suck, writ large.

But, back on topic, you’ll notice that of the “Ivy League” only three schools make it into the world top 10, despite largely owning it in the US-only rankings. Guess which three schools those are? Yep, the Big Three.

So, if you view the Ivy League as a wedding cake for rich kids, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are that little piece on top that you cherish and save. Except unlike the cake you don’t come back to them a year later and wonder why in the hell you saved this dank ass piece of stale bread, except maybe Yale.

So there you have it, a brief overview of what the Ivy League is, and by omission, is not. So what do I think about it?

Well, its important to consider my new and limited perspective, but I’ll say this much. A lot of what you hear about the Ivy League is not without merit. I mean that for both the good and the bad. For instance, these schools, especially the Big Three have changed human history multiple times. I don’t mean US history, I mean human history. In fact, there are a multitude of things within mere feet of you that simply would not exist had these schools not been formed. These schools attract and foster the brightest minds in the world. They back research that will touch every faucet of our existence and they produce a solid portion of the people who will go on to be leaders, both at home and abroad. But there is bad as well. Elitism still roams these Ivory Halls. As does a great imbalance of representation. While the WASPs might have largely faded, they have only been replaced by another generation, which, while numerically smaller, still holds all the right keys. At Harvard for instance, 40% of the University comes from the top 3% of households by income. With an additional 30% coming from the rest of the top 10% of households. That means that roughly 70% of the class comes from the top 10% of earners. And from what I’ve seen, this kind of statistic runs fairly constant at the other Ivies, sometimes a bit better, often even worse. So, I view the Ivy League as an extraordinarily powerful group of institutions, yet these schools, and all their influence, remain largely inaccessible to a large array of applicants. Some argue that exclusivity is the point and on that note alone, I would agree. However, the way these schools define exclusivity, the way they pass out straws, is inherently flawed. Though things are getting better, I mean I’m here and my family can only afford a paltry three yachts, there is still a lot of work to be done.

And there you have it, you are now more knowledgeable about the Ivy League than most people ever will be. I hope you also know, that there are many schools, such as those in the list above that are just as good, if not better than most of the Ivy League, exclusive of the Big Three. And more importantly, the best school for one person may not even be any of these schools, for instance Yale is pretty much only good for convicts. So go where you find your fit, be it the online technical school, the community college, or the state school.

But should you be unable to resist that allure of the ole’ Ivy Charm and all the doors it tends to open. As a student from one of three bests schools at the best university, I’ll leave you with the best advice you will ever receive in regards to the Ivy League:

When it doubt, Pinky Out.

Until next time,
-Taco

The Spanish Inquistion

December 4, 2014 by Taco

A Victim of the Spanish Inquisition – I found multiple attributed artists, if you own the copyright don’t sue me, just tell me to take it down.

So I almost went with the Monty Python joke, but it was just too obvious, even for me.

Anyways, if you were expecting some big historical post about the Spanish Inquisition, then you will be disappointed. But my guess is that you weren’t, so you won’t, unless you are, then sorry-not-sorry. While the real inquisition has all sorts of fun nasty bits, I have my own fun nasty bit to share. I had to have another EMG. I’ll get to what that is in a moment, but for now I’ll say that is not something that you generally want to be having another one of.

