snow – Page 5

Bozeman Check-in #3 (The Summit)

June 21, 2016 by Taco

Greetings from Montana,

Things continue to go well, though they’ve slowed down a bit since last time, which in fairness I predicted they would. Of course slowing down has both its benefits and its drawbacks. On the work side, slowing down is a good because it gives me more breathing room and – quite frankly – more chances to learn. On the not-work side of things, slowing down is a bit more of a mixed-bag, since “slowness” can make the days creep along a good bit, especially on the weekends. So, what better a way to combat a slow weekend than to well, make it a not-slow weekend. The recent trend has been to get up early and get out into the wilderness, and since I’ve enjoyed that strategy so far, I decided to keep it up this past weekend – though I stepped things up a bit (literally).

After a relatively normal work week (though my boss did take me out for tacos on Friday, yiss) Tristen and I slept in on Saturday until about 8:30 and then got up and embraced the day!

Since it was Saturday it was also “long run” (for us) day, and since Tristen knew we were planning on hiking (and that dinosaurs live in the mountains) he was more than ready to get the run started.

I continued my progress with my Saturday runs. This time I made it a bit further down the gravel road, but still nowhere near the base of the Bridgers.

Once we were all exercised and coffee’d up, Tristen and I ran a few errands down in Bozeman, and then we were off to the “Sypes Canyon” hike. The cool thing about Sypes Canyon is that it’s only about a 11-12 minute drive from our house!

Tristen drove part of the way.

The trailhead itself is located back in a gravel road cul-de-sac in the appropriately titled “Sypes Canyon Subdivision” – though it’s more like a few houses in the middle of a field than what I traditionally think of as a subdivision. When I arrived I noticed a tent was set up and there were “Runners on the Road” signs. I had no idea which road they were talking about, but it turns out that there was a trail run on the Sypes Canyon trail that day, so at the start of my hike I had to dealt with a lot of foot traffic, but that tapered off fairly quickly as the day wore on.

The start of the Sypes Canyon trail is actually pretty “meh.” You start on an overgrown path between two privacy fences and with no trespassing signs everywhere and the smell of dog shit wafting through the breeze.

You then proceed through a wooded path, which is overgrown in a few spots, and swarming with bugs, and still smells like dog shit.

But then things start to improve quickly as you break away from the houses, bugs, and dog shit then start to head upwards.

The trail goes from a woody-swamp up to an exposed rock face fairly quickly.

The wildflowers were all over the place on this outcropping – I’ve loved how many wildflowers there are here.

Once you reach the top – or rather as close to the top of the outcropping as the trail gets – you get a nice view of the canyon beyond

One of these things is not like the others.

And from there you proceed back down into the woods again.

This second wooded portion is much more pleasant. It’s less weedy, more “foresty,” and has no dog shit.

After walking slowly upwards through the forest for a bit, the trail then opens up to a meadow with some great views of Gallatin Valley beyond.

After making a left you proceed upwards a bit more.

Before coming to the “overlook” which is the spot a lot of trail guides recommend as a turning around point if you’re just a casual hiker (which I guess I am, but with a serious propensity to act like a veteran hiker, regardless of the lack of said hiking ability).

It was gorgeous up on the overlook knoll, even Tristen liked it.

Here is a nice wide-angle shot of the overlook.

Of course I didn’t turn around, I was curious where the trail went from there! Turns out that deciding to continue onward was one of the better hiking decisions I’ve made.

The trail was smaller and less traveled up here, but the incline was (mostly) not that bad.

Tristen found himself a rock to survey his dominion.

Past Tristen’s rock the trail followed the ridge line for a bit.

When he couldn’t find a suitable rock further along the trail, Tristen opted for a tree instead (courtesy of Valentino’s tree-climbing lessons).

The wind had picked up a good bit up here, which was nice since it was a hot day.

Eventually the trail curves around the backside of one of the mountains.

This part was actually steeper than it looks.

But the views continued to impress.

Once you reach the “top” (of this smaller mountain) there is a cairn to mark the summit. Tristen and I added our own rock to it.

Once you’re at the cairn, the trail continues upwards and back towards the mountain. You quickly come to a junction (with another cairn) where if you go left you continue up into the 24 mile long Bridger Ride trail, or if you go right you go down to the M Trail. We continued up past the junction (on the longer trail) for just a short bit because there were two people for the race stationed at the crossroads. Tristen and I took this post-junction solitude as an opportunity to go wee on this tree, since I figured that going wee at the highest altitude for the day was manlies.

At this point we decided to go ahead and turn around and head back down.

On the way back I noticed that most of the junctions had little pieces of ribbon on them. I’d actually noticed these on the way up, but I hadn’t paid much attention to them, but on the way down I realized that they were directing the trail runners for the race that day. I especially like the bottle cap handing by a ribbon.

As I went down and neared the end of the trail, I noticed this tree growing out of the side of that first rocky outcropping. It sort of made me wonder why we don’t associate trees with resilience, because I mean seriously.

That night my legs were hurting me the worst they had so far since coming to Montana, so I took some ibuprofen – which doesn’t really help my legs but it helps the other soreness – and chilled for the evening. That said, the chilling didn’t last long because the next day I had an even bigger hike planned – the goal, Sacagawea Peak which at 9,665ft is the highest peak in the Bridger Mountains.

[Historical Side Note: If you’re really keen eyed, you’ll notice that “Sacagawea” is also sometimes spelled with an “j” i.e., “Sacajawea.” Based on what I’ve read, the “g” is actually the more accurate of the two spellings in regards to her Lemhi Shoshone name. Also, there is another peak named after her in Oregon, though this Oregonian peak is spelled with the “j.”]

The thing is, it takes quite a while just to get the trailhead. So we were on the road by 9:30am on Sunday.

Of course it’s not as simple as driving the nice fancy highway all the way to the summit. Heck, there’s not even a road to the summit period, unlike Pike’s Peak. Instead you drive out to what is the called the “Fairy Lake” access road – so titled because it leads to a glacial lake called – you guessed it – Fairy Lake. There is a campground up by the lake, and several trailheads. That said, you have to get to that area first, which is about 7 miles off the main road on a dirt/gravel/rock road.

In fact this road is closed, or partially closed, for most of the year due to snow. So, if you want to hike up by the lake (or beyond) then you have to go as far as the road will take you – anywhere between 0 and 7 miles – and then park and hike the rest of the way. Fortunately for me the last little jaunt had just opened up just the week prior, so I was able to drive all the way to just outside of the the campground area (which itself didn’t open until July 1st).

Prior to the trip, I’d been warned multiple times about the access road, and all the Forest Service stuff says that a “High Clearance Vehicle” is strongly recommended and that the “Road Conditions Vary Significantly.” Further, people online were talking about how they got flat tires or bent their rims (or worse) on the road. Well, Moose is a Toyota Corolla, not a high clearance vehicle by any means. But, I am stubborn and am no stranger to crappy gravel roads.

In fairness, there were a few areas of the road that were pretty bad, but I was in no hurry, so Moose and I took it slow and made it through (both out and back) just fine. We just pulled over when the 4x4s came by, and took the areas that were less of a road and more of a pile of rocks very slowly. It took me about 45 minutes just go to 7 miles. My guess is that a lot of the people having problems failed to understand that you should probably not drive your Audi 30mph over a rock jutting 6″ into the air (such people exist, as you probably well know).

I didn’t get any photos of the really bad areas, because I was a bit more concerned about driving than I was taking pictures, but you can still get the general idea that this wasn’t your normal paved park road.

But, after passing through the various stages of the road – which ranged from normal grave, to mud pits, to sheet rock – we arrived at the lower campground parking, and it looked like a bear had eaten part of the sign.

