lrw

1L is (Almost) Over

April 27, 2015 by Taco

So I’ve now had my last 1L class. As of 11:50am (EST) on Friday, April 24th, 2015 – I have finished all my class meetings.

[Also worth noting, there were snow flurries in the morning, yes, on April 24th]

Of course in law school this sadly doesn’t mean a whole lot. When your entire grade comes down to an exam, the exam period actually ends up mattering more than all those classes you crawled out of bed and went out into a blizzard (literally) for.

But, I can’t complain about all my classes. For you see, LRW is finally done.

Now that its out of the way, I’ll explain how the grade breaks down and how my oral argument turned out.

The written Brief is 85% of your LRW grade. The oral argument is 15%. Since you “share” a grade with your partner, it basically looks like this for the oral argument portion:

10% is your argument score. Each judge gives each person on the team a grade of 0 – 10. So 3 scores per person, 6 per team. These six scores are then averaged into one score, which is how much of a % out of the 10% each member gets. So if one person rocks it out of the park and gets 10-10-10, but their partner, I dunno, dies and gets 0-0-0 the final score would be 5% for the argument points. Then, there is the extra 5% reserved for whoever wins. So you could argue really really well, but if you lose, you’re automatically docked 5%. The problem in this system, which I suppose mimics the real system, is that “quality” of counsel and judges will vary wildly. One team’s 9/10 winning argument, might be another teams 5/10 losing argument, all depending on the judge.

Oh, and by the way, these are real judges. Yes, actual bona fide judges.

I was on the side of the Appellee (Defendant) which means that we speak after the Appellant’s (Plaintiff) side speaks. The downside is that they get a chance for rebuttal at the very end. Within my team, I was the first speaker, which is the most difficult because the judges pretty much come out of the gate trying to destroy you. Generally speaking, in real courts, the first oralist is the most experienced and skilled attorney, I was neither, but I was first.

Interestingly enough, in the beginning of our argument the opposing counsel waived their rebuttal time, which meant that they had five extra minutes to argue, but no chance to respond to us. I thought it was an interesting tactic. The first person on the other side got hammered pretty hard, but then the second person went rockstar. By the time it was turned over to me and I got my introduction:

“May it please the court, my name is Taco and I, along with my co-counsel Mr. Partner represent the Appellee Mr. Bojangles. I will be arguing the contractual dissafirmance issue and Mr. Partner will be arguing the employee compensation issue. I ask to reserve thirteen minutes for myself and twelve minutes for my co-counsel.”

..I was pretty much already getting interrupted by the judges. The “Chief” Judge was especially hard on me, and I had a really hard time getting them to let me lay out my argument, but eventually I did. My partner then was able to do his spiel, though he got questioned a little less aggressively than anyone else had, I think by that point the judges might have been getting bored or something. Anyway, long story made short, we ended up winning the argument (Yay!) by a little less than 2 points and I actually won the most points overall. I still don’t know what my final grade is, but at least I know we got the extra 5% added onto our score.

The fun thing, this entire semester (Brief and Oral Argument) we were trying to prevent a little girl who got her fingers chopped off from getting any money from a big corporation, we shut her down like a little biotch. Being a sociopath is awesome. (The case isn’t real, before you flip shit)

While the Brief had been handed in and the oral argument completed, I still had one more class of LRW. It was largely a blow-off class, and they (The LRW teaching people) did have a party for us at Tasty Burger (which I didn’t attend because it was cold and raining and I’d rather go home and eat not-greasy food and drink better beer), but it was still a class that needed to be sat through. And so I did. Which means that LRW no longer exists to me. I am now completely, totally, done with 1 out of my 5 classes. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll find ways to complain about LRW retroactively.

So that leaves one paper and three exams. Then 1L is over. The Harvard Law Review competition begins right afterwards, but I’m not even sure if I am going to do that. The bad news is, its going to take all the flipping way until May 14th before I’m done with exams. Oi.

But for now, I will bask in the warm glow of being done with 1L classes and also the sun (I’ll pretend it didn’t snow a little bit earlier – made easier by the fact I was still asleep when it did flurry).

So, aside from finishing up classes what have I been up too? Well, quite a bit, as usual. I was kept pretty busy finishing up SPO and Journal stuff, in addition to a bunch of other miscellaneous things. Such as meeting more guests at the law school.

That is a bad photo of David Kirby, author of Death at Seaworld which at least partially inspired the Blackfish documentary. It was one of the more interesting presentations I’ve seen thus far. I actually really enjoyed his perspective, which was very non-emotional and lacked the extremism of most animal-rights people. If you need anymore convincing that Seaworld is a horrible place for both the creatures and their human caretakers, then this is the guy to talk to.

That is another bad photo, this time of the former president of Finland, Tarja Halonen. Her talk was about gender equality and to a lesser extent environmentalism. Finland has done quite well when it comes to narrowing the gender gap, far far more so than the United States. I was really expecting a fire-harpy feminist, but she actually turned out to be really moderate and acknowledged that men and women are different and always will be different, but that doesn’t mean that society can’t allow them equal access to things. Since she was President of Finland for 12 years (2000 – 2012), I’m guessing she did something right.

I’ve also been spending more time outside of the law school (literally). For starters, things have been getting warmer (even if slowly) and thus I’ve been out and about more. Its such a nice time of year, when it isn’t reverting to cold and raining that is.

Photo taken from the commuter rail as SB and I headed to Lowell, MA – more on that in a moment

And even with those minor “cold day” set backs, Spring seems to be fighting the good fight and slowly creeping back into the barren wasteland that Boston had become.

The squirrels have been out playing behind our apartment as well! (Not to mention the billions near the law school)

The fellow below was quite angry and “barking” at something that only he could see.

Divest Harvard (an organization whose purpose is to get Harvard to divest from fossil fuels) also took note of the warmer weather and actually staged a week-long protest at various locations around Harvard. The primary location was Massachusetts Hall, which houses the University President (Drew Faust).

They’ve protested at several points in the past, but I think this was the most sustained event. They camped out 24/7, which is why the group seems so small in the photo above. During larger events as many as 150 people were involved, including various faculty members. Divest’s goal has garnered majority support within the student body (though the administration refuses to divest), and even a lot of faculty and alumni (including big ones such as Natalie Portman) have openly backed the project. I wasn’t actively involved in any of the protests, though I did attend their teach-ins.

In a more tasty spirit of the warmer weather, Ben & Jerry’s celebrated their annual Free Cone Day on Tuesday, April 14th. SB and I actually met up after my late class to try to attend, she had been wanting to try their new flavor – The Tonight Dough Staring Jimmy Fallon, and you can’t beat free. However, when I first got down to Ben & Jerry’s I noticed this:

Yeap, that is a line outside of the building and up the street. Its also worth noting that that door doesn’t lead straight into Ben & Jerry’s, Ben & Jerry’s is actually on the other side of the building. So yeah, I decided I wasn’t waiting around and by the time SB arrived we headed off to different pastures. Thanks to our handy-dandy smartphones (not iPhones) we found out that a J.P. Licks was also nearby.

So, rather than wait in line for 45 minutes we decided to pay and wait in a line for 5 minutes. J.P. Licks was a little busy, but actually less than I was expecting. I think a lot of people were doing exactly what we did – head for Ben & Jerry’s –> see the line –> feck that –> J.P. Licks.

Its been long enough now that I don’t really remember exactly what SB got, though I’m fairly sure I got the Oatmeal Cookie Frozen Yogurt. Whatever they were, they were really good and satisfied our desire for ice cream without the 45 minute wait. We ended up walking up to the Yard and enjoying our treats.

Afterwards, it was back home for some amazing bratwursts and beer!

If you are wondering why all the celebrating (between the ice cream, the bratwurst, and the beer) it was because I had just finished my last major pre-exam assignment. In fact I had came off of two straight, very long days which included my oral argument and another presentation in my Rhetoric course. In fact, that was what I was saving the 120 Minute IPA for (talked about extensively here). I kind of figured that since Dogfish Head made such good beers, they surely made good bratwurst, well, at no surprise to anyone, the bratwursts were awesome. These weren’t just any bratwurst, nor were just Dogfish Head bratwursts, these were Greek Feta bratwurst. Which contained feta cheese, mint, spinach, cumin, lemon and a dose of Midas Touch. If you are worried about the mint, shhh.

It was an awesome dinner, even if SB didn’t help me with the 120 as much as I hoped she would and I ended up buzzed (yes from one beer).

Another pretty cool thing that happened is that my Aunt, who I should probably name at this point – we’ll call her “Aunt Train” since I have to take a train to see her, moved to nearby(ish) Lowell, MA. She actually works in Boston but commutes in via rail (see this train thing works). Anyways, SB and I had told her we would help her move in. Well, not technically move in, as she was smart and didn’t do what we did, but rather help her un-box stuff and move it around once it was already in the apartment.

So we set off on our first ever commuter rail trip, on what was probably one of the nicest days of the year so far. The commuter rail portion is about 43 minutes (according to the MBTA) but we also have to get to the commuter rail station in the first place, so its a decent little jaunt up to Lowell, and then from there just a short drive (or moderate walk) to Aunt Train’s place. And boy what a place it was!

The apartment itself was quite large, but the best feature (aside from the fact that there was an in-unit washer and dryer, which on the East Coast basically means a “luxury” unit) was the huge windows! They let in so much light, it was amazing. As was what was just outside.

Yep, the loft was right on a canal, so with the windows open you could hear running water! It was such a cool place, all the apartments in that area where made from old converted factories. I love reusing space rather than tearing stuff down. I think SB and I might have got a little bit of a loft fever.

Intermittent drinks were mixed in throughout the day – ok perhaps not super intermittent – but I had Landshark for the first time in years!