Since moving out here I’ve continued seeking medical assistance for my legs (and also for the numb/painful spot on my upper back, an old symptom, but a recent addition to the medical pursuit). Due to some stupidity with obtaining my student ID before classes actually started it took me a bit to see my general doctor, who I ended up really liking. We talked for over an hour about things and she seemed genuinely interested. She wanted me to start with seeing one of the neurologists. So I went to schedule that, naturally the earliest I could get in was 2.5 months away. Fun. So I waited, like I have waited for 4 years. But the day finally came and I went to see Mr. Neurologist and… he turned out to be one of the biggest douchebags (if not the biggest) I have ever met in the medical profession. I absolutely cannot stand the guy. However, the flip side is that he actually did a few basic tests that no one had ever done in four years, not once. I’m talking stuff like testing my reflexes in my legs. Yeah, stuff that basic was never done. “SURE LETS CUT YOU OPEN AND TEAR YOUR MUSCLES IN HALF, BUT LETS NOT TEST YOUR REFLEXES FOR BASIC NERVE ISSUES, NOPE” To be fair, I don’t think I ever requested a basic reflex test, but I’m not the doctor. However, I did make the request for them to look at my spine, many, many times and no one ever would. It took me 1.5 years just to get them to do an MRI of my legs. And that only came after half a dozen other tests, some of them being done more than once. So anyways, this neurologist, who I’ve taken to calling Dr. Douchebag, has as Meem has put it, “No bedside manner,” but he seems medically competent. So he looked over my old EMG and didn’t like a few things about how the test was done, based on my specific symptoms. So he ordered another one, fun. However, he also agreed with me, by not agreeing with me, I know that doesn’t make much sense, but Dr. Douchebag has a way of being an asshole even when he is listening to you. Anyways, he thought a spinal MRI would be a good move. He also went even further and ordered a MRI of my brain as well. Uh, ok, I guess. I don’t have much objection since my cell phone poops radiation into me all day long anyways and MRIs don’t even use radiation, but the brain had never been mentioned before. So, end of appointment, Dr. Douchebad told me: “Go get this EMG on your legs, go get both these MRIs, each with contrast, also I have a tiny peen.”

So I was off to research my insurance. I have insurance through my school. My school pays for it because I am poor. When you pay 20,000$ a month for a 10×10 apartment with little income, you are poor. Point being, I really, really needed to know what my insurance would cover. The good news is that in-network, which was basically anything my school is a part of (which is a lot, like, a lot a lot), almost everything is covered 100%, including EMGs and MRIs. Out of network you are pretty much boned, but neither of the places I needed to go was out of network, so I kept the appointments.

The thing is, this is also my last week of classes before exams, and I had a myriad of other law school related appointments to deal with. I did NOT want to deal with this crap during exams, so I needed to bunch three tests into one week. The MRI came first. Turns out, I can’t do the MRIs all in one day. I have to have two different contrasts (The guy on the phone was oh-so-reassuring when he was like “I guess that shouldn’t be a problem, are you healthy?” – Why yes I am, I am just so healthy I like getting blasted with magnets and loud noises for 5 hours in a small tube). So I have to go sit in the machine for 2.5 hours, twice and get an IV each time. Those were scheduled for Thursday (the day of this post) and Friday consecutively, even at the same time. Next up was the EMG. This one would only work in the early morning and it was even further away than the MRI. Anyways, everything was scheduled and insurance was supposedly good (we’ll see, insurance companies are profoundly stupid).

EMG day arrives, more aptly titled “The Day Taco was a Moron and Returned to the Dungeon of Spanish Inquisition.” The good news was that SB took some time off from her placement to come with me. The last time I got this done I had some trouble walking afterwards. Which brings me to my next point. What is an EMG? While, it stands for Electromyography, but that doesn’t mean anything to you, or me. In plain English it means, 1. I will shock you with a taser 100+ times and then 2. After shocking you 100+ times I will stick electrified needles into your muscles and then smash them in deeper and ask you to flex that muscle. Oh yes dear friends, they move the needle around inside you.

So to recap: Electrocution, Needles with Electricity. Sign up sheet is on the table.

Now they don’t just do this on legs, they can do it on most areas of your body, including arms (as I would soon find out). But last time I had it done, it was just my legs.

But backing up a bit. We actually missed the first of the buses we were intending to take to the hospital, luckily the second bus was early, so while it didn’t move until it was on schedule, we at least got to sit in it instead of the cold, cold outdoor places. It was nice because the bus we took is actually the same bus I’ll take tomorrow and Friday, since it goes right by the MRI place. Anyways, we pushed it very close time wise, in fact we were just a little late, but late is still early for medical appointments.

That is not the actual part of the hospital I was in, but that is the original building that the rest of the hospital (which is massive) grew around. Anyways, once we got into the room (SB included). The test person, who I think was still in residency came in and we got started. She was very nice and willing to explain things a lot more clearly than my last EMG person. Of course she was also nice enough to tell me that EMGs are apparently way worse when you are young and healthy. The older you get the less and less they actually feel like torture. She also told me that Dr. Douchebag had requested an EMG on my right arm (for my back issue) as well.

Wat.

Yeah he never told me that, I never said “Ok, yeah lets shock my arm too!” It was not until I was half-naked in my stylish hospital gown that I was told that 3/4 of my appendages would be tazed repeatedly and then have a multitude of needless mashed in them. Sweet.

