Naked Without Lipstick

Did Warren Buffett's Secretary Pay Millions In Taxes?

2012-01-27T15:15:00.000-06:00

I absolutely hate it when President Obama makes statements that can't be fact checked, one way or the other. I practically spit up my drink on Tuesday night when he said this during his State of the Union speech:

Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.

Of course he is referring to Warren Buffett and his secretary, who was seated in the First Lady's box and has become the poster child for the big, evil rich not paying their "fair share."

This may have been a misspeak, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that Warren Buffett's secretary paid less in taxes than he did. She may have a higher tax rate, since his income may be majority capital gains. But paid more in taxes in dollars? No way. The President repeatedly fails to discuss why capital gains are taxed lower. It is because investments can be risky and they want to encourage people to make investments. You could lose all of your money. Also, nevermind that they money you are invested was likely already taxed the first time you earned it.

Let's look at Mitt Romney, who also gets most of his income through capital gains. He paid around $3 million in taxes last year. Warren Buffett is worth way more than Mitt Romney. The guy is worth billions. I'd bet my life that he paid more than $3 million in taxes. Buffett has publicly stated that he paid 19% of his income ($46 million) in 2006 in taxes. That's $8.7 million in taxes in 2006. Are you telling me that his secretary paid more than that? I seriously doubt it. And if she did, then I really don't feel sorry for her, because she is clearly worth many, many millions of dollars. Already people are trying to figure out what her income might be. It wouldn't shock me at all to find out she is making $200,000. She's been working for Buffett for a long time, and he is a rich man. Good secretaries are indispensable to people like him.

Other than that, we can't fact check any of this. Her tax returns are private, as are Warren Buffett's. We will never know how much money in dollars he paid, versus how much money in dollars she paid. Finding that out would ruin the rhetoric. Can you imagine if people saw that she paid, say $40,000 in taxes and Warren Buffett paid $10 million? That would destroy the story, wouldn't it? So I will just continue to get infuriated that the President keeps marching her out as some kind of a symbol of class warfare. Frankly, people like Mitt Romney pay enough in taxes. Why should he pay $3 million and someone else pays $0? How is that "fair"?

Anyway, that's all I have to say about the State of the Union address, other than that it was hilarious how President Obama kept using Ford's tagline "Built to Last." Ford, of course, being a company that didn't require any sort of bailout from the government.

Are 50,000 Protestors Coming to the G8/NATO Summits in Chicago?

2012-01-27T14:42:00.000-06:00

The G8 and NATO summits are in Chicago this May.

As if that isn’t going to create enough chaos, Adbusters – the group who “founded” Occupy Wall Street – has issued a proclamation to all “redeemers, rebels and radicals.” (Sounds sweet, doesn't it?)

In part, they had this to say:

On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.

I'm not sure who these 50,000 people are who are going to "flock" to Chicago, but I have one question for any of them: Have they met Rahm Emanuel? If they think he is going to let 50,000 people set up tents, kitchens, and barricades (peaceful or not) around the city, then I've got some beachfront property to sell them in Oklahoma. Oh, and on top of that, Rahm has been pressing the city to increase fines on protestors during the G8 and NATO summits. It hasn't happened yet, but just wait. If there is one thing Rahm has made clear, it is that he will not put up with any bullshit from the Occupiers. He's certainly not going to let them set up tent cities in Chicago. He had them kicked out of Grant Park twice last fall, and after that they gave up. Although they have shown up to yell and scream at him at City Hall occasionally since then, he's definitely kept them quiet. They are such a nonissue in Chicago that I have to dig deep to find anything about what they are doing.

Occupy Chicago has apparently rented a space in the middle of nowhere on the south side for around $5,000-6,000 a month, paid for by an anonymous benefactor. The address to this place is nowhere to be found on the front page of their web site, even though it is where they are purportedly gathering for General Assemblies and teach-ins. Nor are there any directions on how to get there. You can see how well organized they are. I would love to know who was dumb enough to sign the lease, and why on earth they decided against a storefront in the Loop, which would not only have been easier to get to, but would have potentially attracted more attention. It gets better. The place they are renting is in the same building as a guy they kicked out of the group because he made people feel "unsafe." (People not feeling safe is a big issue in the various Occupations.) Yes, out of all the vacant buildings in the entire city, they picked the one where this guy lived to set up their headquarters. From the outside, the group appears to be in slight chaos. People are fighting on the website about the cliques, leaders, anarchists, and radicals who are taking over. There is suspicion over the finances. Other people are trying to figure out how to get involved, much of the time to no response other than to "come on down!" (They haven't grasped yet that not everyone wants to or can trek down to the south side every night for their General Assemblies.) Other people want to know generally what is going on, usually to no response. Even though they have a website, most seem to prefer the more private "Google Groups" to discuss the movement. (Indeed, there is very little discussion at all that happens on the website, and very little updating. Most posts go unanswered. Even the official Twitter account doesn't relay much information.)

The best part is that rumor has it Adbusters didn't even tell Occupy Chicago about the big May 1 announcement before they did it, even though they've got "Occupy Chicago" all over the announcement. This has fueled worries inside Occupy Chicago that it will interfere with Occupy Chicago's "Chicago Spring" launch on April 1, which they planned back in October or so.

But back to Adbusters. Although Occupy Chicago repeatedly tries to remind people that they are "nonpartisan," and "nonviolent," the Adbuster's call to arms seems to call that into question:

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

What a great idea. (And the reference to Gandhi is precious.) Let's shut down the stock exchanges, colleges, and businesses. Let's flashmob the streets and annoy the 99%. None of these things affect anyone's jobs, lives or money, do they? I swear, four months along into this Occupy movement, and I still don't understand what the point of it is. Are they all just going to protest and complain forever? Why not actually try to get some candidates in to Congress who support their views? I can't figure out what they expect to happen. Do they think that the 40 or so people who generally show up at General Assemblies here in Chicago speak for the rest of us in the city? Because they don't. All I can see is that the Occupiers want to create chaos. They seem to welcome it when the police have to do their jobs and rope them off or kick them out of places where they aren't supposed to be. They also seem to all be under the delusion that the 1st Amendment has never been interpreted or limited by anyone, much less the Supreme Court.

This is going to get interesting. If they mess with my commute, I'm not going to be pleased.

The Demise of Demi Moore

2012-01-27T11:33:00.000-06:00

Who didn’t see this coming?

Over the past four or five years, something happened to Demi Moore.

She got thinner and thinner, and more recently veered into "scary thin" territory. Rumors swirled about millions spent on plastic surgery, including removing the alleged fat on her knees. She just turned 49, but you wouldn’t know it from a distance. Her Ann Taylor ads were photoshopped beyond recognition. It was 25 year old Demi, not 49 year old Demi, whose face peered out from the ads in the store window. When she stood next to her daughters on the red carpet or in other event photos, she seemed less their mother than friend. Even the way she interacted with them screamed “Treat me as an equal!” She embraced Twitter, even using the handle name “mrskutcher” rather than her own name. She Tweeted photos of herself in bikinis, topless, or in other skimpy garb to her followers. She reportedly danced on tables at a bar recently, and was hanging out latenight with people in their 20s and 30s.

Something about it all seemed so desperate. Immature, even. The persona she gave off was of a woman dying to be young again. Demi Moore is a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, all beautiful women get old (as do ugly women). Some women embrace it, like Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Diane Lane, and Diane Keaton. Others, like Demi Moore, fight it every step of the way. The problem is that you can only fight it for so long. No matter how much plastic surgery or dieting you do, you will not look 25 when you are 55. You may look great, but you won’t look 25. Demi Moore appeared to be doing everything possible to make people forget how old she is. The problem is, we can’t. Her career goes back years. Remember the Demi Moore of Ghost, Indecent Proposal, and A Few Good Men? She was my favorite part of St. Elmo’s Fire, in the role of the narcissistic Jules. She is actually a decent actor, and doesn’t need to ride on her looks, but seems to think that her looks are the only thing that defines her now. It’s sad. Is it Hollywood? Is this why so many actresses resort to freezing their face so they cannot smile, plumping their lips, and stretching the skin into a garish mask in the name of a face lift?

Or was it the pressure of being married to a much younger man? I was not surprised to hear that her marriage to Ashton Kutcher ended last fall, but they did always seem happy together. I’m certainly not going to pull the double standard, because God knows many old men in Hollywood are married to much younger women, but maybe the pressure is higher for an older woman to keep a younger man. It is depressing at times to see young women in their twenties while the crows feet start to ramp up on your own face, and your once amazing complexion starts falling by the wayside. Men don’t generally care about things like that, Michael Douglas aside. Maybe Demi Moore would be better off single, or married to a man closer to her age, who appreciates the lines in her face.

TMZ is reporting that Demi has an “addiction” to Red Bull, and buys it by the case. If that isn’t weird enough, they are also reporting that the seizure was caused by doing “whip its.” Whip its? We used to buy cans of whipped cream at Farmer Jack’s when I was a kid in order to do whip its. Why is multi-millionaire Demi Moore doing whip its? My initial thought to hearing that was “How embarrassing for her.” But, then I realized that she’s been embarrassing herself for years prior to this incident. I had stopped thinking “Wow, she looks great” and started thinking “Act your age.”

The whole thing is bizarre. I wish her the best. I’d love to see her get her career on track again, and to just embrace getting older.

Random Thoughts on January 7, 2012

2012-01-07T22:59:00.000-06:00

1. Well, I have lost another niece. My sister found out during Christmas week that her amniotic fluid was low. The doctors sent her home to see if things would improve, and ordered her back after a week. They couldn't wait very long, because she was at five months. She went back and things were worse, and additionally, the placenta was torn. The doctors believed that due to the low amniotic fluid, the baby was likely already not in good shape, and during the intervening week, my sister had not felt the baby move. The doctors told her that the baby would likely not live another month, even if she was still alive. So, the induced labor, and the baby was born stillborn. And if you can believe this -- it was on the same day that my sister's daughter L died last year. So, two years in a row she has lost babies on the exact same day. Heartbreaking. This is admittedly easier since we never got to know her in person, but God. They are doing an autopsy on the baby to try to find out more. However, my sister has said that she is now done trying and is selling all of my nephew's old clothes at garage sale this summer. It's so sad. I can't believe this happened again, and it is another "fluke," according to the doctors. Jesus, how many flukes does one family have to take? And Teen Mom goes on and on...

2. First day teaching today, and it was very fun. Seven more days of 9-5 teaching, although I am going to have to skip out a bit to do my work, although I tried very hard to get most things done early. I think I'm doing okay. I did forget to ask the students for questions, since I'm so used to just getting up, saying my piece, and having a Judge butt in if they have a question. Lesson learned for tomorrow's lecture. Critiquing the students on the direct examinations was also a blast. I'm actually learning a lot, too! You so rarely get to take IP cases to trial that you get a little rusty.

3. I am in love with Mad Men. I didn't watch the show initially, I don't know why, and then I felt like I couldn't jump in, so I continued not to watch it. However, on Black Friday, the DVDs were on sale on Amazon for all four seasons for around $8 apiece, so I picked them up. I finally got around to watching them over the past few weeks, and all I have to say is that this show is awesome. The sets and wardrobe are great, not to mention the chain smoking and constant drinking throughout the show. I love it. I wish people smoked like this on other shows. It's entertaining. I can't believe Jon Hamm hasn't won an Emmy. He is so good in this show -- the extent of his facial expressions alone is amazing. I haven't liked an actor this much since Edward Norton in American History X. Honestly, Jon Hamm was born to play this role. Even better, he reminds me of Cary Grant and some of the old school actors who were so suave and mature and debonair. Unlike today's popular actors.

4. Rick Santorum. Really, Iowa?

A Christian Louboutin Book! Merry Christmas to Me!

2011-12-22T17:11:00.000-06:00

Look at what one of the secretaries got me for Christmas:

It is the Christian Louboutin book.

And it is pure Heaven. It appears to include photographs of every single shoe he has ever designed.

She knows me so well.

I have the perfect place for it in my house, right next to this book, which is also amazing:

I love fashion books.

The Gnomes on the Stairs

2011-12-19T18:32:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure what is going on, but the resident condo gardener did not collect his accoutrements yet. I was a little worried that some of them might crack or get ruined with the cold weather kicking in, so this happened:

I'm not really a gnome person, but they do look really cute out in the garden. And now they are going to spend the winter inside my house.

(Yes, my steps need dusting. I swear, my wood floors collect dust like nothing I've ever seen. Would it have been smart to do it before I took the picture? Yes, but I never professed to be smart about things like this. At least I'm not trying to sell this picture on Etsy or something.)

Random Thoughts on December 16

2011-12-16T22:41:00.001-06:00

1. I looked back and cannot believe I haven't mentioned the fabulousness that is my new couch from Pottery Barn. But first, the delivery. The guy walked in, looked at the clearance for my basement stairs and shook his head. Panic set in. I measured. I gave the measurements to the salesgirl at Pottery Barn. So, I was about to explode if it didn't fit. Of course, it did after a bit of effort and wall scuffing. I joked with the guy that I guess I can never move, and he just kind of nodded. (Why does my humor go unacknowledged like this?). Anyway, the couch. Actually, it is THE COUCH. Pottery Barn comfort square sectional with wedge. Down cushions. RIDICULOUS. I would lay on this couch every day for the rest of my life if I could. It is that comfortable. Get the down cushions, people! So worth the extra cost. I will have this couch forever. It's also very big and roomy--great for lounging around.

2. My sister's baby's heart ultrasound is next week at Mott. Not a regular ultrasound, but a very special one. We'll know by next week if the new baby's heart is in good shape, which, frankly it should be if you are an odds person. What happened with L was so rare. L would be turning 1 on the 20th, so this is all very hard on my sister. I really hope this ultrasound goes smoothly.

3. I got a whole bunch of deadlines put off until next year. Yes. Opposing counsel was surprisingly agreeable to letting us all celebrate Christmas and New Year's.

4. I got nothing unique for my mom this Christmas, wrecking my streak of thinking of random stuff. She got a zebra robe and zebra slippers and some other stuff. She loves animal print, and wears a robe around her house all the time over her clothes because she sets her thermostat at around 63 to save money. And her robes are so crappy, ugly, and old that I thought I would get her a robe that is more her, if you know what I mean. I know she will like it, even though I feel lame getting her a robe.

5. Lots of positive Facebook posts from H about class and finals, and a "one semester left" thing, so as I suspected, it's possible she overreacted about her clinical instructor. I'm afraid to ask, but it seems like she is confident about passing, so that's great.

6. I don't talk much about my brother, but as much as I love him, he is so weird. He sent me a panicked text last night asking me to retrieve him an American Girl Doll from the store here for his daughter for Christmas. I texted him back that he could just buy it online, because you could not pay me enough money to set foot in that store this close to Christmas. He was amazed that you could buy them online. I was like, dude, you can buy everything online nowadays. Love him, but duh.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Can I Ask You a Question About Your Hair?

2011-12-16T16:34:00.001-06:00

You're walking down the street, usually shopping bags in hand near State Street or Michigan Avenue, minding your own business, intently heading for the train or looking for a taxi, and BAM!

A seemingly friendly man stops you and asks "Can I ask you a question about your hair?"

The first time this happens, you might fall for it. Your mind races, you think "Oh, does my hair look good today? Maybe he likes it!" So, you say "Okay."

That's when he launches into a whole spiel about some salon and tries to hand you a coupon book. In short, he is a panhandler or promoter of the worst kind and does not want to ask a question about your hair. He just wants your money and wants you to buy coupons to a salon.

Sometimes they will try to trick you and ask for directions like a clueless tourist before moving on to "Can I ask you a question about your hair?" When they do this, it's easier to fall for, because you think "Oh, this person wants to know who my stylist is." No, they don't. They still want you to buy salon coupons.

At any rate, my response to the question now, after being tricked a couple of times into answering "Yes" and getting cornered by a book of coupons is a simple "No," and I keep right on walking.

I don't know if these people exist anywhere but here, but beware if you visit Chicago. If anyone wants to ask you a question about your hair, keep right on walking.

The Part Where Occupy Wall Street Demands Use of Private Property

2011-12-16T10:54:00.000-06:00

After being unceremoniously kicked out of Zuccotti Park a month ago, the Occupy Wall Streeters have been sleeping in churches and other shelters throughout the city.

That just won’t do.

Trinity Wall Street, one of the churches who has provided facilities for the Occupiers in the fallout has now found themselves in the middle of OWS’s crosshairs. You see, Trinity owns a piece of land near Duarte Square Park, and OWS feels it is there right to camp out on that land. In fact, three OWSers launched a hunger strike in an attempt to force Trinity to allow them to set up an encampment. Needless to say, Trinity has declined. The hunger strikers have been arrested more than once for trespassing on Trinity’s land.

Trinity has offered a very well reasoned statement about why they don’t want to allow this:

There are no facilities at the Canal Street lot. Demanding access and vandalizing the property by a determined few OWS protesters won't alter the fact that there are no basic elements to sustain an encampment. The health, safety and security problems posed by an encampment here, compounded by winter weather, would dwarf those experienced at Zuccotti Park.

Calling this an issue of "political sanctuary" is manipulative and blind to reality. Equating the desire to seize this property with uprisings against tyranny is misguided, at best. Hyperbolic distortion drives up petition signatures, but doesn't make it right. Those arrested were not seeking sanctuary; they were seeking to be arrested. Trinity will continue our responsible outreach and pastoral services for all. We appreciate the many expressions of support we have received from so many in the community.

Call me crazy, but obviously Trinity doesn't want to deal with the potential liabilities or the filth. If they did allow OWS to camp on their property, and someone got frostbite, hypothermia, or injured in some other way, who do you think would be held respondible? Trinity. It's their property, and it's their right to decide who they want to allow on the property. OWS has for weeks been trying to convince Trinity otherwise, but Trinity has remained firm.

Now, OWS is talking about Occupy 2.0, where they intend to occupy Trinity's land tomorrow.

Here’s what one guy said:

“We need a space for assembly and a space for free speech,” protester Amin Husain, 36, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, told the Rev. Matt Heyd of Trinity. “We’re coming to you for sanctuary.”

Trinity gave them sanctuary. They want more than that. They want a campground. Remember, this is a church who has provided them shelter, meeting rooms, bathrooms, and other facilities following the eviction from Zuccotti Park. If this is how they treat an organization that has been -- for all intents and purposes -- sympathetic to their cause, I would hate to see what they would do to an unsympathetic organization. And since when does any private party have to provide a space for assembly and free speech?

More importantly, why doesn't OWS use the hundreds of thousands of dollars they've raised to rent their own plot of land somewhere for an encampment? If they do that, no one can evict them, no one can arrest them, and no one can stop them from doing whatever they want on their own property.

Of course, that would mean paying for something rather than stealing from another person.

A number of other churches have gotten behind OWS in their demand for Trinity’s land, which seems pretty weak to me. Why don't one of those other churches cough up some land for an OWS encampment. It's easy to disparage one church from afar when you don't own the land at issue, won't be liable if anything goes wrong, and don't have to deal with the clean-up.

It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow. I suspect a lot of arrests.

The Value of Mistakes

2011-12-15T00:26:00.001-06:00

I'm a big believer in learning by making mistakes. In my experience, you learn a hell of a lot more by screwing up. When you screw up, you never make the same mistake again.

So let me set up the scene. I've got a couple of cases with one young associate, who I will call C. About a month ago, I noticed that we had a whole bunch of stuff due in these cases starting around December 1 and going through the end of the month. C is crazy motivated and a good worker, by the way. I informed him then to let me or others on the case know what he wanted us to do as far as everything due. Yes, I'll take assignments from an associate. What does it matter? We are a team. We give motivated associates responsibility around my firm. At that time, C told me he would go through it and let me know.

I asked him a couple more times over the past few weeks, and sort of warned him that I didn't appreciate last minute dumping on. He assured me he had it under control. For a couple of things, he did, the work was good, and all was served smoothly.

However, when it came to our infringement contentions, due tomorrow (all right, it's after midnight, so now today), he did not. He sent them to me this morning, and after I finished the brief I was working on, I looked at them at around noon for the first time.

Infringement contentions are used to lay out our entire case. They are Very Important. I don't like getting a first draft of them from a newer associate the day before they are due. Partially my bad for not asking for it sooner, I'll admit. To be honest, I have so much other stuff going on, I kind of forgot about these. His work was not bad. In fact, many other partners I work with would've given him clearance to serve.

I am not those people. I am a crazy perfectionist. I'm ridiculous, I'll admit. But, don't put a hyperlink in a claim chart you are serving by PDF. Attach an exhibit. Make sure you aren't just putting in bullshit. You have to prove the contentions. Every single claim element. If you are unsure, ask the client. I want detail!

God. I spent about 7 hours redoing them while he was at a deposition. Then I gave them to him and told him, "I don't know what anyone else around here has told you, but this is how you do infringement contentions."

I was nice about it, and he felt horrible. He wanted to prove himself and show us he could do it on his own and totally misjudged the amount of work he had to do. This was like 60 pages of serious technical crap. I don't blame him, and I'm not mad at him at all. He's new, mistakes happen. No big deal. But I told him "This is why I asked you three weeks ago to tell me what you needed me to do. Doing infringement contentions properly is a ton of work." Lesson learned, young associate. He sent me an apology email tonight. I will reassure him tomorrow that I'm not mad, because I'm really not. I saw this coming, but I figured I'd let him sink and learn from it. He will never make this mistake again.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Breaking Down Obama's Speech in Kansas

2011-12-07T13:24:00.000-06:00

President Obama gave a campaign speech yesterday in Kansas. By listening to it, you wouldn't know that he's been President for the past three years. Once again, he continues to raise the "class warfare" rhetoric. But wait, I thought he was supposed to be the great uniter? I thought he was going to bring both sides of the aisle together? So much for that, I guess. What did he say? The full speech can be found here. Let's break down parts of his speech:

[My grandparents] believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried -- no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out.

We still have that America, Mr. President. Example #1: Oprah Winfrey.

So you could [back then] have some confidence that if you gave it your all, you'd take enough home to raise your family and send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away for retirement.

We still have that confidence, Mr. President. The problem is that people feel they need more to simply raise their family. They need big flatscreen televisions and iPhones and computers and designer clothes and a new car every three years. They prioritize these types of items over things like retirement and health insurance. Luxuries have become necessities in this day and age.

But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments -- wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren't -- and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

Most Americans? Really? I don't believe that hard work has stopped paying off for "most" or "too many" people. This is a dangerous road for the President to be traveling down, in my opinion. Yes, those at the top made higher incomes. That's the way life works. The CEO of McDonalds and the franchise owners make more money than the guy flipping burgers at each franchise. Should they be paid the same? This isn't a fight about who works harder anymore. Both may work hard, but in very different ways. And those investments? A risk. The top could lose money on investments. Also, regarding racking up debt, see my comment above about necessities versus luxuries.

We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn't afford them, or even sometimes understand them.

Whose fault is that? Why were people taking out mortgages they couldn't afford or couldn't understand? Is this all the bank's fault? Remember, it was the federal government who decided that everyone should have the right to own a home, and forced the banks to give mortgages to people who probably shouldn't have had mortgages. Shouldn't the people who were getting the mortgages have thought to themselves "Gee, I don't know if I can afford this?" If they didn't understand what they were signing, shouldn't they have stopped and not signed it until they did understand? Of course not, according to the President. It was all the Big, Bad Banks fault.

Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets -- and huge bonuses -- made with other people's money on the line.

Many of these people had no money on the line, since they were allowed to take out mortgages with little to no money down. What money did they have on the line?

Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn't have the authority to look at all.

