Days 317-322: April 13-18, 2013

On Saturday we held our first ever class Bar Crawl, with these fantastic shirts designed to perfectly approximate the 2L year. Our Bar Crawl coincided with the 3L Bar Crawl, and we ended up meeting up at the final bar in the trip. It was a fun night to get out and see some people before we will all start to buckle down for Spring Semester finals!

Sunday it was back to the law school to start to get ready for our last week of classes. It was a beautiful day outside, but I had to lock myself inside the library to finish up all of my cite-checking and reading for the week so that as the week began I could get a head start on some of my exam studying. This semester is going to be a tough one, so time to get cracking!

Monday was a brief break to enjoy our long-awaited student-faculty basketball game at Assembly Hall. It was an amazing experience and exhilirating to walk down the stands and onto the court level to lace up the shoes and take the court. We were thoroughly dominated by the stacked faculty team, but it was a fun experience and a great game nonetheless. I managed to knock down a three from the corner, hit a Watshot in warm-ups, take one unbelievably long three-point attempt, deliver some good passes and a nice save out of bounds into an assist, and get to the foul line. I was mostly neutralized by the size of our opponent (it was like playing in a Big Ten game), which mitigated my ability to really play at the 3 where I'm best, but it was a fun time. One thing to note for the future: college courts are MUCH longer than gym ones....getting back on D and taking the ball up on offense gets tiring real quick!

On Tuesday we had a couple of storms come in the afternoon and again in the evening, so it was a rainy night. There were even more storms overnight, with plenty of thunder and lightning. I do enjoy some spring and summer thunderstorms, and since we had such a long drought last summer, it is nice to finally get some rain again.

This spot by the Courthouse stood out to me this week as I was thinking about what happened in Boston. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected, and I am thankful for the people of Boston who bravely stepped up to help those affected and helped ensure that the people behind this were doomed to fail in their attempt to make us lose faith in humanity. Evil can only prevail when good people do nothing, and the people of Boston showed us this week how we can heroically respond to tragedy, fighting out evil and ensuring that in spite of terror, we as humanity can continue to seek our own Freedom from Fear, through the bravery exemplified by the best of us.

There were storms brewing in Bloomington on Thursday evening, and while none of the strong storms came in during the day, the hard rain came earlier than expected. I ended up getting caught during my evening run in two strong downpours. It ended up being worth it though, as it made for quite an enjoyable run, and I really picked up my pace, which had been slacking lately. It was a good distraction from prepping for exams, which I returned to following my brief time outdoors.

Days 294-297: March 21-24, 2013

Thursday was the official beginning of March  Madness and a return to Bluebird for Bar Review. We actually did not spend much time at Bar Review because we spent so much time watching the games at Brothers, which has much better televisions for basketball watching. The first day of basketball was great, but not as great as when IU finally takes the court!

On Friday, not only did IU open their NCAA Tournament run with an easy win over James Madison, but kickball started up again at Bryan Park. The weather was fairly nice, and even though it was a little chilly it felt warm on the field with the sun out. It was a bit of a rusty day for our team, but was good to get back out there and freshen up. I will likely need to work on getting my kickball skills back in peak shape for this summer, since kickball is huge in D.C. After kickball, we also stopped by the law school musical, which was great again this year and had some good songs, great jokes, and prominently featured some traditional Indiana candystripe pants.

The weather on Saturday was so beautiful that I had to get outside, avoiding staying locked up in the library by taking a walk around to take some photos and then going out for a run in the nice warm air. One would think that spring was finally on its way, until you look at tomorrow's photo of the day below. After an amazingly beautiful day, we were pounded by a surprise snowstorm that coated the ground in no time at all. At this point in time, I am definitely ready for spring to just come around, but I do love snow so I was not that disappointed after all. And additionally, Indiana won its second round game on Sunday to move on to a return trip to the Sweet 16 in Washington, D.C. Now we are moving into the depths of the tournament where we will be battle tested on the quest for the sixth banner. I will be returning to D.C. this summer, and hopefully IU can enjoy it for me next weekend by coming back to Bloomington with a Final Four berth in hand!