But I went with it. Because I was there, and I figured, why not. So the test gets underway and yeah, I really don’t need to go through the process. It should be fairly obvious it kind of sucks. I will say though, SB managed to not pass out during the needle part. But she was also burning holes in the stuff she was reading. She was actually planning on leaving when the attending doctor and the resident sort of just came in and started treating me like pin-cushion. But I survived and it turns out.. there is no big issue. Basically, there is some very mild slowing in my peroneal nerve on the left side. This is is sort of similar to what they found last time, except it was even less pronounced this time. They were pretty clear that this amount of slowing would likely not create symptoms, let alone symptoms of my level. Also, the right side was fine. My arm was also fine. In a nutshell, there is a little bitty issue in my left peroneal nerve, but there is no conceivable way that it would cause issues to my level. Plus, my right leg has no such issue. If this is a neural issue, its at the very least not something that an EMG is going to show.. or its coming from nerves that aren’t in my legs. My arm had no issues and she thought it (my back) sounded more like a muscular (myofascial) issue than a neural issue.

So another EMG down, similar results to last time, except even less pronounced. Answers: Nada – Story of my last four years.

After the EMG I ate a snack bar since I had foolishly not eaten a large enough breakfast. We then went and walked around the neighborhood (Mission Hill) towards the Longwood Medical Area.

..containing none other than Harvard’s Medical School (one of the University’s three Crown Jewels, any guesses on the other two?). I’ve been told its the best medical school in the world. A very quick look on Google seems to confirm that. Look at all that surprise no one has. In fact, the hospital I had just came from (which is literally right next to HMS) is one of the teaching hospitals for HMS. Speaking of the hospital, this is the back side of the old part of it, I thought the metal spiral staircases were really cool, made me think of my Pappy.

Immediately behind the back of the hospital.. confusing but that is the best way to say it. Was the back of the first (and oldest and most coo) building in the medical school complex. So in front of the back is the back of the front. Follow? Good. Its name is “Gordon Hall.”

Upon entry we realized there was a guard and you had to show a Harvard ID. My guess is because of the medical stuff, patients and things, and meeses. I had one, SB also sleekly used her Harvard library card (which also works to get Harvard student discounts – people don’t seem to notice the LIBRARY part written right on the front – good for us). I’m glad we went in, rather than going around. First it was a bajillion degrees warmer in there. Second, it was a gorgeous old building AND they had holiday decorations! (unlike the boring lawyers at the law school, which has equally nice facilities – if not nicer – but about as much spirit as a rock in a septic tank).

On the second floor next to some portraits of guys I don’t know they have a statue of Hermes who his rocking is naked self.

To be truthfully honest, I have no idea why they have a statute of Hermes.

[History Mode Engage]

Here is my guess. Hermes was a messenger for the Greek Gods. However, he also had the lesser known tasks of conducting souls into the afterlife, likely to Elysium (for awesome people), Asphodel (for normal mundane people) or maybe even the Blessed Isles (for ultra awesome people who were reborn three times and achieved Elysium all three times). Hermes was similar to Charon (or as you may know him “The Ferryman”, also from Greek Mythology but Charon is more associated with taking people across the Rivers Styx and Acheron to the Fields of Punishment (bad people) or possibly even Tartarus (think of it as a Hell within Hell, yeah it sucks that bad)). So, what I’m getting at, is that maybe they have a Hermes statute because he helped people cross over with John Edwards. But honestly that seems a little morbid for a medical school. It could also be that Hermes later came to be associated with Alchemy (and thus medicine), however, this is a tenuous connection at best since it involves Hermeticism which takes its name not from Hermes but rather Hermes Trismegistus, a loosely-defined ancient Greek dude-god-person who might have himself just have been based on an altered version of Hermes – thus bringing us to erroneous circular logic.

Also interesting, the statute did not have the Caduceus, which he is normally pictured with. Yes, the Caduceus is that “medical staff” you have seen before. Of course what great is that its not the right staff. Yeah, literally Caduceus represents trade, eloquence, trickery, and negotiation, things Hermes was known for, NOT medicine. So where does that staff come from? The Rod of Asclepius. This rod takes its name from Ascelpius, the Greek god of Medicine, and also the son of Apollo, the God of healing (among many other things). Yeah, see that makes a lot more sense. Thought to be fair, it is said that Apollo is the one who gave Caduceus to Hermes, so that might lend a tiny bit of credence to it being a healing item. You’ll notice that the two staffs/rods are fairly similar though, so you can’t fault people too much (aside from the fact that this mistake is hugely common in the United States, even among professionals). Oddly enough Motley Crew sort of combined them both, so in some ways they did a better job than a lot of hospitals.