In fact, the Republicans warned about this happening back in the Clinton days, but the Democrats ignored them in their zeal to make life "fair" for everyone.

It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system.

I'll raise him "a few." Anyone who took out a home loan with 0 down was also being greedy. They wanted a home, but they didn't have to work for it or save up any money to buy it. Isn't that a little greedy? And then when the market tanked and their home values dropped, and they wanted to sell, they turned it around and blamed the banks. Greedy.

It claimed the jobs and the homes and the basic security of millions of people -- innocent, hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left holding the bag.

This seems like a vast generalization to me. Have all of those "innocent, hardworking Americans" met their responsibilities? Wait a second...didn't he just say they took out mortgages they couldn't afford or understand? Is that meeting their basic responsibility? I think not. I have no doubt that there are certainly innocent, hardworking Americans out there who got screwed by the system or screwed by vast medical bills or unexpected job losses, but let's not pretend that those are the majority.

[The debate over how to restore growth and prosperity has] left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock.

You mean the debate between tax the hell out of a subset of people versus cutting federal spending? That debate?

Because what's at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.

In this country you can do all of those things still, provided you act responsibly and draw a line between necessities and luxuries. What is a "modest" savings? What does "secure their retirement" mean? How much money?

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that's happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

Earth to President Obama: The government got us into this mess in the first place. The party you keep criticizing wants to make the federal government smaller. It wants the federal government out of businesses (like the auto industry) that it has no business being in and no Constitutional authority to be involved in. Did you see the million dollars that some broadband Internet show was given as part of the stimulus package? I mean, what? Why is the government involved in the entertainment industry? Every day there are news articles about the millions or billions of dollars that are simply wasted by the government. Yes, Mr. President, we want to go back to when the government wasn't a bloated, wasteful, spending mess with no accountability. We want a government that doesn't allow Congress to go for nearly three years without passing a budget. We want our government to do their jobs and nothing more.

I'm here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we're greater together than we are on our own.

Code language for: I'm going to take away from the producers and give to those who don't produce.

I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules.

Oh, good gravy. I'd like definitions on "fair shot," "fair share," and "same rules." This actually is a country where anyone can do anything. While someone was majoring in Art History and pontificating in a cafe about Van Gogh, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook. Do some people start out more disadvantaged? Yes. Blame their parents. The government simply cannot afford to take care of everyone. Regarding "fair share," no one who says it will ever define what that means. To me, it means equal. I pay the same taxes as anyone else, or at least the same percentage. Doesn't that sound fair? Shouldn't we all have some skin in the game? Regarding everyone doing their fair share, how about this -- I agree to not vandalize anything, commit any crimes, and abide by the laws of society. You do the same. Sound good? Also, last I checked, we are all playing by the same rules, aren't we? Isn't that why we have laws? If someone is breaking the laws, have them arrested. (Unless of course, it is Occupy Wall Street, who seems to be able to get away with not getting permits like every other organization who wants to protest has to do.)

But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what [Teddy Roosevelt] fought for in his last campaign: an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women -- (applause) -- insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax.

What is this eight hour work day of which he speaks? Oh, right, that only applies to unions.

Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and it's made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere they want in the world.

What's next, banning technology? Banning the Internet? Oh, and I think some of these government regulations and tax rates have also had a big hand in helping businesses move to other places in the world. And let's not forget that the majority of the "hardworking Americans" don't seem to want to go to college for STEM majors because they are too hard, leaving a lot of companies left with no other choice but to go elsewhere.

And if you're somebody whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone in another country, you don't have a lot of leverage with your employer when it comes to asking for better wages or better benefits, especially since fewer Americans today are part of a union.

Now he's courting the unions. I'm sorry, but if your job can be done cheaper by a computer or a person somewhere else, should you have great negotiation leverage? This is a huge part of the reason why the U.S. automakers have gotten screwed by the unions. And why is this any of the government's business?

If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes -- especially for the wealthy -- our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers.

Ooh -- especially for the wealthy! He's going all in.

Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history.

I guess he's not going to talk about the excessive spending the Democratic controlled Congress has forced on us since 2007, or about how they are incapable of passing a budget. Oh no, it's all the GOP's fault.

Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people's premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn't afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

I wonder if he's including the Democrats who are still running Congress. Ooh and those poor people were tricked into buying homes! Tricked! Those are fighting words. Then again, why make anyone take responsibility for anything?

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you're on your own” economics if we're serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country.

No, we are going to rebrand it as "the government will take care of your every need and you don't have to take any responsibility for your life." Is that really the direction we want to go?

Now, this kind of inequality -- a level that we haven't seen since the Great Depression -- hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom.

He must have missed the part where we just had the biggest Black Friday in history. Or about how well Apple is doing. It seems to me that middle-class famiiles are having no trouble affording the goods and services they want. Whether they need them is a different story entirely.

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder.

So, he's saying that both he and Congress are incapable of turning down campaign contributions or ignoring the high-priced lobbyists? Of course people are going to game the system -- we depend on our government to be above that, which he is clearly admitting they aren't. Is he selling out our democracy to the highest bidder when he goes to these $30,000 a plate fundraisers for the elite? Maybe he should cancel those and show us that he actually supports not distorting our democracy in this way.

This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that's at the very heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try.

I think it actually gives more proof to that promise. You can be in the 1% if you try. You can't do that in China.

We tell people -- we tell our kids -- that in this country, even if you're born with nothing, work hard and you can get into the middle class. We tell them that your children will have a chance to do even better than you do. That's why immigrants from around the world historically have flocked to our shores.

I guess things have gotten so awful here that the immigrants have stopped coming.

It's heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal. But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work?

Show me a kid in poverty who worked hard, had a part time job, got straight As in school, participated in school activities, and did not get into any trouble who could not fight their way into the middle class. I'm serious. Show me one.

We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission -- a national mission.

Tell me again where education is in the Constitution, because I can't remember. Oh, right, it's supposed to be a state issue. Guess the Constitutional law professor forgot that one.

In this economy, a higher education is the surest route to the middle class.

Actually, you can get there quite well through trades such as electricians, plumbers, auto mechanics, etc. also. But that doesn't help the colleges get more tuition money, now does it? Oh, and you might have to get dirty if you do those jobs.

We shouldn't be making it harder to afford college -- we should be a country where everyone has a chance to go and doesn't rack up $100,000 of debt just because they went.

The debt isn't a problem provided you have the foresight to use your $100,000 wisely, in a major that is employable at a decent salary. Also, living on the high hog during college with your loan money and taking semesters abroad probably isn't very smart either. Isn't it amazing that you can get a student loan and the bank doesn't investigate at all whether you will ever be able to pay the loan back?

And by the way, if we don't have an economy that's built on bubbles and financial speculation, our best and brightest won't all gravitate towards careers in banking and finance. (Applause.) Because if we want an economy that's built to last, we need more of those young people in science and engineering.

Good on him for mentioning science and engineering. Boo for insulting those who are in banking and finance. We do need them, too.

And that's why the over 1 million construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed, they shouldn't be sitting at home with nothing to do. They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools -- (applause) -- all the things other countries are already doing to attract good jobs and businesses to their shores.

Yes, so why aren't we spending money on this instead of on all the earmarks, waste, and nonsense Congress keeps approving? I'm happy to spend tax money on fixing roads and bridges and railroads. Why don't we do that?

Of course, those productive investments cost money. They're not free. And so we've also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share.

And here we go...back to this vague "fair share" business.

Today that choice is very clear. To reduce our deficit, I've already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I've proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

Too bad spending isn't up to him. Too bad he can't even get the Democrats in Congress to get on board with what he wants to do. Too bad a lot of these "cuts" aren't really cuts at all, but funny accounting tricks.

In the long term, we have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to make the investments we need in things like education and research and high-tech manufacturing -- all those things that helped make us an economic superpower? Or do we want to keep in place the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in our country? Because we can't afford to do both. That is not politics. That's just math.

Yes, because the only option is to tax the wealthy! That's it. Forget about cutting spending. Cutting spending wouldn't be math, I guess.

Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39 percent. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of you, millions of middle-class families. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent. One percent.

Only 39%! And that doesn't even include your state taxes. Why don't we stop looking at tax rates and start looking at the amount of taxes paid? 1 percent of a billion is $10,000,000. God, those cheapass billionaires, only paying ten million dollars in federal taxes. Jeez. Let's compare that guy to the guy who pays no federal income taxes. Is that fair?

That is the height of unfairness.

Oh, but he's saying this in the context that the billionaire should pay more than ten million dollars. It wouldn't be fair otherwise. I mean, what the hell?

It's wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker, maybe earns $50,000 a year, should pay a higher tax rate than somebody raking in $50 million. (Applause.) It's wrong for Warren Buffett's secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett.

Something tells me Warren Buffet paid a lot more in taxes than his secretary. This story Obama keeps throwing out there is such a freaking red herring. Whether or not Warren Buffet's tax rate is lower due to capital gains, he is paying a shit ton of money in taxes. Way more than his secretary.

And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

Pay.gov allows anyone who wants to contribute as much as they want to the government. Have at it, wealthiest citizens. Put your money where your mouth is. Oh, but it wouldn't be "fair" if they voluntarily did it. It's only "fair" when everyone is forced to do it.

This isn't about class warfare.

Bullshit. How about some thanks to all those wealthy citizens who are running businesses that give people jobs? How can this guy with a straight face continue to castigate the wealthy, when at the same time he is going to fundraisers for the wealthy few nearly every night? You want to talk about distorting the democracy? Look in the mirror, Mr. President.

It's about making choices that benefit not just the people who've done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get into the middle class, and the economy as a whole.

How about forcing everyone to make responsible choices instead?

Does anybody here think that the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?

It was the federal government sticking its nose where it didn't belong.

Every day we go without a consumer watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our Armed Forces -- because they are very vulnerable to some of this stuff -- could be tricked into a loan that they can't afford -- something that happens all the time.

He's using that word again -- "tricked!" It's amazing to me how he completely writes off any responsibility by the person who took on the loan. They weren't all tricked.

Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them.

This is the President telling us we are all too stupid to survive without the government.

I'll be calling for legislation that makes those penalties count so that firms don't see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business.

Does anyone believe him anymore when he says he's going to do something?

The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven't yet benefited from historically low interest rates. And the big banks should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of middle-class families and the broader economy, it will also be in the banks' own long-term financial interest. What will be good for consumers over the long term will be good for the banks.

Here he is, sticking his nose into the banking industry, which is what got us into trouble in the first place. So, I assume when the interest rates go up, he won't have a problem if the banks force people to refinance to the higher rates? When you sign your mortgage, you agree to the interest rate. Maybe you can refinance later to lower it, maybe you can't. So now that it's gone down, he wants to force the banks to change the mortgage contract, possibly to their own detriment.

A tax code that makes sure everybody pays their fair share.

Sweet, I'm all for a flat tax.

It will require parents to get more involved in their children's education. It will require students to study harder. (Applause.) It will require some workers to start studying all over again. It will require greater responsibility from homeowners not to take out mortgages they can't afford. They need to remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

This is good, but everyone had probably tuned out by now.

It will require those of us in public service to make government more efficient and more effective, more consumer-friendly, more responsive to people's needs. That's why we're cutting programs that we don't need to pay for those we do.

We are? What are we cutting? He's always so vague.

Eh, that's about it. At the end he gets into his usual platitudes and the feel good hope and change stuff that got him elected in the first place. He must be thrilled to be able to campaign again, because that is something he is good at. He's incredibly focused on being Teddy Roosevelt right now, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Things I'm Annoyed About Today

2011-12-06T18:00:00.000-06:00

1. That Herman Cain got forced out of the race due to unproven, uninvestigated accusations. It infuriates me that a person can hire a Gloria Allred type, get on national television, say whatever they want, and then disappear. (See, also, Nicky Diaz Santillian, the illegal immigrant who took down Meg Whitman.) To make matters worse, our wonderful media runs away with it in their usual dramatic manner, doesn't ask for any form of proof, and automatically believes the victim versus the accused. No, the media was happy to just let Cain flounder, and insinuiate that he might just be guilty of all of these horrible things, without any proof. Jesus, anyone can say anything they want about anyone else. It doesn't make it true. I'm not saying he was my top choice for President, but he deserved a chance to run. We can only look forward to more of the same going forward. It's really disgusting. I truly hate the media in this country. It used to be that they actually fact checked things prior to airing them for the entire country, but I guess that is a thing of the past.

2. The Occupy tent cities are starting to grate on me. Don't get me wrong; it's entertaining to watch the raids go down nearly every night, but every time I watch all I can think about is the cost to the cities, and how absurd they all sound. Don't the occupiers realize they are only hurting the 99% with their mayhem and antics? All they really seem to be doing at this point is causing trouble as they flitter from one "cause" to the next. And the ordeal at Washington D.C. the other night with the wooden house was preposterous. I heard the holdout occupier who wouldn't get in the occupicker ended up peeing off the roof of the structure, right at the police. When he got down, he was arrested in part for indecent exposure and public urination. Enjoy the sex offender list, buddy. Hope it was worth it. I still simply do not see what these occupations are accomplishing, nor do I understand why anyone would want to be a part of it. It will be interesting to see what happens with this whole port shutdown that is planned for December 12.

3. Our Campaigner in Chief is back at it again, comparing himself to Teddy Roosevelt (!) and imploring all of us lazy people to pay our fair share. Oh, yeah, but he and his family are going on a 17 day vacation to Hawaii. (Yes, I understand that his job never stops and that he will be doing work from there, but still...) Does anyone else find it strange that he never goes on vacation in Chicago? After all, he lived here for many years. You'd think he had a life here and people to visit and might miss his old city. I guess you can't blame him for Hawaii over Chicago in December, but the cost of that trip must be astounding. I'd have a hell of a lot more respect for him if he simply said "You know what? This year we are going to tighten our bootstraps also and stay in Washington D.C. for the holidays." Of course, that would never happen. I swear, you would never know from his speech today that he has been President for the past three years. Everything is always someone else's fault. Hey, maybe he should go join the occupiers! They seem to have the same viewpoint.

4. Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account had better grammar and syntax when he was running it himself. Seriously, whoever he hired to Twitter for him now is terrible. (I have no idea why I'm following him, so don't even ask. I also don't know why this annoys me, but it does.)

5. I'm already so tired of Christmas music and the month has only begun. It's all so sappy happy and I hear it everywhere I go. I'm incapable of getting into the Christmas spirit this year, because I have so much work to do. It's making me hugely depressed. Don't worry, I'll live, but I can already tell it is going to be an insanely crabby December for me.

Random Thoughts on December 1

2011-12-01T23:35:00.001-06:00

Just because I realized I have a few additional things to share:

1. I'm co-teaching a class in January at my law school alma mater! Oh, these poor law school students who are going to have to deal with me. I'm very excited about it, because it's a foot in the door for me. I would love, love to teach Patent Litigation there. I've been told I will get a modest stipend.

2. On the negative side, I have -- honestly -- the worst caseload I have ever had for the month of December. I have four sets of infringement contentions due, an appellate response brief, and multiple discovery responses. I'm obviously leaning on the associates to help out, but some of them are rather new, so I'm still going to have to do quite a bit of work in reviewing their work and teaching them the right way to do this stuff. At this point, I'm not even sure I can leave Chicago for Christmas. UGH!

3. I also might have jury duty on December 12, for the first time ever. (Yay! My first summons!) I'm officially a "standby juror" which means I have to call in on December 9 (Friday) after 4:30 p.m. to find out if I need to show up on Monday. I will be in Las Vegas on December 9, for a weekend including the Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil show, so...I will make that call, but I might be a bit inebriated when I make it. Even if I have to go, I'm 99% positive no lawyer in their right mind will pick me, but you never know. Normally lawyers aren't chosen, but, if it is a criminal trial, my chances go up since I know nothing about criminal law except my 1L Criminal Law class and my studying for the bar. But still, they don't want me. I know what a high standard reasonable doubt it, and I'm a leader. I desperately want to not get picked, given my case load, as described above, but as a lawyer, I cannot claim hardship due to my job, given that as a trial attorney, I regularly ask people to do the same. Some lawyers disagree with my view and will do anything to get out of jury duty, but I don't abide by that viewpoint. If I'm going to ask people to make sacrifices to serve on my jury, I will do the same for someone else, if they want me.

4. I have two trials scheduled for next year, in April and June, and I think they will both go. Exciting, but stressful. Maybe I'll survive.

5. I hate the Philadephia Eagles. Drafting Michael Vick and the Eagles defense in my fantasy football league are easily two of the worst choices I've made this year. Heh, I guess that means I've had a pretty good year.

Welcome to the Real World

2011-12-01T22:01:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling so badly for my sister H tonight, but also a little bothered. As a reminder, she is seven years younger than me, and is in her last year of nursing school. She's one of those people who it took her awhile to see the benefits of a college education, and as a result she's been waitressing since she was 18, and is finally (hopefully) on track to get her Bachelor's degree in May.

When I saw her about a month ago, she confessed to me that one of her clinicals this semester was not going well. According to her, the professor took an immediate dislike to her on Day 1 when she showed up with all of her arm tattoos showing. (She must have 20 tattoos on her body in total. It's absurd.) The professor told her to cover them up in the future. I can't say I blame the professor. She then neglected to turn in an assignment on time, and the professor wrote her up, and she started crying and turned around and walked off, and the professor didn't take that well, and things started snowballing.  The professor doesn't like her.  I got a message from H today -- a warning, in fact -- that she thinks this professor is going to fail her. She assured me that she has tried to talk to the professor privately, etc., but that is going nowhere.

Here's what I want to say: "Welcome to the Real World!"

Here's what I said: "Hang in there. I'm thinking of you." (Well, more than that, but you get the idea.)

H has never had to grow up. I love her dearly, and I'm not posting all of this so you'll think I'm a complete bitch or unsympathetic, but....she's 30 years old and her life has been all about fun. She's been waitressing, which she is very good at, getting tattoos, going on vacations, partying with her friends, and being helped along a lot along the way by my mom. Oh, and me. I'm not blameless. Three weeks ago I "loaned" her $3,000 because her gas had been turned off and she had no money but still had tuition payments to make. I can't help it -- she's my baby sister. My mom has always bailed her out in the past, paid her medical insurance, paid her medical copays, given her cheap deals on her old cars (oops, I did that, too), given her money when she needed extra, etc. Dealing with her in this way hasn't helped her. In fact, I think it has hurt her. It's very hard when you have the extra money or you don't need the old car, to just help her out.  I don't like to see her struggle, and neither does my mom. As a result, H has been able to float along in life, and to never really have to deal with reality or acting like an adult. Someone always bails her out if she gets in trouble or spends too much money vacationing and having fun and as a result can't pay her mortgage.

She doesn't understand adult things that are very obvious to me. Like, if you have a bunch of tattoos on your arms, wear long sleeves for your first day of clinical. Make a good impression. Like, hey, you should be looking for a job by now for when you graduate in May. All of your classmates were doing this a year ago, and had a summer internship in nursing. What were you doing?  I think she thinks hospitals are going to come looking for her once she has her degree. It's bizarre. Like, when you have an assignment, turn it in on time. Like, if you are ready to burst into tears, politely say "Can I take a minute, please," to go off and gather youself and don't just storm off. You know, adult, responsible things. Adult ways of handling things.

I've expressed some of this to her before, but I don't like to give her unsolicited opinions like my mom does, because it really irritates H when my mom does that. I'd prefer to let her figure it out on her own, unless she asks for my advice. (After all, I did. My other sister did. My brother did.) However, in her little utopian world, everyone is nice. That isn't the real world, though. I've had to work with and for some complete assholes. I'm regularly dealing with complete asshole opposing counsel. At least two new associates at my firm likely think I am a complete bitch, although if they talk to the older associates they will find out they will learn a lot from me. I expect a lot. Maybe this professor does also. I deal with Judges who I think are idiots and who threaten to sanction me for stupid things. I also deal with Judges who are smarter than me, and I've gotten slammed and embarrassed in court. People yell at me at work. I yell at them back. Personality conflicts are not uncommon. That's life. Not everyone is going to like you. However, as a professional, you deal with it. Even if you are a crying type of person (which I am, too), you hold it back and excuse yourself to get yourself together, and then you deal with the problem.

I can't help her with this. In some ways, it might be good for her to fail the class and have to retake it to get her degree. I worry, though, that if she does fail it, she won't finish. It's odd, because she is completely gorgeous and has a body I would kill for and was constantly praised and coddled as a kid, yet she has the lowest self esteem. Part of the reason she didn't go to college for so long was because she didn't think she was smart. Well, she is smart. She's gotten all As and Bs so far in nursing school. But this is the class that is the challenge. Most people I know had that one class that was a nightmare. I know I did. I about died when I studied my ass off and got a D, but que sera sera, right? Did it affect me in the long term? No. And now I can talk about that stupid class I failed my senior year in college. Failing this class could do her in, though, as far as motivation to finish. She's that type of person. She thinks everyone is conspiring against her success and will just give up. I guess I'm not like that.

I really hope the professor is just pushing her, and will end up passing her in the end. At minimum, this is a good experience for her to go through. I don't think she quite gets that when she starts working somewhere other than a bar that she may have to deal with some condescending doctors and nurses. She might have to deal with a boss who dislikes her for no reason. That happens. Maybe this will open her eyes. At worst, she retakes the class. I've realized as I've gotten older that sometimes things aren't as big of a deal as you think. So what if she has to retake the class and she graduates a little later? Who cares? That will be a huge disappointment to her, since she is looking forward to graduating in May, and I know she will be horribly embarrassed, but...I don't know. I feel awful for her, but at the same time, I want to just say "Welcome to reality."

Random Thoughts on November 29

2011-11-29T00:47:00.001-06:00

Well, it's 12:01 a.m., so I guess it's November 29. You know I'm a night owl, but even more so tonight because my couch from Pottery Barn is finally getting delivered tomorrow between 9:30 and 11:30, so that means I get to sleep in a bit. Yay! (Says she who slept in for the past four days...) Anyway, it's been awhile since I've updated on much, so here we go!

1. My two favorite new shows are Revenge and Ringer. Both are deliciously soapy and moving along at a quick pace. I'm entertained, not bored, not too cheesed out, and not bothered by the flaws, so thumbs up. Also, as a huge Buffy fan, it's great to see Sarah Michelle Gellar back on my TV. Honorable mention to Once Upon a Time. Honorable honorable mention to Grimm.

2. Shows I've canceled from my DVR? Pan Am (eh, I tried), Harry's Law (sick of it), Blue Bloods (boring), Law and Order SVU (no Elliott, so no).

3. I have the worst fantasy football team on the planet. Don't try to convince me I don't, because I do. Even Jordy Nelson can't save me from the rest of the team. Michael Vick SUCKS.

4. My sister M is pregnant again! She is due in April. So far, so good. Keep your fingers crossed. She will be going to Mott for an ultrasound of the baby's heart in December, and likely at some point after that as well. The new baby coming will hopefully get us through what will sure to be a tough Christmas and New Year's as we remember my niece L and the horribleness of last New Year's.

5. One of my best friends who has battled cancer, then discovered she had a heart defect so she couldn't carry a baby, then decided with her husband to get a surrogate because they really wanted a baby of their own, then went through a whole, long ordeal to get healthy eggs from her, and a whole bunch of other crap....are expecting twins through their surrogate in March. I've been doing the happy dance for them!!!

6. But don't be fooled. I still don't like kids. I'm just happy for other people who want them, when they can have them. And I like them in small doses, as long as I can go home at the end of the day to a quiet house.