After a long day of helping unbox and put things away we headed out to get some dinner. We ended up walking to a nearby pub for dinner (On the way I got hit on by some Drag Queens – Neither SB or Aunt Train received any such attention, so +1 points to team Taco). We went to the Old Court Irish Pub, which, much to Aunt Train’s dismay, had no Harp. I went with some Guinness and steak tips, it was a yummy dinner after a busy day!

Afterwards we headed back and unpacked a bit more of the kitchen before watching a movie called The Hundred-Foot Journey, which I had never heard of, but actually turned out to be pretty good and is worth watching (though prepare to get hungry, meh gehd). After that it was off to sleepy-time (Aunt Train let us sleep on her ultra-fancy Serta memory-foam mattress). The next morning we had a nice breakfast (with Kahlua in the coffee), did an itsy bit of unpacking and moving stuff, and before we knew it was was time for us to catch the train back home.

That isn’t the commuter rail, its the subway, but its a train so it conveys the voyage back to our apartment just fine.

Keeping up with the “Spring” theme, I also tried out a new-to-me shandy, by none other than Narragansett.

1. Narragansett Del’s Shandy – Narragansett Brewing Co.

Narragansett has thus far, been a pretty middle of the road beer for me. Though, as Meem discovered, Dr. Seuss designed some stuff for them, which gets them bonus points. Anyways, SB and I are big shandy fans, so I was happy to try a new one. Narragansett’s shandy is made with “Del’s Lemonade” which has a storied history and is hugely popular in these parts (especially Rhode Island, home of Narragansett). So, I wasn’t sure if this was just a marketing thing, or if it would actually be good. Turns out, it wasn’t half bad. It was the least sweet pre-made shandy I think I’ve ever had, which isn’t a bad thing as I think it actually increased the drinkability. Apparently they changed the recipe this year in response to people saying it used to be way too sweet. So some people think they overcompensated and made it not sweet enough. I disagree, for me a shandy is less about the sweet and more about the citrus-bite that accompanies it. I’d say this compares nicely to Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy (which is also a good shandy). If you happen to see this, and I doubt you will unless you are out in these parts, its worth a try and its also not too expensive.

Returning to the law school, things haven’t been all business. April 20th was “Patriot’s Day” here in Boston, which celebrates the Battles of Lexington and Concord (Which, as an FYI is pronounced “Konkerd” – not “Kon-cord”). Pretty much every school in the Boston area either gets the 20th off, or the 20th and 21st, or the whole week. Pretty much every school that is except Harvard. As a way of atoning for the fact that while we were in classes, other schools such as MIT were able to go watch the Boston Marathon (which is run on Patriot’s Day), HLS provided us with some Boston-themed treats and a live stream of the marathon (to remind us that we weren’t there).

Food included Boston Clam Chowder (Duh), Hotdogs, some fried thing that was consumed before I got a good look at it (I had a SPO meeting), Toll House chocolate chip cookies (Click the name and learn something), Iced Tea, lemonade, and probably some other stuff I am forgetting. Since my SPO fed me lunch from Al’s Cafe I didn’t end up eating any of the Patriot’s Day stuff, though I did drink like 5 classes of iced tea. So while not having classes would have been better, this was a nice gesture. The only downside is that this was also the last day of the second “Admitted Students Weekend” so there were a bunch of outsiders taking up my space.

The law school also celebrated Earth Day, with a small outdoor sustainability festival.

They had some games, some free stuff, and some free food (I tried out some Strawberry-Kiwi “Spa Water”). Even b.Good was on campus offering up free smoothies.

Sadly, I had a meeting and by the time I got out there they were packing up so I didn’t’ get to spin their prize wheel or get a free smoothie. First world problems.

Speaking of problems, I’m actually procrastinating on a paper for my Rhetoric course as I write this post. Though to be fair I’ve been writing this post on-and-off for the past four days. My Rhetoric class ended on a high note though, first off they fed us.

It was from the Milk Street Cafe, and was very tasty. But more importantly, one of the presentations my classmate gave was about how to do origami, and we ended up making frogs that can hop!

I named mine “Frogulous Caesar” and he now lives in various places around the apartment, including the occasional perch on Little Friend (seen above). So if you want to learn origami, just pay 60,000$ for a year of Harvard Law School tuition and you can make a paper frog too!

Since all my classes were wrapping up it also meant that it was about time for my 1L Section to part ways. So we decided to have an end-of the year party. I’ll talk about that in an upcoming post, but what I need to share is that it ultimately involved me walking about 11 miles in one day to get to all the places I needed to be. I ended up up in Porter Square to meet SB for our Friday night dinner. It was a “Free Ride” day for the MBTA (an “apology” for how much they sucked this winter) but I ended up walking all the way there.

SB had decided on a place called Christopher’s which was conveniently located very close to the subway station. SB got there just a little bit before me, and after a short wait we were able to get a table.

I actually wasn’t that hungry since I had just ate dinner at my section party (including dessert) so I went with a caesar salad while SB went with their TOAD Burgah’ (all natural beef burger with melted cheddar, pickles, crispy onions, chopped lettuce & special TOAD sauce, on an onion roll – the TOAD sauce was a mix of BBQ, chipotle, and mayonnaise I think – it was pretty good).

More important than the food though, where the two beers we had. SB went with an Allagash White (one of her new standbys) while I tried something new.

2. Jack D’Or (Saison) – Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project

In addition to being something I hadn’t had before, I thought the name of the brewery was kind of cool – and its based right in Somerville! Plus, I am still exploring and trying to figure out what a saison actually is. It was a really good beer! The Jack D’Or I mean, I have no idea about saisons in general. This was a very balanced, yet complex beer. Probably one of the better “on-a-whim” beers I’ve had in a bit. Lots of malts where used in this beer, and its not hard to tell them apart, which is something that is tricky to accomplish as a brewer. I’ll definitely look for more Pretty Things brews in the future (they are only about a five year old brewery).

On the whole, Christopher’s was just “ok” to me. It was a little pricey, it was really loud inside, and its a bit out of the way for us. That said, after a long day (and a longer walk) I wasn’t feeling the best, and I had already eaten, so the cards were kind of stacked against the place. I’d try it again, but the loudness was a bit of a turn-off.

They do get bonus points for having Grey Poupon though (which gave me wicked heartburn, but I digress).

We took the subway back down to Harvard Square (I was done with the long walks for the day, thank you very much – plus it was free). Neither of us had been to the Porter Square stop before.

It had a big, weird windmill-statute-art-installation-thing next to it. But what was more interesting was just how deep the station was.

That is one of three stairways to get down. The first one isn’t that long, and the third one is fairly short, but the middle one, holy crap. I ran down the stairs and made myself dizzy and nauseous. Another interesting thing about the station was that they had little glove “statues” all over the place.

It’s apparently an art installation called “Glove Cycle” and the history behind it was a little more interesting than I figured it would be. It was actually part of the larger “Arts on the Line” project the MBTA did.

On our way home we walked through Harvard Yard, and there was another sort of public art installation going on (from artist Krzysztof Wodiczko).

People were being projected onto the John Harvard statute, and were telling various stories. We didn’t hang around for long, but most of the stories seemed to have themes ranging from hope and fear to questions of identity and feelings of vulnerability. It was kind of cool, but kind of eerie at the same time – especially the faces which basically looked like they were replacing the face on the statute, and were talking. I think it was part of the Yard Fest, which had ended earlier that evening.

After we got home, we pretty much just chilled for the rest of the evening, which has actually been the theme of this entire weekend (since exams start next week). Fortunately some Stump Town coffee (which we first had in Seattle) was on sale at Whole Foods yesterday, so we shared a bottle of that to get us energized enough to procrastinate 😛

Anyways, I am going to go ahead and wrap this post up. It feels kind of weird that I worked on it over the course of several days. Plus, I really should try to at least work on that paper, or move on to another form of procrastination, or something. I’m also currently waitlisted for one of the classes I really wanted to get into next semster, but they decreased the class size by 50 freaking people and messed my plan up, so I tend to check the waitlist page a lot to see if I’ve moved up the list at all. So that gives me something else to waste time on as well! 🙂

Until next time,
-Taco

A nice Spring-time photo from the fifth floor of Wasserstein Hall.

Spring is Springing

April 13, 2015 by Taco

So here is a funny story. I’ve had a folder on my computer desktop called “Blizzard 15” for quite some time now. Pretty much ever since all the snow started in January. However, as time marched on and the snow kept on a fallin’ the name of the folder changed. Eventually it became “Blizzard – January, February, March, & April – 15.” It just didn’t seem like winter was going to give up. However, Spring is Springing, and I am hoping that the snow we had on April 8th is going to be our last for the year. *knock on wood*

Season Stats, as provided by the Boston Department of Public Works
[Boston Record Snowfall Totals]

To be fair, things haven’t really been bad for a bit now. The “Big Melt” that happened as the several feet of snow began to melt was pretty nasty, and there’s been a few snow storms since, but by and large we have been working towards happier places as far as the weather is concerned. Sure, its still been colder than normal for this time of the year, but I’m trying to be positive. Either way, I’m thinking that its probably finally safe to make my “Spring” post that I’ve been waiting for, I guess you could say its time to take out the winter trash.

Literally. I guess someone hadn’t moved their trashcans in awhile. But, for now, we’ll bid winter and its 110.6″ of snow adieu, courtesy of the man himself (with his own light dusting).

Now that we are in Spring mode, that means its Easter time! I talked a little bit about it in my last post, but didn’t post a picture of our actual Easter basket.

We tend to we re-purpose whatever basket is handy, this time one of SB’s wicker ones. The Easter Bunny brought us a thing of oatmeal cookies and cold brew coffee from Whole Foods! It was a yummy day.

Spring also means that its time to change-up the beer selection to celebrate the (slightly) warmer weather! I went with two Spring-themed brews recently.