Anyways, you’d think Harvard would know all this. My guess is that they do, since they didn’t order a Hermes with Caduceus, probably to avoid such misinterpretations. Or maybe they just didn’t want the staff and were fine with the peebob. Ultimately I have no idea, but if I had to guess, I’d rest on my “conductor of souls” theory (blended in a bit with Caduceus being given to Hermes by Apollo), since Hermes really had nothing to do with medicine, though he was known for helping mankind out in spite of what the other Gods (namely Zeus) said.

[History Mode Offline]

We then moved to the front of Gordon Hall, which is actually at the head of the complex.

Then the view looking back towards Gordon once we walked down towards the street.

It was a nice campus, I’m sure it looks better when everything isn’t dead. Except the grass, that must be some of that magical cold weather grass. Or maybe its Soylent Green grass style, I’d imagine HMS would have plenty of materials for that.

After seeing the main part of HMS, we decided we were hungry. We headed back down towards where we got off the bus to place called Penguin Pizza.

We had found it online the night before, and honestly we were drawn to it simply because of Valentino and his love of eating penguins. No really, that was pretty much the entire reason we went.

The problem was that it was still early for lunch and they hadn’t opened yet, additionally, around this time all my muscles decided it was time to start getting really stiff and sore. I guess that happens when you are repeatedly shocked and poked. But we were close enough to opening time that we just stuck it out in the cold, I’m glad we did.

As you can see the inside of the place was fairly eclectic. I loved all the beer signs that were all over the place, I mean literally, ALL over the place. Our table even had a nice view of the cold world outside.

We ended up going with some wraps instead of pizza, SB had the Turkey Club and I the Chicken Pesto, both were mighty fine.

About this time I really started to feel not well. My stomach was happy, but my legs and arms and really my whole body (my back was quite sore as well) decided it was time to not move. So we started the process of heading home, which involved waiting on the bus, but luckily the wait wasn’t terrible since my fingers and toes were starting to die as usual (in spite of my double socks and gloves).

After that we came home and pretty much ended up either being asleep, or half asleep on the couch for a large chunk of the afternoon. We still had stuff to do, of course, which made for a busy night, but by bedtime my body felt like I had been beaten up with crowbars. Today honestly wasn’t a whole lot better, I’m hoping tomorrow will see some improvement. I actually don’t remember hurting this much last time, but I also received more shocks and electrified pokes this time, and I also received them over a much larger surface area of my body. I’m also more stressed in general (exams are next week) which probably made my muscles tense up more which electrocuted (trust me, your limbs flail across like crazy during an EMG).

So anyways, that is all I have for now. This post ended up WAY longer than I was planning for it to be. When it gets posted tomorrow I should have (hopefully) just finished MRI one of two.

Until Next Time,
-Taco

P.S. On a lighter note, here is a decorated tree near the law school, the squirrels use the lights as quasi zip-lines, no really.

[Update 1: First MRI down. They did my Lower Spine and Brain today. Tomorrow is more spine and maybe more brain, I dunno, after four years you honestly stop caring as much about the details as long as you know the insurance and level-of-pain-involved situations. The worst part was that when they do your brain they lock your head into this little contraption so you can’t listen to music. That pretty much sucked. But the head lock did have a mirror to let you see out the tube, which was cool.The buses were also about 25 minutes behind schedule when I went to go home.

Update 2: Second MRI down. Today was Upper Spine and Neck. It was a bit more claustrophobic today because they used this thing that locks your neck in place but it does not have a mirror like the head lock. More importantly, I was on my stomach so I couldn’t really see anything. There was a bit of a panic attack during the first few minutes, but I calmed myself out of it and got it done. They placed the IV in the same arm and vein as yesterday since the machine is not setup for the other arm, so my left arm is now majorly sore, in addition to the rest of my body, which has been sore since the EMG. But I’m done. 1 EMG and 2 MRIs in 4 days, thanks you, (don’t) come again.]