Days 268-272: February 23-27, 2013

Saturday was our I-Jiggles Global Party, which I attended after The Vegas Bombers extended our win streak to three games by defeating a team on an eight-game winning streak in epic fashion. We are really starting to come together and make our playoff run! Global Party was a lot of fun as well. I contributed to the European representation with some Abbey Ale (I think from the Netherlands?) and my favorite Belhaven Scottish Ale. The Belhaven was my favorite beer in Scotland and is still my favorite beer of all time. It is like a lighter and creamier tasting Guinness, and while the widget-loaded draft cans are fantastic, nothing compares to the true Belhaven drawn off the tap in the Scottish heartland.

Sunday closed off a very busy four-day weekend with a quiet day at home combined with a bit of work to catch up for the school week. I ended the evening by partaking in one of the rare events of the year where I cook my own dinner. Here we have some pork chops and mixed vegetables accompanied by a glass of Oliver Creekbend Traminette, Indiana's signature wine. All was delicious, proving it to be another rare occasion: the occasion where I cook foods that are not corn on the cob and they all taste good.

My dinner Monday was not quite as wholesome as my home-cooked Sunday meal (don't worry, I had a real dinner later on), but I stopped by Potbelly to pick up a vanilla malt and sugar cookie to keep me going as I finished my high school math homework, also known as our second problem set for Corporate Finance. I'm still not sure if I really remember what math means, but I keep saying that one day I hope to keep track of my personal finances like a corporation does, so it should eventually come in handy. I used to get these sugar cookies all the time in D.C., and although the ones in Bloomington are usually a little over-baked, this one was quite delicious.

Tuesday was a sad sad day. After watching an amazing moot court semifinal argument, we went over to Nick's to catch the Indiana game, where the Hoosiers disappointed and were upset by the Golden Gophers of Minnesota. We still have a great team, but we really have to stop it with these letdown games, particularly the ones in which Cody Zeller decides to play like a little kid. With Watford in foul trouble and Zeller getting beat up down low by the Gophers (getting beat up by a Gopher is as sad as it sounds), things were not going to end well, even with Indiana fighting back from their countless mistakes to keep things close until the end. Better get back to practice, because with only three games left, we are going to have to win at least two and maybe all three to win the Big Ten and secure that #1 overall tournament seed and midwest regional placement!

On Wednesday we all stopped at Noodles for lunch, where Megan was surprised by the new drink machine they added this semester. While I did think these machines were super cool when they first came out, I am starting to not like them so much because they have way too many choices, and take forever to use even when you know what your doing and using them quickly. They take even longer to use when people can't figure out how to work them, and can create some huge lines at lunch. But they are certainly designed in a fun and interesting way, which reminded Megan of her favorite drink machines at McDonalds—"It's like a factory for drinks!" (Actual quote.)

Days 254-260: February 9-15, 2013

It's official: I have finally found a new and replacement pair of basketball shoes. After almost nine years playing in the old and battle-worn Shox Status', I found a very similar style replacement pair of Shox. I picked these up in the fall and have been skeptical about the change, electing instead to wear these with my candystripes. After giving them another go tonight, I decided to retire them from outdoor use for good (after only four outdoor wears) and keep them as the replacement basketball shoes. It is amazingly easier to keep your footing on shoes that are not nine years old. Tonight they helped me put on a fun performance more in line with my games of old: 3+ steals, 8-10 deflections, lockdown man defense giving up just 2 points in 3 games, and scoring from inside, mid-range, and on the fast break. It was fun to run the floor and play hard again, the only thing missing from my game today was the three-point shot. Hopefully with more hours on the floor I will be able to keep up the status quo, and if so, I might have a shot to avoid feeling like an old law student playing on Assembly Hall and put up a decent game instead.