1. The Long Thaw, White IPA – Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall

2. Where The Helles Summer? – Southern Tier Brewing Company

Previously I mentioned that I wasn’t really aware of “colored” IPAs. So after having the red IPA from Aeronaut I had to try more varities. Conveniently the first one I found, a white, was also a Spring beer! The aptly titled “Long Thaw” is yet another solid offering from Harpoon, which as I’ve mentioned before, is a brewery that you just really have to try. I think the brewer’s note on this beer sums it up nicely: “Spring” in New England is a fickle friend. So we brewed a beer that could carry us through the January cold while hinting at warmer days ahead. With notes of orange peel and coriander, the soft mouthfeel of a Belgian wit, and an intense hop profile, The Long Thaw White IPA combines the warming backbone of an IPA with citrus notes indicative of the coming spring. “Spring” in New England may be indecisive, but we can help make one decision a little easier.

Next up was “Where the Helles Summer?” which was from a newcomer (to me) Southern Tier Brewery, from New York. It had been a good bit since I had had a Helles. In fact the last time I had one was probably a Hoppin’ Helles, whenever that was. In case you weren’t aware, Helles, literally translated, is German for “Light” or “Bright.” They are at their core a Pale Lager, made in response to the Pilsner. Helles are traditionally a crisp and light beer, with a relatively low ABV (4.6% in this case) to make them good warm weather beers. For my first Helles in awhile, I definitely approved of this one, plus with a name like “Where the Helles Summer?” is kind of hard not to enjoy yourself while drinking it. I’ll have to look for some more Southern Tier options in the future.

In more law-school oriented news, my oral argument for LRW is tomorrow night. I should be preparing for it but instead I’m writing this blog post. I call it “Productive Procrastination,” which is really just an excuse. I know that I alluded that I’d be bitching about LRW, but I’m going to keep it Brief (huehuehue) this time around. Basically in about 20 hours I will entirely done with the graded portion of LRW. Sure, I still have one more class on the 20th, but for all intents and purposes the class will be over tomorrow evening. I have not prepared as much as I need to. My practice oral argument last Monday went well, but the real deal is about 3x as long and it well, actually matters. So, if you’ve grown tired of me complaining about LRW, just hold out a little bit longer, and then we can both enjoy me moving on to complain about other things.

On Tuesday, I have a presentation due in my Rhetoric course, and while I’m not as nervous about it, it is 20% of my entire grade, and thus is no laughing matter. My point is that its really going to be very busy until about 7:30pm on Tuesday. After which I will officially enter that period of about 1.5 weeks where I just sail along until exam Hell begins. Sure, I still have one more project due with my journal, but its the smallest of the three I signed on for. Once exams come around, well, that’s for another post.

Outside of law school work, there has also been a bit of law school fun! The Public Interest Auction was this week!

If you couldn’t tell, they were using a casino/gambling theme this year. (The photo-booth was like a flash-back to high school)

Last year was nautically themed I think. Anyways, if you have an awesome memory for mundane details, you might recall that I worked 3 hours on a Saturday awhile back for the auction. As I said in that post, the HLS Public Interest Auction is held each year to assist in generating money for those of us who don’t want to go to a firm for their first summer (or those who did, and were unable to do so). Since my required hours were long past, I got to just sit back and enjoy the auction. And by enjoy, I mean eat the food and take advantage of the open bar.

That is a whole lot of awesome packed onto one little plate. I went through four beers on top of the food. Gotta love the freebies. SB even came up from BC to partake in the fun. She almost missed the food, mainly just getting what little was left, but there was still plenty of alcohol to go around.

The auction was set up within Austin Hall, and pretty much took up the entire building. With registration in the basement, noms and booze and the silent auctions on the first floor, and the live auction on third floor. The silent auction was divided into two rooms.

Each room sort of had a “theme” for the items, be they services (Spa Day), electronics (Amazon Kindle Fire), trips (Ski Trip in Vermont), or any myriad of things in between. I didn’t bid on anything, because I have no money. But a lot of the items were really cool, and the starting bids on the vast majority of the items were extremely reasonable (though I have no idea what they ended at).

The real show however, was the live auction which started at 7pm. The live auction hosted most of the “Big Ticket” items and the auctioneers were none other than Mr. Awesome-sauce Jonathan Zittrain and then Susan Farbstein, who was grossly overshadowed by Zittrain.

The live auction was a blast. Both the format, auctioneers, and guests all combined to make for a lot of fun. It was especially fun to see some of the professors in an environment where they didn’t have a stick up their ass.

The “items” being auctioned were greatly varied, including tennis matches with professors, dinners, Cape Cod timeshares, and, as pictured above, a trip to the Legoland Discovery Center with a professor and his two kids. They even included a video of the kids asking you to bid, talk about an appeal to emotion. I don’t remember how much the Legoland item generated, but I think it was something like 1250$.

There was also a trip to view the “Big Bang Theory,” complete with a VIP backstage tour to meet the cast and also a chance to sit in Sheldon’s spot.

That trip was actually being offered by Zittrain himself, who can be seen in the aforementioned spot on the screen behind the stage.

The final offering was a champagne reception at Professor Mann’s Cambridge “mansion” after graduation.

This one got pretty heated between two groups of 3Ls in the audience. Bidding ended at 4200$ which made it the largest single bid of the night, and it was a lot of fun to watch. However, the largest overall bid was actually for a dinner with Professor Suk (my criminal law professor) which generated 6000$. There were three bidders, and Zittrain proposed that they each stick with the 2000$ current bid, and all go together, which everyone accepted. It was pretty awesome, especially because some of all this money goes to me.

I do have to give a shout-out to an unnamed dude who was roaming the audience driving bids up.

SB and I have no idea who this guy was. Early in the auction I thought he was with one group of people since he was talking with them, trying to get them to bid. But then I noticed that he was appearing everywhere that someone was considering a bid war. At once point he was close enough to us that we could hear him egging people on to bid, classic social pressure. He was actually pretty freaking hilarious. He was like that little Devil that sits on your shoulder in cartoons, except all the bids were for a good cause (only Public Interest people get the money). By the end of the auction we were wondering if he even went to Harvard, he might have been some random dude who just came in to drink booze and make people bid more, either way he did his part to help raise money.

Overall the auction was a lot of fun, the only slow part was three back-to-back performances by Scales of Justice, which got a bit boring. But the food was great, the auction was great, and it raised a crap-ton of money. I still haven’t heard how much it raised, but between the silent auction, live auction, and all the private donations I can only imagine how much they raked in.

But, its now time for me to stop procrastinating, or more realistically, to go start procrastinating on something else. I have a fellowship application to complete, an oral argument to prepare for, and a presentation to keep practicing, in addition to all the usual week-to-week stuff. There is also a journal project in there somewhere, but since I don’t know when that is yet I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – Here is a boid friend (who was very hard to get a photo of!) that SB and I had a good conversation with while having some coffee on the patio at The Biscuit! Yay Spring!

The Brief is Done! (Let Us Drink and Eat Noms!)

April 7, 2015 by Taco

The LRW Brief from Hell is submitted. Actually it was submitted almost a week ago, but it still feels good. Of course LRW itself is far from over. I have a practice oral argument tomorrow, and then the real oral argument next Monday, and then the final LRW class the Monday after that. So, while I regrettably cannot celebrate the end of the Hell that is LRW just yet, I can celebrate the end of the Sub-Hell that was the LRW Brief.

But, it was a long and hard-fought battle. If you read this blog, well, really at all, then you’ll have been blessed by one (or more) of my LRW bitchfests. Rather than recount the entire process that began in late January (which is documented through a string of posts) I’ll focus on the final hours of the Brief. The story begins last weekend. As usual with law school, one big project being due also means that a lot of other things are due. So I didn’t really have a weekend so to speak. The first part of the weekend was devoted to trying to make up for the fact that Sunday wouldn’t exist for me. But not everything was bad! Starbucks had a limited time “Birthday Cake Frappuccino” to celebrate the Frappuccino’s 20th anniversary. It was as good as it sounds.

Valentino was a fan, obviously.

After the amazing day of Birthday Cake Frappuccino, it was time for Sunday to roll around. Sunday, for all intents and purposes, sucked. It started off decently enough, other than the fact that I stayed up too late on Saturday talking to a friend. But by the time noon rolled around, it was time to pack up and head to the law school. You see some genius had decided to make the Brief due at 9am on a Monday morning (3-30-15). Yes, 9, freaking, am. It might not seem too bad at first, but think about it. You take an assignment worth a MASSIVE amount of your grade, you force people into pairs, and then you make it due IN THE MORNING. Then you have the audacity to be like “We want you to be healthy!” bullshit. By making the Brief due at 9am you are essentially guaranteeing that people WILL stay up all night long working on it. To argue otherwise would be asinine. But that is just part of the bull-crap that is law school and mental health. They constantly claim that they want us to take care of ourselves, but then they structure EVERYTHING to be entirely conducive to NOT being healthy.

Which is precisely why generally speaking in law school Taco gives no shits and gets average grades. I decided early on that being a mental train-wreck for 3 straight years was not going to happen. Of course that creates an issue when you are forcibly paired with a person who just has to be a Supreme Court Clerk someday.

All this is to say, that the final hours of the Brief were horrible. From trying to figure out the table of authorities, to correcting which reporter we were citing to, to rewriting an ENTIRE SECTION of the brief, to cutting out FIVE PAGES worth of content to meet the page limit. It was crazy, crazy, crazy. In fact it didn’t end until about 1:40am. If my memory serves me, this was the most time I I had ever spent in a single sitting on a school project. Nearly 14 hours. I was never one to do all-nighters in school, ever. I just don’t care enough. I value sleep more than anything except exercise. So, generally, when shit needs to get done for school, I either do it early, or I stop and go to bed. Sleep > School. However, I guess its fair that I didn’t get to complete my entire post-secondary education without at least one really late night at the library.