7. My Secret Santa kid (I do a gift thing for low income kids) is named Zebediah, which I love. He is the same age as my nephew, and likes Cars stuff like my nephew, so Zebediah is going to get some great stuff from me! (It's easy, because I can just buy two of whatever I get for my nephew!)

8. I'm going to the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis this weekend to cheer very loudly for MSU. I hate Wisconsin. Go right through for MSU.....

9. I bought owl mugs from West Elm:

I looked at these mugs like eight times, and debated spending $10 on a mug. (Yeah, I can be a little cheap.) But then I realized that I've only bought four mugs in my entire life, the four I bought with my whole 4 plate, bowl, etc. set at Pier One in around 1998. Yet I have a ton of mugs. More than enough. People just buy you mugs when they don't know what else to get you. I have a cupboard full of mugs that I didn't buy. So dammit, I wanted to buy mugs I liked that I picked rather than the cornucopia of mugs that litter my cupboard, so I bought two of these owl mugs. They are so cool! They are rather huge, though.

10. Oh yeah, I also bought him:

He's sitting in the middle of my dining room table right now. (I need a centerpiece! But, he looks kind of cool there.) And he's mercury glass and half of the proceeds go to St. Jude's. Good God, I don't have to justify this, do I? Isn't he cute? I didn't even know I liked owls until I saw all of these owls at West Elm.

10. I need to call an electrician out. My electric bill has been outrageously high. I called and got it put down briefly, thinking it was a meter misread, but it does not seem to be, based on my last bill. My usage appears to be at least double what it normally is this time of year, and I haven't changed anything. The a/c is what puts my electric bill up (my furnace is gas) and I haven't had the a/c on since early September. Except, of course, the work done on my house this summer. But the outrageousness of usage didn't start until after they were done, when my October bill showed up. Seems to me that it would've showed up sooner if they would've done anything to suck the electricity out of my house. So, something in my house (probably my fridge or hot water heater) is sucking electricity out of my home. I have to figure this out. My electric bill is usually nonsensically small in the winter, and I'll be damned if I'm paying $150+ a month when it should be around $50. Did I mention how fun it is to be a home owner? What the hell? What changed? All these people online are like, unplug everything in the house (what? really?) then shut off your fuses and look at the meter and see if it is still running and then do this and this and this. Um...no. I'm just going to call out an expert, thanks. I'll let them deal with it, and then I will gladly pay them their hourly rate. I'm going to call the guy who did the electric on my remodel, since he should have some insider knowledge of my wiring. I really don't think he did anything wrong, though. I just think my fridge or hot water heater has gone haywire.

11. And, I forgot to post my new table, also from West Elm:

Sorry for the small pic. West Elm does not make it easy to do a direct link, and I'm too lazy to deal with other nonsense to get a bigger picture. (This direct linking is not copyright infringement!) However, this little table fits perfectly and beautifully in between my two side chairs. I needed a small size, so my options were limited. I had about 14" of space. This one is 12.5" square. It's mirrored, but it doesn't look cheesy, and the mirror is not glaring. I really love it. It looks so sharp. And, I got 20% off, so it was only $160. My living room is almost complete!

Great Christmas Gifts for Patent Lawyers

2011-11-28T21:38:00.002-06:00

Yes, this is an incredibly specific list. But hey, patent lawyers get gifts, too. If you have a patent lawyer in your life, maybe you are wondering what to get them for Christmas this year. I’m going to assume they already have things like phones, iPads, computers, and all the other usual gadgetry, and try to get a little creative. I'm a big fan of buying unique gifts -- something useful or not obvious. (Heh.) If you wanted to get the person a sweater, you probably wouldn't be Googling for ideas. I'm going to make a lot of generalizations, but the fact is that most patent attorneys I know are a little nerdy and really enjoy invention. Hence, what they do for a living. I've tried to find reasonably priced items, for the most part. If you are looking to spend thousands on your patent attorney, go to Tiffany. So, here we go:

1. An original (or replica) patent model. Between 1836 and 1880, when a person applied for a patent they also had to submit a miniaturized working model to the Patent and Trademark Office. For example, this is Abraham Lincoln's patent model for an Improvement for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals:

(You can read more about it here.) While many of these went to the Smithsonian and others went to private collectors, some are still floating around. These are a piece of history and I happen to think they are pretty cool for an office. Definitely a unique gift. Although you likely won't find one from someone as famous as Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Patent Model Foundation has some originals for sale on eBay, and they vary in price from around a hundred bucks to much more than that. Here is a link to their store.

2. A rare and old newspaper with some invention, inventor or patent significance. Frame it for them, if you are so inclined. Go to http://www.rarenewspapers.com/, punch in “patent” or “invention” or an inventor name your patent attorney is obsessed with in the search box, and see what you find. You can often find official news articles of the adoption of earlier Patent Acts, patent notices that used to be published for people like Thomas Edison, articles about the Wright Brothers, and other neat stuff. Most of them run around $40. There are also many other web sites with old newspapers you can peruse.

3. Framed patents. No, I’m not kidding. These can look incredibly nice in the office of a patent attorney. I have a few and my coworkers went crazy over them. If you are really creative, you can go to http://www.uspto.gov/ and try to dig up a good patent yourself, and get it framed on your own. Alternatively, and with much less work on your part, you can get it done for you at Prior Art Design, Inventerrific, or Patents As Art. Yes, believe it or not that are companies that do this. There are many things that are or used to be covered by patents, which everyone is very familiar with, like the Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Logs, and the Slinky. Is there a product your patent attorney loves? See if it is covered by a patent and get the patent framed for them. Or just frame a famous patent. We patent attorneys are always looking for interesting, work related things for our offices.

4. Telefingers. I'm crazy about "why didn't I think of that" type inventions. These are gloves that you can use with a touch screen (i.e., phone or iPad), and are a must have for winter for those long mornings on the train platform.

Theyare available at QVC, two pairs for $20.

5. I love these hard drive and circuit board clocks sold by TECOART on Etsy:

They come in a range of styles and sizes, and start at around $30. Here is a link to TECOART's Etsy Store. Etsy also offers a whole bunch of other items made out of circuit boards. Just run a search on "circuit board" and you'll see earrings, ties, rings, lamps, and other goodies.

6. Whiskey stones. Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I didn't know about these until recently. If your patent attorney is a whiskey or scotch drinker straight up, these keep their drink cold without the watering down that happens with ice cubes:

You can get them at Uncommon Goods for $19.50.

7. Golf Club Drink Dispenser. Many attorneys golf, even though I don't. However, this drink dispenser (for your favorite adult beverage while out on the course) from the Sharper Image seems like a good bet to me. It's $89.99.

8. Travel sized beauty products. By beauty, I also mean stuff for men like shaving cream and cologne. Obviously this would be a gift to a friend or spouse, rather than, say, your boss. But the fact is, I travel a lot. If you buy me a full sized lotion and body spray gift set, I can't take it with me anywhere unless I want to check a bag. I love travel sized stuff that I can put into my 1 quart sized bag! This goes for teeny eyeshadows, hand lotions, face lotions, facial cleansers, shampoo, and soap, too. You can collect things from the bins at Sephora or Ulta, get a cute (or manly) bag and make your own, or buy a premade travel sized or sample sized set. We won't think you are cheap. We will appreciate that you recognize how nice it is to have less than 3 oz size of cool stuff to take with us when we travel to depositions and hearings. Here are a few I like:

L'Occitane Hand Cream Confections, at Sephora for $40:

Clinique Essentials of Shaving, at Sephora for $47.50.

Urban Decay Naked Pallette, at Sephora for $48.

Sephora and Ulta offer about a million other small, travel sized options individually and as sets. Just search "travel sized." (Trust me, you never think about travel sized things until you are packing for your trip and realize you don't want to check a bag.)

9. Stock car ride along experience. This is a little more expensive, starting at around $109 and up, depending on where you are. But you get to ride in a stock car with a professional driver. Totally awesome. Every patent attorney I know likes to drive fast and ride in fast, sweet car. (Well, not every one, but most.) Here's a picture:

Cloud 9 Living offers this, and it is available in most metro areas. There are also a lot of other great gift options at Cloud 9.

10. If all else fails, books. I don't know an attorney who doesn't like to read. For a patent attorney, how about some books on inventions and inventors? I know I like reading them. Here are ten suggestions, some of which I've read, and some which just look good to me, provided your patent attorney still likes a real book and isn't hooked on their Kindle or iPad. (All links are to Amazon.) (1) Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes; (2) Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (duh); (3) Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney; (4) For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It by Mark Pendergrast; (5) Leonardo’s Notebooks by H. Anna Suh; (6) The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World by Randall E. Stross; (7) The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret by Seth Shulman; (8) Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg--Chester Carlson and the Birth of Xerox by David Owen; (9) The Chip : How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution by T.R. Reid; and (10) Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky.

I feel like I'm forgetting something cool that I saw recently, but can't remember it now. Hopefully this sparked some ideas for you! If I think of anything else, I'll do another post.

Will November 17 Be The Death Knell For Occupy Wall Street?

2011-11-17T14:20:00.000-06:00

If you follow me on Twitter at all, you know I’m kind of obsessed with the Occupy movement. Not because I agree with it, but because I don’t get it. (I get fascinated with things I don’t understand. It’s also why I like to read books about serial killers.) I’ve tried to keep an open mind – I promise you, I have – but with all that has gone on over the past few weeks, I can’t do it anymore. They lost me when they carried a Palestinian flag into Rahm Emmanuel’s office. They lost me when they shut down the Port of Oakland and wouldn’t let people simply trying to do their jobs in and out. They lost me when I saw pictures of the trashed park in Portland. They lost me with their signs supporting Communism and Anarchism. They lost me when they started vandalizing businesses and disrupting small businesses. And, of course, they lost me even more given today's turn of events.

I can’t relate at all to the type of people who vagabond around, march down the center of the street chanting with a sign, sit down in the middle of the street blocking traffic, and scream and yell at other people with no apparent purpose. This is doubly so when the things they are screaming and yelling are not legally or economically correct. Protests against a war I can understand because people are dying and the end goal is clear. Stop the war. But protesting without any real demands or any end goal is bizarre. I still don’t understand what the Occupy group hopes to accomplish.

I’m much too logical minded. Drop everything and go live in a park for two months? Why? I could never do something like that because my thoughts would be overwhelmed with questions like “Where will I sleep? What will I eat? Will I be cold? What if I get arrested and ruin my chance to get a job somewhere ten years from now? How will I pay my rent? What about my job? Will I be safe? Where will I pee? Where will I shower? What if someone steals my stuff?” You see, I can’t let all of the realities of life drop away to go off and have fun protesting for some unspecified amount of time for some vague reason. I’m just not the type.

It’s not that I object to people who are that type to do such a thing. Good for them. Different people make the world go around, and maybe we need the dedicated protestor types among us to make change happen. My problem is that if you are going to do it, at least be able to articulate why you are doing it and what you hope to accomplish by doing it. I’m not sure why it is, but nearly everyone I’ve seen interviewed by the media who are involved with Occupy can’t even explain why they are there or what they want. It’s all just a big party. (I like a party as much as anyone else, but have a party at your own house.) It appears that the Occupiers simply want to be able to set up a commune wherever they’d like, to the detriment of the rest of the public. Setting up a mini society in the middle of a park that others would like to use in NYC, Portland, SLC, Denver, and the rest of the cities dealing with this problem is a bit….hypocritical, no?

Hear me out. The overriding problem, according to the Occupiers is the still undefined 1%. Top 1% of income or wealth? Who knows, who cares? They are all evil, just like every single person who happens to work in the Wall Street general area is evil, including the secretaries, the guy who runs the coffee cart, and the guy running the newsstand. The Occupiers argue that they have been treated unfairly by the 1%, even though they refuse to identify any of these people or to explain how or why they have been treated unfairly, how or why these people broke the law, and why they themselves are not at least partially responsible. (Did someone hold a gun to their head, forcing them to sign student loan papers? I doubt it.) The Occupiers argue that the 1% has trampled on their rights, yet they claim they have the unfettered First Amendment right to pitch a tent or march wherever they want, thus trampling on the rest of the (99%) public’s rights. Oh, and they should be able to camp there forever. And ever. Or until they decide to leave. Hell, just leave it open ended. (Yes, camping out in front of TJ Maxx for a night or a few hours waiting for the grand opening is very different.) The Occupiers argue that the 1% don’t play by the rules, yet they refuse to get the proper permits for their marches, refuse to purchase something at a restaurant where they want to use the bathroom there, and think it is their right to block the streets.

So…what about the rest of the 99% who don’t want them pitching tents and marching and disrupting traffic and disrupting subways and disrupting small business and disrupting Wall Street and the ports and ruining beautiful parks and urinating and defecating on the street? (Oh, and Occupy Chicago? Your graffiti all over west Lincoln Park has not gone unnoticed.) Saying you represent the 99% doesn’t make it so. In fact, according to some recent polling, the popularity of this movement has substantially decreased. Announcing that you (and by “you” I mean the 100-1,000 people who turned out to march) “own” the streets is a little presumptive. I would argue that the streets are more likely “owned” by the other millions of (99%) people in your city who aren’t out marching and are simply trying to get from Point A to Point B. All you really succeed in doing is pissing those people off.

The point of this so-called movement has been completely lost, obliterated by the fight to redefine 200 years of interpretation of the First Amendment. (Although to be fair, most don’t seem to realize that the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment at length, and that it goes far beyond the words on the paper.) And for what? So they can build a commune? Live in the middle of NYC without paying property taxes? Why not find a 1%er who is sympathetic to your cause who will donate some land and allow you to live there? Better yet, buy your own land or apartment with the hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to your “cause.” Why does it have to be in a park or location in the middle of the city that other people want to use? In Chicago, they are trying to demand that the city provide them with a place to protest. There are plenty of places to protest, provided you don’t want to spend the night.

What is so goddamn important about being able to spend the night? I don’t understand. What does spending the night have to do with this movement? I get that it’s called “Occupy” but why? In my opinion, the “Occupy” is the fun part, while actually getting things done (which is what they would be forced to do if they can’t stay overnight and continue the charade) is the hard part, and no one seems to have any idea how to proceed with the hard part. The Tea Party took a lot of ribbing in the media, but they sure got things done by electing representatives into Congress. I’m wondering why Occupy isn’t trying to do the same. After all, if they represent what the 99% want, it shouldn’t be hard to get all their people voted in. (Unfortunately for them, it is becoming very clear that they don’t represent much of the 99% who they claim to represent.)

The level of entitlement is also really astounding. When complaints arise about the number and cost of police to enforce the law, they claim they are “nonviolent” and the police don’t need to be there. Welcome to the real world. If hundreds or thousands of people are gathering, you need police around to make sure things don’t get out of hand. And these protests have been anything but “nonviolent.” I don’t care if it is a few bad seeds. Don’t blame the cops if you get banged up a little bit when you don’t listen to what they are telling you to do. (Maybe I was raised differently, but when a cop tells me to do something, I do it.) Forcing your way through barricades, sitting down in the street and refusing to move, throwing things at and taunting the police are anything but “nonviolent.” And let’s not even talk about the crime happening in these Occupy camps. You want to complain about taxes? Just wait until the bill comes due for cities handling the Occupiers. I’m sure we’ll all be thanking you in the coming months. (If “this is what democracy looks like,” then no thanks.) How is anything they are doing really helping the 99%? Sure they got some media attention, but as far as I can tell, that’s about it. They are deluded enough to think that “the whole world is watching,” yet a lot of people in this country don’t even know they exist, and I suspect a lot of people around the world aren’t too concerned that some people in the United States are sad because they have to pay back student loans or took out a home loan they couldn’t afford or can't find a job paying $100,000 a year.

Which leads me to the big, fat elephant in the room, which is….people in the United States don’t have it so bad. Do any of the kids out there protesting how awful things are here realize that? Do they know anything about what it is like to live in other countries? Is their world view that small? Do they know how lucky they were not to be born in a hut in Africa? We have plenty of social nets and government services for people who have fallen upon hard times or lost their job. You never hear about anyone starving to death in the United States. Most utility companies have heating and cooling assistance for those who can’t afford it. We have shelters for the homeless, and plenty of welfare and foodstamps. We have wonderful laws on free speech, and the government does give a lot of leeway. You can blog about, Tweet about, or talk about whatever you want. The Occupiers like to yell about a “police state” or trampling on their “freedom of speech?” Move to North Korea – then you’ll find out about a “police state.” They won’t even let you leave the country. You’ll also be enlightened what true lack of freedom of speech is when you realize you only have three television channels to choose from, most spewing North Korean government propaganda. Or hey, move to a village in Africa where many people have HIV and no medical care, and on top of that, no food to eat. People die of starvation on a daily basis. Or move to China where you can get arrested for blogging the wrong thing. Or go to certain countries in the Middle East, wherer women can't even go in public without a male escort.

It’s hard to take any of these protestors seriously, with their Eddie Bauer backpacks, iPhones, iPads, Macs, Internet livestream, Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, Abercrombie & Fitch hats, fancy camping tents and sleeping bags, lawyers, $500k+ in donations, and gourmet vegan food from the community kitchen. (I doubt many starving people in Africa are vegan.) You want to complain about an 84 year old woman getting pepper sprayed or a person in a wheelchair getting arrested? Thank the ADA, and age discrimination laws for that. Shouldn’t they be treated equally if they are breaking the law? Why the outrage? Isn’t that what equality is all about?

At any rate, we’ll see what happens now with this movement. In my opinion today’s events will be the death knell. I can’t see how average people in this country will continue to support this nonsense. And if I never have to hear “Whose street? Our street!”, “This is what democracy looks like” or “The whole world is watching” again, I will be a very happy person.

Chicago Extends School Day -- For Useless Gym Class

2011-11-10T13:55:00.000-06:00

Recently in Chicago there has been a lot of hoopla over extending the length of the school day. Someone took a look around and realized that the Chicago Public Schools have the shortest school day of any other urban school district in the country. Bad news. So, there has been a lot of bickering back and forth, and it appears that for the most part the longer school day is going to happen. This is what they said:

A longer school day is a richer school day … one that provides for 90 additional minutes of instruction. That means more time for reading, math and science -- and also for enrichment programs like art, music and physical education, which are proven to boost student achievement. And it provides time for a longer lunch and a real recess.

So what are they doing in the high schools with all this extra time?

Daily physical education.

I read a lot of absurd things on the Internet, but this has to be a topper. I would have been furious as a junior or senior if my school day got extended and then I was forced to take physical education in addition to the sports practices I was regularly going to before and after school. I was the kind of kid who would’ve rather had an extra science, computer, or English class where I might actually learn something useful.

Physical education – or gym, as we called it – was a total joke when I was in high school. We had to take one year of it, during freshman year. After that it was optional, and I never took it again. All we did was play dodgeball, kickball, softball, basketball, speedwalk, and swim. (The swimming part was really awesome considering I had gym first hour and the gym teacher forced us all to go underwater and get our hair wet.) I hated gym with every fiber of my being. To be fair, I hated it because I’m not very good at sports and I don’t enjoy most sports. I was good at rowing and tennis, so I played on the school team for those in the spring and fall, respectively, but that was by far enough “sport” for me. Forget anything like basketball or softball or running. I hate running and I hate throwing a ball around and I hate swimming because I hate being wet unless it’s 100 degrees out. And what is more embarrassing than getting picked last for the dodgeball team or having to run around like an idiot in front of everyone else when you have no idea what is going on or who you are supposed to throw the ball to? It was always prime time for bullying, if I recall correctly.

We were also forced to take showers. The gym teacher would stand near the entrance of the showers and watch and make sure we all got wet. We had to show her our leg or some body part, to prove to her that it had water on it. It was part of our grade, showering after gym. Can you imagine anything more ridiculous than that? Forcing a kid to take a shower in front of everyone else? (Oh yes, the showers were just a bunch of spigots in a big room – no privacy at all.) The same was true of gym in junior high. I’m not sure if a gym teacher could get away with that nowadays.

Anyway, gym was truly the most useless class I have ever taken in my entire life. I can’t believe after all the uproar about the longer school day they are wasting it on a class like that, and wanting to raise my property taxes to do so.

You Must Read The Fiddler on the Subway

2011-11-02T17:15:00.000-05:00

I recently read The Fiddler on the Subway, by Gene Weingarten. He's a reporter for the Washington Post, and the book is a collection of the articles he's written over the years. I can't imagine how I never heard of this book, even though it has been out since July 2010 and won two Pulitzer Prizes.

I love reading nonfiction. I used to be a big fiction reader when I was younger, but as I've gotten older I've found that sometimes things that really happened are more interesting than things that someone made up. Also, I like to learn. Generally I lean toward historical fiction, but practically anything nonfiction is usually fair game. Due to my obsessive nature, once I hit on a topic and like a book, I seek out other books on similar topics. For example, after reading And The Band Played On (THE absolutely most fascinating book about the beginnings of the AIDS crisis), I read The Great Influenza (1918 influenza pandemic), Polio: An American Story (finding the cure!), and The American Plague (yellow fever). After I read The Great Deluge (Hurrican Katrina), I read A Crack in the Edge of the World (1906 San Francisco earthquake), Krakatoa (Krakatoa eruption), and The Johnstown Flood (self explanatory). And when I get into a queens and kings kind of mood, there are a million books on all the monarchs.

Needless to say, I'm always looking for good nonfiction. I picked this one up during one of the Borders blow out sales, right before the one on State Street went out of business. It's not a very long book, and as I mentioned above, consists of investigative articles written by the author for the Washington Post, which means you can read them out of order, or whenever you want. Every story in the book is fascinating.

I enjoy it when reporters think of somewhat strange and different things to write about, and then follow that path, and do it well. For example, the titular story is based upon the question of "Would anyone notice if a world renowned musician played his music in the subways of D.C.?" Weingarten recruited Joshua Bell, a violin virtuoso to find out the answer. Another story, The Great Zucchini, describes the life and job of one of Washington D.C.'s foremost child party performers, a man who shows up in jeans and a t-shirt, without all the usual props, and manages to keep kids enthralled for hours. Another of my favorites was Snowbound, where Weingarten goes to a nearly isolated, snowy place, and learns about the people there. The Ghost of the Hardy Boys discusses the life of the man behind Franklin W. Dixon, and his hatred of the Hardy Boys. In The Armpit of America, Weingarten attempts to find just that. And in Fatal Distraction, he masterfully deals with parents who have accidentally left their children in the backseat of the car to die. These are only some of the articles contained within the book.

As you can see, he covers a range of subjects, and his investigative reporting and writing are amazing. I cannot even express how much I enjoyed this book. I'm thinking about buying it for my mom and sisters for Christmas. It's simply fascinating. And now, I'm on to read Steve Jobs....

Allegations Won't Sink Herman Cain

2011-11-02T13:09:00.000-05:00

Oh, Herman Cain. I knew they would find a way to dig up some dirt.

I just have to make a few comments about these sexual harassment allegations.

Yes, allegations. That is all they are. It’s incredibly easy to accuse someone of sexual harassment. You can accuse anyone of anything. Just yesterday a woman accused Justin Bieber of fathering her child. I know people who have been accused of sexual harassment, and I know they did not commit sexual harassment. Most people don’t know what sexual harassment means. It isn’t sexual harassment to make an off color or sexual joke in front of a woman. While it may be unprofessional and in bad taste, it isn’t illegal. It may not even be sexual harassment to flirt with someone or invite them to your hotel room. But, if you do it often enough (this is where the “harassment” aspect of it comes in), you could create a hostile work environment, which is illegal. It is unclear whether that is the case here.

At any rate, no sexual harassment was ever proven. That’s important to remember, especially considering that whether behavior is inappropriate or appropriate can be largely subjective. We all know people who get offended by every little thing, and people who get offended by nothing.

