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 298-299: March 25-26, 2013

Monday evening remained a cold and snowy "spring" night in Bloomington as IU's campus was coated with a few inches of snow. Even Mr. Herman B. Wells was slightly buried under the snow in the background here. I suppose I spoke too soon last time I said it would probably be the last snow we saw of the season. This time I think it is safe to say, however, that this should be the last time we see snow this year.... I think.

On Tuesday morning everything was still coated in a beautiful layer of white powder. The drive to school in the morning was quiet and serene and very picturesque. You can see the green leaves of spring fighting to jump through yet being held back by this late bite of winter. However, by noon the sun came out and the layers of snow began melting faster than I'd ever seen snow melt before. All of Bloomington was dripping as the snow slid off the rooftops and the ground became covered in running water. By evening, most of the snow was already gone! Now, the truly warm weather just needs to come back as quickly so we can finally get this spring show on the road.

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 276-280: March 3-7, 2013

Sunday I made a trip to Sam's Club to stock up on all the large-quantity items you can get cheaper at Sam's if you buy them in excessive amounts. This means Gatorade, Powerade, water, juice, giant bowls of fruit, and massive amounts of Starbucks K-Cups. No beer though because this is Indiana and it is a Sunday.

While walking back from the Union on Monday afternoon I came across this interesting sight. Excessive cop cars flanking the Student Building? Everything else seemed in order so it didn't look like anything interesting was up. Maybe there was some kind of event or someone famous was visiting? Hopefully these aren't the armed 1Ls we got to dress as bailiffs for moot court taking their new jobs a little too seriously...

On Tuesday we got what is most likely our last snow of the year. It started mostly as rain and then turned into snowfall in late afternoon and continued throughout the night. This was taken a couple hours after it started, and before I made my way back to one of the most compelling BPL events of the year: the Donny G division tipping off its entire final week at the same time as IU basketball's senior night, all wrapped up with WALE coming to Dunnkirk to play the after party. However, the night slowly snowballed as we lost our final game in a closely fought match, IU proceeded to lose to Ohio State, and then Wale only showed up for eight minutes. Oh well, at least there's still snow!

On Wednesday evening I celebrated the beginning of my spring break with more snow and a showing of Spamalot at the IU Auditorium. I had never been to the auditorium before, but it is actually really nice and the show was amazing. We particularly enjoyed the performance's shoutouts hating on Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Purdue. Go Hoosiers!

On the first official day of Spring Break, at least for those of us that have Friwednesdays this semester, Bloomington was still coated in a cold layer of snow. Not very Spring Break-like, but I love snow and was happy to have one more winter encounter before the weather warmed up, so I'm not complaining. This shot of Henderson reminds me of how I would picture a traditional midwestern Indiana winter. There were some even better spots further south on my drive to the campus, but not quite in as easy of a walking distance from campus or my apartment.

Day 266: February 21, 2013

With massive amounts of salt appearing on the roads and sidewalks Thursday afternoon, you could tell some sort of weather event was coming. Unlike back home in Virginia, Indiana is usually pretty on top of things in terms of keeping the roads treated and prepared ahead of time, and then getting back out to plow and re-treat during any sort of weather event. Today's weather event, however, surprisingly began with snow and not just pure ice like last year's ice storm.

Eventually, however, the snow turned into a mix and then began to ice over, as you can see by the sheet of ice coating the outside of Brothers. We made it out to Bar Review, but it was a mostly low-key crowd at Brothers as a lot of people probably stayed in because of the weather. The roads were well taken care of though, so it was easy to get out there and we enjoyed one of the rare nights where the 2Ls were the ones taking over Bar Review! We also enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate the very beginning of my birthday. When I was growing up, my family used to tell me that it always snowed on my birthday (which makes sense I guess, because I love snow and it is awesome), so I guess the trend continues this year with our snow/ice/mix mini-storm!

Days 244-245: January 30-31, 2013

It was interesting seeing a Purdue flag flying from Nick's this afternoon. I'm not sure if that's just up there for the Purdue game? I would hope so—I would like to think IU is above being pranked by lowly athletic programs such as Purdue. In any way, we certainly showed it to Purdue as Indiana THROTTLED the Boilermakers on their home court, 97-60. It was the worst home loss in Purdue history—37 points—exceeding the prior record set by none other than your Indiana Hoosiers! It's wonderful when you break your own records, especially when doing so at the hands of Purdue. Also, just for the record, I know I am new to this "rivalry" (if you can even call it that, it seems almost even more one-sided than Virginia Tech-Virginia), but Purdue fans, how can you do that "Boiler Up" thing (not giving it the dignity of calling it a chant, because it sounds like a car muffler) and expect not to be embarrassed? Fortunately, Michigan also followed suit with their own easy victory, setting up this Saturday's epic and intense #1 vs. #3 ESPN College Game Day matchup at Assembly Hall.  Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers! Oh, and Purdue, it's "Banner" Up. Or should I say "Banners," because there are five of them. For your enjoyment, I will show a graphic of each of Purdue's banners below:*











(If you can't see any, feel free to keep refreshing the page until one shows up.)