Tristen was rearing to go, as he really likes his mountains. I noticed a few other sedans in the parking lot, but I’d say 95% of the cars were 4x4s. I had gotten there early enough (both in the day and the season) that the parking lot was maybe 1/10 of the way full at that point.

It was MUCH cooler up there, as the lake itself is already at about 7,500ft.

There is a Fairy Lake trail, which is swarmed with kids and is fairly easy, and then there are also the more difficult trails. You can see the smaller sign marking the route to Sacagawea Pass off to the right of the Fairy Lake trailhead sign in the photo above. Once we got started on that trail we briefly branched off for a photo of Fairy Lake (taken from up above, away from the children dotting the lake trail).

From there it was deep into the woods and up and up.

It didn’t take long before I encountered some snow, and here I was in my tennis shoes, shorts, and t-shirt. I really am going to have to get better gear if I move west. Though hiking up Atalaya in the middle of winter in office shoes is still kind of a personal achievement in my book.

Of course as SB will remember from Mt. Rainer, it’s quite possible to be standing in snow while on the mountain but still quite warm due to all your exertion from hiking. It’s weird.

Being a bonafide mountain trail, it was pretty steep in parts and the ledge was not very far away.

Eventually the trail sort of just got consumed by the snow (as I mentioned, this was still early in the season).

One advantage to being early in the season was the lack of people – the trail to the summit was not busy, AT ALL. The drawback was that since there were no people and the snow covered the trail, I had to sort of figure things out on my own.

The good news is that there were foot tracks in the snow, the bad news is that that some of them lead absolutely nowhere.

Eventually though Trisen and I found our way up to a plateau.

And from there we promptly lost the trail again. So, we took matters into our own hands and starting climb up the rocks. No, I don’t mean hiking up the rocks – there was no trail here, I legitimately mean climbing up the rocks.

And here is the same view with the background included for more visual reference.

I actually was doing pretty well – considering I had no gear and was in tennis shoes. Sure, I cut my hands up and lost my water bottle (which I recovered – no littering for me) and broke my sunglasses – lol – but I survived. I made it all the way up to a boulder – seen below – and then got stuck.

Notice the boulder in the upper middle of the photo.

It was about that time that I stopped taking photos and started to realize that I’d actually got myself in a pretty dangerous situation. So, I climbed down a bit (actually it was more of a semi-controlled slide) and rerouted myself, and then finally found the trail again. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t very nervous for about 15 minutes.

In hindsight it was probably a really dumb and dangerous thing to do, but I did it and I made it to the trail, whereas the other folks who had been near me on the hike had simply turned around.

At the top of our hard-won ridge (which is actually the “saddle” between Hardscrabble Peak and Sacagawea Peak) was a yet another cairn, which Tristen I put a rock on while trying not to get blown away by the wind. Once you crested the ridge, it was like getting hit by a wall of wind – I later found out that the winds were around 30mph that day, and on top of the chilly air it made it quite cold up there (my hands went numb by the end of it – see note about gear above). It made keeping Tristen in one place quite difficult – not that that isn’t hard already.

From the cairn you then follow the “saddle” upwards towards the summit.

Here is a view looking back towards the cairn, you can see the rocks I climbed up in the right of the photo.

Yes seriously, those rocks.

The last little jaunt to the summit was quite steep.

And this is what it looked like if you looked down during the climb.

But, at long last, Tristen and I made it to the summit – 9,665ft up.

Behold, King Tristen, Son of Taco, Lord of the Bridger Mountains, Master of all his eyes can see.

Tristen was pretty ecstatic that we made it to the summit.

Before two long some mountain goats noticed us, or rather, Tristen noticed them and then they noticed us.

Look closely, the alpha goat is there.

Then the goats started moving in.

So we decided to give them some space, and by we I mean “I” – because Tristen wanted to eat them. The one person I met up there (who was decked out in proper gear) was going down and he told me they were aggressive, but I had a white shirt on so I can’t help but wonder if the goats though I was also a goat – who happened to carrying a T-Rex, which as showcased by Jurassic Park, love eating goats.

After that we started heading back down, and rather than go the rocky route (yeeeeeah, no), we used our altitude to spot a much-longer, but more relaxed route through a huge snow bank (though we ended up falling quite a bit on the way down, though falling on snow > falling off a rock face). Which took us back down to the basin, which is where this photo was taken. The people in the photo had just turned around and had asked me how I’d gotten up to the summit, I don’t think they liked my answer because they kept walking down, lol.

On the way back I noticed some little melt-streams I hadn’t noticed on the way up (since I was preoccupied with finding the trail).

Further on the way down I encountered more people since it was later in the day, but by and large the trail still wasn’t very busy.

And that lack of business is probably why I encountered a bear. Yup. I figured it would happen sooner or later, and lo’ and behold’ it happened on my descent from the summit and about 25 miles from civilization. It was a black bear (which can be brown, as an FYI – and this one was). I “knew” it wasn’t a Grizzly because I’d taken a “Bear Safety Course” through the Forest Service and scored 93% on it. So I guess you could say I was 93% sure it wasn’t a Grizzly. Fortunately, we both saw each other well in advance – I’d say about 40 yards apart. It stood up on its back legs to smell me and look at me, and I then realized how big it was, haha (it was slightly less funny in the moment). Fortunately I knew that none of what it was doing was aggressive, so I started talking to it (not screaming – just talking loudly) and we stared at each other for 30 seconds or so, then it snorted it me and I clapped at it, then we went our separate ways. I had my bear spray on me, but I didn’t really want to use it since I was in the bear’s home, and luckily I think the two of us were much more curious in looking at each other than we were getting closer to each other. But still, it was a pretty crazy experience! I’m glad I had read up on how to handle those kinds of situations without anyone (human or bear) feeling too threatened.

Sadly I have no photos to offer as proof, because I was more concerned with talking to my bear-friend so he wouldn’t eat me than I was of whipping out my phone and taking photos. Unlike those dumbasses who get killed while taking selfies, I’m a bit higher up the Darwinian ladder.

After our manlies hike and bear-friend encounter, Tristen and I stopped above Fairy Lake for an afternoon snack and some water.

Then we headed the rest of the way down the trail and back to the parking lot, which had a lot more cars in it now. After getting the rocks out of our shoes, Tristen and I were off on the access road again.

Tristen was quite adamant that I let him drive this time.

And he continued wanting to drive even once we were back on the highway.

At one point on the way home we saw another bear! This one ran across the road and then stopped to eat some berries or something.

Look just to the left of the road in the middle of the photo.

I didn’t get a good look at this bear, so I don’t know how large it was, but it was still big enough that when I saw it run across the road from a good distance away there was no doubt as to what it was.

After that the rest of the drive home was uneventful, which was kind of nice.

Sacagawea Peak in the distance, as seen from our house. “Manries.”

Once back home we mended our rock-climbing wounds (or rather I did, Tristen’s skin protected him).

And then went about trying (but failing) to repair my sunglasses.

And then we did a bunch of mundane stuff, like dishes and laundry. Though I think I might have went overboard on the dish soap.

After that we chilled for the rest of Sunday evening. Then, on Monday morning we got up and around like normal, except we’re still running outside since the treadmill is broken. While it was still pretty chilly during my run – about 42 degrees – I did get to see a hot-air balloon (and a plane, which I didn’t even notice when I took the photo).

I’ve seen a hot air balloon in that vicinity several times now, I don’t know if its the same person or not (maybe it’s a tour), but either way they tend to be out fairly early (before 7am).

When I made it back home my doorbunny was next to the fence.