I’d like to give my spin on some of the comments and questions I’ve seen floating around Internetland.

How could he not remember this?

Easy. It was fifteen years ago and he was the CEO of the National Restaurant Association. In other words, he was a very busy man, and probably wasn’t involved in the day to day dealings of the lawyers of the NRA. Likely the way it went down was the women went and complained, the NRA got their side of the story, the NRA got Herman Cain’s side of the story, and then the NRA lawyers decided what they were going to do about it. I highly doubt he was even involved in that decision, and may have never even followed up on it. If indeed Herman Cain felt he didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t find it strange at all that he doesn’t remember this, or didn’t follow up on it. In fact, I’d find it more likely that he did something wrong if he did remember, because he would have been worried about it.

But they paid the women off! He must be guilty!

All we know so far about the settlements is that one woman got $35,000 – the equivalent of a year’s salary, and the other woman’s was also the five figure range. As a lawyer, I almost laughed when I saw that number. $35,000 is chump change in lawsuit land, and almost bordering on nuisance value. If they had paid her millions, I might think differently about the allegations. It would likely have cost the NRA at least $35,000 to answer a Complaint and to brief and file a motion to dismiss. It is not uncommon at all for companies to balance settling the case with how much money it will cost them to defend the case. Settling and paying money is not an admission of guilt. Often it is simply good business.

The woman isn’t allowed to tell her side of the story! It's all a big secret!

Confidentiality provisions are common in settlements where money is handed over. I don’t think I’ve ever written a settlement agreement without a confidentiality provision. This is normal course of business stuff.

I frankly find it disgusting that someone’s name can be spread through the dirt based on unproven allegations. Given the huge spurt of donations to Cain’s campaign, it would seem that a lot of people agree with me.

Checking In...

2011-10-25T22:38:00.001-05:00

Sorry i haven't been posting much lately. I am insanely busy at work. Mad busy. November is going to be a long, hectic month, with lots of trips to California for hearings and mediation and depositions. I'm barely staying afloat, and keep waking up in the middle of the night worried I missed a deadline.

I have so much spinning around in my head that I want to blog about--including Herman Cain, the Occupy movement (which I am fascinated with), news from my sisters, a great motion hearing, a visit from my best friend, and reconnection with an old friend. But I'm too tired right now. It'll be coming, I promise. Hope all of you who are following and reading are doing wonderfully. I hate to complain about work since having a job like I do is a blessing during these times, but damn, it really infringes (see what I did there) on my fun diversions, like blogging. And reading blogs.

Oh, and my pictures arrived today from Gilt, three weeks early. At work. Which means I have to drive in tomorrow to get them home, and I didn't open the box yet and am dying to see them! (I'm not taking a 32x48 picture on the train. Just no.). Still waiting on my basement couch...come on, Pottery Barn!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

What Does An Official Patent Look Like?

2011-10-15T01:08:00.000-05:00

You know you've always wondered!

Well, I think it's cool, and I happen to have one at my house because I'm going to speak to some young women on Monday at my undergrad alma mater, and I'm going to discuss engineering and patent law, and show them what a real patent looks like.

These generally only make an appearance at trial. Hopefully I won't lose or spill something on this one between now and Tuesday, because if I do, my client might possibly kill me. This is how the owner of the patent receives it from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We call it the "red ribbon" patent. (You can download the patent itself for free from the PTO or Google Patent, which is what we use throughout the lawsuit, and is just the patent itself. This one is official and fancy because it has the cover.)

Top right text:

Bottom right text:

It's bound like a book, and the patent is on the inside. I'm not going to post the patent, because it is a bunch of technical diagrams and columns and columns of text that are very boring to most people.

But doesn't the official patent look super cool?

Ugh, Associates Bother Me And So Does The America Invents Act

2011-10-14T22:41:00.000-05:00

I'm a total perfectionist. It's a flaw. You know how when they ask you in job interviews what your biggest flaw is, and you try to think of something that is actually a positive, but can be considered a flaw and you end up with "perfectionist" and expound upon that? Well, flaw or not, I want everything with my name on it to be perfect.

I am crazy fucking busy right now. The America Invents Act has thrown some chaos into the world of patent law from a plaintiff's persepctive. We used to be able to file a case against multiple defendants on the same patent. One case, two to five defendants, one or more patents. No longer. You now have to file separate cases against each defendant. This really hurts the independent inventor who has to now pay filing fees and potentially pro hac vice fees in multiple cases. (This can run into the thousands easy.) What's funny is that the law as it was prior to the America Invents Act, prevented this anyway. Plaintiffs did it because it was easier to deal with everyone at once in the same lawsuit when they were all accused of infringing the same patent. Defendants did it because it was easier for them, too. No one complained. In the seven years I've been doing this, I've never had a defendant complain about being joined or file a motion for severance. If they had filed a motion to sever, they would have won under the old law! So, how about that? Because even if you are a defendant, you benefit from being with others in the same lawsuit. You can free ride if you want to, on the work of others. You can join their motions; you can share technical experts on invalidity issues; you can cut attorneys fees on deposition time. You get joint defense privilege to talk amongst yourselves without it being discoverable. I mean, it really was an efficiency thing for all. And now Judges across the country are going to have to construe the claims of the same patent at issue in other cases. Maybe it will turn into a multidistrict litigation deal, maybe there will be consolidation, who knows? It's all new, and we'll find out. And at the end of the day....I don't think it is going to be a good solution for anyone, and I think the Judges are going to be pissed off to see all of these cases sitting around on their docket, when in the past it would have been one single case. So, at any rate, I've now got a lot more cases going on than usual, because we have to file separately against every single infringer, so there are that many more dates and whatnot to keep track of.

I've got this associate who works very hard, graduated at the top of her class, and is capable of very good work.  I like her and think she is very smart. However, I don't think she proofreads anything. It's bizarre. She sends me draft interrogatory responses with the defendants' name spelled wrong. Multiple, multiple typos throughout.  People's names spelled wrong. Numbering wrong. Substantive facts just wrong. I mean, stuff that she should know better, as she is 3-4 years in.  Everyone makes typos at times, but this is beyond. It's a total rush job. And I get it that she is busy, because I am busy, too. But her rushing it over to me doesn't make my life any easier because I have to spend time correcting all of it. I shouldn't have to correct a fucking spelling mistake on the defendant's name, right? I shouldn't have to double check on substantive issues. I'm supposed to be able to trust that she did it, and I don't think she is doing it.

So, she had previously planned to take today off, which is fine. But we were trying to serve requests for admission, among several other documents, and for various reasons our local counsel in the jurisdiction needed to serve them. I've been bothering her for weeks about getting a draft out, etc. She finally schedules a meeting with all of us (and sent us the drafts before, to be fair to her) on Wednesday.  We had the meeting, she revised with all of our input, thought it was all good, sent to local counsel to serve, and obviously wasn't in today to deal with the aftermath. So, of course there were a ton of stupid errors that I had to deal with, some substantive. I spent about half the day going back and forth with local counsel about spelling, corrections, numbering, getting repeated signatures on declarations, and all this bullshit that I thought she had a handle on.

I'm really pissed off about it, and am going to talk to her on Tuesday. She frankly should've had this all dealt with and finalized with local counsel before she left. I don't care if she's busy; I'm busy, too. We are all busy. She just seems to have no concept that our name is on this, and there shouldn't be stupid typos, and there certainly shouldn't be huge substantive errors. Nothing bothers me worse than seeing a dumb typo on a filed document.  At this point at my firm, she should be able to run a case on her own and be trusted, and she is nowhere close to that. I now don't trust anything she does without review. Yet, I know she is capable of doing good work and she is smart.  I can't figure it out. Many other partners aren't as understanding as I am, so I think I am going to have a brief talk with her. I mean, spend an extra hour and review the document before you start sending it to everyone, right? But then again, I'm a crazy perfectionist.

The Botox Experiment

2011-10-14T21:56:00.000-05:00

On October 4, I did something I never thought I would do. I got Botox. Before you judge me, let me explain.

Because of an accident with a metal wagon handle when I was eight (my brother's fault, who also knocked out my front permanent teeth that same year, gotta love brothers), I have about an inch long vertical scar in the center of my forehead. When it happened, I was bleeding a lot, and the babysitter put pressure on it, and my mom got home and looked at it and thought I would survive, so I never got any stitches. Well, I should've really had stitches, in retrospect. My mom can't even look at it now without breaking into tears about how she should've taken me to the ER immediately and dealt with it. "Oh, I ruined your face, it's all my fault" and blah, blah. However, I don't hold a grudge against her and have gotten used to it, and it is part of my face. I can't even remember the time before I had this scar.

As a result of the scar, I've always worn bangs, in part to hide it, and in part because I have a kind of high forehead. Thick bangs, thinner bangs, wispy bangs, sideswept bangs, etc.  At some point over the summer, I decided I was tired of bangs, and the scar isn't all that noticeable anymore, and my forehead isn't really that high, and damn, I want to LIVE WITHOUT BANGS. So, I started to grow them out.  I'm pleased to report that the bangs have passed the awkward stage where I just looked like I needed to trim them up, and are now almost to my chin. But, upon getting close to passing the awkward stage I really took notice of something terrible about my forehead -- horizontal wrinkles.

I've noticed them before. I've used Dr. Brandt, La Mer, L'Oreal Collagen filler, etc., to no avail. But, it wasn't a huge concern to me because the bangs covered them up. Once the bangs were long enough that I could play around, my forehead was exposed!  It looked terrible! I seriously said "OH MY GOD!" I couldn't let my poor forehead look like that. I don't have any "between the eyebrows" vertical wrinkles, and barely any crows feet unless I squint or smile really, really hard, but the horizontal wrinkles on my forehead are deep. I'm expressive with my eyebrows and wrinkle my forehead when I think and talk and everything. To be fair, I've done a lot of thinking over the past 37 years, so, hence, wrinkles! The horror!

So, I figured I would try Botox in my forehead. What the hell, right? Nearly all of my friends do it, so I might as well jump on the bandwagon. I went to my dermatologist to have it done.  I was really worried about random side effects, and they all seemed to think I was nuts for asking. (Really, though, you are injecting something into my body, and I would be the lucky person who gets the weird ass 1% side effect, right?) So, we went over it all, and ultimately, I said go for it. My doctor warned me that my wrinkles were so deep that Botox wouldn't give me a smooth forehead, so I might have to do a laser peel to improve it more, but still felt that I should try Botox first to see where we ended up. Okay, fine. Whatever. My biggest concern was that I would end up with an immobile forehead and look like Nicole Kidman.

They price Botox based on three regions: horizontal forehead, vertical forehead (between the eyebrows), and eyes. We all decided I only needed the horizontal forehead, so it was $420. Each region is about the same price, but you do get a slight discount if you need multiple regions.  This shit isn't cheap.

The procedure is quick and easy.  The doctor used a marker to dot where he wanted to put the injections. A nurse held an ice cube over the region, then the doctor injected. Then the nurse wiped the marker off my forehead. All in all, it took about five minutes, and felt like a quick pin prick. I'm a wimp about pain, and it was not a big deal.

I felt the effects immediately. Day one, my forehead felt really heavy, but I could still move my eyebrows. I didn't get any headaches or any side effects or anything. It was all fine, except I kept waiting for the results. (My doctor said 3-4 days, but maximum results at around 2 weeks.) The waiting is torture, because you spend the money, get stuff injected into you, and want to see it!  I'm not at two weeks yet, but already I see amazing results. The wrinkles are still there (as my doctor told me), but they are so much better looking and so much finer and hard to see. It's actually shocking how much they have improved. My forehead feels slightly heavy if I lift my eyebrows, but nothing that feels weird or immobile. This surprised me the most, to be honest. I thought I wouldn't be able to move it at all, but I still can. I'm not sure if this means I needed more Botox, but I do see great results, so I don't know what to think. I'm going back to see him in a couple of weeks for my yearly mole check (fun, right? Gotta do that when they find and remove precancerous moles, God I hate getting old), so I'll inquire.

At any rate, though, even though I'm going to have to do this every 3-6 months (apparently you can do it less frequently once you start doing it and your muscles get used to being more relaxed), I think it's worth it. I'm not going to feel weird at all about not having bangs if I can keep this up, and I'm happy that my forehead isn't immobile. So Botox, you get an A+ in my book.

Will Occupy Wall Street Turn Into Animal Farm?

2011-10-12T11:26:00.000-05:00

George Orwell wrote a great book called Animal Farm in 1945. The basic plot of Animal Farm involves a group of animals on a farm who overthrow the farmer, who they feel is not treating them well. The animals form their own government where everyone is created equal, among other things. However, as time goes on, the pigs take over the leadership position, things slowly start to become less and less equal, other established rules are ignored, and the eloquent last line of the book compares the pigs to the farmers they originally sought to overthrow.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is still in its infancy, and looking to find a set of grievances or demands that all can agree upon. Based on what I’ve read in the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Chicago discussion forums, most everyone agrees that it should be a leaderless movement, where everyone is allowed to provide input. In theory, this sounds nice. Everyone is equal, every single voice is heard. In practice, I don’t know how this would work. If no one is the boss, how will anything get done? It’s all fine and good to think that people will do things of their own volition, in a timely manner, and attempt to cooperate. However, as we can see from our own Congress, when push comes to shove that doesn’t often happen. Occupy Chicago uses a 90/10 voting system (which, sadly, someone on the discussion forum had to explain how to calculate), and it doesn’t seem to have accomplished much of anything. The movement here seems to be directionless, and in chaos. No one can figure out if they have the right to start a new committee or to take action, such is the fear that they will be viewed as trying to “lead” the leaderless movement. As a result, paralysis has set in.

Additionally, the Occupy movement is seeking monetary donations on their web sites. If they want to deal with this in a legal manner (which is still questionable), this leads to taxes, and some sort of corporate status. (It’s somewhat ironic that the movement will have to establish the very entity they appear to be against.) A corporation – or some other legal entity – will need to be established. This requires naming a board of directors and/or officers – in short, leaders. Even if the “leaders” are in name only (and who would agree to that if they have to have their name on the articles of incorporation and/or annual report as representing the corporation), someone will have to do the incorporating. Someone will have to either file the paperwork themselves or hire an attorney to do so. How will they choose an attorney? How will the attorney be paid? Who will write the check? Will this all be established via the 90/10 vote? Which decisions have to be run past the collective? All of them? What a colossal waste of time. I imagine our founding fathers figured this out over two hundred years ago, and hence ended up at a constitutional republic rather than a true democracy.

The discussion forums on the Occupy websites are a treasure trove of information on how things are really going on the inside. Already there are questions regarding where the donations are going and how to do things legally. (Good question – what are the monetary donations being used for, and how much has been collected?) Already people are seeking some consensus on what the group wants to have happen and the goals. How can you expect people to join a movement that can’t even clearly articulate what the end goal is? Many people have floated ideas from the reasonable (campaign finance reform) to the absurd (forgive all personal debts, including student loans.) Today the Occupy Chicago web site is promoting a discussion of the Communist Manifesto on Saturday. Is that what this movement is about? Who knows, but what a way to lose a lot of the 99% they seek to represent.

Some people are requesting that the group appoint a spokesperson; others disagree. There are complaints about lack of communication, the web site, changes in locations and plans, confusion about how the general assembly works, grumblings about the 90/10 vote, complaints about lack of solidarity, certain people attempting to take charge for the glory, the lack of organization, and the lack of meals for protestors. Indeed, the Occupy Chicago web site is only sporadically updated, and the official Twitter account rarely posts anything worthwhile other than “Come down to LaSalle/Jackson!” Since the media is providing very little coverage on this here in Chicago, it would seem to me that the web site, Facebook, and Twitter would be great ways to get the word out. But no one appears to be in charge of making sure this gets done. That’s what a leaderless movement gets you, and eventually will lead to a lack of interest. Who is going to sign on to a group that is in chaos?

And even assuming the whole “leaderless” movement works, things still have to get done – such as maintaining the website, organizing marches and other events, coordinating, organizing and distributing donations, communicating with the media, deciding how to spend donation money, filing tax returns, taking minutes during meetings, counting votes, deciding upon the grievances/demands worth pursuing, and seeking legal advice when necessary. Who decides who is going to do each of those things? What if you can’t get 90% of the people to agree to one person? (On how many things do 90% of people agree? I bet not many.) Does it just not get done? People may voluntarily do these kinds of things for a time; I would never discount the power of passion. However, after a certain amount of time has passed, they might want to get paid for the time they are putting in, or otherwise their jobs and other responsibilities may get in the way. And if they have to name a CEO or Treasurer for purposes of corporate documents, those people might want to get paid, too. So then you have some people getting paid, some people not getting paid…and the chance for the very corruption that was originally opposed.

Allowing everyone to have a voice is a valiant goal, and it is true that this whole movement is still in its infancy. But even though some of the complaints are valid, people aren’t signing on in droves, at least in Chicago. (Nor, for that matter, are the protestors who are there attempting to engage or convince anyone who walks by and wants to talk. I know; I tried.) Where it will end remains to be seen. And yet, while watching You Tube videos on this movement and the people involved, reading news articles, and reading the discussion boards and web sites, it struck me how quickly and easily it could lead to the end result in Animal Farm. At some point someone(s) will step up and take charge of things. And what will happen then?

Occupy Wall Street's Grievances Are Not With Wall Street

2011-09-29T16:43:00.000-05:00

I vaguely heard something on the news about a group of protestors near Wall Street who were getting pepper sprayed, and police violence, and whatnot. Oh, here’s an update on their situation. They are at Zuccotti Park (near Wall Street) and are planning to stay there “for the long haul” and have organized a “winterization committee” to prepare for the winter. It’s like the mother of all sit-ins, and they have already been there for twelve days, with surprisingly little media attention. It appears they have basically set up camp:

Zuccotti Park is festooned with placards and anti-Wall Street slogans. People sleep wrapped in blankets or sleeping bags, some on donated mattresses. There is a makeshift kitchen and library and celebrities from filmmaker Michael Moore to actress Susan Sarandon have stopped by to show support.

(Of course Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon showed up.) After hearing about this, I began to wonder what exactly they are protesting. The organization is called Occupy Wall Street. Here is their unofficial web site, and here is another web site linked from there. Neither states who or what they are really protesting. There is the usual chatter about the 1% getting it all and the 99% getting nothing (which seems a little extreme to me), but other than that there are no stated goals, demands, purpose, or anything else. In fact, apparently when they got the bright idea to gather, they did it without any formal message in mind, and have struggled to define the message. After a little more Googling and digging around, I finally found their official list of Grievances:

OUR GRIEVANCES

1.Campaign Finance Reform
All votes are no longer equal in our Democracy. Money must be put outside of politics, or politicians will continue to pander to those who contribute the most to their campaigns, rather than their own constituencies. Specifically, we abhor the decision by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC. Corporations are NOT people.

2.True Shared Sacrifice
While corporate profits have been skyrocketing and the wealthy have been getting wealthier, the average worker’s income has dramatically dropped. While the cost of living has exponentially increased, wages have not followed. It has been shown time and time again that tax cuts for the wealthy are NOT effective. Taxes on those who practice greed should be raised.

3.Equality in Justice
This great nation was founded on liberty, but also, on equality. When the balance of justice is swayed in favor of those with wealth, the very fabric of this nation is torn apart. The decision of a judge should not be based upon the race, creed, or wealth of an individual, but rather, the content of the case.

4.The End of the Revolving Door
The Obama administration was supposed to bring change and hope to our country, but instead, brought us into despair and insecurity. Those working in his administration are the very people whom we are fighting against. Those who enter Washington should not be representatives of the elites, but representatives of the people. One cannot simply enter an administration, reap its benefits, and simply exit.

Doesn’t it seem like they should be protesting Congress (who makes the laws relating to campaign finance reform, taxes, and equality) or the Supreme Court (who interprets the laws relating to campaign finance reform and equality) or the White House (point four is a direct complaint against Obama) rather than Wall Street? All of the grievances listed relate to things that nobody on Wall Street is in a position to change. Did this occur to any of them? What really do they hope to accomplish? While they may be getting some attention, it may not be the best kind of attention, because the lack of leadership and a defined message, as well as the failure to protest the right people makes it much too easy to write them all off as a bunch of morons. I would think the 2012 elections might be a great time for them to push their grievances. Aren’t there any candidates who agree with their positions? The change they seek simply isn’t going to happen through Wall Street. It has to happen through the Federal government. Presidential or Congressional candidates might be a better option here.

Through my brief research on this, I also found out that Occupy Chicago has been going on for an entire week. I read the Tribune and Sun Times every day (not cover to cover, of course), and I haven’t heard or seen anything about this. It’s up to around sixty people hanging out in front of the Chicago Federal Reserve – who also can’t do anything about the Grievances they are protesting. Hell, they might as well go sit in Grant Park. According to their Twitter Feed, the police have told them no personal property on the sidewalk, so they are considering renting a U-Haul. It all sounds pretty awesome to me.

I suppose if people want to hang out in the cold protesting in front of the wrong organization for months and into the winter, that’s their prerogative. I just don’t see how they hope to accomplish anything. Additionally, I have some questions about this:

1. Where are they going to the bathroom? I’m going to assume it isn’t at a Starbucks, Macy’s, McDonald's, or any other big greedy corporation.

2. Where are they showering? Is it bad form to leave a protest to go home and clean up each day, or are you beholden to stay there? I really have no idea.

3. How are they eating? Again, I’m going to assume they aren’t frequenting the big greedy corporations like Jimmy John’s, Potbelly, McDonald’s, and the like. It seems you can donate to the cause, so maybe people have, so they are buying food with that money. But from where? Not the big greedy grocery stores, right?

4. I suppose it’s safe to assume that none of them have jobs? From the articles I’ve read, the majority of the protestors sound to be either college students (who are skipping class?) or recent college graduates who can’t find work. I’m sure hanging out in Zuccotti Park or in front of the Chicago Federal Reserve is a great way to find a job.

5. Why didn’t they do this starting in May to ensure warmer weather for the “long haul”? It gets freezing cold in Chicago and New York, so to the extent that anyone is still doing this in December, they are not going to have fun.

I think there is something to be said for the nostalgia of the sit-ins and protests of the 1960s and 1970s, but all of this seems incredibly poorly organized and a little sad. Maybe it will get there; maybe it won’t. It seems to me that the larger the crowd gets, the more difficult it will be to control and to come up with a unified theory or plan, which is what they really need. The tea party sprang out of a unified group of people with similar goals; the same could happen here, if they play their cards right. However, my bet is that within a month they will no longer be sitting in Zuccotti Park or in front of the Chicago Federal Reserve or anywhere else in the country they are currently gathering in any large numbers. They could stand around and picket and protest forever, but is it really going to do any good?

Shopping Is No Longer Fun Due To Constant Harassment

2011-09-27T17:08:00.000-05:00

I really don’t enjoy shopping for clothing at brick and mortar stores anymore. I love the end result of shopping – new clothes and shoes in my closet – but I don’t like the process of getting them into my closet. I feel like shopping used to be fun, but it no longer is for me much of the time. It is an annoyance, in large part due to the sales clerks.

Take a store like Macy’s on State Street. First you have to make your way through the perfume and cosmetics area, where clerks are standing around shoving perfume samples at you and trying to spray you with perfume. (And that’s after you bypass the environmentalists or other charitable panhandlers standing outside the doors who want money.) Then, once you get up to level 3, there is a constant barrage of salespeople trying to help you and start a fitting room for you.