But, by about 2:00am it was nearly complete and it was off to bed. Which sounded good in theory. In reality my brain just wouldn’t shut off and so by the time my alarm went off at 6:15am, I had amassed about 43 minutes of sleep. Bringing me to about 5 hours and 43 minutes of sleep in a 48 hour period. However, Baby Jesus was kind enough to give me a really pretty sunrise to “wake up” to.

It was only 6:15am and I was already running on fumes, good start. My exercise helped a bit, though I was basically a zombie while doing it. Around 7:00am my partner and I got back to working on the Brief, this time remotely. By about 8:30 I was done with my final edits, and he submitted it around 8:53am, seven minutes before the deadline. But that wasn’t the end of the submission process.

There are three things you have to do to submit your brief: 1 – Turn in an electronic copy by 9am. 2 – Turn in FIVE physical copies with a red cover (or blue, if you are appellants – we were appellees) page by 10am. 3 – Turn in an electronic copy to the opposing counsel by Noon. Because my partner was in class, and you can ONLY turn in the hard copies from 9 to 10 (yes, no earlier, no later) it fell to me to get to campus and print 125 pages of material (correctly) and submit it. Of course, the 9 – 10am is universal for appellees (appellant’s briefs were due a week ago). Which means that around 255 people are also trying to print 125 pages and turn them in. Which, in turn, means there is a RUSH on the printers. Luckily I’m slightly less of a drone than my classmates (which likely stems from how much less I care) and I went to an area where I figured none of them would be, and I was correct. The printer even cooperated and didn’t mess up or run out of ink. So, I checked all the formatting, stapled everything together (including the red cover sheets I had printed the night before) and then was on my way.

I had to track down my partner (who was still in class) to get him to sign each copy (we both had to), since I figured forgery probably wasn’t a great way to start my career as a lawyer. But after that I got all 125 pages turned in and then proceeded to mail the opposing counsel a copy, and, with that, was done with the Brief.

Its red because IT COMES FROM HELL

Of course there was still about 30 minutes before my first class even started, and so with nothing to do I started to lose energy fast. I decided to treat myself to the cafeteria, which actually has a really good selection but costs money, something I don’t have much of. I ended up cheaping out (as I always do) and just got cereal in a plastic tube.

But at least it was sugary cereal in a plastic tube! Which was a nice (little) burst of energy, since despite my brief being done, I had class until 7:00pm. Yes, by the time I turned in my Brief, I still had 9 more hours of being on campus in front of me, including a lovely LRW class. Yes, LRW on the day the Brief is due, salt in the wound.

The good news is that the law school fed me well for lunch. I don’t even remember what the lunch talk was, and honestly I don’t care.

Judging by the vegetarian look of the meal (which was good, I remember that much!) it was probably something about saving animals from us being assholes.

I honestly don’t remember much of that day. I just remember that when I finally made it home, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep before SB did, which happens like once every 3000 years or so. The next day I was still fairly tired, and I honestly think it took until about Wednesday before I was back to normal.

The rest of the week was pretty nifty, albeit more busy than I had hoped it would be. On Monday I met Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, he was talking about renewable energy. On Tuesday I met Chris K.elly, the “Privacy Officer” of Facebook during its rise to power. Yeah, I put scare quotes around privacy officer because Facebook caring about your privacy is an oxymoron.

His talk was actually pretty interesting, but damn the dude was shady. He was extremely good at answering questions without answering them. Maybe that is why he ultimately left Facebook for politics.

On Thursday my current favorite professor, Jonathan Zittrain gave a talk upon his acceptance of the “George Bemis Professor of International Law” chair. The talk was entitled Love the Processor, Hate the Process: The Temptations of Clever Algorithms and When to Resist Them, and I highly recommend you watch it online if you get a chance. SB can attest that “Zittrain is a pretty cool guy. Eh teaches the memes and doesnt afraid of anything.” Yes, SB attended, partially because I asked her too (and because she was on Easter Break – BC is Jesuit – she had time), and partially because there was alcohol and some noms afterwards. I really like Zittrain, he is probably one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, he is also a massive nerd, and most importantly he is funny and relevant. Sadly I’m really just not interested in pursuing Cyberlaw, so I don’t know how much more of him I’ll be seeing after this semester (I’m taking an elective of his, and was in his reading group last semester).

The candid shot above is kind of telling. As Dean Minnow said, “Professor Zittrain is the only faculty here at the law school who would do their own AV.” And he did. While she introduced him he sat over at the side and made sure the technical bits were all in place, it was kind of funny considering he was the one being honored with the chair. And in case you were wondering, the chair is not only a professorial position, he literally got a fancy new Harvard chair to go with his new title. In attendance during the talk was Tim Berners-Lee, the dude who freaking invented the World Wide Web, no seriously.

Afterwards SB and I enjoyed some alcohol and noms (including some very tasty mushrooms that tasted just as good as fresh from the wild) and then headed home. Since SB had came to campus earlier in the day and we had lunch at at Cambridge Common, it was nice to get to spend most of a day together, something that doesn’t happen often on weekdays!

On Friday I met Michael N. Schmitt, one of the Navy’s lawyers who helps figure out how to combat cyber-terrorism. I don’t really know much about him, but his talk was interesting. I got pretty much screwed over when it was time to ask questions, because I got skipped FIVE TIMES, I just have bad luck when it comes to questions I guess. But more important was the lunch, it was quite tasty!

After lunch I was supposed to have had physical therapy. But my Doctor, who was the head of the department, just didn’t show up on her last day (yeah she is quitting too). So 4 hours before my appointment, which I really needed as I was having a bad day with my numb spot on my upper back, they called and cancelled. They are supposed to call next week to figure out who is going to take me in, but either way I am not thrilled, because it means explaining my history to someone all over again, and starting the process all over again, yadda yadda. For all the bad luck I have with asking questions, my luck with doctors is several hundred times worse.

The good news was that since it was Friday it meant more SB time! She came to campus and we tried out a little cafe that is literally inside Harvard Yard, called the Cafe Gato Rojo. We’d been meaning to try it for awhile, and this seemed like a good opportunity. The hours are weird, and they only take cash, but the prices are very good!

We didn’t actually eat there, since it was still early. We just wanted to get some drinks and sit and chill. We ended up getting some iced tea, SB went with a Black tea with Raspberry syrup (which wasn’t very strong) and I went with an Iced Green Tea which was really good and had spices in it.

Since it was so nice outside (high 50s! woo!) I suggested we go sit someplace in the Yard (Yahd) and people watch. Of course (literally) right as we went outside it started to rain, so it was right back into Gato Rojo. Once we were sitting down SB pointed out a funny banner hanging above the cafe that I had missed.

Yes, that does indeed say “I (Heart) the Shit Outta You.” And who said Harvard was all class?

My upper back and neck were really hurting, so I didn’t enjoy our little tea date as much as I might have otherwise, but it was still nice to just sit and chill after a long week. We had an event we were going to at 5:30, so before too long we decided to go get an early dinner. We stayed on campus and ate at a place called the Greenhouse Café inside of the Science Center. Neither one of us had any idea why it was called the Greenhouse, until we got back into the seating area!

It was a grey and rainy(ish) day, but the views and (limited) sunlight were still nice!

Greenhouse is actually more akin to a little food court than it is a traditional cafe. Once you get back in there you have a variety of food options. We ended up honing in on the Indian section, and we both pretty much got the same thing (great minds think alike).

It was good, and relatively inexpensive, which was nice since we had had lunch the day before at Cambridge Commons. We though it was open until 7:30pm (according to the website) but in actuality it was only open until 5pm (gotta love Friday hours). So we stayed until about five, then we were on our way to big event of the night, a beer and cider tasting!

First, a little background.

SB and I live in housing that is owned by Harvard University (not the law school). This housing, referred to as HUH (Harvard University Housing, go figure right?), is divided into “groups,” each of which are managed by different offices. For instance, our group, the Botanic Group is centered around the Botanic Gardens housing area (though we are the bastard forgotten children far, far away). In order to foster community and growth and all that good stuff, Harvard created something called the “Graduate Commons Program,” which basically gives any graduate students (and their families) living in a “group” of residences to come together and meet each other during social events. Somethings groups cross over into other groups, but largely events are held on a intra-group basis. These events range in subject matter from orientation sessions (such as Cambridge 101 – the very first event we attended!), to ice cream socials, to watching sports, to outdoor games, to happy hours! Almost all of them are free, and those that do cost money normally have a steep discount. They also give out prizes sometimes, in fact back at the beginning of the semester I won 2 movie tickets and a Harvard mug. We still haven’t used the movie tickets as SB and I are waiting on Avengers: Age of Ultron to come out. [I actually have three movie tickets, I won the third one in a library raffle at the law school.]

Me being the anti-social person that I am, we don’t go to many of the events. Though to be fair, its often because they are far away. The primary spot for the Botanic Group’s events is about a 20-25 minute walk from where we live. Its actually the building we almost got an apartment in, which would have been 700$ more a month – in retrospect we are both glad we missed the lease window, despite the building being newer and nicer and closer to the law school, its not so much better as to justify the extra 700$ a month we would have spent. So, basically, because I’m anti-social, its far away, and we’ve had a historic winter, we haven’t been to many events. However, we stayed on the mailing list and keep an eye on the events as they are announced (at least SB does). So, when a “Meet the Brewers!” event popped up, it was all hands on deck.

Despite the beginning being a little rocky, I’m really glad we ended up going because it was a lot of fun! It was held in the building mentioned above, which was part of the reason why SB and were just bopping around campus on a Friday afternoon instead of getting the heck out of there. Part of the problem was that the event had originally been scheduled from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, but they ended up changing it to 5:30pm to 7:30pm relatively close to the day-of. This meant that a lot of people were late and the event really didn’t get started until almost 6:00pm anyways. This in turn meant that SB and I were some of the first people there, if not the first, and we were locked out. See, this is a secured building, which is nice and all, except for the fact that you know, you can’t get in if you don’t live there. In fact, way back at our first event, the Cambridge 101 session, we were locked out. You’d think after nine months they would have figured out that they need to unlock the doors to the common room, but nope. However, SB got their attention and we got signed in. Being early meant that we got first dibs on the snacks (which we ate some of, despite having just ate dinner) and we also got a table to ourselves. Before too long the rest of the guests and well as the breweries themselves showed up and we were ready to roll.