The First Thanksgiving (+Beer Blurb)

December 1, 2014 by Taco

..well, not “technically” the first Thanksgiving. That was in 1621.. or sometime around in there, no one really knows. However this was SB and I’s first Thanksgiving by ourselves. Sure, we’ve lived away from “home” for awhile now, but we always managed to make it back to visit with the famiru. But now that we are 1 million miles away, that is not really an option. So what better a way to start your own Thanksgiving traditions! We decided to do just that. I wouldn’t say our traditions were especially original though as they involved: Lots of food, a big dead bird, football, and beer. Of course its more about the experience than the details and thus we had an awesome “First” Thanksgiving.

We actually started planning our meal a good while back. Remember Savenor’s? We knew for awhile that we were going to get a chickum from there. We opted out of the turkey simply because turkeys tend to be huge and we did not need 15lbs+ of animal flesh. We ended up going with a 3.74lb chickum from a local farm, it was amazing. We also picked up some knockwurst while we where there. Sure its floor-sweepings, but it was local floor sweepings.

The rest of our goods came from either Wholefoods or Peapod. The nice thing about Peapod is that the day before Thanksgiving it was sleeting, yet SB and I were brought 192$ worth of groceries right to our front door. Win.

So what were we working with? Well, the photo below shows the “before” – which is all the ingredients we planned to use that day (Tristen & Valentino not included)

I’m not going to list everything, if you have questions just ask!

We actually got started right before the first football game of the day (there were three) so we had to prepare the snack plate to provide fuel to cook the other food.

Pepperjack cheese, summer sausage, knockwurst (cooked with magical secret ingredients), and these AMAZING pumpkin-flax-raisin-lots-of-stuff crackers from whole foods. It was an awesome snack plate. As you can see there was a lot of it, we are still snacking over 24 hours later.

The Cowboys were playing later in the afternoon (4:30) and Meem and Daryl 1 were actually attending the game, so we were wanting to get things done in time for that. Things went fairly smoothly over all: we got the pumpkin cleaned (though sadly we burned the seeds when baking them, but they still ended up moderately tasty) then chopped up and baking, sweet potatoes cleaned and baking, chicken nice and seasoned, etc. However, for whatever reason our sweet potatoes decided to take 17 years to cook. That pushed things around a bit but we ended up adjusting for it. Our sweet potato casserole ended up pretty awesome!

When it was all said and done, we actually ended up finishing all the preparations just in time to eat and then watch the Cowboys game! (They lost, but still)

(Cranberry-Pear-Ginger Sauce, Sweet Potato Casserole, Green Beans Celery & Turkey Bacon, Chickum, Rolls that did not rise)

It was an awesome dinner! Everything turned out really well. Some of it didn’t end up looking like we might have anticipated (rolls) but the flavors were excellent all around! The chickum was especially nomz.

After dinner had set for a bit, I got started on our pumpkin-spice-pecan pie. Yes, pumpkin, spice, and pecan. I was actually winging the recipe for the most part, so I was worried there was too much spice and not enough other stuff. However, it actually turned out really good and was quite hearty for a pie, without being sickeningly sweet.

We were so anxious to eat it that I didn’t take a photo in time, haha. After the pie it was big cleanup time, but we tag-teamed it fairly well and before too long the kitchen was looking better than it had in some time. Of course, the winding down time also meant that it was time to bust out the beer. I had planned on starting the beer earlier in the day, but a fat belly and a lot of cooking postponed that. It was worth the wait though, since it was a holiday I decided to treat myself to some decent beer. Particularly some Harpoon. If you remember the last Harpoon sampler pack I went with, I loved it. Since the weather has gotten colder outside, I went with the aptly titled “Snowed in Collection”

Harpoon Brewery – “Snowed In” Sampler Pack

All beers are “Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall”