The whole “starting a fitting room” deal is overrated. At times it is nice when you have an armload of clothing or are on a powershopping binge. But generally, if I’m holding one or two items of clothing, the pressure to “get a fitting room started” seems strange. Half the time I’m looking for something to go with the items in my hand, so I don’t want them to go away just yet. The clerks always look at me like a crazy person when I turn down the request, which I don’t understand. The few times I’ve done it at Macy’s, it’s turned into a wild goose chase to track down my clothing. I can’t find the clerk who started the fitting room for me and can’t find my clothing at all. Then I have to remember which of the six women hovering in the area took off with my clothing and in which direction she went. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s not. Who was it that helped me? I think she was wearing a red shirt. In which of the three fitting rooms in the general vicinity of where I was did she place my clothing? (Macy’s has fitting rooms everywhere.) Where is she? Inevitably, I end up thinking that I should’ve just held on to the clothing because by the time I track it down I could’ve been finished trying it on.

What’s worse, though, is that there is no sign of communication between the clerks of who they have already approached. It becomes more and more annoying to me when clerk after clerk approaches me within a five minute span asking me if I need help or need a fitting room started. For God’s sakes, I’m holding one shirt, wandered into your area 30 seconds ago, and am intently looking through a rack of clothes. Do I look like I need help? I’m doing fine! I often want to wear a bright red sticker (or something) that says “If I need your help, I will find you” or “I already turned down help.” I understand that some people want help, but usually I don’t. Generally, I just want to shop and be left alone, and to not have to talk to a clerk. The last thing I want to do is be rude to anyone, but at times it almost borders on harassment due to the number of clerks that approach asking the same questions. Of course, when I actually need help, there is usually no one around to help me.

Likewise, when I am ready to pay, there is no clerk to be found at any register in the general area. Ever. It’s like there is a beacon they are all drawn to, far away from whatever department I am in, the second I decide I am ready to pay and get the hell out of there. I’ve wandered across the entire floor at that Macy’s just trying to pay before. (And it is a huge, huge Macy’s.)

Smaller boutiques and stores have the same issues (minus the register problem, usually), but add to that the staredown you get from three clerks hovering around the register when you are the only person in the store. It’s so uncomfortable. And if you pull something out of the rack to look at it, the next thing you know one of them magically appears next to you with some other item of clothing cooing “This would look great with that!” Hell, lady, I haven’t even figured out if I like it yet! Or “Let me show you our new arrivals!” Hell lady, I haven’t been in this store in a month, so I’d like to see the old arrivals also, and I think I can make it to the other side of the store on my own without your guidance. These are also the clerks that are constantly bringing you items of clothing you aren’t interested in. Look, sometimes I do want help and then I’m happy to have them bring me clothing. When I’m in that kind of mood, I make it clear. In fact, I say “Bring anything. I’ll try anything.” Other times, I’m either not in the mood for it or in a hurry and don’t need blouses and sweaters shoved over the top of the fitting room door at me.

The solution to some of these issues is to go to TJ Maxx, Marshall’s, Filene’s, Nordstrom Rack or those types of stores, where there are no clerks wandering around. But there you are digging through racks of clothing, and I definitely have to be in the right mood to do that nowadays.

I buy a lot online now, but unfortunately trying on clothing can be a necessity. Many people buy stuff online in different sizes and ship back the one that doesn’t fit, but that seems like even more of a hassle to me, and some stores make you pay return shipping so you end up paying more. (I’m looking at you Neiman Marcus.) When I find a brand of clothing that fits me consistently, I go back to it because then I can solely buy online and 90% of the time everything fits. But that can lead to a rut…which leads to the necessity of braving the brick and mortar stores from time to time...who often don't even have the item in stock at the store...and offter to order it online for you. Which defeats the entire purpose of going to the store and putting up with the harassment.

Random Thoughts on September 23

2011-09-23T22:09:00.000-05:00

1. I'm going out with one of my old friends tomorrow night, and it's crazy how much I am looking forward to seeing her. She and I hung out constantly when I was in law school, and then we had a falling out for reasons I don't really remember and am still confused about, and because of that we lost touch. We hadn't talked in years (I think at least five years, maybe six), and then I ran into her on the street recently. What are the odds of that in a city the size of Chicago? Anyway, we were both like "What the hell happened? Let's go out!" Isn't it weird how that can happen? So, we are reconnecting and going out tomorrow night and I couldn't be more excited. I've missed her so much.

2. My secretary has vastly improved. This could all turn out well, although it is making me realize I should've talked to her way sooner. Score -1 for me in that department. I hate managing people and am not good at it.

3. The Chicago Tribune informed me today that despite the housing market and the serious drop in property values, I should expect a bigger property tax bill when they come in October because the city needs more money. Awesome.

4. I constantly get requests from my undergrad school to come and talk to the female engineers about what I do, so I'm finally going to do it in October. This is also exciting, and I think it will be fun, because even though I am bitter sometimes, I do like what I do, and am very thankful to end up where I am. I haven't forgotten that the reason I became a patent attorney was because of an alum who had become a patent attorney who came and talked to all of us at a Society of Women Engineers event during my freshman year there, nearly twenty years ago. Maybe I'll have the same impact on another girl. Also, maybe I can find out who that woman was, because I would love to send her a note and tell her how much of an impact her talk had on me. She was maybe in her thirties then, so she is probably still practicing somewhere. SWE must have records on their speakers, even going back that far, right? I'm going to investigate when I go out there.

5. I finally caught up to Game of Thrones on my DVR and OH MY GOD I love this show! I'm now reading the books and am partway through the second book. It's been awhile since I've loved a show this much.

6. The season finale of True Blood was so awful and corny. I hope Tara is dead, dead, dead, but I have a feeling they will bring her back to life somehow next season. Maybe they should've just followed the books, because although this season started out well, it devolved into total soap opera Lifetime movie corniness, in my opinion.

And Introducing...The Final Bathroom

2011-09-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

All right, here is the basement bathroom! I think this one is actually my favorite, because I am such a slave to slate.

Doesn't it look awesome? I love how the slate turned out. Slate can be kind of a crapshoot since it is stone, and every piece looks different, but the coloring on these is fabulous -- not too yellow. And they did a great job laying the tile. The walls are painted Winterwood by Benjamin Moore, which goes absolutely perfectly with the tile. I could not have picked a better paint color, and am so impressed with myself. (Ha ha.) The toilet is the same as the other two bathrooms, the dual flush Toto. All fixtures are chrome in this one.

Tearing out and redoing the floor of the shower cost the most, but it was worth it. (The hideousness of the previous shower floor cannot be described.) The slate is all from the same family of tiles, but different sizes on the floor, shower walls, and shower base.

Check out my sweet glass sink and big old faucet set off center. (Both semi-big splurges, but I think they work really well in here.) The vanity is a dark cherry that matches the frame of the mirror, and the countertop is quartz, the same as in my master bathroom.

And the lights! I also put a can light in over the shower, which I didn't specifically photograph because...it's a can light. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. You can actually see it in the first photograph above. Also, and this was a big deal, I now have a fan in this bathroom. Although the original builder laid out all the ductwork for a fan, there was no fan. I was pleased to know that the ductwork was already there, so it made it much easier for my contractor, but how bizarre to set it all up and then not take the final step of installing the fan.

Anyway, the big bathroom remodel of 2011 is now happily completed. The rest of my house is coming together also, and I'll post pictures once I get stuff semi-finalized. Tomorrow morning I get my two chairs and ottoman from Ethan Allen, as well as my new television set for the basement from Best Buy delivered. So, now all I am waiting on are my couch and chair pillows from Ethan Allen and my couch from Pottery Barn for the basement. Oh, and I still need new rugs for the main floor. It'll get there.....

The America Invents Act Isn't So Great for Inventors

2011-09-23T21:25:00.000-05:00

Since I'm a patent attorney, I guess I'm obligated to write about the massive change that occurred in our patent system last Friday, when President Obama signed into law the America Invents Act. Maybe you heard about it; maybe you didn't. To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, and only time will tell how it truly affects inventors and patents going forward. All I know is that the folks in Congress don't seem to know anything about how the patent system works or what it is about. They seem to believe that if the big companies are in favor of something that it must be the right way to go. He who has the most money can speak the loudest, right?

My initial thought is that the America Invents Act doesn't do a whole lot for the guy inventing something out of his garage. The guy who has little money to pay patent prosecution attorneys to help him get a patent issued, or to pay patent litigation attorneys, assuming he was able to pay the $5,000-15,000 (or higher) to get a patent issued, and assuming someone else is using his invention.

This push for patent reform arose somewhat out of patent infringement lawsuits by so-called "patent trolls" and has been a long time debated in the patent community. Non-practicing entity is the nicer word for "patent troll." These are patent owners (many times the inventor) who don't practice the invention, but file lawsuits against companies they assert are practicing the invention. The Constitution doesn't require that the patent owner actually use or practice the invention. Patent rights create the right to exclude others from using the invention, so whether or not the patent owner is doing anything with the patent, they have the right to sue others for using the invention.

Big companies have been overwhelmed with lawsuits from NPEs in recent years, and got pissed off about it. To them (even though many of them also sue on patents they aren't practicing), it wasn't right that they should be sued for practicing an invention that the patent owner wasn't even practicing. The whole NPE thing has become a business. Right or wrong, I don't know. But it is what it is, and as I said, the owner isn't required to use the patent, so all of this is above board.

There are also individual inventors who get caught up in this mix. What if you come up with some great invention relating to cell phones or televisions, and you can't get any of the major manufacturers of those projects to license your invention? (Big companies have a huge upper hand over the little guy who approaches them with an idea. They know most of them cannot afford the cost of litigation.) Maybe you scrape together the fees for a good patent attorney to help you get your patent issued, but then what do you do? Do you start a new cell phone or television company? Where do you get the money for that? There are a lot of barriers to entry for the individual inventor, specifically in some of the high technology fields, so yes, the inventor sometimes teams up with investors to enforce his patent because litigation against a big company is far from cheap. (Could you afford around $2 million in legal and expert fees to enforce your patent? Is it any surprise that an individual inventor might need a little financial backing to go up against a big company who can afford the legal fees?) I don't see a problem with that. The big companies have a huge problem with that -- hence, the America Invents Act. Surprisingly enough, though, there are some smart people out there who do come up with good inventions that are later practiced by large companies, even though they don't want to admit it.

To be fair, it could have been much worse. Much of the goal of this legislation is to hinder NPEs from getting and enforcing their patents, at least in my opinion. The biggest change -- and in my opinion an unconstitutional change -- is fundamentally changing our patent system from a first to invent system to a first to file system. Patents are all about a "race to the patent office." Now, the first person to file wins. It used to be that an inventor could "swear back" behind a filing date on a patent, to show that they came up with the invention first. No more. First to file wins the day. While this brings us in line with most of the rest of the world, who have first to file systems, it is not what the founders intended, and indeed, the Constitution talks about "inventions" not "filings." Who has the resources or even realization to file a patent application quickly? Big corporations, not a guy inventing stuff out of his garage.

Another big provision affecting individual inventors who want to enforce their patents deals with joinder. Many times, patent owners will sue a number of entities who are infringing the same patent all in the same lawsuit. (For example, if you have a patent relating to cell phones, you sue Motorola, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, etc. all in the same lawsuit.) That is no longer allowed. The patent owner has to file against each defendant separately, which means paying the $350 filing fee for each defendant. It may not seem like much, but it can add up when a number of companies are infringing a patent. This may also cause problems when it comes to construing the claims of the patent (in English, determining what the words of the patent mean, which always turns into a catfight) when there are multiple lawsuits and judges across the country all doing this at the same time, and ultimately different defendants pushing different claim constructions.

From the patent owner perspective, ultimately you deal with each defendant separately with regards to discovery and infringement, but this requirements adds a lot of administrative details that have to now be separately dealt with for each lawsuit -- i.e. setting the case schedule and agreeing to a protective order. Ultimately, I think this provision may provide results that the big companies weren't intending, in that it will end up costing them more money to litigate. For example, many times defendants will team up and hire a technical expert to deal with invalidity issues, or to file a summary judgment motion on invalidity or inequitable conduct defenses. Many defendants "free ride" the more ambitious defendants. That will no longer be possible. They will also lose their "joint defense privilege" should they decide to talk about things with defendants in other lawsuits. I'll say this: in seven years, I've never had a defendant request to be separated from the others for trial or any other reason in litigation, and to be fair, if they had, they probably would have won because under the rules as they were, the joinder probably wasn't kosher. But no one ever complained until recently. So now we have a specific rule eliminating joinder.

There are other new provisions dealing with the right to basically challenge a patent within nine months of it being issued (essentially telling the Patent Office that they are idiots right out of the gate), and other things that will cost an individual inventor more money to get their patent issued, that I don't feel like getting into right now.

But overall....I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that this is not going to bode well for individual inventors who aren't associated with a big company. It makes me sad. This is not what our country is about.

Celebrate: National Unmarried and Single Americans Week

2011-09-21T17:56:00.000-05:00

Apparently it’s National Unmarried and Single Americans Week. It’s also National Child Passenger Safety Week. Weird, huh? Who comes up with these celebratory weeks? Every week is something more and more random. Anyway, I suppose I should be celebrating because I’m both unmarried and single! Double the celebration, right? Time to raise the roof and rub it in to my married and dating friends’ faces. Boo Ya!

I’m always bitching about how you are constantly overcharged when you are “uncoupled.” For example, a couple weeks ago I skipped my neighborhood’s block party because the cost was: $15 for singles, $20 for couples, and $30 for families. Let’s do the math. A couple gets to go for $10 apiece, a family of three for $10 apiece, a family of four for $7.50 apiece, a family of five for $6 apiece…etc. Now, this was a block party with a big old red, blue, and yellow moonwalk puffy thing for the kids, food, and other block party stuff. Would I as a single person eat $15 worth of food? (No. Unless it was pizza.) Do I get to play on the moonwalk? (I doubt it.) Do I want my face painted? (No.) Does the $15 include booze? (No.) The people who get the most out of these block parties are the families and people with kids. There are plenty of “kid” activities. So why do they get off so cheap and I have to carry the load? Eh, anyway, I didn’t go. I wasn’t all torn up about it, and really didn’t want to go anyway, but when I saw the usual “singles get screwed” pricing, that solidified my decision.

Anyway, I came across a couple of articles regarding National Unmarried and Single Americans week – one that was worth quoting here, and the other that left me scratching my head. The first is from the New York Times blog, and discusses more of the biases against the singles of the world – one I hadn’t even thought about regarding the FMLA:

Bella DePaulo, a visiting professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has a term for discrimination against single people, which she calls one of the last accepted prejudices. It is the title of her new book, “Singlism: What It Is, Why It Matters and How to Stop It.”

As an example, Dr. DePaulo cites the Family and Medical Leave Act. Because she is single and has no children, nobody in her life can take time off under the law to care for her if she becomes ill. Nor does it require that she be given time off to care for a sibling, nephew or close friend.

This is disturbing. What if something happens to me? What if something happens to one of my siblings? My siblings and nieces and nephews ARE my family. I think they need to change the name of the FMLA to the Spouses and Children Medical Leave Act, because that is who it is for. I’ll just add this one to the list of ways I'm discrimianted against, along with my social security that will go to waste if I die before I’m old enough to receive it. However, the bonus to this article is that it also tells us how we are better than the marrieds, which is a rare and wonderful discussion:

[S]ingle people often contribute more to the community — because once people marry, they tend to put their energy and focus into their partners and their own families at the expense of friendships, community ties and extended families.

“It’s the unmarried, with or without kids, who are more likely to take care of other people,” Dr. Gerstel said. “It’s not having children that isolates people. It’s marriage.”

The unmarried also tend to be more connected with siblings, nieces and nephews. And while married people have high rates of volunteerism when it comes to taking part in their children’s activities, unmarried people often are more connected to the community as a whole. About 1 in 5 unmarried people take part in volunteer work like teaching, coaching other people’s children, raising money for charities and distributing or serving food.

Unmarried people are more likely to visit with neighbors. And never-married women are more likely than married women to sign petitions and go to political gatherings, according to Dr. Gerstel.

Hurray for us! But then there is this article from the Huffington Post, which is frankly…bizarre. It’s by Page Gardner, who is the founder of Women’s Voices, Women Vote (which I’ve never heard of until today.) While it starts out with some interesting statistics on the unmarried, it rapidly devolves into the usual liberal rhetoric, culminating with this:

Finally, many state governments have failed to encourage or make it easy for unmarried women to participate in our democracy. Right now close to 40 percent of unmarried women are not registered to vote and even though unmarried women make up 25 percent of the voting- eligible population, they only make up 23 percent of the electorate. Why the gap? Some of it is because these women think politics have no relevance to their lives, but too many unmarried women also encounter structural obstacles - they don't know if they are qualified to register, don't know where or how to register, or when the deadlines are -that keep them from registering.

I don’t understand this. It is a structural obstacle that an unmarried woman doesn’t know if she is qualified to register? It is a structural obstacle if an unmarried woman doesn’t know where or how to register or when the deadlines are? Are unmarried women that much dumber than the rest of the population? In the weeks leading up to election time, I regularly see people sitting at tables outside the trains and the Targets and the Dominick’s asking people if they want to register to vote. I also got a form in the mail when I moved, telling me to register to vote. I also got asked when I renewed my driver’s license. I also have access to this really awesome invention called Google. Also, around election time MTV Rock the Vote is all over the place, along with other commercials. I also hear commercials on the radio about registering to vote. In fact, I don’t know how it could be easier to register to vote or find out if you are eligible unless someone came to your house and did it for you, and who is going to pay for that?

Here’s another one:

But instead of making it easier, many states are imposing new voter identification requirements that make the process unfairly complicated. The most common new requirement, that citizens obtain and display an unexpired government-issued photo identification before being allowed to vote, was advanced in 35 states in 2011 and passed in 11 others.

Those bastards. You need a government issued photo identification to get on a plane in this country, to drive a car, buy liquor, buy cigarettes, sometimes to pay by credit card, to cash a check, and countless other things, but I can see why it is such a structural obstacle to require someone to have some form of photo identification to vote.

To be honest, if someone can’t figure out how to register to vote, I’m not sure they should be voting at all.

Funding of the American Jobs Act

2011-09-12T17:37:00.000-05:00

Well, who didn't see this coming?

President Obama would fund his $447 billion plan to create jobs largely by raising taxes on wealthier families, White House aides said Monday after the president again called on Congress to support the package.

During a Rose Garden appearance, Obama pledged to send Congress the American Jobs Act on Monday evening when the legislative body resumes its session. Aides revealed for the first time that the plan will include limits on itemized deductions for individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year and families that earn more than $250,000.

Eliminating those deductions will bring in an additional $400 billion in revenue, said Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Hmm...so, apparently it isn't all paid for, is it? Let me look into my crystal ball: the Republicans will oppose this because they want to cut spending rather than increase taxes, and President Obama will use that refusal as a major theme for his reelection campaign, and blame the state of the economy on the Republicans in Congress. Sound about right? I just want to know why we can't cut spending? You don't go to your boss and ask for a raise when you get into debt -- you cut your spending and live on ramen noodles and shop at Goodwill. Why is the government so different?

The Obligatory September 11 Post

2011-09-10T22:17:00.000-05:00

I'm posting it a little early, since tomorrow I will be busy watching football.

Yet I remember 9/11/01 as if it were yesterday. Amazing, that.

I was in my first year of law school, only a few weeks into the semester, and still new to Chicago. I was living in Old Town, in a one bedroom highrise on LaSalle, just north of Division. On that day, I had Contracts at 9 a.m. It was an attendance based class, so you had to show up. While I was getting read for class every morning, I watched the Today show. (I no longer watch Today. It is out of control with the crazy.) That day was no different. My only television was in my living room, so as I was going in and out of the bathroom and my bedroom, I would stop and watch the television for a few seconds, and it was loud enough that I could kind of hear it.

When the first plane struck the tower, from what I can remember, there was confusion. When I saw what they were showing on the television, at first I thought they were showing some retrospect of when Bin Laden put the bomb there during the Clinton administration. I didn't know why they would do that, but that was my first thought. And then they were saying that a plane had crashed into the Twin Towers. It was all really surreal, and I stopped and thought, is this happening? Even the newscasters were confused. What do I do?

I left my apartment, got on the 156 bus, and went to class. This was before the second plane hit, and before anyone knew how serious this was or what was going on. All I sort of knew was that I didn't want to miss my class. And again, it was surreal at that point. I saw it on the news, but it seemed odd to say out loud. "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center." For all we knew it was an accident. I found out how odd it sounded to say outloud when I saw one of my classmates (now my good friend N) on the bus, and told her what I saw on television. (She hadn't watched TV or listened to the news that morning, so she was in the dark.) She said "What are you talking about?" And no one else on the bus knew what I was talking about either, so I almost felt like I dreamed it.

But when we got to school and N and I walked into Contracts class, and in large letters on the blackboard was "Class is Cancelled for the Day. Go Home." and all of the televisions in the class were tuned on to CNN. A number of students were sitting in their seats, pounding away at their laptops, somewhat listening to the news. By then the second plane had hit, and maybe even the Pentagon plane as well, I don't remember. I walked into the classroom and didn't really know what to do. Everyone was looking at each other, confused, shocked, stunned. I sat down in my seat and watched the news for a few minutes. And it hit me.

I'm only a few blocks away from the Sears Tower. I have to get out of here. What if the Sears Tower is next? You have to remember, at that point in time, all we knew was that planes were hitting everywhere, and if anywhere might be a target, it would be the Sears Tower. It was chaos and confusion.

So, I left, as did the many thousands of people in the Loop. I went to the bus stop for about twenty minutes, which was packed with people, and bus after bus went by, full. So, I thought I would try the train, to get somewhere near where I lived. That, too, was packed. Absurdly packed, even worse than after a Cubs game. Then I decided to walk. It's not that far, but it's far enough. Luckily I had on comfortable shoes and hadn't chosen to carry my laptop to class. I'd walked home from school before, but not with a crowd like this. The sidewalks were packed with people like me who had given up on public transportation or taxis, and were simply walking home to River North, Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and beyond. Everyone was pouring out of the Loop, in fear that we might be next.

I made it home, turned on CNN, and didn't turn it off for two days. We didn't have class the next day, and I couldn't leave my television. Horrifying, all of it. I lost one of my coworkers from my consulting days, who was working in the WTC that morning, and was one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. I'd just visited him and his girlfriend in New York not long before that. He was one of the most ambitious, intelligent people I've ever met. He would've gone far. We lost a shining star in him, and probably a lot of others I don't personally know. I tried to call him that morning, but couldn't get through. And I knew. I just knew.

Never forget.

Another Rant About Heels

2011-09-10T21:04:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's not "another." I'm not sure if I've bitched about this before or not, but it really gets my goat.

I truly don't understand why all of the premier designers don't release at least a few pairs of cute shoes (equivalent to their super high heeled shoes) each season with a 2-3" heel height, preferably with a fatter heel. (I always get stuck in the tar between the sidewalk squares in my Louboutins. Such. A. Pain.) I'd love to buy the Christian Louboutin Mistica, but it's sold out everywhere. (Should that be a clue? People want reasonable height, thicker heel, cute shoes! I have to get on the wait list.) It has a shorter, fatter heel, and is just a standard black heel. Everyone -- from Jimmy Choo, to Gucci, to Prada, to Louboutin, to everyone else always releases all of these amazing shoes that are super cool...but they have about a 4" heel. That's great and all, unless you want to wear them to work all day. And I'm too old to do 4" heels. I just can't do it anymore. Yes, I said it. I wish I could be Victoria Beckman and pull it off, but I don't want to bother with it.