Following my own personal basketball resurgence, Indiana had a huge road game on Sunday to follow up the upset loss at Illinois. Again, I am kicking myself for making Illinois my preseason pick to take IU's #1 ranking—I did not expect the Butler and Wisconsin losses, but we got #1 back just in time to make my prediction come through. Fortunately, the trio of Oladipo, Zeller, and Watford were HUGE and the defense tightened up to hold a solid lead in a hostile environment, giving Indiana their first road win against a ranked opponent in Tom Crean's tenure. This win was especially huge following the "mulligan" the rest of the top-5 teams gave us this week, and we should be able to maintain a solid position as long as we keep winning. My new IUBB GameDay mug got off to a good start in its first use, and will hopefully be enjoying many more victories in the weeks to come!

This was an interesting promotion I stumbled across. They are giving out giant paper bags when you buy something at Hallmark, and then if you bring the bag back in two weeks you get 20% off everything you can fit inside. Unfortunately, I do not really ever have to go to Hallmark enough to actually buy enough to utilize this promotion, but it does seem like it would almost be fun enough to participate just to stuff up the bag like it was a shopping spree or something. If you did enjoy collecting various greeting cards, you could sure fit a huge amount of them in this bag to get your sale!

The Moot Court bracket is officially up and Moot Court Madness begins in approximately one week. Unlike March Madness, where I hope Indiana makes it all the way to the end of the bracket, I am hoping to put up my best D.C. Sports impression and go one-and-done. I am going to attempt to have fun doing it however, as I have set up Mike's Moot Court Scavenger Hunt, where I make my best attempt to sneak in as many famous quotes and/or phrases into my argument while still maintaining a proper and professional argument style. This is my attempt at making additional work more entertaining and productive (and sadly may actually improve my overall performance). Hopefully this does not put the Karma Gods against me and give me an unwanted victory, as Karma is already stacking the deck against me by setting me up for a second-round argument on my birthday, one year after I had to finish an LRW memo on my birthday, should I pull through with the "double-upset" victory (that is referring to an upset for both sides, because I am sure neither of the two competitors in this match will want me to win).

Girl Scout Cookies! I came across these at College Mall this week and had to pick up a couple boxes since I haven't had my own in forever. Naturally, I picked up my two favorites, the Trefoils (old fashioned shortbread), and the #1 Cookies of All Time: Thin Mints. I finally broke into them and they were as good as ever, and even better than I remembered (particularly the Thin Mints). Thanks Girl Scouts for your awesome cookies! They are the perfect way to end the week and head into another long weekend.

On Thursday night it was back to Nick's for the first repeat performance in Bar Review history. Because Bar Review has been lackluster lately, with the bar selection waning as we have made it through most of Bloomington's marquee establishments, and others are being saved for Spring when we can best make use of their outdoor amenities, Nick's was selected for its second go-round in an attempt to reinvigorate the brand. After the recently renamed Team Avalon completed their first match as The Vegas Bombers, it was off to Nick's to celebrate the unique "Valentine's Day Style Bar Review," which basically means, Thursday Night at Nick's playing Have You Met Tim?

On Friday I begun work on my poster to bring to the Purdue game tomorrow, our general admission game of the season. We will get to line up before the game tomorrow to get good seats, and I am going to make an exciting poster to display from my prime Crimson Guard vantage point. What will it be? You will have to watch at 2:00 PM on ESPN2 to find out! And additionally, this photo finally completes the first ever week-long version of Connecting the Dots' "Photos of the Day[s]!"

Days 251-253: February 6-8, 2013

Another week in the books as Wednesday rolls to a close and first-weekend begins. Stopped by TIS in the afternoon to pick up a few things and took a look at the mural again now that the construction in the parking lot is finally gone. Looks like the artist was thinking ahead and left plenty of room for a sixth banner. Hopefully I will still be in Bloomington to see the murals completion! After TIS I went by the HPER to freshen up my basketball skills a bit. This time I actually remembered to practice my free throws after playing, and finished a surprising 14 for 25. That is a marked improvement, considering I was the player that once missed 12 consecutive free throws in a game. (The good news being I became a 50-60% free throw shooter following that game. The bad news being 50% is not a good free throw percentage.) And I started even stronger than I finished, missing my last four after hitting six in a row (which has to be a personal record as I don't think I have ever hit more than three consecutive before).