There were two breweries represented, one was a beer brewery, the other was a cider brewery (cidery?):

Bantam Cider

Aeronaut Brewery

Bantam was represented by one of the two women who founded it, which Aeronaut was represented by one of the founders as well as someone who joined the crew shortly after it started. It was a fairly typical Q&A setup, with most of the questions asked being prepared beforehand and gathered from the RSVP forms, which gave the guests a chance to ask two questions. I’m happy to report that the two most substantive questions came from yours truly. I actually had a third question I was going to ask, but it was stolen from me right before I could ask it (see my luck with questions above). I think the most interesting part of the talk was hearing them explain the origin of their business names (my stolen question), especially Aeronaut. The “O” in Aeronaut isn’t actually a can-tab, its a hot air balloon on an adventure! No seriously, go look closely at it above! Pretty cool.

Of course no one comes to these things for talking, at least no one I know. They come for the drinking, and boy was there plenty to drink. Each brewery brought three of their offerings.

Bantam’s Table: (There were more bottles in a cooler behind the table)

Aeronaut’s Table:

Each person was initially allowed one sample of each variety, so three ciders and three beers for six samples in total (as the night wore on and everyone had had at chance to sample each thing they just opened it up to anyone, but SB and I had had plenty to drink by that point, especially SB).

The way you ensured that you got to try one of each was via this handy-dandy ~~notebook~~ drink ticket.

For each of the three varieties offered by Aeronaut or Bantham they’d circle or mark of one of the three numbers of that side of the card. Pretty simple! Well, it should have been. But the guy doing the marking (some Graduate Common Program slave) on Bantam’s side marked a ton of cards incorrectly until I pointed out that he was doing it wrong. The way he was doing it you were getting screwed out of a beer over at the Aeronaut table. YOU HAD ONE JOB, ONE JOB. Anyways, we ended up getting it fixed over at the Aeronaut table because beer > all.

So what was the juicy lineup of alcoholic drinks?

Aeronaut Brewing Company

1 – Imperial Stout (Self titled, its an imperial stout named imperial stout)

2 – Red Galaxy IPA

3 – El Dorado IPA (Doesn’t have a BA profile yet, must be relatively new!)

Bantham Cider Company

1 – Wunderkind

2 – Rojo

3 – Americain (Doesn’t have a Ratebeer page, I think I remember her saying this was a newer one, Ratebeer sucks anyways)

SB and I decided to start with Aeronaut, then flip flop back and forth between beer and cider (with water breaks and food in-between) to keep our palates from getting exhausted on a particular flavor.

Taco and SB’s Six-Drink Power Tour:

First up, Aeronaut Imperial Stout!

A dark beer with roasted aromas and a rich malty character, this was a solid stout and a good start to our tour due the complex flavors.

Second, Bantam Rojo!

An unfiltered, semi-dry crider. Rojo starts with a spicy fruity aroma and a first taste that becomes slightly sour on mid-palate and finished with a subtle cherry note, probably because it has cherries and peppercorn! This would make a great fall cider.

Third, Aeronaut El Dorado!

This IPA is a showcase of candied fruity hops with a subtle malt character. It was a fairly sweet IPA, which flowed nicely on the heels of the Rojo!

Fourth, Bantam Americain!

This is a warm spicy cider, with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. This would make a great winter cider (especially with a nice fireplace to drink it by!).

Fifth, Aeronaut Red Galaxy!

This is a dark, hoppy, and fuity red rye IPA. This IPA opened my eyes to the world of “colored” (e.g. Red, White, etc.) IPAs which I didn’t even know existed!

Sixth, Bantam Wunderkind!

This cider is made with a blend of local apples (New England has tons of them) and is slowly fermented then balanced with a hint of flower-blossom honey. This was a “traditional” hard cider and was Bantam’s first recipe. It reminded me of the macro ciders, such as Angry Orchard (owned by Boston Brewing Company).

All in all, it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed each drink! They raffled off the Aeronaut growlers, but we didn’t win one (though SB’s number was 55 and one number called was 54, so close!). We were actually feeling pretty good when we were done, likely because of the speed at which we drank all six classes (we didn’t want them to run out before we tried them all, and Bantam actually did, but not before we got all three). SB was especially happy, and our walk home may or may not have involved her walking nearly drunk through the hallowed halls of Harvard Law. (Ah memories!).

We actually made it home just in time to see Final Jeopardy! (Much to Tristen’s enjoyment). After chilling for a bit and getting some much needed water, we opened up our package of Red Velvet Oreos! Yes, Red Velvet Oreos. If you follow the blog you probably are wondering if I eat Oreos all the time. No, I promise I don’t. I’ve actually eaten more Oreos in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. However, MIL and FIL sent us these Red Velvet Oreos as part of our Easter care package!

Depending on your flavor preferences, these might sound better or worse than the cookie dough Oreos I had last weekend. Its actually pretty interesting, SB and I were planning on trying these Oreos now that we have had the Cookie Dough Oreos, but MIL and FIL must have read our minds because soon after they sent us some! While there was no cool epic hunt for these as there was for the cookie dough variety (we didn’t even realize these existed until we were trying to find the cookie dough ones), we were excited to try them. Namely because Meem makes the best Red Velvet cake in history and therefore SB and I tend to like Red Velvet flavored things (even though they are never as good as Meem Red Velvet cake, so long as you don’t add too much food coloring).

So how were they? Well, I have to report that the Cookie Dough Oreos are still the champions of the “flavored” Oreos in the Taco household. While expectations were on the whole lower for the Red Velvet Oreos (its hard to compare to 1.5 years of searching to build up the anticipation), the baseline (against Meem’s Red Velvet Cake) was probably way higher. They pretty much nailed the cream cheese icing flavor. The center of the Oreo tasted perfectly like the cream cheese icing does on a on red velvet cake. The problem was with the cookie itself, the red velvet flavor was just far too weak and largely inaccurate. So basically these were more “Cream Cheese Icing Oreos With Hints of Something That Tastes Like Red Velvet Cake from a Box” than they were “Red Velvet Oreos.” Still, they definitely weren’t bad, and like the cookie dough variety, we ate the package within two days! Of course the red velvet package was even smaller than the normal package, whereas the cookie dough package was full size, which I thought was odd. Either way, its not like I really needed anymore Oreos.

After Oreos we pretty much just chilled for the rest of the evening then went to bed decently early for a Friday (all that food + alcohol + long week = sleep). I didn’t even have any more beer! We were planning picking me some up after the brewer event, but I decided to pass because six glasses (even small ones) seemed like enough for one evening. I actually did end up getting some beer on Saturday, but I’ll talk about that in my Easter post!

The rest of the weekend has been pretty chill (wooo UK lost in the NCAA tournament!), lots of reading and procrastinating for my practice oral argument tomorrow, but since the practice argument isn’t graded I’m having a really hard time motivating myself to work on it, especially after 150 pages of criminal law reading.

But, I should probably end this post. Earlier my blog crashed and I lost a massive amount of what I had written and I wanted to smash my desk into pieces, so rather than risk that again I’ll wrap things up (I’ve since been pasting the post into Word as it grows, but still, why take chances! – plus I really should do some work for LRW).

So, that is the end of the Brief for LRW, the next time you hear about LRW I’ll either be complaining about my upcoming oral argument, or I’ll be complaining about my oral argument after its over. Either way I can promise you that there will be at least one more bit of LRW complaining before I can compile my glorious “LRW IS DONE!” post.

Until next time,
-Taco

(Post) 1L Spring Break

March 28, 2015 by Taco

So, over a week ago I said that I wanted to do a Spring Break “wrap up” post, well, here it is, a week after Spring Break is over. Its been a very busy week, and its going to be a very busy weekend, so I’m lucky just to have a chance to try to catch up.

So, how did Spring Break end up turning out? Well, overall, not too bad. As I predicted, it was plagued by LRW and other various law school things. I also failed to achieve some of my goals, but on the whole, for a “stay-in” Spring Break things went ok. Sure, returning to school and learning about the adventures of my absurdly rich classmates was a bit humbling, but c’est la vie!

SB and I’s Thursday lunch turned out nicely. After a bit of deliberation we ended up going to someplace on our “Places we want to eat” list, Tory Row. Which is unsurprisingly named after the real Tory Row, which I discussed here. It (the restaurant) has been someplace we’ve wanted to try for awhile. But, surprise, surprise, its too expensive. In fact we almost passed it up again, but since this lunch outing was part of my not-break, Spring Break, we went for it.

It ended up being really good! Sadly they don’t have lunch specials (wtf?) so there were no discounted options. However, we chose items towards the low end of the price scale. I went with a serrano ham, fig jam, cambozola blue, and arugula flatbread (amazing!) while SB went with a grilled marinated chicken breast, spicy aioli, and potato sandwich (also amazing!). We both really liked our lunch, both for the food and for the rare chance to actually have lunch together. Afterwards we headed over to Peet’s Coffee for, well, coffee, and then SB had to head out. I studied for a bit and then was off to physical therapy.

The very next day was our Friday date night, and it was my turn to pick. I decided to go with our old favorite Grendel’s Den. Its really hard to beat that (nearly constant) half-price food menu, its one of the few places where we can get food and drinks and not spend more than we should. Well, at least that is the way it works out normally. This time we splurged a little bit. There is a “Cheese Fondue for Two” on the menu for the regular price of 25$ (so 12.50$ during half-price) that we had joked about getting for some time. I suggested we get it, SB thought I was joking, but then she realized I was serious and we decided to go for it! Spring Break was drawing to a close, so why not! The fondue included: Swiss, Gruyere & Raclette cheeses melted with white wine & kirsch. Served with French bread for dipping and choice of two side salads (Caesar, Greek or Mediterranean). SB went with the Ceaser salad, and I went with the Mediterranean, which had a really odd Tahini dressing that I wasn’t too sure about.