So, here I am yet again, looking for a solid black heel for fall. I've worn the hell out of my patent Tory Burch heels that I bought last fall, and it's time for a new pair. So, through my fuming and browsing of all the 4" heels, I found these:

They are Prada. I ordered them online and took a chance with the 38.5. I usually wear an 8 in "normal" shoes, but in the higher designer brands I usually take an 8.5, so since I've never bought any Prada shoes before, I figured I'd go with the bigger. They fit perfect, and they are really cute. Plus, this is a shoe I can wear all day long, for 12, 15, 18, whatever hours. See that cute little low, thick heel? Yes! Prada has some other lower heeled shoes, but you know...they are never as fancy or quite as cute as the super high heeled ones. And there isn't much in the 2-3" range.

But, the Prada Buckle Pump should work for me. It is 1.75". I wish it was about 2.25" or 2.5", but oh well. The 2-3" range is very difficult. The designers seem to think that you either want low (below 2") or super high (4" and up). How about medium high?

Things I Learned During My Remodel Project

2011-09-10T19:55:00.001-05:00

I've never done any sort of remodeling before this, since I always rented until I bought this place. I can't say that it's been terribly stressful or inconvenient, but it has been enlightening. There are things I wish I would've thought through more or done differently, though. So, here are some things I learned:

1. When you are doing a bathroom and want to put your toilet paper roll holder on the side of the vanity, measure to make sure you are going to have the clearance for it. This did not even occur to me. My old vanity had an inset toilet paper holder roll, which I could've gotten...except I wanted the vanity with the drawers on one side. This means you can't have the inset. Which means the two toilet paper roll holders I bought for the sides of my upstairs bathrooms vanities are useless to me. I had to buy the standing ones to put in the corner, which isn't a big deal, and I think I like having the drawers better than the toilet paper holder, but still, wasn't something that even occurred to me.

2. If you have moldings around your stairs, and you plan to recarpet them, carpet before you paint the moldings. I learned this one today. The pad and the way I wanted them to lay the carpet on the basement stairs differed from what was there before, and left a gap in places of brown wood along the sides. My moldings are white. This will need to be touched up.

3. You will always run into some problem that will cost you more money. For me, it was only one. My master bathroom bathtub was built over a joist. The previous bathtub apparently had a false bottom in it to lift it up to deal with the joist. We didn't realize this until the old tub was torn out and they went to put the new tub in, and had to build it up about two inches. It wasn't a big deal, but cost me an extra day of work. The bonus, though, is that my tub in there almost looks like a big, deep soaker tub when it is not.

4. The guys who paint and the guys who install carpet do not speak English. Usually they will have one guy (the "boss") who speaks decent English. This is really frustrating at times, because you tell them something and they have no idea what you are saying. This is also how I ended up with the wrong color wall in the basement. I had no such problems with the electrician, plumber, or tiler. Although, I guess it probably depends who you hire.

5. It costs a lot more to install stone tile, because not only do they have to lay it out and pattern it out (because each stone is different), but they have to seal it. You also have to seal it once a year.

6. Test paint colors on more than one wall, because the light hits differently everywhere. My paint looked dark enough on one wall, but on another wall it looks nearly white. I should've tested it on that wall. Also take into account how light the paint you are comparing it against is. My walls were stark, stark white, so my light gray looked very dark compared to it. However, now that the light gray is up, it is very pale. Yet, when I look in the hall closet and compare it (yes, I skimped and did not paint the inside of that closet), it looks dark compared to what was there. I didn't realize how truly white my walls were. Anything and everything would've looked dark against that shade.

7. I should've shopped around more for prices on carpet. I am just too tired of it all at this point and wanted it installed as soon as possible.

All in all, I'm happy with how it went, even though it has gone on forever. The carpet was installed today and it looks great. I'm particularly happy with my upstairs bedrooms choice. (I went with berber upstairs and in the basement. I like berber.) My basement bathroom is supposed to be done on Monday. (All that is left is to put in the sink, faucet, and shower head/faucet.) It looks AMAZING! The slate looks so good. It might be my favorite. I'll post pictures once it's done, and I'll post pictures once I get my furniture in. I'm getting my bedroom set, entertainment unit and desk unit for the basement on Thursday from Pottery Barn. I'm still waiting for my Ethan Allen chairs and couch for the main floor, and waiting for my Pottery Barn couch for the basement. I also just ordered a chaise from Crate and Barrel for the basement, and a media stand thingamajig for my bedroom, which is all in stock, and should be here over the next two weeks. Now, on to rugs. The problem with rugs is that online it's hard to judge the color, and I really care about the color. I'm going to hit a showroom this week or next weekend, because I need my rugs for the main floor, which is all hardwood.

Also, I'm likely going to spend most of next Saturday on my hands and knees cleaning the wood floor on my main floor. I've let it go due to the dust from the construction, and it looks terrible. I could hire someone, but I think I'll just do it myself.

The Somewhat Resolution of the Secretary Debacle

2011-09-10T19:25:00.000-05:00

Well, it was somewhat anti-climatic, I'll forewarn you now.

We were supposed to have the discussion in the late afternoon the Friday before Labor Day. Unfortunately, my secretary screwed up a court filing for me and spent three hours going back and forth with the court out in the Northern District of California to fix the problem, so that took us up until five o'clock, and we all decided to do it on Tuesday morning. Really, could the timing have been better for another screw up? The thing she screwed up was something she should have come to me and checked with me about, but she didn't. I forgot that in the N.D. Cal. when you file a motion you not only select the hearing date, but you select the due date for the other side to respond, then the software calculates the reply date. So, we had noticed up the motion to be heard toward the end of October, and rather than checking with me as she was filing (for once I wasn't standing over her shoulder watching the process - my mistake), she calculated fourteen days from the hearing date, rather than the service date. Which. Makes. No. Sense. Yes, the court will hear us argue, then two weeks later the other side will submit their response brief. Ugh. There was also some other nonsense that went on that morning that I don't feel like getting into.

So, at the end of the day on Friday, she came into my office and shut the door. She was still very confused about why I had been "dragged into" this discussion about her raise. I explained to her that if she is having a review, I am the person to ask how she is doing, since she works for me. It's hard for me to even relay how simply lacking in common sense she is. She asked for a raise when she got a new attorney assigned to her, which isn't unfathomable. Since we don't do that in the middle of the year, she was told that she'd have a review in six months to see how she was doing, and if she was doing fine, she might buck the system and get a raise in September rather than in December. She and I talked for a good half hour, and I tried to calm her down about everything, and simply told her that there were some areas I wanted to see improvement that we were going to discuss on Tuesday. She took it well (she and I get along fine), and asked me if she was going to be fired. I assured her that she was not (yet), and that I only wanted to see her succeed and that was what this was all about, and I was planning on formally talking to her anyway about some of these issues.

Tuesday morning the office manager, another associate she works for, and I gathered with her in a conference room. We had a list of twelve areas for improvement. (It was, to be fair, a little long. But they were all things that needed to be addressed.) We walked through each of them, gave her examples, and she told us her position on some things. I think I've mentioned that she had something really awful happen in her personal life about two and a half years ago, which is still somewhat ongoing, (it's nothing to do with her health or anything like that), and it is something that we all have great sympathy for her. It's something you never imagine could happen to someone you know. At any rate, we have cut her a lot of slack because of this with regards to her work, and in part, this is why some of these issues with her haven't been formally brought up. She was on the list of people to be laid off right around the time that this happened, but due to it happening, we chose not to lay her off. (She doesn't know this.) She also admitted that she basically slacked off for two years both in dealing with that and trying to finish up her degree.

All in all, it was a good conversation. We were all very forthright. She also relayed to us some of the issues she has with us, which was also good. Toward the end she got a little more defensive, but who can blame her? I mean, we basically criticized her for about an hour, which is not comfortable at all. She did aggressively disagree with me that she spends too much time on personal calls, at which point I said "I can hear you from my office!" But, I made my point. She also -- to my chagrin -- relied still a little too much on this personal issue, which is still ongoing and could be ongoing for years. It's not that I don't have huge sympathy for her because I do. The problem is that I deserve to have a secretary who at least most of the time can commit herself to the job. We all have shitty days, and that's fine. I get that. But at some point the blame on this has to stop. It's very difficult because I do not want to be bitchy about it because I can't imagine what she's gone through, but at the same time, she has to do her job to a semi-acceptable level, and that hasn't been happening. And to be fair, in the past two weeks since she found out that I was reviewing her, her performance has improved tremendously. She may be improving in the common sense department.

So, we left it at we'll see where she is in a few months. Already I'm seeing improvements, so she is making an effort and that means a lot to me. She's fine at general administrative stuff, though. It's when any sort of problem solving or logical thinking is involved that she runs into problems. Or if you ask her to do something she hasn't done before, even if it is relatively simple in my mind (like go to Judge X's web site and see when he holds motion calls), that she gets very confused. I'm just not sure this is the right job for her, but we'll see.

Anyway, anticlimatic. There were no blow ups, no tears, and it all went professionally well. Which is good. We'll see how she does. It has been incredibly uncomfortable since the meeting, though. She's acting very formal around me, which is fine, I guess, but it's weird.

Where is the American Jobs Act?

2011-09-09T10:50:00.000-05:00

Last night President Obama called upon Congress to "pass the American Jobs Act." So, I went online this morning to read the "American Jobs Act."

Here's the problem: There is no bill to read. There is nothing for Congress to pass, at least that I can find. There are a bunch of ideas, yes, but Congress can't pass a bunch of ideas. Congress needs a bill. The President also talked about how the American Jobs Act is paid for already. No it isn't. He is relying on Congress to come up with the $400 billion or so he needs for this legislation. Given the happenings of the past six months, do you think they are capable of doing that?

What we got from the President is more words and more platitudes -- nothing we haven't already heard. Why not give the speech after the bill is ready so we can all read it? And why is the President writing legislation anyway? Isn't that Congress' job? Does our Constitution mean anything anymore? Apparently not.

Speaking of which, what does Congress have the right to do?

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

That "provide for...the general Welfare" clause sure has gotten a lot of action, hasn't it? It's almost funny how far astray we've ended up.
And seriously -- President Obama is still using the Warren Buffet secretary story? I think he needs a new anecdote. I would like him next time to tell the nation how much Warren Buffet paid in taxes and how much his secretary paid, just to keep it all in perspective.

My Fantasy Football Team 2011

2011-09-03T00:06:00.001-05:00

Well, the draft did not go well for me. I don't really know why. So much pressure, and hassling if you try to take a minute to pick. My coworkers are jerks! I had eighth pick in a snake draft. I took some chances. I'm super weak at the wide receiver position, and semi week at running back. My league has weird scoring, though, so assuming Vick stays healthy I can rack up a ton a points with him. (Crazy scoring for rushing yards and rushing TDs from QBs.) Also, with the TE scoring I can get a lot with Gates, also assuming he stays healthy. We'll see. Here's my team:

QB: Michael Vick, Sam Bradford
RB: Ahmad Bradshaw (solid for me last year), Knoshown (?) Moreno (MacGhee may ruin this pick), Michael Bush
WR: Chad Ochocinco (with Brady, maybe), Hines Ward (probably a dumb pick), Mike Sims-Walker (with Bradford, maybe), Devin Hester (my lone Bear)
TE: Antonio Gates, Zach Miller
K: Mason Crosby, Olindo Mare (had to get him again because I like saying his name)
DEF: Eagles, Rams

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Gmail Math Test

2011-08-27T00:53:00.000-05:00

A long time ago, probably when I was in law school and drinking every night, I implemented on my gmail account the "test" which is there to prevent you from sending e-mails late at night when you are drunk. I'm a person who drunk e-mails, texts, all that. I like to communicate when I am drunk, so what can I say?

The Gmail test pops up when you try to send an e-mail late at night. It is straight math, and kicks in with five problems to solve in a certain amount of time after a certain point in the night. I think it's set at 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. The problems are adding and subtracting, usually. I put this in to prevent me from drunk e-mailing, which I'm prone to do. Now, I just blog. Ha.

I forgot that I had even set this, until tonight when I tried to send an e-mail to my mom and had to solve five math problems to do so. LOL. But the truth is, this little "test" has never prevented me from sending an e-mail. Being a person who has taken advanced multivariate calculus and two solid years of college advanced math to get my engineering degree...the Gmail math test is kind of ridiculous. It's either adding or subtracting. This is like second or third grade stuff. And you have an entire minute to do it. You can count on your fingers to figure it out. I have honestly been able to answer these problems when I was blacked out. (In the past, I promise.) And then I got utterly pissed off because this whole test was supposed to help my situation, but it didn't. If I can solve math when I don't even remember doing it, then you need a different test, right?

The Gmail test is simply not prevention for math people. I think they need to implement some other kind of test for drunks who are good at math, like...how about...jeez, this may be an impossible task because people who are good at math are generally good at everything. In my opinion. :)

My Secretary - D Day Next Friday

2011-08-26T22:09:00.000-05:00

I'm told she's been bothering the office manager about her raise. As I said, end of August is the end of her six months "formal evaluation" period, that she requested. She must believe she is going to get a raise. As the partner (way, way up the totem pole from me) who is in charge of this kind of thing told me, "At this point it isn't about a raise -- it's about whether she keeps her job." I honestly don't like that this is kind of up to me, but it is. I'm a partner, and I really can fire her if I want.

I'm unable to deal with it by Wednesday, due to various other responsibilities related to my job (you know, to make sure the firm is making money so we can pay people like her and that sort of nonsense), so we are doing the formal evaluation next Friday. Also, I'm worried it could go badly, and if it does, I will not be able to focus on things enough to get my work out and meet my Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday deadlines. So, I requested a Friday afternoon evaluation. It could be upsetting for many of us -- I really don't know. As I've said, I like her. I would like nothing more than for her to be able to do this job. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem capable of doing it, after five-six years. (I truly can't remember exactly when she started, but I think it's been six years.) Yet, despite informal criticism from me and the senior associate she works for, she's not getting it. The fact that she thinks she deserves a raise tells me she isn't getting it.

It will be the office manager, me, the senior associate she works for (who apparently turned in an evaluation that was basically identical to mine, which is a relief for me, since it makes clear that I'm not expecting too much or being overly hard on her), and her. The newer associate she works for is not included, because he's new. However, he also said many of the same things. I've let this go on for too long, although, to be fair, as I said, she was supposed to be laid off a couple years ago, but we didn't do it due to extreme personal issues, because despite that we are lawyers, we are all nice, compassionate people.

But, it's D-Day now. This is what happened today:

Last evening after she left (she leaves at 5), I sent her two emails with things to do.

The first requires a bit of background. We have a folder on the network that contains three Word docs with all the attorneys' information. One has bar admissions, so when other secretaries put together pro hac vice motions, they can just copy and paste it in, because you always have to include courts admitted. Another document has CM/ECF logins and passwords, which is what you need to file documents with the court online. Once you pro hac into a court, you have a login and password and don't have to reapply each time, so it is important to have these on file, since we regularly end up in the same jurisdictions. I have about fifteen of these. These are needed if something needs to be filed. The other document is everyone's Illinois bar admission number. Three documents in the folder, all very clearly named.

At around 5:30 last night, one of the secretaries called me, because we were filing a Complaint and she needed my CM/ECF password to file my appearance. She said "It isn't in the folder." So, I hunted it down and sent it on to her. I then immediately sent my secretary an e-mail and said "Please update my CM/ECF in the [] folder. It looks like it has never been updated." That's e-mail number one.

E-mail number two dealt with a new case we just took over from some other attorneys. As such, we've gotten files from them, our local counsel (who has been on the case for awhile), and our client. I'm talking thousands of documents. So, me and the paralegal have been trying to get it all organized so we can see what we have, and have split it all out into the relevant discovery folders. However, the naming conventions are all over the place, so it's a mess. In e-mail number two, I asked her to go through the requests for admission, interrogatories (and responses), and requests for documents (and responses) and rename them with dates so they are all consistent so I can see what is there. Easy enough.

At around 10 a.m., she came into my office with the printout of the "bar admissions" Word document from the folder. "I don't know what you're talking about." Let me be clear -- there are three documents in this folder. One is named "CM-ECF" or something like that. It couldn't be more obvious. I informed her she was looking at the wrong document. She said "Oh, I have that information in your [] folder." I said "Great, just copy and paste it into that document then, so it's there, so the other secretaries can file appearances for me if need be." We then briefly discussed e-mail number two, and she seemed like she had a grip on what I wanted her to do. However, she said "Well, who named them all like that, because I'll go talk to them and set them straight." I've told her we took this case over from other attorneys about ten times in the past week. And frankly, I usually name the discovery files created internally because I'm creating them, so if she wants to give me a talking to, I'm all ears. I explained -- again -- that we had a glut of files from various sources and that was why I needed this done, because it's a PITA for me to try to figure out what are duplicates and what we are missing. I figured the CM/ECF deal would be about a two minute task.

Ha.

At 12:30 p.m., one of the other secretaries, X, sent me an e-mail with a pdf document and asked me if the naming convention she had gone with was what I wanted. This was e-mail number two's task, which I had assigned to my secretary. I called this other secretary and asked her why she was working on this. She said that my secretary told her she was busy, and needed help. Now, that might normally be a fair excuse, except that today was my firm's golf outing (which I couldn't go to because I had a client meeting and really didn't want to go anyway, so that worked out well for me), so the other two attorneys my secretary works for were out golfing. I thought, well, maybe one of them gave her something to do yesterday or the day before, and she's working on it. But then, odd that she wouldn't mention that to me in the morning when we talked about the email number two task. I mean, wouldn't that be a prime time to say "Gee, I've got this other thing to do for Mike or Steve, so how fast do you need this done?" Right? So, I printed out a random document on the printer behind her, so I could see what she was working on.

As I walked behind her to pick up my bullshit printout, she said "I just finished updating your CM/ECF" and "We are almost done with the naming. X is helping."

I said "Okay," but then I had to walk away. Fast. I was about to explode. This is par for the course these days. And she thinks she deserves a raise?

It took two and a half hours to copy and paste what she said she had (which I know she has because I've seen the printout and used it last night to pass on my info to the other secretary)? What? And she can't figure out that this is a lower priority than renaming the files? Honestly, do I have to spell it all out? Shouldn't a secretary with six (I can't remember) years of litigation experience be able to figure this out? I swear, if every detail isn't spelled out, craziness ensues.

And...I honestly wanted to see how she would name the files and how she would do. That's why I gave her the task. Instead, she passed it on to another secretary. X had nothing to do anyway, since all the attorneys she worked for were out golfing, but that's not the point. The point is that I gave my secretary something to do, and she had nothing else to do today, and she passed the buck. Again. She does this all the time. I think she did something related to this task, but who knows?

And she spent a hell of a lot of time -- as she does on most days -- talking to the maintenance guy in our building, who has a huge crush on her, and regularly distracts her for hours. He just comes up and hangs out by her desk. (Although, at least he's cute. The doorman who keeps giving me paintings -- who has another one for me, by the way -- is not cute.) Wouldn't you think that someone who asked for a formal evaluation and knew she was under review would try to be doing her best to appear to be working hard? Apparently not. This is not a person who is working hard eight hours a day. Hell, she comes in late every single day. I didn't mention that in my review, because I'm not perfect either, but the senior associate who she works for did, because he is an early bird, and has gotten really irritated about her rolling in at 9:20 or so every day. I'm not an early bird at all, and even I beat her in most days. I wouldn't mind if she stayed late to make it up, but she doesn't. She leaves at 5, the same time the other secretaries who show up at 8:30-9 leave. And many days, she's gone for over an hour for "lunch" or whatever she does.

I honestly feel that next Friday is going to be a disaster. I'm a very nice person, and I like her as a person, so it is going to all be hugely uncomfortable, but if she gives me any lip, which she might because she's gotten a little cocky, she is going to hear it. I can be a bitch, although I don't like to be. I'm going to try to lay it out for her in a nice way. I just have to remind myself to remain professional...breathe in...breathe out....It's never easy to give a bad review to someone. I had to do it in my previous life in consulting, and I even had to fire a guy, which was not pleasant. But, it's been awhile. I have to just not get emotional about it.

Regardless, I want a new secretary. I'm done. I have to shut my door every day because I can't stand her voice. I can't stand the blank look I get on everything I ask her to do. It's nonsense. One of our clerks just got her paralegal degree and she is super motivated. I think I'm going to try to rein her in and see if she is willing to do some secretary/paralegal work for me. I would understand if she doesn't want the secretarial, but since I am so used to not having a secretary, the administrative crap work is fairly minimal - limited to opening files for me, serving things via mail when necessary, pdfing documents, nothing too time consuming, and things our paralegals actually do as well. I am fully wanting to have a secretary that can do paralegal work, so I think it could be a good mix to give her some experience. I know she would be up for it -- I just have to sell it to the other partners, because we would have to give her a raise.

Update Number Two on Furniture: Pottery Barn Explosion

2011-08-26T20:23:00.000-05:00

Yes, Pottery Barn. What can I say? I love their stuff. And while there, I learned that they recently started manufacturing in North Carolina as opposed to overseas, so...go USA! This is for the basement and my master bedroom. I always thought I'd be the kind of person who would shop around and pick out pieces and try to put together a cool, unique, eclectic room, but the fact is...I need furniture and I don't feel like dealing with living empty for months or years while I try to pick out the perfect mix. Pottery Barn is a nice place to go for that, and it is tons cheaper than Ethan Allen.

Since I had the closets torn out in a corner of the basement, I now have a nice office area. (And my awesome contractor put in an outlet for me midway up the wall, so I don't have to deal with climbing behind the desk to plug in my laptop...so fabulous.) So, I went straight to the Printer's modular pieces in Artisan Black. (Eh, I have brown upstairs, let's do some black down here. The walls here are again Benjamin Moore Classic Gray and Plymouth Rock.) Since I have kind of a tight turn on my basement stairs, the modular pieces are great for no worries about a wall unit getting down there:

The office is the corner desk, cabinet pedistal, file pedestal, two bookcase pedestals, and two single bookcase hutches (on either side).

The entertainment center is the same deal, but I got the double glass pedestal, two single glass door pedestals on either side of that (for the TV), four single bookcase pedestals (two on each side - oddly, although they have a double bookcase for the top, they don't have one for the bottom), and two double bookcase hutches for atop the singles.

In case you haven't guessed, I have a ton of books and DVDs. I needed storage!

Then, the couch. I got the PB Comfort Square sectional, down cushions, box cushions, with wedge, in metal gray basketweave fabric. Apparently I am the first person on the planet to order this configuration and fabric (and you can't even get it online), so I had to wait a few days for the sku. Anyway, here it is (this is the slipcovered version; mine is upholstered):

I always used to hate sectionals, but now I kind of like all the seating and convenience. And this thing is so comfortable with the down cushions it is unbelievable. It will make a nice "woman cave" for me, in which to watch NFL on the new flatscreen that I have yet to buy. Also, it will make a nice comfy place for guests, when I have numbers exceeding my spare bedroom.

I still need to get a coffee table and end tables of some sort, some new lamps, as well as another chair or chaise or something for the area that is "bay like" on the back wall (same configuration as upstairs), but that can come later. I obviously also need to figure out the wall decor situation. I've decided that my accent color down here is going to be lime green. So, it'll be gray, black, and lime green. I like it! (Also, big upsell fail to the gal at Pottery Barn who helped me order all this, because...duh...I forgot to get a chair for the desk. She should've pointed that out to me, right? I would've bought something then and there.)

And the bedroom! My very first actual bought at the same time bedroom set that all matches since the one my parents bought me when I was eight. I got the Hudson set. Headboard, dresser, and two nightstands:

It's all very exciting.