Thursday was a beautiful day out, reaching the mid-60s and making it a good day to go out for a run. Afterwards, it was over to Yogi's for bar review and to watch the Hoosiers defend their fresh #1 ranking. Sadly, it was a brief defense as Cody Zeller decided the last 0.9 seconds of the game would be a great time to take a defensive series off and chill out pretending to set screens for Illinois. Fortunately though, numbers 2, 3, and 5 also lost this week, so if we are able to pull out a win in what is now a must-win game at Columbus on Sunday, we can consider this week a mulligan and hopefully not drop too far in the national rankings and the Big Ten standings.

When I was at TIS on Wednesday I picked up this cool new five banner coffee mug. This should make for a fun Gameday mug going forward, and just like the mural, they have left a spot to fill in a sixth banner. Unfortunately, that spot happens to also be where the handle is, so I suppose when the time comes the mug will have to turn into its own version of a "ceramic mason jar." Now that is how to be practical and resourceful.

Days 240-241: January 26-27, 2013

What better day than 10 days before the due date to begin working on moot court brief number two? I mean, it's not like I need that much time to work on it. The one (and most important) thing I learned from all the time we spent working on it last fall is how little it matters. Spend as much time on it as you want, but it sure isn't going to get you an A. In anything. But, on the bright side, it is much funner and less stressful when you actually don't care about it and do things like cite Green Bag! (See, e.g., http://bit.ly/QjCrQ1). Also, the moot court board has changed to must more positive things like Little 5, rather than brief due dates. Even though I don't think the countdown has been updated from 90 in quite a while (probably about as often as I've updated my brief). Finally, I enjoy the I-Jiggles commemoration of moot court participants in the bottom left corner of the picture. I enjoy the fact that the world is covering up the majority of the announcement, because it is symbolic of the things that are more important than moot court round two for me: all the things in the world. And THAT is global!

Disclaimer: I should add that despite my satiric attitude, moot court is very important for those who are interested in the competition, are interested in appellate advocacy, or are pursuing a career in an area of law where that form of advocacy will be relevant. But, for those who merely wanted to build public speaking/advocacy skills, strengthen an area of weakness, and for which three rounds of argument was sufficient to accomplish those goals, having to write another 30ish page brief to merely argue an additional one or two other times is not the most productive of tasks for an additional semester.

#13 Michigan State made the trip to Bloomington on Sunday to take on #8 Indiana at Assembly Hall. It was a huge top-15 Big Ten matchup I went over to Nick's with Anita to watch her Spartans take on our Hoosiers in the nationally televised Sunday afternoon game. It was odd watching an Indiana home game in Bloomington and not at Assembly Hall, but I did not have tickets to this one. It was an impressive game on both sides, neck-and-neck the entire way, with Indiana managing to hang on to its early lead throughout despite a strong effort and a huge inside presence by Michigan State. It was good to see Indiana play tough in a close game and pull out a win. That is definitely something we are going to need to keep up if we are going to compete down the stretch in the Big Ten and in the NCAA tournament. Victor Oladipo was a star as usual, and Cody Zeller managed to assert himself down the stretch, but he needs to step it up and play stronger from start to finish. Hopefully we will be able to handle another road matchup on Wednesday against Purdue, because next Saturday soon-to-be #1 ranked Michigan will be coming to town to be featured on the ESPN College GameDay Spectacular that will be a possible top-five matchup at Assembly Hall!

Day 237: January 23, 2013

Another wonderful night at Assembly Hall as 17,000+ line up to make their way into the building to see Indiana take on Penn State for a Wednesday evening matchup. While tonight's game was a little sloppy and included plenty of poor free throw shooting, it was a nice easy cruise to a 20+ point victory over lowly Penn State.  We finally got a bit of an increased performance off the bench, and hopefully have shaken off the rest of the dust we have been building up before we encounter our next big challenge this weekend against Michigan State. Tonight we had the thrilling opportunity to sit in the farthest seats back in the upper deck with our backs to the wall of the stadium. Not the best location (although, it was in Section BB, and as Charles pointed out, IUBB!), but it was a fairly casual evening for a fairly low intensity game where we had a comfortable lead out of the beginning after we opened on a 7-0 run. In other great news tonight, #1 Duke was thoroughly embarrassed by MIAMI (of Florida, in case you Ohio fans were getting too excited), losing by almost 30. I do not generally care how non-conference teams are doing, even though it may be of benefit for teams above us to lose, but I've been saying all year that Duke was vastly over-ranked after having played Louisville and Kentucky early before we realized how over-ranked either of those teams were at #2 and #3, so it is good to see someone finally give them a reality check.