The best part about fondue is of course getting your own little campfire. It reminded me of a time we went to Hu Hot and were able to roast s’mores at our table (more on s’mores in a bit!). Shortly after we finished our salads the huge bowl of cheese came.

SB followed sage advice when she began to dig into the bread and cheese! It was really good. I’m not a huge cheese person, at least not to the point of “Hey lets eat a bowl of molten cheese,” but this was admittedly pretty tasty (especially the semi-burnt cheese on the bottom). There was no way we could have managed to finish it all though. I really think you could split this between four people as an appetizer quite effectively, but for two people its definitely an entree.

I liked the little forks we were provided with to poke and dip things. Between the salads, bread, cheese, and beer, we left feeling quite pompous indeed. We still managed to fit treats in our bellies later that night though, have no fear.

In fact the food splurge spilled over into the next day, when we stopped through The Biscuit on our way to Whole Foods. We had some coffee, and shared a salmon sandwich (yum!), as well as chatted for a good bit, in fact we closed the coffee shop down! Such rebels we are (they close at 5pm).

Later on, we continued our parade of noms in a tribute to America.

Looking back, that is a lot of food. But hey, my Spring Break was basically work, beer, work, food, work, beer. And speaking of beer, lets discuss two new ones I’ve had. While I’ve been a bit obsessed with Dogfish Head lately, there are many more fish in the sea (har-har). I decided to try a couple new kinds of beer, but keep within the IPA theme.

1. Spring Hornin’ Spring India Pale Ale – Anderson Valley Brewing Company

2. Samuel Adams Rebel IPA – Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams)

Starting with the comically named, Spring Hornin’

This was an interesting IPA. In fact, I think it was more akin to a dry-hop Pale Ale than to a traditional IPA, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was kind of a citrusy-herbal hybrid beer, labeled as an IPA. It was also the first beer I’ve ever had from this brewery. Overall I was definitely impressed. Especially since it boasts a 6.8% ABV, but does not taste like it has that much alcohol at all. I honestly think I’d rank it a little bit higher than Beer Advocate did, but they tend to be more purist than I am, which might explain why they didn’t go for the “offbeat” IPA vibe.

Next up was Samuel Adam’s Rebel IPA

Yes, yes, I know, its just an empty bottle, no beer. I forgot to take a picture with a poured glass (hey it was the end of my Spring Break, give me a.. ehm.. break). I guess that is an excuse to get it again. Since I’m now BFFs with Jim Koch maybe I can get him to send me some for free. Speaking of which, here is a write-up about his visit. If you read my previous post about Koch, you’ll remember me mentioning that a very good picture of he and I exists somewhere. Well, they didn’t use it for the article I linked, so yeah, its probably gone forever. I’m sure those photos are entirely Harvard’s property. However, you can actually see me in this photo.

Aww yiss, famous now. And no, that is not the photo I was saying was good, the photo I’m referring is actually Koch and I in the law school’s pub (just the two of us!). I really want it. Anyways, back to the Rebel IPA. It was good, but I think I preferred Spring Hornin’ overall simply because the Rebel IPA was just a straightforward IPA, no gimmicks or strings attached. There is no problem with that of course, but I think I should have drank the beers in reverse order to be entirely honest. I think the Rebel IPA’s “straight-laced” approach is probably what garnered it a higher score on Beer Advocate.

Of course, the later portion of my break wasn’t entirely food and beer. We also went to see the Boston Celtic’s play! Spoiler: They lost, but we still had a lot of fun. SB and I normally can’t afford any professional (or often even collegiate) sporting eventing unless there is some sort of special deal going on. Case in point, we really want to go to a Bruins game, but NHL tickets are just so pricey! However, this time around the Harvard Law School Couples Association nabbed a group of 20 tickets for 10$ a piece. Sure these weren’t court-side tickets, but we did get the 30-35$ tickets for 10$ instead, and in my book only paying 1/3 of a price is pretty good. We decided 20$ was well worth it to go to an NBA game. The opposing team was the Detroit Pistons.
[Edit: A couple of weeks later the HLSCA ended up giving us our 20$ back because they had excess funds – so the tickets were totally free!]

We got there a little early, just to find our seats, get oriented, scope out the food situation, etc. While SB had been to NBA (Pacer) games in the past, I don’t think I’ve ever been to an NBA game. In fact I think this might have been my first professional league anything. So I was pretty excited, even though basketball is far from my go-to sport (not that I have a go-to sport). It was a lot of fun, and even though we were up in the Himalayas surrounded by the other poor folk, I really enjoyed myself. At one point they tossed t-shirts in the audience (no cannons, sadly). However, they later made up for the lack of t-shirt cannons by dropping t-shirt parachutes from the heavens, it was awesome.

Here is a (blurry) shot that shows one a bit more up-close.

If you regularly watch games this is probably totally a non-thing for you, but I don’t, so it is. And, have you ever parachuted? Didn’t think so. Those t-shirts have.

The game itself kind of flip flopped, there for a bit the Celtics seemed like they had it, but then the Pistons surged back at the end and then just dominated overtime for the win. But as a I mentioned before, it was more about the experience. I enjoyed just watching the game, as well as the tricycle-race they had some kids do at half time, and the parachutes and green light shows of course. Oh, I also liked pestering Daryl 2, who is a Celtics fan. But he was in Florida, so he deserved it.

By the time we got home it was decently late, so the Celtics game (which was on Sunday night) was pretty much the last event for my Spring Break, as it was back to school the next morning. And boy, back to school sure came on with a vengeance. I promised myself I wouldn’t turn this post into an LRW-bitchfest, but I’ll just say that my week involved a lot of reading (a lot), journal sub citing, journal editing, LRW anguish, and LRW partner hostilities.

On top of it all, class registration is almost upon me and I’ve had no time to research classes, I still don’t have an apartment for Denver, AND, and this one is great; my laptop seems to be in the process of breaking. Yes, yes, its wonderful. In fact I tried to fix it and that just ended up with the laptop permanently bent in one spot and my fingers hurt (all thanks to one stupid stuck screw the size of a flea).

But not everything was bad this week. Harvard gave me s’mores.

I bet you thought I was being metaphorical or something, nope, Harvard literally gave me s’mores! Not only that, they gave me hot chocolate too! Heck, these s’mores even came with a variety of chocolates, I choose to make mine (yes we got to make them, over a real fire – insurance be damned!) with a Mr. Goodbar, because I friggin’ loved those when I was younger and fatter. They also had a potted flower (not sure which kind, some sort of early Spring variety would be my guess) but I didn’t get one since I wasn’t sure how care intensive it would be. Anyways, so why the treats? Well, I’ll just share the message from Harvard’s President.

“Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

It’s official. We have endured the snowiest winter on record, shoveling and trudging our way into history. This has been a season of extraordinary effort across the University, and I want to thank everyone who kept Harvard running smoothly through more than 110 inches of snow.

I write now to invite you to join friends and colleagues on the Science Center Plaza on Thursday, March 26, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., for a celebration of this historic moment. Please stop by to enjoy some well-deserved hot chocolate and s’mores as we look forward to what I hope will be an especially beautiful spring.

With best wishes,
Drew Faust”

So yep, it was because of the snow! Speaking of which, ~~believe it or not~~ unsurprisingly we have more snow in the forecast! They are calling for as much as between 1 and 3 inches tomorrow. [EDIT: It didn’t end up accumulating as much as they predicted, but it still brought us up to 110.6″] This after it actually hit 50 degrees early this week for the briefest of times. We’ll see how it turns out, once we are (finally) done I’ll be sure to share what the final snow total was. At this point we are just increasing that record more and more, but April is just around the corner, so lets hope we are almost done!

After s’mores and hot chocolate it was on to physical therapy and then back to the law school. As part of LRW I had to go observe the Ames Moot Court Semi-Final round. This is one of those rare moments where I am not complaining about LRW, so bear with me. While its true that they basically force the 1Ls to go watch one of the arguments in order to fill the room with bodies, it was actually a pretty cool experience.

But first, a little bit about the Ames Moot Court itself. If it wasn’t obvious, Ames is a Moot Court. Its named after its founder, HLS Dean James Barr Ames. Its been around sine 1911 and is the most prestigious moot court competition in existence. In other words, its a big freaking deal. There are three parts, the Qualifying Round (Fall 2L), Semi-Final Round (Spring 2L), and the Final Round (Fall 3L). Each is set up elimination style, you have to win your case to proceed. So a large pool of teams (5 members each, with 2 people on each team being the actual oralists) are whittled down to two teams in the Final Round. The Final Round is often televised on C-SPAN (Yeah I know, who cares) and usually brings in three very high profile judges (normally including 1 Supreme Court judge – this past year was Scalia). Anyways, this was the Semi-Final round, where there are four teams in total, which argue on two different nights. As part of LRW we have to attend one of the arguments, then write what is basically a reflection on it, easy stuff.

The argument itself was pretty interesting to watch, and the judges were ehm.. aggressive. Of course I guess that is pretty much the way it goes. Keep in mind, these are all real judges. The argument I attended had a judge from the California Supreme Court (Goodwin Liu), a judge from the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit (Carlos Bea) and a judge from the DC Court of Appeals (Catherine Easterly). In my mind the appellant did much better than the appellee, which is a shame because I was more much ideologically in support of the appellee (The case was about a RFRA law – no relation to Indiana). Of course I don’t do the grading, and I’m just a dumb 1L, so I might have totally read the flow of the argument wrong.