1. Harpoon IPA
2. UFO White
3. Harpoon Winter Warmer
4. Gingerland UFO

For starters, I’ve already mentioned the IPA, it was good, one of the better IPAs in my opinion. I’ve also already mentioned the UFO White. So I’m going to focus on the Winter Warmer and the Gingerland UFO. To be honest, it was the Gingerland that immediately drew me to this pack, but I’ll start with the Winter Warmer. This is a very interesting Winter Warmer. Warmers are generally over 6% ABV, however this one clocks in at only 5.5%, so its a bit on the lower end of things. Warmers are made to well.. warm. So they beef up the stoutness and the alcohol to make you nice and toasty when its all but toasty outside. This Warmer is an entirely different take on the variety. It gives up the stoutness for a more mild, almost lager-like flavor. It shuns the high ABV for lots of spices. I mean, sure, lots of Warmers claim to be spiced, but this one is like a spice explosion in your mouth. You’ll notice that Beer Advocate hates this beer. I’m going to raise my pinky and kick Beer Advocate in the balls on this one. This is an awesome take on a traditional winter warmer. If you go in expecting some middle of the road no frills warmer like Sam Adam’s (which isn’t bad, but its not unique either) then you’ll probably not like it. But I thought it was really cool, it was more of a spiced beer than a standard warmer. Next up was the Gingerland. Now, if you are not me, the idea of a “Gingerbread Inspired” beer probably leaves you iffy at best. But you’re not me (unless you are, hi me). I was enthralled by the concept. Sadly, it didn’t live up to its potential in my book. Its like they placed too much emphasis on the ginger and not enough emphasis on the bread. Now, for the ginger portion they nailed it. But I don’t think its fair to say “Gingerbread Inspired” then have no real hints of gingerbread at all. That being said, it was a good, interesting beer. Had they just called it “Ginger Beer” I’d be like “all hellz yiss dis is sum gud beerz” but since they said “Gingerbread” I have to hang my head a bit.

Despite the Gingerbread UFO not living up to my extraordinarily high expectations, I’d say that once again, this is a VERY solid sampler pack. I think Harpoon Brewery may well be on its way to becoming my favorite brewery. And no, they have not paid me to say that, though I’d be happy to talk endorsements.

The next day was Black Friday. I don’t do Black Friday, at least not in the traditional “Lets kill each other the day after being thankful” sort of way. I generally don’t even go out, at all. This year we did got out for a bit though, but only down to the square, I’m not a fan of malls on the best of days. We started with some lunch (we decided to skip our Friday night out in favor of leftovers) at a place called Flat Patties. SB actually found it. When we got there we found that they had “combined” with a place called Felipe’s Taqueria. Felipe’s is usually a few doors up, but their location was under construction so I guess they decided to be bestest-frandz with Patties and live in the same tiny restaurant. We came for sammiches, so we didn’t go with Felipe’s (and Mexican the day after Thanksgiving would cause me to poo out my intestines). I managed to find us a table upstairs, which was fortunate since it was quite packed. Not only was it Black Friday, but it was also two restaurants with the size of only one, which is not much anyways in Cambridge. SB went with a fish sandwich and I went with a chicken salad.

It was pretty good, nothing super stand-out, but the day after Thanksgiving food has kind of lost its luster. After we finished eating we did some shopping before heading to Starbucks to take advantage of a coupon SB had (she tried the new Chesnut Praline Latte and I went with my classic Peppermint Mocha). We started home then remembered we were wanting to get some Reddi-wip for our pie. Tristen also had an odd desire to spray it up his nose. We ended up finding some at CVS of all places and then we were on our way.

Once we were home I started on my own Christmas lists, completing all three of them in one sitting (score me). Now we’re just chilling for the rest of the evening, oh and of course eating leftovers, lots of leftovers.

Until next time,
-Taco

Law School Basketball

November 28, 2014 by Taco

Happy day after Thanksgiving! (Or Black Friday, for you shoppers)

So I’ve been having some technical issues with my blog. The biggest issue is that I haven’t been able to log in regularly. Also, and if you are subscribed this will not be news, I had a post that wasn’t supposed to get send out, get sent out. Have no fear, you’ll get notified of it, yet again, soon enough.

So, anyways, this will be the last “pre-recorded” post that I make, at least for the time being. I wanted to write it sooner, but technical problems prevented that.

Anyways, last Friday night SB and I saw some law school basketball.

Yeah, I know basketball is probably not the first thing you would think of when it comes to law school, but the world is a big place.

More specifically, last week was “Rivalry Weekend” here in Cambridge, as in, Yale was in town. Now, the focal point of the weekend is “The Game” but I’m not going to talk about that too much since I hope to go before I leave, but I will say that Harvard won, of course. Which means they were undefeated this season.