Days 233-235: January 19-21, 2013

Went out to play a much-needed round of basketball at the HPER this weekend. It had been so long since I last played, and it definitely showed. I'm playing as bad as Will Sheehey recently (when you correct for the pre-existing difference in our relative talent levels). Hopefully if we are able to get everybody to come out every weekend I'll have a chance to get my touch back. I am back to my trusted pair of Shox Status shoes after my last attempt at turning to a new pair. If you can tell that these shoes are slightly worn, it is because I have been playing in them since 2004. I have tried to switch to a new pair at least four times since then, but still can't find a pair I like playing in as much as these! (And to answer the obvious question, they no longer sell these shoes and have not been since the year after I bought them.) In early 2008 I ran into another guy at the AFC in Charlottesville who had the same exact shoes (also looked quite worn) and we noticed the fact that we both had the same shoes, because come to find out, we both had them for the same reason. He knew before asking that I had been wearing them for '04, just like him, and he also had tried several times to use a new pair of shoes but always went back. Hint: Nike, your new shoes are awful. MAKE SHOX STATUS AGAIN. I wonder if that kid is still out there playing in 9 year old basketball shoes...? You may think that would be crazy but trust me—unless his shoes have fallen apart and are no longer functional, I can almost guarantee you that he is.

The sunset outside my apartment was pretty cool-looking Sunday evening so I decided to take a shot of it. The colors are crazy, its almost like some red mixed in and blending with purple. Wait...you don't think someone knew who was going to win the AFC/NFC Championship games and play in the Super Bowl do you? (Hint: Ray Lewis does.) I guess maybe the clouds in Bloomington are premonitionary.* A major part of the Harbaugh-Crean family does reside in Bloomington after all...

*Yes, this is a real word. If you don't believe me, see generally Orin S. Kerr, A Theory of Law, 16 Green Bag 2d. 111 (2012), available at http://www.greenbag.org/v16n1/v16n1_ex_post_kerr.pdf.

While celebrating the conclusion of my five-day weekend, I fired up the Vitamix to make a delicious smoothie. This is the most amazing blender ever, which makes fantastic smoothies easily (even I can make things with it!). It is also easy to clean; you just put water and soap in it and fire it up on high speed for 30 seconds. It's been quite a while since I made smoothies in the morning, so after recalibrating my recipe, I think I will start it back up for breakfast now that I have a more regular schedule, where I still don't have to leave super early. Today was a simple strawberry banana smoothie, complemented by my secret nutrient-boosting ingredients (which are not really that secret: Greek yogurt, organic spinach leaves, organic golden flax seeds, and a scoop or two of protein powder).

Days 229-232: January 15-18, 2013

Tuesday was a sad sad day. Indiana defended its fresh #2 national ranking by promptly losing to Wisconsin at home. At home. At Assembly Hall. I did not think any team would beat Indiana at Assembly Hall this year, and they shouldn't have. While our team has plenty of flaws, most of which came to light in this game, and most of which should be fixable given more time and experience, this one is on us. While the atmosphere was of course, spectacular compared to the average college basketball environment, the night was a little weak by Assembly Hall standards. We were not going 100%, and you could tell it was a bit quieter than usual, nothing like our evening matchup against UNC but more like the second half last week against Minnesota. I think that perhaps we got a bit too complacent with our high-ranking playing an unranked team like Wisconsin, but it is important to remember that every game in the Big Ten is going to be a battle, and every team playing a top-ranked team is going to bring their best. And that's not even counting the fact that Wisconsin has had our number for years now. So, while I expect our team to continue to improve and fix their flaws before March, we have to make sure that we give them our best as fans and make Assembly Hall what it was designed to be—the most intimidating place to play basketball in the country. This one is on us. And we need to make sure that next Wednesday, when we fill the seats again, Assembly Hall is shaking from top to bottom and our team is feeding off of that insurmountable energy.