And then later once I was ready for work, my doorbunny was waiting under Moose for me.

Doorbunny seen here in a mid-scratch.

And then I left for work! I have some exciting stuff coming up this week, mostly prominently a two-day work trip to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and then the arrival of Meem on Friday. But, I’ll save that for an upcoming check-in since I’ve grossly exceeded my word count on this one! Still, it’s hard not to share all the wonderful hiking Tristen and I have been doing, especially when you hike to the summit of a mountain (especially the highest mountain in a range – as Tristen wants me to remind you).

Until next time,
-Taco

April Fools & Pig’s First Birthday

April 7, 2016 by Taco

It’s officially April – time for some of that Spring weather!

If that photo doesn’t look much like Spring to you, then we are both in agreement.

Unfortunately the weather has decided to pull ye olde’ April fools joke on us and instead of Spring, April has so far felt like a rapid-fire transition from October to December, including everything from high winds, cold rainstorms, and yep, a bunch of snow. What has made this even worse is that not only has the weather been oh-so-not-Spring, the temperature is following in kind, with temperatures in the teens overnight and wind chills down in the single digits – in April.

Making all of this worse is the fact that just last week we had temperatures in the high 60s with glorious sunshine.

But come the beginning of April things went downhill fast. For starters, on Saturday it pretty much rained all day and was cold and windy – it felt so much like October that during my run my brain struggled to conceptualize the fact that it wasn’t October. That said, maybe running in the rain was a bit of motivator, because I did break my speed record in spite of it.

And yeah, just in case you were wondering, that is a “burst” speed, there is no way in hell I could maintain 15.2mph – even if my legs weren’t messed up.

After a long rainy day on Saturday, we woke up to snow on Sunday!

It wasn’t too heavy, and while it was still coming down it wasn’t anything crazy.

That said, I wasn’t thrilled about any snow, so this was enough. I can’t complain too much though, last I saw we had only received less than one third the amount of snow this year as we did last year. And it’s also not as bad for April as it could be, such as in 1997 when Boston received it’s “April Fools Day Blizzard” which dumped 24.5″ of snow on the city.

Plus, at least one person in our household was happy about the state of affairs.

The good news is that by Sunday afternoon things had calmed down. The bad news is that they got even worse come Monday morning.

I wasn’t as pleased as Valentino, especially since I had to go out in it. Snow is much more pleasant from inside a warm building – except for Valentino, who wants to be outside in it. But alas, duty calls. So I was off into the urban wilderness and quickly realized that it was very cold, in addition to snowing.

At this point the wind wasn’t too bad and the roads were still pretty clear, it was mainly just the pedestrian commute that was impacted.

But like most snow-storms it got worse before it got better.

Before too long even the roads were starting to see some snow creeping inwards.

Y April, y u do dis.

Fortunately, almost as if recognizing the dumb weather outside, the law school gave me a free lunch.

And then I even got some free coffee during my first class.

Outside things started to look a little better.

Only to get worse again.

And then the wind picked up (why do SB and I keep living in windy places?).

Which made the walk home lots of “fun,” but at least it wasn’t dark at 5pm anymore. Plus this wasn’t one of my late nights, which was also nice.

From what I’m reading we got about 4.7″ of snow, so it was definitely accumulating.

Ah yes, another gorgeous winter day.

Except it’s April. This is most decidedly not how I envisioned my commutes home in April.

But again, not everyone was perturbed, some of us were quite happy.

Quite happy indeed.

The next day saw the grey skies vacate the premises, but don’t be too deceived, it got bitterly cold.

Yes, that crisp air brought with it temperatures in the single digits when you factored in the wind chill, and since this is Boston you always factor in the wind chill.

However, despite Tuesday being a very cold and busy day which included everything from a doctor appointment to a presentation to on call hours, it was still a very exciting day.

Why?

It was Pig’s first birthday!

Pig in the cowboy hat he decided would also serve as his birthday hat, likely starting a tradition.

Yes, April 5th marked the one year anniversary of Pig coming to live with us. He arrived on Easter 2015, and since Easter is funky and moves around each year, we couldn’t just keep his birthday as Easter, so we locked it in as April 5th.

A photo of Pig’s “arrival” from Easter 2015.

[In case you were wondering, Tristen’s birthday is 12/23, Valentino’s is 2/14, and Pig’s is 4/5]

Pig is a yogi, like a major yogi – and aside from keeping his best buddy Pigsten in line, he is very chill. As such he didn’t ask for much on his birthday, and he actually tried to give SB a present on his birthday because he didn’t fully understand what a birthday was (he is only 1 after all). So, like all our children (even Tristen) Pig is low-maintenance when it comes to special days. All he asked for was dirt pudding, which everyone kind of agreed was an awesome idea.

We also decided to get some Subway for dinner, since we had gift cards AND a coupon.

We even saved some more money because I’d gotten chips from the law school – if it wasn’t obvious there is a fairly large stream of free noms flowing forth from HLS.

After dinner we got started on the dirt pudding.

It had been years since I’d had dirt pudding and I’m honestly not sure if I’d ever made it, so it was a fun adventure with Pig assisting. I sort of just cabbaged together the parts of some recipes I found online that I thought sounded the best and went with it, it’s kind of hard to “mess up” dirt pudding after all.

The end result was a hit with everyone, especially Pig – he was a huge fan of the gummy ~~worms~~ grubs.

And the good news is that since dirt is cheap (actually dirt pudding is not so cheap) we had plenty of left overs!

Pig moments before plunging into the dirt pudding in search of more gummy grubs – and also wrecking half the kitchen.

After our dinner, Jeopardy, and dirt pudding, we all settled in for a few episodes of Adventure Time, pretty much the favorite show in this household.

So, while I don’t think Pig would have been disappointed in any scenario involving dirt pudding, I believe everyone enjoyed the day, even if it was way too cold outside for April. All in all, a good first birthday for Pig!

Then the next day we went to this year’s Public Interest Auction, which, while both SB and I agreed wasn’t quite as good as last year’s (which was put on by my class – so obviously no bias there) it was still a lot of fun and provided us with free food and drinks (the beer selection was crap this year [only Bud Light], but the wine was apparently better – not that I care too much, free is free).

And you can never go wrong with Professor Zittrain as an auctioneer.

Now, let’s just hope that Spring actually decides to show up! Today it’s a bit less cold and is raining again, so I guess that’s “improvement.”

Until next time,
-Taco

Easter 2016

March 27, 2016 by Taco

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter 2016!

Easters marks the nearly one year anniversary since Pig came to live with us, but since Easter changes each year Pig’s birthday is still about 1.5 weeks away. We love our Pig – though we don’t need anymore children – three is plenty – in case anyone reading this gets any ideas 😛

Not too much to share for this post, I’m intentionally going to try to keep it brief, I was mainly wanting to just bop in and wish everyone a happy Easter.

The boys had plenty to celebrate this morning, as we played a game of “hunt the Easter basket” – which with some help from Pigsten they found (hidden in the entryway).

Grandma Meem had even sent a package along with the Easter Bunny, the first season of Better Call Saul! Yay! We all loved Breaking Bad, so we are excited to get started on the “prequel” to it.

Pigsten had fun surfing on one of the trucks from the basket (these are technically re-gifts, but shh, they don’t need any more toys).

All in all, it was quite a haul! Look at all that yummy coffee 🙂

Elsewhere in the world Snowbros continue their valiant fight against Spring, which isn’t going so well for them these days.

That said, they’ve put up one hell of a fight considering that this year we only had around 30″ of snow compared to like 115″ last year.