The reason we have to go watch, is primarily to fill the room (people care way more about the final round), but also to see the process action because as 1Ls we also have our own Ames (the reflection is just to prove we went, and didn’t lie and say we did). Our Ames, which isn’t part of the three round competition, is the culmination of the Hell-on-Earth that is LRW, and yes, we have to argue against opposing counsel before a court, and yes, you can lose, and yes it affects your grade if you lose. Plus, since there are only 2 people in a team (as opposed to 5 on the “real” Ames) both people have to be oralists. Anyways, I have that coming up in a couple of weeks, but first I have to get the brief itself done, which is due Monday. In fact, I will probably spend my entire damn Sunday working on that stupid brief. But I’ll talk about how that ends up in another post.

All that catches us up to tonight (Friday)

SB and I went out to Darwin’s for dinner since its getting colder (in advance of the coming snow). Then we went over to Broadway to pick up some beer for me, but no treat. What!? Yes, we didn’t get treats at Broadway, our treat had came via the mail.

Now, depending on your personality, you probably either just 1) Puked in your mouth, or 2) Began salivating. You can mark SB and I down as being firmly in category 2. And I have to say, these Oreos were FREAKING AMAZING. They are hands down, the best “flavored” Oreo I have ever had, in all the flavors Oreo has tried out, this is the best in both SB and I’s book. The thing is, these things were a bitch to find.

The story begins over a year ago (seriously), when I learned about them in an online forum. We began searching for them, but could never find them anywhere. The search eventually petered out and we even began to question their existence. From time to time I would fruitlessly check store aisles, but we never saw them. Well, eventually we moved to Boston and the Cookie Dough Oreos slowly faded from memory until one day when I was getting an MRI one of the techs was eating them. Suddenly the search was on again! (I didn’t get a chance to ask them where he got them). Well, we still couldn’t find them, not even in a big East Coast city (the coastal cities traditionally have stuff like this sooner than the Midwest). The sorrow returned and it seemed like we would never have God’s Gift to Oreos. Until one day I stopped being stupid and looked for them online. Now here is the kicker, not even Amazon has them anymore. So I went to Ebay. Yes, freaking Ebay, for food. Sure enough, there they were. Some industrious person in Pennsylvania had cleared out the supply from his Sam’s Club or something back when they were still in stores. And now these cookies are no longer produced, so he sells them marked up about 4-5x on Ebay, because he (rightfully) knows that people like me will buy the damn things. And I did. Now, I generally don’t take buying food on Ebay lightly. But this seller had over 3000 feedback and it was 100% positive, so I figured it he was mass poisoning people, he was doing it very intelligently.

Long story made short, we ordered them on Ebay, paying more for Oreos than I could ever imagine, they arrived a couple days later, perfectly packaged (and sans poison) and they were SO DANG GOOD. The entire process was worth it. I cry a little bit as I take each bite, knowing that I may never have these delicious Oreos again. Not that I need them, its like 5lbs of calories in each 1oz cookie. But still, look at how noms these look, complete with chocolate chunks, it really is a cookie inside a cookie.

Oh yeah, and the beer! Whereas I had been on an IPA kick before, this time around I decided to head to the British Isles!

Yep! Every beer pictured comes from either the UK or Ireland. Its a nice change of pace from the American-made IPA kick I’ve been on lately (not that I didn’t like those IPAs!). I actually bought the two kinds of Guinness for a specific reason, I’ll have a post about that later. For now I’ll just talk about the Bass.

3. Bass Pale Ale – Bass Brewers Limited

I’ve had Bass before, more than once. In fact one of the first times I had it was at Epcot! However, I’ve never highlighted it here on Dinosaurbear before. According to the brewers, Bass is “The World’s First Pale Ale,” dating back to 1777. I have no idea if that is true, in fact I’d probably say its not, but its one of those things that is very difficult to prove, so I guess we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. However, they also claim that Bass’ red triangle was the UK’s first registered trademark, which is true! (UK00000000001) Apparently so many people were ripping off Bass by 1876 (or 1875 according to the brewers) that they had to do something, and thus the UK’s first trademark was born. By comparison, the first US trademark was an an eagle and a ribbon for the Averill Chemical Paint Company (1884), which is way less cool than a beer triangle.

Unfortunately Bass is a beer that just isn’t as exceptional or unique as its history. Its actually the lowest ranked beer of the three in this post (on Beer Advocate). Its not a bad beer, it just doesn’t have anything that really goes “BAM!” about it. Its kind of like the Rebel IPA in that regard, its good for what it is, but isn’t too memorable, even as the “first” pale ale. I do like the head, its sort of a creamy foam, which isn’t standard for pale ale. Its also fairly crisp for a pale ale, and is definitely drinkable. The 5.1% ABV also means that you could have a few without getting plastered. There is also just a hint of sweetness that blends with the overall flavor. So yeah, not a bad a beer, but nothing legendary (as its history might imply) either.

For the rest of the night I’m just going to chill. Tomorrow (today) I have to go grocery shopping with SB, do all my Criminal Law reading for next week, research classes, and do some more apartment hunting (e.g. a bunch of stuff some of which I will definitely not get done). Then Sunday.. well Sunday is going to be all LRW, that’s all I have to say about that (for now).

Until next time,
-Taco

[P.S. – Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about my owed Dogfish Head review, good things come in time. Also keep your eye out for my Guinness post (coming sometime between now and infinity) if you are hankering for some Taco beer posting, which you aren’t.]

(Halfway) 1L Spring Break

March 19, 2015 by Taco

Well, my “Spring Break” is now more than half way over, boy the time sure does fly.

I’ve had a decently productive Spring Break thus far, I put in one entire day on my brief at the law school, wrote an essay, worked on my brief some more, and am about 80% done with the reading I need to have completed by Monday. I still have a big SPO project that hasn’t even been touched yet, and my brief partner is remaining just enough of a thorn in my side to remind me that the brief still needs a lot of work. So, I’m sort of coming to that point where I realize that I likely won’t get everything I wanted to get done on Spring Break accomplished. But that’s ok, my defense is that it is technically a “break,” even in in reality it isn’t. The main issue has been finding enough time to research summer housing, that is uh.. kind of important, and I’m not making much headway with it.

Outside of school stuff, the break goes well. I’ve been getting more sleep, which oddly isn’t making me feel much better, I think its partially because I haven’t been sleeping super well. My leg pain has been elevated lately, not entirely sure why. SB and I have also had more time to spend together, which is always nice. I haven’t got as much video game time in as I would likely, namely because my friends’ Spring Breaks didn’t line up with mine, for figure. But, some video game time is definitely better than no video game time.

This past Friday SB and I went out to b.Good again, which was just as tasty this time around.

SB went with the West-Side (avocado, cilantro, fresh salsa, chipotle puree, lime) with chicken this time, and I tried out El Guapo (Bacon, homemade jalapeno ranch, lettuce, tomato, onion) and we shared some sweet potato fries again. Since I highlighted how all the food is local last time, this time I wanted to focus on their sauces a bit more.

In addition to all the yummy, locally-sourced sauce that they actually put on the sandwiches, they also offer mustard, ketchup, and mayonnaise. However, if you are looking for Heinz, you’re out of luck. These are all location-made condiments, and they are really good! I’m probably most fond of the mustard overall, but I’d take any of them over their mass-market counterparts any day. My guess is that there are no preservatives in them, so they wouldn’t sell well as a b.Good line outside the store.

After b.Good it was off for treats and beer. I got another Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA as well as some Bud Light Platinum. I loved the 90, so I figured why not get another bottle. The Platinum I got since it was cheap and helped me justify playing 3.50$ for a 90, but also because I tried it when it first came out and thought it was horrible. Well, I haven’t drank the 90 yet (but we know it will be good anyways) but the Platinum was nothing special. It wasn’t as bad as I remember it being, but its not really “unique” enough compared to regular Bud Light to justify its own special little beer blurb style format. If you were curious what Beer Advocate has to say though, click here (Spoiler: They don’t like it). However, not all was repetition in the beer world. During part of my then-failed hunt for the other Dogfish Head IPAs (more on that below) I decided to try a sour ale from the Wine and Cheese Cask. I have never had a sour ale before, and I saw this bottle (right on the heels of failing to find the 120) and was like “I must have this.” so I bought just that one bottle, which didn’t seem to please the cashier, or maybe he was just an asshat, probably a bit of both.

1. Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour Ale – Brouwerij Van Steenberge N.V.

First up, this stuff packs a punch. No, its not that strong as far as ABV goes, only 5.5%. What I mean is that it packs a sour punch, with a refreshing fruity after-taste. I was very impressed by this beer (even SB liked it, after some initial “I-don’t-know-what-to-think” reservations). If you are curious “Flemish” is the Dutch language spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. So this is a Belgium ale, just from a specific region. The sour element though, is quite unlike anything I’ve had before. This isn’t just a fruity sour, this is also soured-type of taste. Which might make you think it sounds bad, but it really wasn’t (use SB as a baseline, since she is less eccentric than I when it comes to beers, by a long-shot). This beer is a Oud Bruin (a brown beer from Flanders) which has been through a souring process, which results from the kind of cultured yeast used. There is nothing dangerous about this beer, which might make you nervous since its technically “soured” (e.g. soured-milk) but in fact it opens up an entirely new element to the beer’s taste, smell, and mouth-feel. While not quite on the level of the Dogfish 90 I recently had, this is still one of the better beers I’ve had in awhile and I would definitely recommend it, don’t let the “sour” aspect scare you, its probably more sanitary than your chemical-laden drinking water. 😉

Moving on!

Oh, and yeah, we got more snow. Remember how I was just talking about snow? Well, we ended up breaking the record after all. On Sunday we had a short-lived, but quite intense, snow storm that sent us to infamy.