Speaking of reigniting Assembly Hall, on Wednesday I picked up my first Crimson Guard shirt. I forgot to get my free shirt last year, but this year I made sure to grab it. While I am not able to dedicate the same amount of time and passion as I may have been as an undergrad, the heart is strong as ever and I am proud to support the best student group in the country for college basketball! There's a reason why we all bleed crimson.

Thursday was another week of bar review, this time at Serendipity. While Serendipity is a great place to hang out on a quiet evening with a group of friends, it is probably not the best locale for a bar review, as there is not much standing room and the bar is rather small. Afterwards, we stopped by Atlas and played a bit of shuffleboard. Although the quality of the tables was lackluster, it was still a good time as Tim and I led a fairly dominating 5 or 6 game run on the tables.

Friday was the second day of my five-day Martin Luther King Day weekend. This is an amazing stretch of the semester, where I have three days of class, followed by a five-day weekend, followed by two days of class, and then another four-day weekend. After stopping in to do a POP office hour, and almost forgetting I had to pick up my moot court brief number, I took a stop by Kroger for some long-weekend grocery shopping, where I was happy to find this awesome giant shoe celebrating Hoosier Hysteria, Indiana basketball, and the five banners. I am not exactly sure why it is a shoe, but it is a pretty cool setup at the entrance of the Kroger. I wonder what they are going to do with the old shoe when we win a sixth banner?

Days 223-226: January 9-12, 2013

On Wednesday it was time to leave D.C. to fly back to Indianapolis to start the Spring Semester of school. I had a great time at home over break, and it was definitely too short. I realized it felt a lot shorter because the whole first week I had to spend writing the rest of my seminar paper/journal note. But it was still a fun, relaxing, and much-needed break at home where I had a chance to spend some time with the family, go down to Florida to see some more family, eat plenty of delicious food at my cousins' restaurant, eat plenty of home-cooked meals, see a few movies, and go out to some good restaurants in Virginia and D.C. Here I am waiting to board my plane (not the one in the picture) with a view of the monument and Capitol behind the plane and another plane coming in for a landing.

On the first day of classes I also turned in my journal note which I spent the first week of break finishing. Glad to finally be done with it! It is resting nicely on top of the giant box of other notes. This Thursday was a Monday schedule, with four classes, but this semester should be nicely scheduled since I only have classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and it is the exact same schedule each day.

On Friday I collected most of the rest of my books. A few more than last semester, but a slightly lighter load than Fall Semester of 1L year. I'm excited to have (hopefully) a much more structured semester with less practical or writing courses and getting back to some basic exam-style law classes, which I tend to do better in. Once moot court is quickly out of the way, I think this semester should be much more structured than last, with plenty of time to relax and enjoy the spring weather (and IU's NCAA tournament run).

Saturday I finally returned to one of my favorite places, Assembly Hall, to watch IU take on the fellow top-10 ranked Golden Gophers of Minnesota. The game started off fantastic, with IU opening a huge first-half run to go up more than 20 points and the crowd raging loud as always. The second half was very disappointing, however, as the crowd got lazy and was too quiet, and the team quickly followed with a sluggish performance that almost brought Minnesota back in the lead. Fortunately, the Hoosiers hung on before time ran out and ended up closing out an eight point victory to earn a new "signature" win. I include the quotation marks not in disrespect to the opponent, but merely due to the questionable way our team performed to close out what should have been an undisputed signature victory. But, a win is a win, so I'll take it and hope that we can maintain better consistency going forward, because this type of second-half performance will not cut it on the road in the Big Ten. This shot shows Cody Zeller receiving a pass on a wide open run to the basket before finishing off with a crowd-stirring dunk, one of the first half bright spots. Another bright spot of the afternoon was the halftime performance by the Firecrackers, a youth girls jump-roping team, which was one of the most amazing halftime shows I have ever seen.