I’ve also learned how to make a Poor-Man’s mocha using some of the stuff the clinic has around the espresso machine, score for Taco!

I’d say it’s saving me money, but I rarely buy myself things, so it’s just increasing my quality of life (and sugar intake) – since I wouldn’t have a mocha otherwise (with the exception of SB and I’s Saturday coffee dates).

Speaking of SB dates, this past Friday we headed to Boloco, which is kind of like Chipotle except without the herpes.

One thing I like about Boloco is that they have a lot of different options for how you can receive your noms, I like their “Mini Combo” with lets you get two miniature burritos, this lets me get two different kinds! We don’t go often because Boloco is a very common free-food at the law school, but it’s been a Boloco dry-spell at school, so it sounded good and it was my pick.

On the way back from Boloco we spotted a Turkey friend in Harvard Yard!

I ended up getting a lot closer to her than that, and she sang me some songs of her people. Turkeys actually aren’t that uncommon in the Harvard Square area, though I’m not entirely sure where they are coming from. Maybe they are Grey Poupon turkeys.

Afterwards we went to Mike’s Pastry (the Cambridge location) and instead of getting cannolis decided to try some of their other delicacies.

I tried their tiramisu, it was really good, but at $4.50 was one of their more expensive items. I love me some tiramisu though. SB got what we thought was a mocha cake – since, you know, it was labeled as such. Turns out it was incorrectly labeled, and instead was some fudge, cream, Oreo cake, e.g. extremely rich. In the end I think we were much bigger fans of the tiramisu as the Oreo cake was just a bit much, but have no fear, we finished it the next day. 😛

And that’s all for now. Hope everyone has a good holiday! Remember, today Jesus was resurrected, which is a pretty powerful way of saying that you too can overcome.

Until next time,
-Taco

Sporty Weekend

February 12, 2016 by Taco

For most of my life I wasn’t really a “Sports” person. I was never that good at sports and generally speaking, never had much in common with people who were. This stemmed from a variety of things, in no small part with my K-12 school, which at least at the time cared far more about athletics than it did academics, and also with the extreme arrogance and narcissism of those who were good at sports (nearly all of whom have went on to do.. er.. well.. nothing). So I had the resentful fat kid stance towards most sports. Sure, I’d watch sports on TV – sometimes, mainly football and for a time racing with the Midwest-required dashes of basketball and baseball, but overall, I wasn’t a sports person.

That pretty much continued all through K-12, through my Community College years and then, yes, even through my Big Ten University years (in fact said Big Ten school’s “athletic” crowd probably only served to reinvigorate my dislike of sports). While I did start watching more football during this time frame, to say I was interested in sports on a weekly, let alone daily basis was an extreme stretch.

It all started to change when I went to a school that didn’t really talk so much about its sports, a school which spends far, far, far more time, money, and energy on academics than it does athletics. And then, only when I was in the least sports-centric all of all my institutions (with the exception of the community college, which was consumed by the sports mania of the another local Big Ten school) did I start to become interested in sports. I started watching more football, returned to watching some basketball, and added in hockey. I also went to my first collegiate sporting events since becoming a college student, including football, hockey, and basketball. Further, since starting at Harvard I’ve seen my first professional NBA, MLB, and NHL games.

So yeah, I guess you could say I now have a weekly interest in sports – and while I’m currently in a moral conflict other whether I can continue to watch the NFL given its complete and total lack of care towards (and in fact cover-up of) long-term player health, I do enjoy the Bengahs, as well as other league teams such as the Bruins, and of course, I always root for Harvard and/or Boston College, and sometimes even Purdue.

All of which brings me up to this past weekend, which was probably one of the more sport-centric weekends I’ve had in awhile. But it didn’t start with sports, no, it started with squirrels, snow, and beer.

One thing I like about squirrels (and if it wasn’t obvious by now there are 100s of things I like about them) is how they climb utility poles and bark at things.

I like listening to them. It’s weird, because generally speaking I hate other things’ noise – especially people and their dog-extensions. However, squirrels have never bothered me, even when they bark for hours – which they sometimes do. It’s also kind of impressive that they can even climb during the winter, given how fat they are.

Ok so maybe that particular squirrel isn’t super fat, but it might be because he/she lives in the law school’s “Squirrel Metropolis” and therefore has a lot of noms competition.

There are seven squirrels in the above photo, yes – they are there; a couple are hard to find.

Speaking of noms, Valentino was pleased that we got another round of Chukar Cherries, using the 10% discount code we had gotten with the Christmas order.

This time we went with the No Sugar added Triple Cherry Nut Classic Tin, which includes Bing, Rainier, and Totally Tart cherries mixed with roasted pistachios and almonds. We’re still eating on it, and it’s very yummy (though too many nuts and berries = savage poots).

And while cherries might make you think of summer, it’s still very much winter here in Boston. In fact, we’ve recently gotten two snow storms (and it’s lightly snowing even as I type this).

During one of the snow storms, Thomas II’s doorman seems to have vanished. I don’t know if he is on leave, or is off killing someone.

By and large these couple of storms haven’t been too bad, definitely nothing like last year, but Valentino loves them regardless (I’m not sure how Thomas II feels).

I like the snow storms (within reason) so long as I can just relax inside, preferably when it’s warm and I have coffee.

Of course law school rarely allows for much relaxing as I am being summoned six days a week of late, however not all outings are boring, some are actually a lot of fun! As a start to the weekend SB and I met up with Aunt Train for the first time this year and it felt long overdue. Everyone had decided on a place down in Boston Proper called the Black Rose (which we had actually walked by during Thanksgiving – small world), so I had to go do a bit of snow trekking.

The plus side is that I got to test out my new boots and also it was a really thick and wet snow, so it made just about everything but the streets and sidewalks look gorgeous.

While I don’t like the slush and grime pools that spring up everywhere, by and large I do like the way the area looks after a good snow.

Since it was a busy Friday for SB and I, everyone was heading to the Black Rose from different directions: Aunt Train from work, SB from her internship, and me from my clinic.

SB arriving at the Black Rose.

Aunt Train arrived first by a long shot, then SB, and meanwhile I was riding the Red Line downtown and then beginning my walk to the Black Rose from the station.

While the snow was actively being cleared, the wind was pretty terrible, so I was happy when I finally arrived at the noms place.

Of course once I arrived it wasn’t really food time per se (sure, we got nachos), but rather it was beer time.

Before it was all said and done I’d had:

Harp Lager – Guinness Ltd.
Stella Artois – Stella Artois
Samuel Adams Brick Red – Boston Beer Company
Samuel Adams Cold Snap – Boston Beer Company

And I “paired” them with the aforementioned nachos, a lobster roll (I hadn’t had one since Salem) [SB and Aunt Train both got Fish and Chips], and then SB I finished everything off with a “Nutty Irishman” which was coffee blended with Francesca Hazelnut and Bailey’s! All in all it was a great drinking session with food and good company and conversation, as always. It also served as a great start to the weekend.

The next day we went out and picked up some groceries at Whole Foods, where we also spotted a cookie from a baker who was either showing some dark humor, or is actually spiteful, the world may never know.

Redrum

We also went to the Wine and Cheese Cask and picked up some beers since we hadn’t need to get any the night before – I’ll highlight them in a moment.

The big highlight of Saturday was a Boston Bruins game! This part-Christmas present, part-Valetino’s birthday present came courtesy of Meem (and also a cool dude on Ebay, but Meem paid). Neither SB nor I had been to an NHL game before, and while we all (especially Valentino) are Bruins fans, we hadn’t went to a game yet because of the cost involved (remembering we paid very little for the NBA game, and I’d paid nothing for the MLB game). Fortunately, Meem rode to the rescue and got us tickets!