And the best part is that I opened a Pottery Barn credit card to put this on because in your first 30 days, you get 10% back on all purchases in the form of gift certificates. They only approved me for $10K, which I blew through very fast, but that means I get $1,000 back in which to buy some pillows for the basement, lamps, and other whatnot. Maybe a coffee table or chair. Or a rug for upstairs. At any rate, I haven't opened a new credit card in years, but it was so worth it to do on a big purchase like this. Normally I would've just put it on my AMEX. So, keep that in mind if you need to make a big purchase at Pottery Barn!

In case you haven't guessed, I am spewing money out of my pores this year. The good thing is, I'm doing fine with my income (which is always a question mark), and next year I will probably spend next to nothing, since I chose to do it all in one year. (I'm kind of like that...I just deal with things all at once, and then I'm done for awhile. If I still write on this blog 7-10 years from now, you will see me redoing all the furniture again....maybe. Maybe not.)

And at least by November I'll have what I want and I can settle in and start to hoard. (Ha ha, just kidding.)

Update Number One on Furniture: Living Room

2011-08-26T19:38:00.000-05:00

My color palette in here is gray (Classic Gray and Plymouth Rock Benjamin Moore on the walls), brown, and turquoise. And white, somewhat, because my crown molding is white, but it isn't really a color I am pulling in. Also, my main floor is a complete open layout, so my kitchen flows into my dining area which flows into my seating area. I'm trying to divide the living room area and dining room area somewhat, without actual dividers, based on color. Because the seats on my dining room chairs are a light beige, that area will, I think, lean toward more beige, gray, and turquoise, while the actual seating area will lean toward darker brown, gray, and turquoise. It's tough with an open layout, especially when there is a huge, long wall down one side that needs to be broken up into areas so the wall decor doesn't look dumb.

All of my wood furniture on this floor is done. It's Ethan Allen, a dark cherry (but not particularly "red") dining room set, two bookcases that are on either side of my fireplace, a coffee table, buffet, and side table. Those are staying -- I bought it all in 2004 and they still look great, although my coffee table could use a refurbishing. I'm going to try Restor A Finish, but if that fails, I'll send it out. It's a great table, but I haven't been particularly kind to it. The rest of it looks like new. My floor is a medium dark brown hardwood.

Here is the furniture I ordered from Ethan Allen. (I figured since the whole floor is Ethan Allen, why break it up?)

The Monterey sofa in a medium brown leather. I've always wanted a leather sofa for some reason, but I hate black leather sofas. They remind me of fraternity houses. Plus, after years of stains on a fabric couch, I kind of wanted something different:

Two Emerson chairs, this fabric in a hard to explain white and black very, very thin plaidish pattern that makes it look gray. It may sound ugly, but trust me, it's very cool.

These two chairs will go in my bay window. I had a very hard time trying to decide what to do with that area. I wanted more seating, but it isn't a huge area, so I couldn't go with two super comfy big chairs, although the Emerson chair is very comfortable. (At least from what I surmised by sitting in it at Ethan Allen.) I also got one Emerson ottoman:

Actually, the fabric shown on the ottoman looks a lot like the fabric I picked, and may very well be it. It's hard to tell online.

The pillows for the couch are a dark brown and turquoise heavy cotton (I think...can't remember the exact fabric) pattern. The pillows for the chairs are turquoise with a dark brown trim, and velvet. It all goes together very well. Well, at least I think it will, but so far my picks haven't failed me other than I wish the Classic Gray paint was one shade darker. However, I did hit the right color of gray that I wanted, as opposed to one that looked blue or purple, so to that end, the paint pick was a win.

Then I've been thinking about wall art. I like having paintings in my house, or at least photographs, or art. I like somewhat unique pieces usually. I've bought a lot of cool pieces in the past at art shows and on eBay, believe it or not.  For some reason I'm very averse to buying something for my walls at a place like Bed, Bath, and Beyond or Pottery Barn, even though they have some very cool stuff for walls.

As I said, I have a lot of art, but....to be quite honest, I'm a little sick of it. Except for my Robert Deyber fish picture, which will go back to its home on the perfectly sized wall and place for it across from my dining room table.  Some of my other pieces will go into the hallways maybe or the spare bedroom, or maybe even my master bedroom. I haven't quite decided yet what I'm going to do in there.

What I do know is that I want new art for my main floor, for the most part, which doesn't come cheap and will take some time to acquire. It has to be just right. I'm not a waffler on things like this. Either I like it or I don't, and I buy it or I don't. If I'm iffy, that means I don't like it enough.

Anyway, I've been flailing a bit about what to do on the main floor. I've been collecting cards from artists at the various art street fairs here this summer so I can order from them, and this weekend is the Bucktown Art Fair. There were a few artists who I really like that I've seen this summer, but I just wasn't really ready to buy yet because I had to think about what to do.

Then, I checked Gilt Groupe the other day. And yes, it is one of those mass produced things that I usually don't like very much, but...I wanted it. The artist is Parvez Taj, who is described as:

Canadian Parvez Taj uses photography, water-based paints, and ultraviolet inks to create works that blur the line between traditional and contemporary. From the beautifully distorted urban scene in NY Moving, to abstract naturalistic images like Lake Muskoka, the images speak to both the eye and the heart. Also check out the light boxes, covered in everything from abstracted subway signs, to an ink print in a wood-bark pattern.

I fell in love with this one, and I think it is going to look amazing above my couch. I didn't buy it right away. I thought about it for two days, only because he is a bit mass produced, and usually I like paintings, but...then I just broke down. It's called "Elements" and is really what I wanted, colorwise, and I think it looks very cool. (I just linked from Gilt, so if it goes away, I will repost a better picture once I receive it...which will apparently be in early November.) I ordered the 48x32. It was so much cheaper, over 50% off than his work usually goes for, at $175:

Then, I thought what the hell, right? I might as well order a couple more, because I think I might be able to stack a couple along side of this one, or I have a few other spots on the main floor where these could go. These two were only $79 each, because I got the 18x12. Little paintings are fun because you can put them almost anywhere. The left is "Hummingbird" and the right is "Indian Wells." (Sorry for all the space around the photos...that's what you get when you are too lazy to download and upload and link.) These are a little more blue than turquoise, but that is okay with me.

So, we'll see how this all turns out. I still have to get rugs.

Random Thoughts on August 22

2011-08-22T22:54:00.000-05:00

1. Over the weekend, for the first time in my adult life, I bought a bedroom set. I haven't had a complete, matching bedroom set of furniture since I was a kid. I haven't had a headboard since I moved out of my parents' house. I've bought mattresses, dressers, nightstands, but never a complete set all at once. And what I've got as far as furniture right now is IKEA. This is exciting, yet odd, when I think about it. Why have I never bought a bedroom set of furniture before this? Maybe I just don't care about it that much. At any rate, I got the Hudson set from Pottery Barn. Bed, dresser, and two nightstands. This should solidify my journey into adulthood.

2. I'm kind of addicted to the wasabi mayonnaise at Trader Joe's. I like mayonnaise anyway, but the hint of wasabi makes it really great on sandwiches for someone like me who likes the spicy touch. You do have to be careful with it, though, because it is strong.

3. I'm dreading putting my house back together after this remodel is done. To get ready for the painting, I basically cleared things out and put things anywhere I could find. My buffet is empty, but its usual contents are all over the place. Same with my bedroom. I'm sure I will never be able to find anything ever again. And my books are still in boxes, because I hate to put them on the shelves given the dust that is going to be throughout once they start cutting the tile for the basement bath. It's much easier to clean shelves of dust when there are not books on them. Yes, that is my excuse for not reshelving all of these books.

4. I wish I would've gone a shade darker than Classic Gray (Benjamin Moore) for my main paint color. It looks almost white on some walls when the sunlight hits, and that was not what I wanted. Oh, well. It was actually surprising to me how much lighter the paint I picked looked once it was up on the walls. I was prepared for it to look darker. Live and learn. It's totally fine, though. I think it will look better once I actually put some things up on the walls.

5. I want evil Eric back on True Blood. I'm tired of this little boy, Sookie loving, lameass.

6. You would never know this season of Jersey Shore is in Florence, Italy. All they ever show is the apartment and the clubs. Boring. Is their fifteen minutes up yet?

7. No one on Project Runway is getting my attention at all yet. That's worrisome. And I am so sick of Tim Gunn's Expedia commercial. "See what Anandra did?" Ugh.

8. I am buried at work, all of a sudden. This always happens at this time of year, and it sucks. All the lawyers get all riled up to actually do something at the end of summer.

9. My mom is so indecisive about our trip that I'm ready to cancel it, and now I'm at a point with work that I might need to. I told her three months ago to plan it out and pick the dates because I need notice. She cannot make a decision, and it is infuriating me. I've made it easy for her on our past trips, because I've always done all of the planning. It's amazing to me that she is incapable of doing the same. She's retired and has all the time in the world. I told her just to figure out the trip so we can book our flights. I'm not spending a fortune to book a flight to San Francisco at the last minute. And she is still waffling. She always does this and it drives me insane. Just make a decision. I don't want to have to take this planning over, because I'm so sick of always having to do the planning. I've told her that I'm up for anything, just decide. Ugh. I'm so sick of having to always do everything when it comes to my family.

West Memphis Three - Cause for Celebration?

2011-08-22T16:59:00.000-05:00

The West Memphis Three are free. People are jubilant. Justice and all that.

About six months ago, I read Devil’s Knot by Mara Leveritt. Prior to that, I had never even heard of the West Memphis Three. While reading the book, I noticed that it seemed to pick and choose which trial testimony it presented (without saying that it was excluding a number of witnesses from the narrative), and then moved on without talking about what happened on cross examination or redirect. (Any lawyer knows that a perfectly good direct examination can be quickly torn apart by a decent attorney on cross-examination.) This seemed strange to me, so after finishing the book, I looked on the Internet for more information and came across the Callahan site, which has all of the case documents; the wm3blackboard, a not guilty site; WM3 Hoax, a guilty site; and various other information sites, such as The Truth About the West Memphis Three and Jive Puppi, the discussions over at Find a Death, and the Paradise Lost documentaries. Reading through (and watching) the various viewpoints made clear that both Devil’s Knot and Paradise Lost I and II left out a lot of information. Reading through the viewpoints also made clear that there was a huge group of people who believed the WM3 were innocent, as well as a fair amount who believed fully in their guilt.

One look at the Callahan site reveals the sheer breadth of this case. It is not a simple case. There are thousands of pages of documents, transcripts, trial testimony, witness statements, and reports. It’s overwhelming. I wanted to read a summary from the “guilty” supporters, since I had just received what I assumed was an accepted summary of the “innocence” supporters in Devil’s Knot. The Truth About the West Memphis Three summarizes some of the bigger issues (i.e. alibis, confessions), and provides links to Callahan. However, in going through the numerous West Memphis Three sites on the Internet, it is very difficult to find a non-biased, objective source summarizing information on the case. Every site is one or the other. It’s also a difficult case to summarize due to the sheer quantity of testimony, witness statements, and hearings. Even a perusal of any of the sites makes it clear that you can’t take anything at face value that is said about this case because so much misinformation is floating around – and I say that as a person who has read few of the Callahan documents. I can’t imagine what I would see if I read every document on the entire site.

For example, people say that Jesse Misskelley Jr. was interrogated for 12 hours before he gave his confession to police on June 3, 1993 without his father’s permission, and without being read his rights. They then ignore his many other confessions. In fact, the police timeline shows that his father picked him up, and then Jesse went to the police department. The police read him his rights, then they took him with them and went out and got his father’s written consent for a polygraph, after which they returned to the police station and he was Mirandized again. According to this timeline, the interview began at 10:00 a.m., and at approximately 2:44 p.m. Jesse began confessing. In between 10:00 a.m. and 2:44 p.m., they drove Jesse to get his father’s permission to take the polygraph and administered the polygraph (which he failed). This isn’t twelve hours of interrogation without permission. His father knew exactly where he was and what was happening. At most it began after three or four hours of interrogation in the middle of the day.

That’s confession number one. Jesse also admitted to his lawyers in the summer of 1993 that he was there when the boys were murdered. On February 4, 1994, he again described his involvement to police officers who were transporting him back to prison. On February 8, 1994, three days after he was found guilty by the jury, he confessed again to his own attorneys. On February 17, 1994, he again confessed, over the objections of and against the advice of his attorneys, who were sitting in the room with him.

This is just one example. There are further examples concerning Jesse’s intelligence and whether he was “mentally retarded,” as those who support innocence claim, and examples concerning Damien’s mental health (and lengthy psychiatric record), as well as the three’s ever changing alibis. Coerced confessions no doubt exist. But did that happen here? Did it happen five times, two times after conviction, once when his attorneys were sitting right next to him, pleading with him not to make the statement? And this doesn’t even cover witness statements by other people in town and other prisoners who claimed that Jesse, Damien, and Jason all admitted to being involved in the crime. Could those people be lying? Sure, maybe. But maybe they aren’t. There are a lot of unanswered questions about this case. I, for one, don’t know if the West Memphis Three are guilty or innocent. I haven’t fully read the case files.

Without reading all the underlying documents, it is difficult to conclude whether anyone’s online analysis (or documentary) covers everything and portrays all of the relevant facts. Saying something enough times doesn’t make it true. It’s not hard to twist facts when you ignore the ones that don’t support your position, which is where Devil’s Knot and Paradise Lost fail. The only place that offers an unbiased look is Callahan, where there are thousands upon thousands of documents, investigative reports, and transcripts posted. If you have the time to read through all of them, maybe you can determine how you feel.

When I came to the conclusion that there was no way I could decide one way or the other whether the WM3 are guilty or not without reading all of the documents on Callahan (which I doubt I will ever have time to do), it made it all the more surprising to me to see the number of people out there who are jumping up and down for joy at the release of these three men, and the sheer number of celebrities who are behind this cause. Lots of teenagers were shown on television with signs “Free the WM3!” outside the courthouse. People all over the blogosphere and news discussion forums are proclaiming innocence and “justice.” Many argue that there is absolutely no physical evidence (there doesn’t have to be) and that they were convicted based on Jesse’s twelve hour, mentally retarded, coerced confession. (Ignoring that Jesse’s confession was not admissible in Damien and Jason’s trial. Also ignoring that Jesse confessed four more times after that.) It’s difficult to take the “innocence” people seriously when they obviously haven’t read many of the documents from the case itself, and instead rely upon what other people have (wrongly) told them or what Paradise Lost showed, which wasn’t the full story. They seemed to have merely jumped on the bandwagon, rather than investigated what happened. Maybe they're right; I don’t know. All I know is based on what little I’ve read on Callahan some are basing their premise of innocence on incorrect facts.

I have no doubt that there are people out there who have devoted thousands of hours to reviewing all of the case information on Callahan and have come to the conclusion that the three men were unfairly convicted. I also have no doubt that there are people out there who did the same thing and came to the opposite conclusion. I also believe that there were probably mistakes made in the investigation, and that perhaps the men deserved a new trial. But how many of the people out there who are celebrating have read the entire case file? Has Natalie Maines? I saw on one site that she admitted in a related deposition (one of the fathers of the murdered boys sued her for defamation after she accused him of murder) that she didn’t have much knowledge of the case. I’ve been unable to find a copy of her deposition to confirm, but that wouldn’t surprise me. Has Johnny Depp or Eddie Vedder spent hours on Callahan? Maybe they have. Or maybe they just watched Paradise Lost and assumed it contained the full story.

The recent coverage by the mainstream media would lead one to believe that it is open and shut that the three men are innocent -- ignoring that they just plead guilty, and are legally guilty in the eyes of the law. I would love to actually see an objective view of the evidence presented by Dateline or 20/20 or in a documentary, as opposed to the biased viewpoint that is pervading this case. It’s pretty amazing that a few celebrities and a lot of money can get a man off death row. It feels like such a whitewash.

And worse, forgotten in all this “celebration” is that three little boys were brutally murdered 18 years ago.

How Do People Find Me? Tom Sawyer Naked.

2011-08-20T22:19:00.001-05:00

I get such a kick out of this. And, honestly, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't include the word "Naked" in my blog name. Because oh, my. Yeah, I'm sort of innocent enough that I took a fairly well known quote and turned it into my blog name, because I felt like it applied to me, and unfortunately, it included the word "Naked," and it didn't occur to me that a lot of people might find me looking for...weird shit.

What amuses me the most, and has gotten me a lot of hits is this one:

tom sawyer naked

You wouldn't believe how many people have landed on my blog searching for these terms. I posted in the past about the whole Huckleberry Finn censorship debacle, and probably mentioned Tom Sawyer, who is, as we well know, a fictional character.

And now I get people who are apparently searching for pictures of a fictional character naked. Do you think they know that Tom Sawyer was made up by Mark Twain? Do you think they know that he is fictional?

Oh my.

Bathroom Remodel - Small Master Bath and Second Bath

2011-08-20T21:46:00.001-05:00

All right. I can't find my "before" pictures. I know I took them on this new camera, but they are nowhere to be found, so maybe I accidentally deleted them, or else they are hiding in a folder somewhere. I'm incredibly irritated about this, because I can't show you how far I've come!

At any rate, let me try to set the scene in words:

Both my master bath and second upstairs bath are very small. Think single vanity, tub, toilet. The master bath is a little bigger because it has a small closet. But, they are small and I can't do anything about that. I'm in Chicago, in a townhouse with a total square footage on three floors of about 1800 sq ft. So, I didn't have much to work with as far as doing something completely awesome, nor do I want to over improve for the kind of place I'm in.

When I moved in two years ago (holy crap, has it really been two years since I bought this place?), both bathrooms still had their original 1985 decor. It wasn't as terrible as you would think. The tile (floor and tub walls) was 2"x2" white, the vanity was white, tub was white, sink was white. It was just very dull. And due to the age, the tubs had scuffs and chips, and the floor tiles had a lot of cracks as well. It really, really could have been worse. But of course, I knew I would remodel them at some point. And 2011 was the time!

I have no experience with anything remodeling related. I watch HGTV, but I never actually had to do any of this myself. Let me tell you -- it is overwhelming to pick out tile, fixtures, vanities, tubs, toilets, paint, etc. I mean, you have to design a bathroom even if you are someone (like me) who has no designing bathroom experience. So, I just went with what I liked. I hired an awesome, awesome contractor. (Who I still love even though he is nearing on a month over the time when he said all of this work would be done. The tile work is really amazing.) He directed me to some great folks at Community Home Supply, Home Carpet One, and Stone City. And, my new bathrooms were born. (Bathroom number three should be finished in a week or two, I hope!)

At any rate, I promised I'd post pictures of my bathrooms, so here goes. I wasn't sure how it was all going to come together, but I am very happy with them both. They don't photograph as well as I would like, particularly the master bathroom, but it's the best I can do.

This is the second bathroom, which was the cheapest (but still not terribly cheap):

This is 12x24 porcelain tile, the cheapest tile I got. It looks almost like brushed concrete. The porcelain options are really amazing now. The color in the above photo isn't accurate. The one below is what it looks like. The dark brown glass trim around the shower was the most expensive at around $50 a square foot. Luckily I didn't need that much of it! I should've taken a closer picture of it, but it is basically very thin slivers of brownish glass.

It looks very awesome, and feels almost spa like.

I went with a white porcelain sink/vanity and dark brown base. I went back and forth about going with a stone vanity top in here, but then decided that since I did stone in the other two, I'd do something different in this one. I didn't want to do the same thing in all three bathrooms, so as you will see, they are all totally different. I don't know if this was the wrong thing to do or not, but I like a lot of different things, so I like having different bathrooms, you know? Benjamin Moore Winter Wheat is on the walls:

Sink fixture (chrome in here):

Tub fixture:

Lights, where I went with round:

I don't know what that big white glare on the wall is to the right of the mirror, other than maybe a reflection. It's just a plain wall. The mirror is inset into the wall and is a huge medicine cabinet. I should've taken a picture of how awesome it is.

And the dual flush toilet, which went in all three bathrooms (and my foot):

Obviously I haven't really decorated yet! I will be getting some nice towels and some stuff for the walls.

And now, on to the master bath. This one doesn't photograph as good as it looks in person. The tile is silver travertine, which is basically mixtures of beige and gray. It looks more beige in photographs than it looks in person. In person, it is more gray looking. I'm not sure what the deal with that is and I took a bunch of pictures but couldn't capture how it looks in person, but it'll give you an idea anyway. There is mosaic glass on the tub front and as an accent in the tub:

Same vanity as the other bathroom, but with a gray quartz counter and square white sink. Also, the same freaking amazing inset medicine cabinet/mirror. Benjamin Moore Gray Tint is on the walls (it looks very blue in the photos, but it isn't in person, and is just a light gray):

And the lights, where I went with square (along with some of my crap, and the same weird reflection as in the other bathroom, and I don't know why the one wall appears so much darker because it is the same color as the others, and again, not blue at all):

And the tub fixture (nickel in here):

And my favorite -- and a splurge -- the sink faucet:

All in all, I am very happy with how everything turned out, and very relieved. I was like an idiot trying to pick all this stuff out, and it really wasn't something I enjoyed doing. I didn't post a pic of the shower heads, but they are both the rain kind. I like them a lot!

So...the basement bathroom, which is still in progress, is the one where I went a little more funky, with a vessel sink. I'll post pics of that one if it ever gets finished.....

The IDPPA - Thoughts on Copyrights for Fashion Design

2011-08-19T18:14:00.000-05:00

The Innovative Design Protection and Privacy Prevention Act (H.R. 2511) is back in the news, after more testimony. (It's somewhat hilarious to me that they are also using this bill to amend copyright laws for vessel hulls.) This is the famed "copyright for fashion designs" bill, and is only about 10 pages long. I love fashion, but this bill makes me a little nervous. Sure, it would be great if Forever 21 couldn't run out and rip off Prada, or if Steve Madden couldn't run out and rip off Gucci. But...how in the hell do you even determine whether a fashion is copyrightable in the first place, and what effect will this have on smaller designers?

Let's look at the definition:

(7) A ‘fashion design’—

(A) is the appearance as a whole of an article of apparel, including its ornamentation; and

(B) includes original elements of the article of apparel or the original arrangement or placement of original or non-original elements as incorporated in the overall appearance of the article of apparel that—

(i) are the result of a designer’s own creative endeavor; and

(ii) provide a unique, distinguishable, non-trivial and non-utilitarian variation over prior designs for similar types of articles.

It looks like colors are also out:

The presence or absence of a particular color or colors or of a pictorial or graphic work imprinted on fabric shall not be considered in determining the protection of a fashion design under section 1301 or 1302 or in determining infringement under section 1309.

This is what is not protected:

(B) in the case of a fashion design, embodied in a useful article that was made public by the designer or owner in the United States or a foreign country before the date of enactment of this chapter or more than 3 years before the date upon which protection of the design is asserted under this chapter.

Where do you even begin with this? Words like "original elements," "original arrangement," "non-trivial," "distinguishable," "unique," and "non-utilitarian" sound great in theory, but what does this actually mean in real life in terms of fashion, and how do you apply these terms? How do you determine whether your fashion design is one of these things? Presumably most designers probably believe that what they are doing is non-trivial, unique, and distinguishable. But how do you prove that? Plus, fashions are recycled all the time. We're still somewhat in the mix of the resurgenc of 80s fashion now. Can you show that your design is unique when someone else did something just like it 20 years ago? Or is that just homage? Do the placement of nonusable buckles on a purse make it unique? Can you stop everyone else from putting a nonusable buckle there for the next three years? There is not a neverending amount of things you can do with a skirt, dress, sweater, or pair of gloves. Would non-usable buttons sewn randomly on a pair of gloves get copyright protection? What about random lace panels on a dress? Or how about a lopsided collar on a shirt? Maybe an upside down pointed triangle type hem on a skirt?