Day 222: January 8, 2013

On my last day in Stafford this Winter Break, here is a glimpse of two of the old football fields that I grew up playing on. To the right is "The Sandlot," what we called the field next to the playground in the Shelton Run neighborhood. This was the field that we first started playing on the most, and where we held our first Hampton Oaks v. Shelton Run/Vista Woods game (Hampton Oaks won, of course). I had a lot of great memories playing on this field, as I finally turned into a decent football player here. From calling out blocks, to hot route-ing verticals, to my climbing the ladder pick-six from the middle zone, this field was always good for some great football!

This next field was the H.H. Poole Middle School football field, which we began using in the winter as we looked for alternatives to the Sandlot (or whenever we wanted to kick real field goals). By the time we started on this field I was a more polished wide receiver and had found my preferred quarterbacks, and we had much more competitive and longer-running games. This field was also the field where I broke my fibula after evading one few too many tackles after a catch on a drag route. I used to love practicing the toe-tapping corner routes on the perfectly drawn end zone lines and putting in some spot duty as holder when we decided to try throwing some field goals into our pick-up games. Unfortunately, it seems they have now built a fence around the field and locked it up, which means kids can't come down to this field for football games like we used to. But it also looks like they are laying some new turf, which should be nice for the middle school teams, since the field is really intended for them anyway.

Day 176: November 23, 2012

To celebrate the day after Thanksgiving, we held a Turkey Bowl at Bryan Park. It ended up being a good turnout and the weather was great (with a nice fall chill coming back to town) It was great to get out there again and play football. I was a bit rusty, but managed to finish with quite a few catches, some TDs, and a couple INTs. Overall was an awesome game and we came out with a win in the end.

Day 173: November 20, 2012

After the last class before Thanksgiving break, we took a trip to Kroger to do some Thanksgiving grocery shopping, and then made it over to Nick's to watch IU play the championship game of the Legends Classic Tournament against Georgetown. It's pretty quiet in town with all the students gone for the week, but it was still a solid crowd at Nick's, the best place to watch IU basketball. The game was great, Georgetown gave us a solid challenge and after a big second-half comeback took the game into overtime. Indiana responded with great resolve, going on a huge run to win by 10, led by Yogi's clutch three in solid coverage. We definitely needed a challenge from a great team to learn how to play in those tense situations, and the Hoosiers responded well. Being the #1 team in the country is a stressful life...it's going to be a long season with every team we play giving us their absolute best shot. So far we have been responding well, and although I don't expect us to win them all, I think we need to come through meeting our early-season challenges in order to establish a strong mental composure going into the middle of the season. Next big game up: UNC next Tuesday night at Assembly Hall!

Day 172: November 19, 2012

CandyStripes finally came in today! Perfect timing too, after heading to Tap after class to watch IU beat up on Georgia (even after a scarily slow start to the first half...). One of the reasons I love being at Indiana: I successfully started an O-LA-DI-PO chant at an almost empty bar (almost all non-law students are out of town for Thanksgiving) in the second half when Vic started dominating and IU went on its big run. Indiana takes on Georgetown tonight in the finals of the Legends Tournament at the new Barclays Center, and the candy stripes are here in perfect time for our next game at Assembly Hall next Tuesday against UNC!

Day 165: November 12, 2012

Game #2 of Indiana's #1 season and road to that sixth banner! Megan, Charles, and I are rocking some new apparel that we spent the whole day looking for, including the #4 Oladipo jersey, a new Indiana shirt, and the #40 Zeller jersey. We are also sporting the fresh IU face tattoos for the best seats we will have all season (court-level, behind-the-backboard seats). IU was dominating as usual, and it should be a real exciting game for our next time in the Hall, as Assembly Hall will truly be rocking for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge against Top-25 ranked UNC. During the undergrad years, Virginia played UNC every year but was never able to come close. Now that I'm officially at a real basketball school, hopefully I'll get a chance to watch my guys show UNC where it's at and how we play ball in the Big Ten. HOO HOO HOO HOOSIERS!