The Bruins were going up against the Buffalo Sabres, and while I don’t really know either team’s record that well, I looked up some stats and it seemed like it would be a good match-up. Our seats were definitely “nosebleed” for TD Garden, but they really weren’t bad at all – we were only like 3 rows from the very top of the arena and I didn’t feel any less enjoyment because of it, nor did Valentino.

Before too long (but a little late of course) the pre-game festivities started:

And not too long after that, our first NHL game had begun!

While we were going to enjoy the game one way or another, SB and I were suffering from a “Hockey Curse” in that every hockey game we’d gone to our respective teams had either tied, tied-again, or lost. So, we were quite ready for a win. End score aside, it was a great game to watch. Valentino (and me) also enjoyed the guys who game out to clean the rink (in-between the big ice polishing cars of course).

It was like choreographed janitors.

The first period show was also great, it involved little-bitty players and the Bruins mascot Blades the Bruin as a referee, what’s not to love?

Valentino seemed especially thrilled with Blades the Bruin, namely because he doesn’t meet many other bears in Boston, especially during hibernation time.

I honestly have no idea who “won” in this bitty player game, but it looks like everyone was enjoying themselves, I certainly know the three of us were.

After the bitty blades were gone, it was time to get the second period started.

While the night wasn’t especially fight-heavy, there was a sizable pileup during the second period.

The second period show wasn’t quite as “cute” as the first, as it involved a guy spectacularly failing.

Basically he had 3-4 shots (can’t remember specifically) to hit the puck into the goal, and each shot was from progressively further away – and with progressively better prizes (and the final shot gave the chance to win everything). Despite his cowboy hat (he was from Texas, go figure) and the odds being better than during the ludicrous BC contest – he managed to miss every single shot. Every one. Of course in fairness I ~~probably~~ undoubtedly would have as well.

However, the Bruins didn’t miss a shot where it counted. The game had went into overtime, it was 1-1 and things were pretty intense. With the NHL, overtime is a “sudden death” setup, wherein the first team to score wins and if no one scores during OT, then it’s a tie. Well, a bit into overtime a Bruin got fouled by Saber (he got overtly shoved away from what would have been a nice goal setup). So he got to take a one-on-one penalty shot against the Sabres’ goalie – if he made it, the Bruins would win.

The final moment during the Bruin’s charge across the rink for his one shot attempt.

And he made it – and there was much rejoicing.

It was pretty awesome, and Bostonians being the Bostonians they are, the place went collectively apeshit and at one point some random dude ran by giving high fives to seemingly everyone in existence – probably even some melancholy Sabres fans. Of course a lot of people drink at these games (which is insane because beers range from 10.75 – 12.75$ for a little plastic cup, and I saw some people get at least four cups, seriously), so maybe it’s not too surprising that there was some jovial craziness.

SB and I were thrilled, both because goals in hockey (especially shoot-outs) are genuinely exciting and also because we’d broken our “hockey curse!” Between the three of us I think Valentino was the good luck charm.

After letting the bulk of the crowds clear out of the arena we started making our way home. Of course this meant that we got to be moo-cows on our way to the subway station.

Fortunately we got pretty lucky with our train timing, and while the trains were crowded, we’d swept through most of the rush at the station to get out in advance of the craziness. Once back at Harvard Station we walked by a girl doing a really cool electric violin performance with lights and everything. I’m not sure if this is a usual thing, or if it had something to do with the (then upcoming) Lunar New Year, either way, it was cool enough that I took a picture of it.

The next day the sports fun continued, except this time from the comfort of our own home. The occasion? Super Bowl 50 of course! We were prepped and ready. In fact we’d planned like a week in advance in order to ensure that we got good avocados. In some ways prepping for the Super Bowl is kind of like prepping for a natural disaster, except everyone hoards the junk food instead of the bread and milk.

It was also time to bust out those beers we had got the day before (in fairness I’d already had one after the Bruins game, but it makes more sense to mention them now).

1. Rebel Grapefruit IPA – Boston Beer Company

If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, you’ll know I have a love-hate relationship with fruit beers. They can either been done well (or really well), or really badly. This beer was definitely done well. It’s pretty straightforward, it’s an IPA brewed with grapefruit juice and and grapefruit peel. So if you like IPAs and you like grapefruit – well that really has no bearing on this beer, since the two combined are a very different beast. But I liked it, a lot. I think part of that is 6.30% ABV, which while above average for an American beer, is low(ish) for a fruit beer, and also that the grapefruit errs on the side of “tart” rather than sweet.

2. Otra Vez – Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

This interesting beer had two things going for it. First, it was the first time in years that I’d had a beer with cactus in (though the last time barely counts as it was the totally not memorable Michelob Ultra Fruit Lime Cactus – Anheuser-Busch) – but don’t mention this to Little Friend or the Three Amigos. Second, it was also my first ever Gose beer, which is a top-fermented beer with at least 50% malted wheat that is known for it’s tartness. Knowing that, I guess a Gose is a good choice for a cactus and grapefruit beer. While I didn’t like it quite as much as the Grapefruit IPA, I did like this beer and would definitely get it again, and at only 4.5% ABV it’s quite drinkable.

With our beers and food in hand, it was time to get the game started!

Superbowl 50 Kick-off!

For those who live in a cave with no wi-fi, and for those aliens who find the satellite this blog is stored on in the distant future (and who somehow read English), Super Bowl 50 (but not “L” because that’s too complicated for us Murkans) took place on Sunday, February 7th, 2016 – it was played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California and the teams were the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers.

Our house was unequivocally rooting for the Broncos, and by that I mean we were unequivocally rooting for Peyton Manning. “Good Guy” Peyton was paired up against the much younger and very different Cam Newton. While Peyton is probably about to ride off into the sunset, Newton still has a lot of NFL life left in him, so on that aspect alone I’d generally want the “Old Dog” to win out over the “Young Pup.” But there was more to it than that:

If Peyton won it would be his 200 NFL career win – the most of all time; He’d also be the only QB to win the Superbowl for two different teams; He’d also be the oldest QB to start the Superbowl (he is 39); He’d also be the oldest starting QB to win the Superbowl (duh); He’d also tie his little brother (Eli Manning) for Superbowl Rings; He’d also be the first QB to reach the Superbowl with four different coaches; and lastly, he’d win Superbowl 50, which is more special because we value numbers like 50 more than numbers like 49 or 51.

Needless to say, there was plenty to root for when it came to Peyton – and as he plays for the Broncos, that was the team of choice for our house.

And, continuing our string of luck from the night before, it was the Broncos who emerged triumphant, 24-10. I will say, neither team played great, and it was really the Broncos defense that won that game, but it wasn’t a “boring” Superbowl as peppered in there were things such as the longest punt return in Superbowl history (61 yards, Jordan Norwood of the Broncos), and Cam Newton getting obliterated over and over.

But really, Superbowl 50 was more about Peyton Manning retiring as champion of the world (and freeing up more time for SNL skits) than it really was about the game itself. So when Peyton won, everyone in our house was happy.

Tristen did have some feels later at the thought of his favorite player retiring, but I think we were all in agreement that this was a good time for him to do so, and also to drink Budweiser. And although Peyton has not officially announced his retirement as of me writing this post, most of the signs are pointing to him doing so, and it really it just makes all sorts of sense. While I like Peyton, I also think it’s time for him to join the football pantheon in the sky and starting coaching, or managing, or announcing (or maybe some combination of the three).

St. Peytonius beginning his ascent to the pearly gates.