Now that its happened, I’m ok with it. But boy, talk about timing. They’ve been reliably recording snowfall in Boston since 1872. Which means this is the most it has snowed in at least 143 years. So put it another way, when SB and I moved out there, there was a .007% chance (or less) that this would be the record breaking year. Talk about (un)luck. Of course Spring is almost here, at least the date Spring begins on, we’ve been having some very un-Spring like temperatures (and snow) thus far though. Hopefully that turns around soon. This is the most snow I have ever seen in my life and I’m ready for a change. For my Indiana people, the most snow ever recorded anywhere in Indiana was 58.2″. So yeah.

[Post-Winter Update: Here is an update – Boston’s final snow total was 110.6″ for the year, which included a myriad of other record breaking stats, such as the fastest accumulation of 72″ of snow – 18 days.]

My Spring Break also encompassed St. Patrick’s day! While I am generally not into the Irish-mania we have here in the U.S. of A, where everyone and their mother claims to be 110% Irish, I do like excuses to drink good beer. Which brings us to the next stage of this blog post:

Taco’s Beer Adventure

Do not build this up in your head, it is not anything amazing. But it was an adventure in my book. And yes, we are back to talking about beer for the second time in the same post, I say again, deal with it. 😛

So remember how I’ve basically been raving about Dogfish Head throughout a myriad of blog posts lately? And how I started my quest to drink all four members of their legendary IPA quartet? Well, I’ve made progress AND I’ve learned something kind of big.

There are not four Dogfish Head IPAs, there are five.

If you remember correctly, here is the legendary Dogfish Head line-up as I believed it to be:

60 Minute IPA – 6% ABV
75 Minute IPA – 7.5% ABV
90 Minute IPA – 9% ABV
120 Minute IPA – 15-20% ABV

Well, it turns out that there is a “weird half-brother” to the quartet above, Dogfish Head Sixty-One. Yes, Sixty-One, not 61, but Sixty-One spelled out. I’ll explain why its spelled out later.

In addition to learning that the quadruplets were in fact quintuplets, I learned about more about the mythical “God Among Beers” the 120 Minute IPA. Turns out, that shit is as much as 13$ for ONE TWELVE OUNCE BOTTLE. Yes, 1300 PENNIES FOR 12OZ OF BEER. Now, this doesn’t mean I won’t have it, oh I shall. Beer is literally the only thing I treat myself to anymore besides a date night with SB. So its really the only “me me me” thing I have. [For disclosure, I haven’t paid money for a video game in years, I ask for gift cards at Christmas and buy so few video games that I don’t even use up all the card before the next Christmas, its a good system because it allows me to buy games I never would otherwise because of the money, same goes for comics, there is no way I can afford them right now, so I ask for them at Christmas!] So I will have the 120 minute IPA. But I’m going to wait until LRW is over. I’m not sure if I’ll have it that same night, or wait until that Friday (because I have another presentation worth 20% of my grade in another class due the day right after my final LRW project), but that is when I will have it. Until then I will “settle” for the other Dogfish Head IPAs. That said, if you’d like to donate to the Taco 120 Minute IPA Fund, please feel free, since its the most expensive beer I will have ever tried in my life. 🙂

Of course, here is the thing, micro-brews are not always easy to find. This is especially true when you are looking for a lesser-known variety of a line that is already not super common (Dogfish Head’s IPA series). Most people, or rather most people who drink more than Coors Lite, know about Dogfish Head’s 60 Minute IPA, and they’ve also seen the 90, even if they haven’t footed the bill for the pricey four pack. Once you get into Sixty-One, 75, and 120 territory, then things get a bit tricky. Case-in-point, I didn’t even know about Sixty-One until St. Patrick’s day. So when you set out to find these brews, its not as simple as going down to the corner store and picking up a six pack (of which only the 60 Minute exists in). In fact, many specialty stores won’t even carry anything outside of the 60 or the 90. So my initial search had failed.

Enter SB, who actually found that Dogfish Head has their own “Fish Finder.” To help you out, since, by their own admission, it can be hard to find a fair bit of their stuff outside of Delaware. Armed with my new tool I quickly realized that Sixty-One, 75, and 120 weren’t anywhere near where I regularly shop. Fun. The 120 Minute is nestled in a liquor store right in the middle of a HUMONGOUS homeless person civilization (Central Square in Cambridge – its really not that bad, but its a prime spot to get badgered by homeless people, ESPECIALLY if you have booze). Sixty-One was a bit further away still. And the 75? Only two places in the ENTIRE CITY had received a delivery in the past 60 days. Having decided that I wanted to save the 120 for after LRW, and since it was St. Patrick’s day, I wanted to give the 90 I had in the refrigerator some company, and thus my quest to get both Sixty-One and 75 was born.

The destination? A Shaw’s Star Market in the Back Bay of Boston. 3.8 miles of busy afternoon public transportation away. For Great Justice, For Great Beer.

I swung through the Harvard Square Starbucks where SB was working on a paper, took some drinks of her coffee and borrowed her transit pass and then I was on my way to the Red Line. From there it was on to the Green Line.

Luckily I was only go as far as Copley Square, so I didn’t have to take the Green Line to the point where it drives on the street with the cars, which is annoying since you have to obey the traffic lights. While you don’t ever have to look to hard to see Boston’s rich Irish heritage, it was especially easy on St. Patrick’s day. Pretty much my entire trip via the subway was accompanied by various musicians performing Irish music, most of them quite good. I obviously wasn’t there to see it, but the Dropkick Murphys even performed a free, extemporaneous concert out at Logan Airport on St. Patrick’s day prior to boarding their flight.

I had never been to Copley Square before, it is a nice contrast of old and new, like most of Boston actually.

That’s the Trinity Church and the John Hancock Tower, I’ll leave it up to you to guess which is which (the Boston Public library is right across the street, and when I went by there was a CRAZY GOOD beat-boxer performer out in front of it). From here on out it was just my feet and the streets. I impressed myself by not needing my phone, my brain must have absorbed the Google maps fairly decently.

Fortunately it was a gorgeous day, at one point it even hit 50 degrees. So not having to have my toboggan on was nice, heck on the way back I didn’t even need my gloves!

Eventually I made it to the store (seen on the left above), found my way to the alcohol section (tucked in the back and up a flight of stairs, which I thought to be quite dumb) and panicked as I tried to find Sixty-One and 75. I kept looking and looking, but couldn’t find them. I knew the Sixty-One would be a four pack (as the 90 is) and that the 75 was a big ole’ bottle. But I couldn’t find them. Just as I was about to curse the fish finder, there at the back of the (quite large) beer section was an end-cap devoted entirely to Dogfish Head, and sure enough, there were Sixty-One and 75. They didn’t have 120, but the fish finder didn’t say they would anyways (and I am ok with that, as I am not sure I could resist drinking it for so long). Before leaving I picked up some unsweetened Cashew Milk which SB and I had been wanting to try but hadn’t found up until that point, and looked for some green food coloring, but that was obviously entirely sold out.

Afterwards, it was back the way I came, just this time with beer and milk, which got heavy nice and quick. The return was fairly smooth, it took me a minute or two to find the Green Line station going inbound instead of outbound, since they were further apart than the station entrances normally are. But after that it was primarily just dealing with the afternoon crowds of people ready to go home and drink for St. Patrick’s day. When I came up out of the Red Line it was POURING RAIN and super windy. The weather forecast did not call for that, at all. So I sprinted into Starbucks to see SB and return her transit card and also to give myself time to get my umbrella out without getting drenched. She decided to just go ahead and come home with me since quite a bit of time had passed. Once we got back outside the rain had mostly turned into a drizzle, but the wind was still howling. I think our umbrellas inverted 4-5 times on the way home. But the beer survived, and thus all was well in the world.

I’ll be sure to take a full family quintet photo once I have a bottle of the 120 as well.

If you were anticipating me describing the beer (I doubt you were, but pretend) then you’ll need to wait for my next post. So far I’ve only had the Sixty-One, and I’d like to cover both the 75 and Sixty-One in the same post. I will go ahead and post my St. Patrick’s Day green Sixty-One, for the spirit of the season.

It was a productive St. Patrick’s day evening. SB was still working on her paper and I spent a fair bit of the night fixing our coffee maker. When we moved something happened to it and.. like.. crystals formed inside of it. No not meth, or if It was meth I want a refund because I didn’t lose any weight or feel magical. Vinegar wouldn’t fix it, and I couldn’t figure out how to get inside since its one of those single-cup varieties. Eventually we just gave up since the filters were catching (most) of the crystals and we weren’t dying. Well, the other day the crystals hit another high point and so I raged and launched a conquest against the coffee maker which resulted in it being in pieces and a disturbingly large amount of crystal-dirt-muck being removed from the coffee maker. It was really almost gag inducing. But its now clean as a whistle and the coffee tastes much less bitter, it also works without as much steam. The only downside is that the top part doesn’t hold itself open so you have to hold it up while you put the filter in. Those tiny little springs were not designed to ever be removed by a human.

It also got much, much colder. I’m talking a drop of about 30 degrees in one night. The wind was also crazy, throughout the night the 60mph gusts just keep coming and coming. Of course we still weren’t as bad as nearby Mt. Washington, where the temperature on the peek felt like -58 degrees and the wind was constantly around 98mph with gusts of up to 102mph. Yeah, that made our apartment sound much nicer.

But that is enough for now, I’ll keep you updated on the Dogfish Head situation, have no fear. My next check-in will probably be once my “Spring Break” is either over, or almost over, which sadly will come much sooner than I would like. Tomorrow I’m going to have lunch with SB, then go to a cafe to get a bit of reading done before my weekly physical therapy appointment. But for what remains of this evening, its aimlessly browsing the internet and beer, I was productive this afternoon and this blog post took away, so I’m done for today.

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – In the belated spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, I present the following note from my beer calendar:

1L is (Almost) Over

Spring is Springing

The Brief is Done! (Let Us Drink and Eat Noms!)

(Post) 1L Spring Break

(Halfway) 1L Spring Break

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