Day 162: November 9, 2012

Opening night for the 2012-2013 #1 Indiana Hoosiers at Assembly Hall. IU played a pretty lackluster game of basketball overall, yet still managed to soundly defeat Bryant 97-54. Assembly Hall was rocking at moments, but it was a fairly relaxed opening night overall. The stadium was still filled with a sellout crowd of almost 18,000 however, as I saw the number one team in the country play for the first time ever.

It's great to have a true point guard in Yogi Ferrell joining the likes of Christian Watford, Cody Zeller, and Victor Oladipo. His ball handling has already started to open up more opportunities for players such as Zeller here. Tom Crean's contract was extended until 2020 tonight, so we should have plenty of years of Crean and Crimson making for some exciting basketball in Bloomington. Hopefully the team continues to develop and we have an exciting year of Indiana basketball maintaining that number one ranking all the way until April!

Day 152: October 30, 2012

Early-Voting Day at Assembly Hall—as you can probably see by the excessive campaign signs near the entrance. I thought the whole point of early voting was short lines and no waiting, but I spent almost an hour in line before abandoning the effort after being not even halfway through the line to the polls. I have never voted in person before, so I can't even imagine how packed it would get on election day. Now I definitely appreciate the economic inefficiency argument of voting. Essentially, it is an economically inefficient action at the individual level to vote in a major national election (you can check out the book Freakonomics if you don't believe me). Because no individual vote will EVER have an effect on the outcome* (even the closest of elections are within 1,000s of votes at the popular level), you are imposing and individual cost on yourself by taking the time and effort to go vote, when it would be more productive from an economic level and provide the individual with a greater level of utility, to avoid incurring the costs of voting and instead choose any other more beneficial economic activity. Of course, one might say, it would definitely effect the outcome if EVERYONE behaved in this way. That is why it is a classic collective action problem. However, your individual action of voting will not affect anyone else's individual choice, so it still remains an optimal choice at the individual level to avoid voting. However, because I, like most individuals, am irrational (from an economic standpoint), and believe that I have some sort of socially imposed duty or requirement to make an effort to vote in order to be a responsible citizen, I will make another attempt to succeed at the polls. However, if I have to wait more than 10-15 minutes to cast my ballot, the economist in me will take over and I will go back home again.

*(I am just discussing this from an economic perspective, not a political perspective. So I will not dive into the secondary issue of the electoral college, which demonstrates that individual votes REALLY don't matter, because the electors who are actually electing the President are in no way compelled to vote in accordance with the popular vote.)

PS- Being at Assembly Hall did make me REALLY excited for basketball season though. I will be returning next Friday for the first home game of the season! Watching this video from Hoosier Hysteria still gives me chills:

Days 149-151: October 27-29, 2012

Saturday was a day for college football as the #2 Florida Gators battled it out in the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party for the SEC East title. Unfortunately, Florida executed poorly on offense and made too many mistakes to stay ahead of Georgia. The team is still looking good at this point, but needs to make several improvements in key areas in order to return to a championship level. The personnel and coaching are definitely there though, so it will only take time and experience.

The Steelers' dreadful throwback uniforms made their debut Sunday against the Redskins. Fortunately, the Redskins seemed so terrified to be going against a group of ex-cons in their prison stripes that they didn't notice it was the regular Steelers and let us run all over them. The running game is finally back on track behind former Georgia Tech star Jonathan Dwyer, and with Haley's west coast style keeping Big Ben off the turf, it looks like things might be back to running smooth in Pittsburgh.

A nice sunset Monday evening behind the Sample Gates. The wind has really started to pick up today as you can feel the effects of Hurricane Sandy from the east coast all the way here in the middle of Indiana. The super storm has already closed the federal government and the stock markets for two days, as well as forced New York-based primetime television into reruns across the country. It looks like it is going to be a pretty disruptive storm for the eastern seaboard, hopefully everyone stays safe over there!