Since our team had won, we were up later than usual for a Sunday night watching all the post game stuff and feeling good about ourselves despite doing nothing but sit on a couch and eat food all night. That caught up to me the next morning, as did the snow – yeah, that second storm I mentioned had arrived.

In fairness it wasn’t horrible, but It really was not how I wanted to start my Monday. The biting wind and ice were actually far worse than the accumulating snow. But, as always, I made it to school and then got to listen to depressing legal stuff while looking out at the depressing gray outdoors.

It ended up snowing all day, but at least on this Monday I was done at 5pm, so I wasn’t out too late.

Since then, it’s sort of went into this “snow a little” —> stop —> “snow a little” —> stop, pattern. While there hasn’t been much additional accumulation, it’s been snowing just enough to keep things nasty and icy. This has been made worse by the fact that it’s getting progressively colder, in fact by this coming Sunday it’s supposed to be windy (as usual) with a high of 12 degrees. Oh what fun! (Valentino has no complaints). I’ll continue to put my boots, long johns, two pairs of gloves (yes, at once), two pairs of socks (yes, at once), patched jeans, under shirt, long-sleeve shirt, jacket, balaclava, and two toboggans (yes, at once) to good work!

[Side Note: If you mention wearing a toboggan out here, be prepared for people to be confused as to why you are wearing a sled – I’ve since learned that a “toboggan,” when applied to a knit cap is solidly a central-Midwest and Southern thing.]

However, to counteract the cold (if only emotionally), SB and I have some fun things planned for this weekend. It’s SB’s Birthday, Valentino’s Birthday, and Valentine’s Day – all in one weekend! However, I’ll save those fun adventures for next post.

For now I have to get back to school and clinic work, which, as always, makes that weekend seem too far away. 🙂

Until next time,
-Taco

Back in the Boston Groove – 2.0

February 9, 2016 by Taco

Since returning from my three week placement in New Mexico I’ve been re-acclimating to normal life back here in the Boston area. While I enjoyed my time with the New Mexico AG, I wasn’t really pleased about having 1 day between getting back from there and the next semester starting. When coupled with the lack of time between the holidays and leaving for New Mexico, I kind of feel a little slighted on the holiday break front. Of course, to be fair I had 2 days between my final day at the AG’s office and the start of classes, but my crazy trip home ate into that time quite a bit.

Speaking of that craziness, my suitcase is now off in unknown lands being repaired or replaced, I have no idea.
[Edit: They couldn’t fix it, so they are sending a replacement]

It doesn’t look so terrible in that photo, but that’s after I bent the back back up. It took two hours of my day to get to the airport, drop it off, and then get back to the law school but I supposed that spending the money on public transit is far less expensive than buying a new suitcase. MIL and FIL originally bought us this one, so we’ll just have to wait and see if we actually get it back, or if they just replace it.

I also retired my trusty New Mexico water bottle.

That water bottle saved me a lot of money. I bought it at Logan Airport on January 4th and used it until I returned here on January 23rd. Yes, I washed it. I also used two other water bottles, but this was my main one. If you’re wondering why the cap doesn’t match it’s because one day the bottle fell out of my backpack and shattered the plastic lid, so I acquired another lid to replace it. All in all a solid purchase in my book.

Getting back in the swing of things also meant taking stock of my most recent round of bottle caps (beer caps). After dumping in my beer caps from New Mexico it was time to refresh the mason jar once more.

And here are all the unique breweries (or brewery cap variants) I’ve acquired thus far. Keeping in mind (as linked above) that these are only those breweries I’ve encountered since March 22nd, 2015.

I’m pretty proud of our collection. I wish there was a way of incorporating can-tabs into the collection, but those are fairly boring. All the extras have either been recycled or given to people for crafts. Have no fear though, the mason jar is already getting filled up again, especially because Harpoon came out with an amazing new sampler.

Part of the reason it’s so amazing is of course the beers offered, but SB and I have a more personal connection to this sampler because we probably saw it being made back when we visited Harpoon in December. While we were there they were working on packaging these “IPA Adventure” boxes – though I hadn’t seen them anywhere in stores yet. Lo’ and behold, I return from New Mexico and they are on the shelves. Way cool. We went to Broadway with the specific intention of getting one of these packs after SB had noticed it the weekend prior.

1. Harpoon IPA – Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall

The classic, one of my favorite IPAs. Despite them redesigning the bottle, the recipe is just the same as always. This is a good entry English-style IPA and I never hesitate to recommended it, which should be obvious considering how many times I’ve mentioned it on this blog.

2. Harpoon Take 5 Session IPA – Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall

Another frequently mentioned beer: this time it’s Harpoon’s Take 5 Session IPA. Believe it or not “session” and “ipa” can go well in the same sentence together, this is a shining example. I’m still not a huge session person when it comes time to drinking beer independently of food, but I still like to mix things up with a good session beer from time to time. [I’m drinking one of these as I type actually!]

3. Harpoon The Long Thaw – Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall

It’s been awhile since I’d had the Long Thaw, but it’s as good as ever. As one of my earlier entries into “colored” IPAs it will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s a nice blend of the traditional IPA bitterness, coupled with orange and coriander which makes for a refreshing beer that honestly could do well year round rather than just seasonally. [Drank one of these too.]

4. Harpoon Leviathan – Imperial IPA – Harpoon Brewery & Beer Hall

As their Imperial IPA offering, Leviathan is poised to become the “120 Minute” IPA for Harpoon. While still not to the alcohol levels of that mythic Dogfish Head beer, Leviathan clocks in at 10% ABV, a slugger by Harpoon standards. SB and I first sampled this in the Harpoon tap room, so this was only my second time ever having it, and the first time having it in a bottle. I remain impressed. It has a strong aroma, with lots of touches of fruit. While it definitely has that IPA bitterness, it hits you alongside the sweet malt body. From what I’ve been able to tell, Harpoon builds their IPAs off the same “base” yeast, so the extra fermentation here, coupled with a load of dry hopping, make for a potent yet drinkable beer. Unfortunately it’s given me raging heartburn each time I’ve had it, but that hasn’t stopped me from drinking it. 🙂

And, I must also give a shout out to SB for supplying me with some beer for when I got home late on the 23rd (or rather early on the 24th) – which is only right considering she drank all the beer and pop I had.

5. Samuel Adams Cold Snap – Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams)

Samuel Adams is of course our other “hometown” brewery (of course there are many more, but Samuel Adams and Harpoon are kind of the “big” ones – and ole’ Sam is the bigger of the two), so it’s only fair that I toss in one of their beers for good measure. While Cold Snap isn’t new to us, its one of those beers where its seasonal restrictions make us really crave it (effective marketing) since we can’t have it often. This is a good all around witbier, kind of right down the middle – in typical Samuel Adams style – so it’s always one I seek out when it’s available. Its a good balance between the spices of a winter warmer and the citrus flavors of a spring beer. Good stuff.

Another beer-related thing that SB was kind enough to bring home was beer flavored ice cream. Yes, beer flavored ice cream.

Now, if your initial reaction was anything other than positive then you need to reevaluate your life. I kid. But really beer ice cream is good. I’ve been mixing beer and ice cream for at least 8 years or so, and I have to say that if the mixture is done properly, then it’s really good. So, when I heard that a mass-market brand such as Ben & Jerry’s was attempting beer ice cream, I was pretty excited. My excitement was only bolstered when I found out that it was New Belgium’s brown ale (and since I was still bummed that I was in Ft. Collins and didn’t get to visit New Belgium, I was happy to revisit my Colorado days), so that was just an added plus. Now, was it good? Of course it was. It was both good ice cream (Ben & Jerry’s) and good beer (New Belgium) – so it was a good concoction that I’d recommend to both beer lovers and ice cream lovers.