Anywho, “Rivalry Weekend” hosts various other Harvard-Yale match-ups, but there is also a lesser known game between HLS and YLS. A basketball game. No, technically neither of these schools have basketball teams, nor do they even have official intramural teams. Its a law school, after all. However, what they do have is a basketball club. To join you need to be A: A law student and B: Like basketball, that is about it. Now to actually play, you probably have to be decent, but the entry requirements are low. I have no idea who they play most of the year, my guess is other local clubs.

But if there is a Championship Game for law school basketball clubs, HLS vs YLS is it, and HLS was the reigning champion.

I found out about the game from a flier, which also said it was free. Also, it was at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, which is near where SB and I live. Since it was -100 degrees it was nice to have something close. So we decided to make a Friday night of it (I had a memo to work on for the rest of the weekend, but Friday night was going to be good). It was my turn to pick where to eat, so I went to our nearby standby of Darwin’s and then we headed over to the usual Broadway Market for treats and beer (nothing blurb worthy, at least not yet – I did get some Thanksgiving beer, but thats on lockdown). After that we headed back out to the school.

When we first got to the school we overheard some other people who were going to the game, they were trying unsuccessfully to get in the building. We ended up finding the right way in, well I found the right way in then SB led me away from the door to follow the other moo cows, then we went right back to the door I found and it was correct. The first thing we noticed was that the inside of this school was quite nice. No seriously.

Even the public schools are nice here.

We found our way inside the gym, which was also nice, and found our seats. It was interesting, we started on the Harvard side. However, the Yale players were practicing at the end of the court with all the Harvard player’s stuff. So when the game was about to start, suddenly all the Harvard players moved to the other side, which caused a flood of people to the other side as well. We decided to just sit on Yale’s side because Harvard’s was packed (hometown advantage). This was kind of fun, because we got to witness some Yale emo rage.

You’ll have to forgive my crappy shots. I think my phone has a “Sports” or “Active Shot” mode, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. And was more interested in the watching the game than playing on my phone. HLS got off to an early lead, and the game was still mostly fun and joyness at that point. Though the fouls started to build and by the end of the first half it was resembling street ball more than anything.

Speaking of half time, since this event was sponsored by law firms (with the proceeds going to public interest students at both schools, yay!) we got swag. And I don’t mean a crappy pen, we got these USB charger block things. I had never heard of them, though SB had. Its basically a battery pack that you charge via USB and then you can use it to charge your phone, or iPod or whatever, while on the go. Its pretty cool. Sure, its emblazoned with a law firm’s name on the side, but I checked on Amazon and these things run between 20-25$ a piece, and we got two. Can’t complain.

Soon enough the second half was underway and this was about the time that the friendly game started getting a bit angsty. Well, at least for the Yale players, maybe Harvard was chill because they were winning. To be fair, it was really only one girl on Yale’s team who looked like she was going to throw her Candyland pieces across the room and shut off the Super Nintendo. But the “hostility” was in the air for sure. Harvard got a big lead, then they proceeded to get fat and lazy and just try for three-pointers over and over, which quickly resulted in Yale narrowing the gap.

The good news was that the announcer was very funny and while he was obviously pro-Harvard, he took digs at HLS whenever they deserved it (which was often in the second half). Both sides were fouling like crazy and got double bonuses on each side, I don’t remember what that means, but SB told me about it. Despite their fatness (and some weird manipulation of the game clock that heavily favored Yale) HLS kept their lead and won the game, as we knew they would.

They even had a little trophy presentation ceremony at the end, where HLS received a team trophy and then one of the HLS players received the MVP trophy.

This was half victory speech, half smack-talk, which was made better by the ongoing QQs of that Yale girl I mentioned earlier.

All in all it was a fun game, made entirely even more fun because it was free and also because we sat among the enemy when we watched it. I imagine next year it will be held in New Haven (following “The Game”) but if possible I’m sure SB and I will try to catch this game again when it comes back around. I still just think its cool that the law school has a sports team, even if it is just a club.

Until next time,
-Taco

—–

P.S. People from Cambridge are called Cantabrigians. I like it, it sounds like something out of a fantasy world.

Stop Children What’s That Sound

Ivy League 101

The Spanish Inquistion

The First Thanksgiving (+Beer Blurb)

Law School Basketball

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