On Thursday I finally got to see my first snowfall of the year! It was the culmination of one of the most ridiculous two-day stretches in modern weather history. As I previewed Tuesday evening, the Wednesday forecast was already quite interesting. Well, at about 1:00AM Wednesday morning, just as I was getting ready for bed, the tornado sirens started to go off. The band of powerful thunderstorms on the way were apparently capable of producing tornados, and Bloomington happened to fall into the only stretch in all of Indiana that was going to be hit by the part of the storm capable of producing a tornado warning. Fortunately, it was a pretty lackluster storm, so no need to worry about a tornado that night, only a strong downpour of rain. Later in the day, we had another strong rain, followed by a ridiculous drop in temperature from 68 all the way down to the 20s. And around dinnertime, snow showers! The entire day was basically the whole plot of the 2004 movie The Day After Tomorrow crammed into one season of 24. No snow accumulation on Wednesday, however, but on Thursday evening some more snow showers rolled into town. They weren't expected to lead to any accumulation, and I was in the HPER for several hours during the downfall. Well, come to my surprise, I walked out around 7:00 to find the ground covered in snow, and took today's photo on my walk back to the Henderson garage. The roads were surprisingly slick, and traffic was a mess, because the roads were never properly treated for the snow. That was definitely a surprise for Indiana, which is usually pretty spot-on in terms of weather preparation. I will give them the benefit of the doubt for this one though, because to receive an unexpected snowstorm following a 68 degree day filled with thunderstorms and tornados leaves little time to realize some treatment on the roads is necessary. The lack of proper preparation and resulting haphazard driving was almost like being back in Virginia for an entirely anticipated snowstorm.

Days 242-243: January 28-29, 2013

The beginning of the week saw two days of significantly warmer weather, although they were gloomy and rain-filled. Of course, it is completely dry out when we are in the teens and twenties, but as soon as we jump back up to 50 the precipitation comes to town. What does someone have to do to get some snow around here?! As soon as the weather jumped into the low 60s, it became a great afternoon to go out for a run. Fortunately, although it remained gloomy on Tuesday, it was overall dry during the day, which allowed me to go out for my favorite 4-mile campus loop.

It is going to stay fairly warm overnight as we enter the most epic swing of January weather in modern history. Wednesday's forecast calls for 63 degrees and strong thunderstorms around 3am (again, in January in the Midwest), followed by a 40-degree swing back down to 23 degrees with an 8 degree windchill less than 24 hours later. But don't worry guys, no way this climate change thing is real. Hopefully all the rain on the roads from the thunderstorms won't freeze up when it gets cold, but the good news is that the forecast is calling for the possibility of some snow on Thursday or Friday—let's hope it's a good call!

Days 238-239: January 24-25, 2013

Woke up to some light snowfall both Thursday and Friday morning! A bit more on Friday than on Thursday, and since I was a bit under the weather on Thursday I missed taking a photo of it before it all melted, so here's on from Friday morning. Unfortunately it was much too little snow to stay on the ground very long, but hopefully next time we will get more! Also, new best thing about four-day weekends: when you have to take your first sick day in four years, you feel better just in time to enjoy a full weekend instead of having to go right back to school. Woot!

But now for the exciting news of the (Fri)day. So this is quite possibly one of the coolest things that has (at least recently) happened to myself. I go to have a cup of tea, and decide to grab one of my Yogi green teas. I like the Yogi teas because not only are they good herbal teas with a huge variety of flavors, but they have cool sayings on the tea bags that are fun to read (now you are beginning to realize why I like Magic Hat so much right?). Well, after half-tearing open a bag of green tea, I decide that I would rather have a ReVitalize tea. So I make that tea instead, and see the saying on the bag, "Feel great, act great, and approve of yourself." Pretty solid, positive thinking sort of thing I guess, your typical Yogi saying. After that mug of tea, I felt great so I thought I would have another cup since it was so good. I was about to have one of the same kind, but then I saw my half-opened green tea pouch and figured I should have that once since I was going to the last time. So I open the rest of that one, put it in the mug, and what does it say on the bag? BOOM! The SAME thing! Now, I have been drinking Yogi tea for a couple of years now and have only gotten the same tea saying maybe 4 or 5 times. But this was back-to-back and not even from the same box of teas! (Actually, they did come from the same "box," but only because I combined those boxes when they got halfway empty.) And not only that, it was immediately after I had pulled up on a bag of tea (basketball reference) and then decided to take a different shot/bag of tea. When, really, whichever shot I took would lead to the same result. Now here is where you philosophy majors and/or Lost fans can insert a compelling argument over whether our choices actually change our outcomes or if we are instead compelled to "choose" the outcome that leads down our inevitable path. As this blog's namesake identifies, we only connect our dots backwards anyways. While you have fun debating all of this, I'm going to enjoy my (second) cup of tea.

Days 97-100: September 5-8, 2012

Another busy week (busy semester so expect lots of combined pictures of the day). This week we had practice oral arguments in the moot court room (the real ones better go MUCH better, actually briefing the case might help); actually went to Wells library to check out books (for journal), and found another brain while in there!; was on another dominating kickball team, winning 12-6 and increasing my record to a lot and one; and went to wine tasting at Oliver prior to the pending release of the moot court problem.

  

Bonus Picture: Check out this epic multi-state storm passing through. We survived it - east coast: Get ready.

Day 62: August 1, 2012

"Without a struggle, there can be no progress." - Frederick Douglass

This photo (courtesy of CNN) shows a single stalk of corn growing in a drought-ridden field in Illinois. It struck me as both sad and inspirational (even though it is just corn...). We are in the middle of the worst drought in over 50 years, and it is particularly bad in the midwest. But this stalk of corn don't care, just like honey badger.

I know we've had our fair share of summer droughts in Virginia (which typically kept us from watering the artificial turf football fields - which is actually useful, trust me), but this is probably the longest ever I've gone without seeing an extended period of rain (not counting every single day in London). Aside from the occasional passing thunderstorm, we really haven't had any extended rain since April. Adding to the problem is the excessive heat we've had, with so many 100+ degree days since May. It'd be great if we could get some rain again. All you east coasters, get ready for your corn and soybean prices to go up this fall...