We also had some weird “ice wine” that we’d found in our basement around the holidays. Yes, you read that correctly, we found it in our basement.

Now, we don’t have any cool Cask of Amontillado type story, there is a “common” table in the recycling room downstairs where people put things they don’t want. These items range between absolutely, undeniably, trash and genuinely interesting/useful. Someone had left this still sealed bottle of wine (we’d already opened it in the photo above) and an opened bottle of Kahlua. The Kahlua obviously fell into that “trash” category, but this wine was interesting enough that I took it – especially once I saw the price tag.

If you can’t see the numbers, that is $27.99 for that little bottle, which makes it probably the most expensive wine per ounce that anyone in this house has ever had (and may ever have). I did a little digging and it turns out that North Branch Vineyards is a small winery in Montpelier, Vermont. Interestingly, the bottle isn’t supposed to be sold outside of VT, but VT is close enough that this bottle could have easily been purchased there and transported here. So, a small New England winery, coupled with the fact that ice wine is apparently an expensive wine to start with, made for a 28$ itty-bitty bottle of wine.

So how did it taste? Well, from what I’ve gathered ice wines are a dessert wine and are especially sweet and they are also fairly high in alcohol content for a wine. That said, I’m not the best person to ask when it comes to describing wine, to me it tasted like a rich family’s cough syrup, which I suppose might be accurate. We only drank about 1/5th the bottle, then used the rest in a blueberry banana bread as a reduction for the fruits, that was yummy. It was also much better than throwing out the majority of a 28$ bottle of wine (which isn’t something I’d do anyways, but still).

Of course it wasn’t all alcohol here, I also started working on some tea that stepmom got us for Christmas since I’ve been trying to drink tea more often ever since I started back up again in Santa Fe.

This “blooming” tea does exactly that, bloom. When you add the hot water the tea ball blooms into a flower.

Ok so you’ll just have to trust me, there is a flower in there – the hot tea kept fogging up my phone camera.

Ok you can see it a little better there, but for the sake of simplicity here is the flower outside of the tea.

You can just leave the flower in the tea and drink the tea with the flower in it, it was quite tasty. You can actually steep each bud twice, so I let it dry then used it again. While the tea was good, the best part was watching it bloom and not knowing what to expect.

And in case I appear too healthy with my tea, here is Valentino with a Diet Coke.

While I’ve greatly limited how much pop I’ve been drinking since the New Year, it’s hard not to share a Diet Coke with a Polar Bear, when, you know, have a Polar Bear.

Aside from all these adventures out and about and at home, I’ve also been in the process of settling back into my school routine. And while getting started again is never easy, I did make better grades last semester than I have in all of law school so far, so that was a plus.

Now that I’m officially a 2.5L I’m even more busy than I was last semester, and while I’m not thrilled about that, it has been nice to be back on campus. Hopefully this year I’ll actually get a chance to ice-skate and chill by the fire pits in the Plaza.

Of course even if I don’t manage to find time to go fall down in the skating rink I can always hang with one of the myriad of snow-bros that pop up around campus (sadly no giant snow squirrels as of yet).

And Thomas II’s door guard is still standing diligent, despite his stalk being broken in the line of duty.

It’s also been nice to see the millions of squirrels around the law school area again.

I like following them and talking to them, not sure how they feel about it – or the people who stare at me.

They tend to be everywhere here and I totally love it.

Another thing that I love is that in one of my HUGE classes (largest this year) I lucked out and scored my own little desk way at the back of the room.

And while I have to share it with Tristen, it’s far better than being stuck in the middle of one of the huge rows and being pretty much incapable of getting out and only having like 2″ on each side of you to move around in. The newer classrooms/buildings don’t have this problem as bad, but considering that the building where this classroom is – Austin Hall – was built in 1882, I don’t think they cared as much about these personal bubble things.

Another cool thing was that I got to go to a talk with Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, who, like many other powerful people (such as Jim Koch and someone named Obama) is a Harvard Law graduate.

Manfred is in the middle, on the left is HLS Dean Martha Minow and on the right HLS Professor Michael Klarman.

While I can’t claim to be a MLB fan – having not really watched anything since the Atlanta Braves at my Meem’s house when I was younger, and not actually seeing a MLB game until I went to Denver – it was cool to listen to him talk about the state of the game and how his career path led him to MLB Commissioner status. Also lots of inside dirt, always inside dirt.

But anyways, I’m definitely going to be busy this semester. I’ve resumed my clinic and this time it looks to be even more busy than before. I have a forthcoming brief in the D.C. Circuit (which involves working with a partner) and then beyond that I have to craft an entire regulation for the City of Boston. It might not sound like much when condensed to one sentence, but the amount of work involved is kind of extraordinary. While I do like the people in the clinic and I generally like the work, I cannot lie, I’m glad that I’ll be taking a “clinic break” next semester, if not for the rest of law school. You of course only have to do clinics a semester at a time, but I gave my word that I’d do the clinic for a year, so I am. Coupled with my AG clinic, I’ll have devoted 10 months of my life to clinical work, which is a lot more than most students do.

[Edit: As an update to this, I may have potentially lost my brief with the clinic (client might be pulling out of the litigation) and had my regulation project “stolen” from me and given to someone else, meaning that for the second semester in a row I’ll have been promised one thing and then forced to do something entirely unrelated – I am not happy about this. I will update as I know more]

On the flip side, I’ll be doing less work with ELR this semester. If you remember from my previous posts I wasn’t really in a good place with the journal. It wasn’t that I disliked the people, by and large I like the people, it was that it was a ludicrous amount of work for seemingly no payoff. So, I went into this semester wanting to be a submissions board member, however, it turns out that those positions – independent of any other duties – have been phased out. Now you are are submissions board member in addition to another position, I guess that they found that people solely being submissions board members weren’t “connected” enough to the culture and ideologies of the journal. This, unfortunately (for me) makes a lot of sense. So I was left with the option of either dropping down to a Line Editor again, or quitting (because staying on as a Technical Editor was not happening with my D.C. Brief in the clinic). After some consideration I decided to drop down one slot to a Line Editor again. I was asked to be more, but unlike last year I held firm and called the bluff and yeah, I’m a Line Editor. However, the new Editor in Chiefs for next year have already reached out to me wanting me to do more next year because they need more qualified people to save them. I’ve already sent them an email saying “no.”

Speaking of the Editor in Chiefs (yes, plural this time), the new ones I not who I voted for. First, if you are wondering if its odd to have two EICs, no, not really. I’d say about 50-60% of the time there are actually two EICs for a given journal. In ELR’s case it tends to flip flop around, but I think that by and large people like having a co-EIC because then you can secretly blame them for all your failings while they do the same. Anyways, after making it very clear that there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be running for EIC, I decided which people had the Taco seal of approval, and which most decidedly did not. The bad news: My choice lost. The good news: The person I hate didn’t win either. Instead I got some largely neutral people in there that I don’t really know. Could be worse, of course since I’ve sort of colloquially told them to eat shit via email, we’ll see how this relationship pans out (If you are wondering, I say that I said “eat shit” because in this high-brow world of micropenises, penis-envy, narcissism, and extreme inferiority complexes, merely standing up for yourself [telling them no] is equated with killing someone’s family). Regardless, I’m really going to miss the current EIC, he is my broseph and was one of my 1L mentors. Sadly he will be gone soon, and while he has generally been willing to accept my “black sheep” status in the ELR family, I have no idea how the newest board members will react to someone who is qualified to fulfill high need positions, but turns down nearly every single one of them (including being the Online Editor, who rests right below the EIC(s) in the hierarchy).

In non-clinic, non-journal news, my classes run a bit of a gamut.

My “Role of the State Attorney General” class is turning out to be pretty awesome and has a low workload. Getting a former State AG and State SG to teach a class just results in all sorts of fun. It’s probably the most “real” law school class I’ve had thus far and it also provides a lot of incite into the political side of law.

“Animal Law” is also looking to be interesting, which didn’t surprise me since I have an interest in the subject matter. I wasn’t so sure about how work-heavy it would be, but as of right now it seems to be manageable, which is nice considering that it is a night class.

From there it’s downhill.

While I was super excited about my “Administrative Law” class, its turned out to be excruciatingly boring so far, I mean, yeah, it’s giving 1L’s “Legislation and Regulation” a strong run for its money as the official “Most Boring Class of Law School” so far. At the very least, Admin will certainly rank as the most boring 2L class. I’m actually a bit baffled by this, because I like admin law, and the professor I have is super high ranked and hard to get into, but holy hell, the format of the class is boooooring. In fact I realistically see this class as the class where I work on other classes, while in class.

Finally, “Legal Profession,” which is my required ethical/professionalism course is turning out to be even worse than I had expected. While I’d heard the class was boring, its not only boring (but not to the extent of Admin law), but it’s also stupidly time-consuming and has team projects, yes the utter bane of my existence. In fact, you have to “teach” two classes in the semester with your team. I am, oh so thrilled. But, this class is required to graduate, so at least I’ll have it done during 2L.

Speaking of being done with 2L, the whole idea behind this “crazy” year (and the even more crazy second semester) is that it will buy me some chill time during 3L. See, all this focusing on practical stuff like clinics, SPOs, and internships has left me a bit behind in the more doctrinal/black-letter areas of law. So, for 3L, or a the very least 3L Fall, I need to buckle down and start taking some more black-letters classes in order to fill in some gaps (Constitutional Law, Tax Law, Corporations, Federal Courts, etc.). While this will make for a thoroughly non-engaging semester, it will also have the benefit of giving me more free time because all I’ll have (if I do it right) are exams at the end of the semester. While I might end up throwing in a seminar or reading group if I see one I like, the plan for now is to be very doctrinal for at least half of next year.

But before I get to that point I have to finish 2L and then my 2L summer. As an update on my 2L Summer Job in Montana, I will say that Bozeman is f*cking expensive. I mean, HOLY GOD. Want to stay within walking distance of downtown Bozeman and not have 30 roomates? Expect to pay 2500$+ a month. Want to have no roommates? 3000$+ Yes, for Montana. I about shit myself. I’ve done a lot of digging since realizing how expensive Bozeman is and I’ve found out a few things. First, Bozeman, or the “BoZone” is like a little colony within the state of Montana. Similar comparisons might be Austin, TX and Bloomington, IN. Bozeman is also home to Montana State University. It’s also apparently gorgeous and close to all sorts of outdoor stuff and is decently close to Yellowstone. As such, it gets flooded by rich people from California (who everyone hates, mind you). This creates an atmosphere of rich liberal yuppies who have no problem paying 3000$ to stay in an apartment in downtown Bozeman. While I am liberal, I am neither rich nor a yuppie, so I can’t afford 3000$ on my scrawny public interest lawyer income (which will be about 16.25$ an hour next summer). So I have to look outside of Bozeman. Which is what I did and I actually found a place about 10-15 minutes north of Bozeman that is really nice and costs less than my condo in Denver did last summer.

The problem with that is that there is essentially no real public transportation in Bozeman other than a few bus loops that are built around getting people to from MSU and downtown. While these buses are totally free, which is awesome, they don’t service an “affordable” area for me. So I either need a bike, or a car. The problem is a bike is that even the “bike-commute” zone (for us non-steroid users) still lies in “expensive land,” so car it is. Problem with the car? Have you ever looked up how much it costs to insure a rental car for over 10 weeks when you have no car insurance? Yeah. Don’t. This situation is developing though, so I’ll update as I know more.

So, with all the interconnected pieces of school, clinic, journal, summer housing, summer transport, summer car, etc., I’ve been pretty chaotic these first two weeks of the semester. This has been compounded by the fact that they’ve been doing invasive work on our apartment building.

By invasive I mean that they’ve actually been coming into my Tristen’s domain. It’s all part of some “Window Renovation” project. Truth be told, I don’t know exactly what they are doing. They came into the apartment at 8:30am, and where here for 1.5 hours making a lot of noise and dust. When they left we still had the same windows, however, they open and close much easier now, and they actually lock! Yes, for the first 1.5 years we lived here we couldn’t actually lock any of our windows. Not that I care, living up this high, but we having working locks now. Though in fairness only one out of the four apartments SB and I have lived in actually had windows that locked, I think some landlords just invest in shit windows. But ours work now, yay! Let’s hope they stay out of our apartment for awhile though, I had to move so much, and then they left a bunch of dust and screws behind. But I suppose it’s a fair price to pay for easier to use windows and a bathroom window that no longer has mildew inside the panes.

Speaking of being dirty, it was recently bath time for the boys, which is always a crazy day. However, before the path Tristen had to have one of his “war wounds” patched up.

Manries.

After his operation (he came through just fine), it was time to prepare the bath.

Getting ready for scrubin’

Once the water was ready and the suds had been dissolved into the water (otherwise the boys get “starchy”) it was go time.

Pig jumped right in. This was actually his first bath, as the boys were long overdue for a cleaning. Generally we clean them twice a year, but it had been nearly a year this time. Needless to say they had a lot of dirt to get rid of. Valentino, always one to enjoy this baths, was also no issue.

After some convincing Tristen also got in, he is never too thrilled about losing his “manries” filth. After a nice long bath and cleaning session it was time for the boys to dry.

The drying process involves towels, dish drainers, and a box fan. It can also take upwards of 10 hours. This time we actually didn’t try Tristen out enough (he resists the process) and so when we woke up in the morning there was a damp spot in the bed, so they spent some of the next day in front of the box fan again and this time everyone finished drying.

While bath time can generate some stress between the bath itself (Tristen) and the lengthy drying process (everyone), there was something excited that happened recently. Namely we sent our form in for our adopted Puffin.

For just 20 cereal box UPCs, you too can adopt a Puffin.

Over the past several months I’ve been on a huge Barbara’s Puffins kick.

Seen here: Pumpkin Puffins, first discovered in New Mexico.

This yummy cereal comes in a variety of flavors and so far I’ve liked all of them. What I like even more is that Barbara’s has a program in which you can send in twenty UPCs from Puffins, yes – just a child – but there is no age limit, and an adoption form and then you adopt a Puffin from the Gulf of Maine. Aw Yiss. As you can see from the envelope above, we collected 20 UPCs for our Puffin Fund and have since sent the form on its way. In fact, we are now working on Puffin Fund 2.0. As for the Puffin’s name and all that, well I’m going to save that as a surprise for once we get our adoption form. If you don’t think I can make an entire post about my cereal-box Puffin adoption then you don’t know me well enough.

But, that pretty much wraps this post up. For the first time this year I’m “up to the present” on my blog (at least as of writing, if not posting), which is nice. From here on out I should probably resume my semi-normal semester posting schedule.

Until next time,
-Taco

P.S. – My awesome “Fire Breathing T-Rex” socks that Meem got me for Christmas, notice the Tristen color scheme – he obviously approves.

Bozeman Check-in #3 (The Summit)

April Fools & Pig’s First Birthday

Easter 2016

HAPPY EASTER!

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Back in the Boston Groove – 2.0

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