I fully understand why fashion designers want a law like this. It must be unbelievably frustrating to create a garment, purse, or pair of shoes and then see ABS, Steve Madden, or Forever 21 come out with a near exact duplicate two weeks later and not be able to do anything about it. I absolutely hate that. I think the fashion houses will register for copyright protection on every single design they release every season. (There is no examination per se in the Copyright Office; you just register, and if it is not valid that will come out during litigation.) And I foresee a lot of litigation over this among the various fashion houses as the statute works out its kinks and a body of law further interpreting the statute is developed. (Which is, by the way, great for me. I'd love to do more copyright litigation work.)

This, however, is not a good thing for smaller designers and fashion companies who can't afford litigation. You know the folks who sell on Etsy or at art fairs and places like that and become contestants on Project Runway? Well, if they are selling their wares on Etsy and one of the big fashion houses thinks there might be copyright infringement and files a lawsuit, guess what happens? Generally that person can't afford the million or so dollars it will cost to litigate the case, so they will settle and stop selling, regardless of whether or not they are liable. Remember that anyone can file a lawsuit for anything, but until you can convince the judge that the case has no merit, you are stuck in litigation hell paying people like me to try to get you out of it. The bigger companies will fight things out between them, but the smaller companies are who I am truly worried about here, and the affect a bill like this will have on them. This really could put a dent in innovative new designers and what they are allowed to do. We've seen this happen in patent law, where the smaller fish get put out of business trying to litigate patents with the bigger fish.

I guess we can also look forward to seeing a copyright notice on the tags of our clothes. It will interesting to see whether or not this bill passes.

My Current Addictive Song: Nelly Just A Dream

2011-08-18T01:15:00.000-05:00

I can't stop listening to this song! Nelly was my man back in the day, but oh, he's still on it....

Christian Louboutin Red Soles Trademark Lawsuit - Crazy Order on Preliminary Injunction

2011-08-17T21:23:00.000-05:00

All right. I've been dying to read the Order from Judge Marrero in the Christian Louboutin v Yves Saint Laurent "red soles" lawsuit. Here it is in it's entirety from Scribd, if you are so inclined. (It's actually very interesting.)

Louboutin filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, which would prevent Yves Saint Laurent from selling any shoes with red soles until the case is finished. As part of this, they had to prove "likelihood of success on the merits," which in layman's speech means "do you have a shot at winning this thing?" The Judge essentially feels that red soles are ornamental and aesthetic, and thus not protectable by trademark, and that Louboutin will not be able to prove success on the merits of the claim. Essentially, he fully decided the case at a very early point in the process.

Of course the Judge is a dude. He's probably never even heard of Christian Louboutin.

Single colors can be trademarked, but it is kind of rare. One of the most famous color trademarks is pink insulation for Owens-Corning. However, the Judge is very disinclined to offer trademark protection on a color for anything fashion related. He uses a somewhat bizarre analogy to Monet using a certain color of indigo in a painting for water, and then attempting to prevent Picasso from using it for water. He points out that attorneys will quibble with his analogy. Yes, that's right. But then he goes on full steam ahead to compare a painting to the color of soles on a shoe. The biggest issue I have with the analogy is that the Judge focuses on the color red, as opposed to the color red on soles of shoes, which is what the trademark is about. Louboutin isn't trying to prevent other designers from using the color red on the tops of shoes or on anything else. He is trying to prevent them from using red on the bottoms of shoes. There is no shortage of other colors that designers can use on the bottoms of shoes, other than red. No one cared about red soles until Louboutin came along and established a name for himself by doing it.

But here's the real kicker for me. The Judge quotes Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Products Co., a Supreme Court case which is the big "is a color trademark functional" case, and describes a functional trademark as follows:

This Court consequently has explained that, "[i]n general terms, a product feature is functional," and cannot serve as a trademark, "if it is essential to the use or purpose of the article or if it affects the cost or quality of the article," that is, if exclusive use of the feature would put competitors at a significant non reputation related disadvantage.

He then goes on to talk about all the contexts where a single color has been held functional because aesthetic appeal can be functional, in completely unrelated contexts. Like, green for farm equipment. His conclusion is that because the red soles exemplify sexiness, standing out, and other things like that, those are nontrademark functions. (I would argue that all of that is only true because Louboutin made it true.) He also concludes that the red soles are more expensive to make, thus highly desirable to such high end brands like Louboutin and Yves St. Laurent, and thus serve as more than a source identifier. (I would argue that red, pink, blue, purple, green, beige, yellow, orange, and any other color you can think of would be equally expensive to make and Yves St Laurent is free to use any of those colors on their soles.) In short, red soles have non trademark functions.

He then leaps to the conclusion that Louboutin's use of red soles puts everyone else at a significant competitive disadvantage. Really? No one ever cared about using red soles on a regular basis until he came along. As I discussed above, there are hundreds of other colors they could use. Why red? Could it be because everyone associates red with Louboutin now? There is no other logical reason why they would want to use red other than to ride on Louboutin's coattails. Much of the reasoning here by the Judge is also muddied in that it seems focused not on the soles of the shoes (which no one can see unless you are walking), but on the tops of the shoes or the entire shoe itself, and the inability of designers to match their fashions (including hats and gloves!) to the shoes. (Do people match their clothes to the soles of their shoes? Um...) Basically he decides that every designer should have the ability to design a completely monochromatic shoe, including soles, in red, or they will be placed at a "significant disadvantage." He misses the point entirely. Louboutin is not preventing anyone from designing a red shoe. Just red soles.

(In case you can't tell, I hate this opinion.)

Grudgingly, I will admit that the Judge makes a good point in that Louboutin does not sufficiently describe what color red he is claiming as the trademark for the soles in the trademark registration. This will undoubtedly come back to bite them in the ass. There are a million shades of red out there, right?  Registered trademarks are there to offer notice to others about what you can and can't do. Without sufficient description....hosed. Someone's IP attorneys fell asleep at the wheel, is all I have to say. You would think with the importance of the red soles they would have this covered up, down, backwards, and forwards until Sunday. There is some additional discussion on the parade of terribles that might occur if Louboutin is able to trademark red soles, but eh.

The Judge, in the end concludes that the trademark is not protectable, so he never gets to the issue of "is there likelihood of confusion" which is the next issue for trademarks. (I give that a resounding yes.) He then - astonishingly to me at this stage of the case -- tells Yves St. Laurent that if they file summary judgment on this issue of whether it is a protectable trademark (which would completely decide the case) he will grant their motion and find that Louboutin's red soles are not valid trademarks. He then tells Louboutin that they will be able to appeal that decision immediately. (Usually you have to wait until final judgment on all claims to appeal.) Expect a summary judgment motion from Yves St Laurent very soon. And then expect an appeal to the 2nd Circuit from Louboutin. And then, in my opinion, expect a reversal from the 2nd Circuit.

The Judge did not address secondary meaning (I admit I kind of skimmed the opinion), and I personally think that Christian Louboutin will and should carry the day on secondary meaning for the red soles. Secondary meaning basically means that "hey, your mark may not be something that is usually protectable, but you've been doing it for awhile and everyone associates it with you, so we'll give it to you anyway." I mean, have you ever seen a red sole on a shoe and not thought Christian Louboutin? My mom knows nothing about Christian Louboutin shoes, but even she knows that Oprah always wears "those fancy shoes with the red soles." The red soles completely identify source, which is the whole point of trademark law. There is also a "famous mark" doctrine they can rely on, although it is a bit harder to show that a mark is famous. McDonald's is famous. Is Christian Louboutin's red soles? Maybe, depending on what market of people they have to look at to establish that it's famous.

I'm beginning to think I need to read the briefs that were submitted on this because I have to say, this decision is utterly baffling to me, and I can't understand how Louboutin lost it in such a big way. Granted, there are Judges who aren't great and decide against you even on a great argument, and preliminary injunctions can be difficult to get, but the fact that the Judge basically decided the case on the merits and said that in his order at this stage of the case is astonishing to me. I mean, he told Yves St. Laurent to go ahead and file their summary judgment, and then told Louboutin they'd be able to appeal it immediately. That's really....interesting.

And wow, if this trademark goes down every Payless shoe store in the country is going to have hoards of high heels with red soles. I shudder to think about it.

Update on the Situation with My Secretary

2011-08-17T20:01:00.000-05:00

About six months ago she asked for a raise. I don't remember if I knew this or not. It's possible someone told me. At any rate, it arose after she was assigned to a third attorney, one of our new associates. So, she works for me and two associates. She thought that since she would have more work she should make more money. This doesn't entirely make sense to me because previously she didn't even have enough work to fill her day, and now she still doesn't have enough work to fill her day. It's not like she's showing up at 7 a.m. and staying past 5 to get things done. At least I'm assuming she doesn't have enough work to fill her day, given the hour long personal phone calls and constant surfing of the Internet that goes on over there. (Not really judging, since I surf the Internet at work too at times, but I work a lot longer hours than she does.)

Anyway, at my firm, we pay our secretaries very well. I know this because I am on the compensation committee. Believe me, she is not getting shafted in the pay department. Usually someone would not be given a raise in the middle of the year (we do all that at the end of the year), and our office manager told my secretary this. The office manager wasn't necessarily opposed to the idea of giving her a raise if she deserved it, but she wasn't sure if it was warranted in the middle of the year. My secretary then asked if she could have a formal review after six months (which would be end of August), and would they then consider upping her salary if the review goes well.

Needless to say, the office manager's jaw dropped that she asked for a formal review. We're a firm of about 30 attorneys, so we don't really engage in things like formal reviews. Basically, if you are still working there, you can assume you are doing okay, with a few exceptions. (There are always exceptions to the rule.) My secretary was supposed to get fired about two years ago, but then she had some really bad things happen in her personal life, so we did not fire her then. Thus, she is still here. And apparently thinks she is doing a great job (which is frankly baffling to me given the informal feedback I've given her.) Year end reviews go like this:

Partner: You're doing a great job, keep it up.
Associate: Thanks.
Partner: Your salary next year is X and your bonus for this year is X. You will see your bonus in your next paycheck.
Associate: Great.

The office manager does a similar thing with the secretaries and clerks. To be honest, I have no idea what anyone other than me has told my secretary about her work from year to year. It really doesn't matter -- if she's not making me happy, there is a problem.

Now, I have been keeping track of things my secretary does since about March in great detail because I had planned on sitting down with her to address her many deficiencies, but I wanted hard examples that I could talk her through. I didn't even know this evaluation period was going on until yesterday. So, it works out very well that our office manager came to me yesterday with an evaluation form.

Screw the form. I've got a lot to say with dates, cases, and specific examples to back me up. I had raised issues before with the office manager and other partners about my secretary's performance, so when the office manager came to me she said "Can you believe she asked for a formal evaluation?" she was in shock. Hey, she asked for it -- she's going to get it. At least one of the associates who shares her with me is also fed up. I've given her feedback along the way during all of this, and I'll admit gotten short with her at times because I'm so frustrated. I tell her things over and over again, yet it seems like she doesn't hear me. She doesn't read my e-mails. She doesn't even listen to my voice messages. (Yes, she told me this.) She's a good hearted person and means well, but this is not the job for her, and she is simply not that smart. I'm not trying to be a bitch by saying that, either, because I do like her as a person. She just cannot figure anything out on her own and retains absolutely nothing. You would never guess she's been a legal secretary for over five years. She still needs help filing 90% of the filings I do, and she's probably filed over a hundred documents with me.

Ugh! But I'm not going to get myself all worked up over it. I wrote out a very detailed eight page document to give to the office manager. I told her I would sit in with her for the review if she wants me to. I'm not looking forward to that, but hell, I was planning on doing it anyway. She just beat me to the punch. My secretary does not take criticism well, and she is going to get defensive. This will not be fun, but....she asked for it, right?

Random Thought on August 11

2011-08-11T22:12:00.002-05:00

1. My big 37th is Saturday! But, boo, I have an all day client meeting. I was supposed to go out of town with my best friend this weekend but had to cancel on her. I'm so pissed, but that's the price I pay for the money I make. We are going to reschedule. I haven't been with her on my birthday since my 21st, so it's kind of a bummer.

2. I haven't been blogging much because construction is still going on around here and my laptop is hidden. These guys are totally trustworthy, but I still don't like leaving my laptop out, and the packing up and plugging in is annoying. I'm doing this on my IPad tonight, which is slow. I can't be as witty because it's such an effort to type on this keyboard. I need an external keyboard. But, the slate tile is here, and the final bathroom will be done soon!

3. I haven't bought new furniture since 2004, when I bought my dining set, two bookcases, coffee table, and end table from Ethan Allen. They all still look great, but the main floor needs new seating. So, I just dropped $7000 on a leather couch, two chairs, pillows, and an ottoman at Ethan Allen. Might as well make the whole main floor consistent. I'll go cheaper in the basement with Pottery Barn. And I need rugs...this is the bad thing about spending money on clothes and shoes rather than house stuff. You end up dropping a boatload of money all at once because you suddenly realize everything is really old and worn out. And having to wait 8-12 weeks for the new stuff to arrive.

4. I can't wait until this remodel is done. It looks awesome, and the paint is great, and my bedroom is finally a normal color, but I'm done with cardboard all over my floor and a lockbox on my doorknob.

5. My mom and I are planning our almost, sometimes yearly trip. We thought Mt Rushmore, but my mom decided San Fran, northern Cali, and Yosemite. I'm game for anything, so I told her to figure out the route. It will be fun, and I do like to get away from the city. She likes the national parks. This is the only vacation I will take this year, other than a few 3 day weekend trips.

6. The Bimmer is doing great, in case you were wondering.

7. There is chaos at my condo association. I will do a full post on this later. I love everything about my place except dealing with the condo association, and the chaos is caused by one person. Everyone else is cool. I want him to move badly.

8. I can't type on this IPad anymore.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

How Long Does It Take To Update a Web Site? Michele Smith, Alderman

2011-08-09T15:12:00.000-05:00

The 43rd ward (where I live) got a new alderman back in May – Michele Smith. Since then, she’s kept a pretty low profile. She spoke out immediately after the election about the mega controversy that is what to do with the old Children’s Hospital site, but that’s about all I’ve heard. I can’t find anything online that she’s done or said regarding the Hospital site since around May. In fact, it seems as though she rolled over.

Chicago Public Schools is looking to increase property taxes to the maximum allowed by law – this despite plummeting property values in Chicago. After reading this article from the Sun Times where a number of alderman provided their viewpoint, I wondered what my alderman thought. So, I went to her web site.

It says this:

On Tuesday, May 17 at 9:00 am, we will open our Ward Service Office in the same location as our predecessor, Alderman Vi Daley. Our main consideration in this decision is a smooth transition and convenience for Ward residents. We intend to hit the ground running, and we want there to be no confusion about where we are. We want to be as available as possible to all residents of the Ward.

There is also some contact information – address, phone, and e-mail. That is the extent of the main page – which obviously hasn’t been updated since early May.

The Events page isn’t much better:

Keep an eye on this page for all the upcoming events in the 43rd Ward!
We'll have details on community events, informational meetings, and all related ward happenings.

Then there is also a “Contact” page.

That’s it.

In nearly three months, nothing is on her web site. How long does it take to update a web site? Or to provide news to the community in the form of the promised community events and informational meetings? Alderman are paid a $110,000 salary, get $176,484 a year to pay for three employees, and have a $73,280 expense account. (I’m linking to a web site with this information. Try as I might, I could not find this information from the city of Chicago. Of course.)

It’s not like she isn’t doing anything. For example, here’s a press release about a Summer Safety Festival she was involved in last weekend – on the Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce web site.

Why wouldn’t this be on her web site? Why is the 43rd web site outdated and devoid of any information after almost three months? I assume she's been doing things, but you sure wouldn't know it. Even a Google search of her name turns up mostly information from prior to the election. I find it hard to believe that with the proximity of DePaul University to her office that she couldn’t pay a college computer whiz to keep her web site updated. It doesn’t have to be fancy at this point, but some information would be nice.

One of the articles linked above had this to say:

Smith said she talked to residents and believes they will accept new one [hospital plan], which still requires Plan Commission and council approval.

When? Who? Was there an event held? If so, why wouldn’t she put it on her web site?

I swear, every day I get more disgruntled with the government in Chicago, particularly highly paid government officials who should be intelligent enough to realize how important things like web sites, Facebook, and Twitter are in this day and age. And I still have no idea how my alderman feels about this proposed property tax hike. I guess I'll just have to call her.

An Update on Parkside of Old Town, Just Because

2011-08-02T17:46:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I blogged about mixed income housing in Chicago, particularly with respect to the Parkside of Old Town development, which had slashed prices considerably on its market rate units.

I wondered then how many of the 177 market rate units were still available. The answer now is 27 market rate and 2 affordable, out of 279 total units. Better than I thought, actually. Well, guess what? Prices have been slashed again, and you can get a brand new market rate one, two, three bedroom or a townhouse for around 50% of the original asking price:

In the market-rate units, one-bedroom, one-bath condos start at $160,140; two-bedroom, two-bath units start at $229,500; and three-bedroom, two-bath units are priced from $295,800. The town homes are priced from $306,000 to $331,500. Condos include one garage parking space, and town homes include attached parking.

The two affordable condo units are for buyers earning 80 percent or less of median area income. The one-bedroom floor plan is $115,000, and the two-bedroom, one-bath unit is $125,000.

This is a steal – provided you don't mind living in mixed income housing. I honestly can’t believe how cheap this is for a brand new unit with parking that is close to the el and the Old Town neighborhood. I remember when the townhouses first went up for sale and they were asking in the 500s and 600s. Is the lure there yet? I still haven’t heard much about the living conditions other than anecdotal stories. I suppose time will tell.

I Love STFU Parents -- And I Probably Hate Your Kid

2011-08-01T18:02:00.000-05:00

I have recently been introduced to one of my new favorite time wasting blogs: STFU Parents.

This blog accurately captures and mocks the majority of my Facebook newsfeed -- from the Mommyjackers (moms who feel the need to post some tidbit about their child on a completely unrelated status post), to the people who post every single allegedly adorable thing their child does or says, to the people who get all huffy and puffy when strangers don’t acknowledge how adorable their screaming child is, to the people who must post a constant stream of pictures of their child, to the people who must inform everyone how brilliant and gifted their child is, to the people who think you don’t know exhaustion unless you’ve had a kid, to the people who automatically assume you are jealous because you don’t have a kid. Luckily for me, my friends do not post pictures of poop messes and placentas. Well, at least not yet. While I don’t mind occasional posts and pictures of kids, as I am interested in seeing how people’s kids are growing up, some people take it way too far.

Reading this blog makes me feel like less of a jerk for not being interested in 90% of the “kid” posts that cover my Newsfeed. In fact, while at certain points over the past year I thought about having one or two children of my own, over the past few months I’ve fallen into the very nice pattern that is my life without children, and come to the realization that I really don’t think I want any. I mean, sure, they can be adorable in small doses, but to actually have to raise one? Hmm….I don’t think it’s for me. I really don’t have a lot of motherly instincts, even though kids do seem to love me, and generally I get annoyed with their constant need for entertainment. If I need a kid fix, I can go visit my nieces and nephews or babysit my friends’ kids.

And truthfully, I’m tired. I don’t think I have the energy anymore to run after a screaming kid, or to deal with the nonsense or the poop (yuck, right?) or the worry or cleaning up after a kid. It’s kind of nice to just be able to do whatever I want every day and go where I want and not have to worry about babysitters or strollers or allergies. My other fear is that I would end up hating my kid as a teenager, because I almost hate teenagers worse than babies these days. Hell, my eight year old niece, who I saw over the 4th of July, has turned into the rudest, meanest child I’ve ever seen. While some of that is raising (my brother spoils her to death to the point that she gets insanely jealous if anyone wants to spend time with him, hence her complete rudeness to me for two days), I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that you could do everything right and still end up with a complete asshole for a kid. I don’t remember being rude to adults when I was a kid, but maybe I’m misremembering. It just feels like kids and teens have gotten ruder and more entitled, to the point that I want to punch them in the face. And I think…what if that was my kid?

Because you see, I am that person who gives moms dirty looks when their kid is pitching a fit at the table next to me at a restaurant, or running up and down the aisles on the airplane, or standing in the middle of the aisle in the store, or hiding under the racks in a department store. I am that person who gives moms dirty looks when they change their kid’s diaper on a bench in the middle of the mall or on a seat in a restaurant. Occasionally, depending on how the mom handles the situation, I feel a little pity. But it’s hard to feel too much pity when they made the choice to have the kid. I don’t feel that kids should be given free reign to do whatever they want just because they are kids, and I don’t feel that my enjoyment should have to be impacted just because they are kids. It’s not extreme to expect a kid to sit in their chair at a restaurant and behave themselves. If they aren’t capable of doing that….don’t take them to the restaurant. Don’t take them on a plane. Don’t take them shopping. Don’t glare at me when the kid is running down the aisle at Nordstrom and faceplants, and I keep right on walking. Some of these mothers seem to feel like I should care. I don’t. I don’t care about your kid. And believe me, I’m not “just jealous.”

Remodeling Update -- The Neverending Story

2011-07-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

This is taking much longer than anticipated.

As a reminder, I’m remodeling (gutting) three small bathrooms, tearing out two closets in the basement, and painting nearly the entire place (except for one bedroom that was already painted), including ceilings and moldings. I hired a main contractor who specializes in bathrooms and kitchens, and he outsourced the painting to a company he normally uses for painting. His time estimate was four weeks for the whole shebang. At the time, that sounded extremely aggressive to me, but I figured he knew better than I did how long this would take.

So, we are at the end of week five. He’s done a lot of the work in parallel (i.e., two bathrooms at once, all electrical at once, bathroom fans at once, the basement tearing out the closets, etc.), which I thought would be great, but has left me with…two bathrooms that are almost done, a section in the basement where the closets were taken out and the new electrical is in, but the ceiling still needs to be put in, and my master bedroom painted. I’m told that the two bathrooms will both be done by the end of the week, because all they need is the plumber to put in the faucets at this point. Next week they will start demo on bathroom number three. I anticipate the painting will be done by end of next week also.

I don’t so much mind that things have gone over, because the work on the bathrooms is phenomenal. The tile work is perfect, everything looks great, and they haven’t run into any problems at all. (I’m shocked, shocked at this!) I’m also very happy with everything I picked, which is a huge relief. It’s just taken longer than he thought, for whatever reason. Fine, it happens, I’m in no big rush anyway.

The painting started this week, and that is where problems have arisen. When I initially met with the painter, he told me they use Benjamin Moore paints, and that all I had to do was pick out the color and finish and whatnot. He said nothing about paint grade or asked me my preference. When I got the quote, I (wrongly) assumed that it did not include the cost of the paint, and that I could pick whatever Benjamin Moore grade of paint I wanted. I very carefully wrote down the paint colors I wanted in each of the rooms and where (I’m doing some accent walls) and wrote down “Use Regal or Aura Paint” and underlined it. Regal and Aura are the higher end paints, and thus more expensive. I didn’t have a preference between the two, and some painters do, so I left it open for them to decide which one to use. I left this paper on the counter, and they took it with them last week.

On Tuesday they painted the bathrooms and used Regal, so it didn’t even occur to me that there were any issues. However, last night I got home and they had painted my master bedroom. First off, they used my basement wall accent color (La Paloma Gray) on the accent wall in the bedroom. I noticed this right away, and also noticed there were two gallons of the right accent wall color (Plymouth Rock) in the entry to the kitchen. Plymouth Rock is also being used on the accent wall on the main floor…but it doesn’t seem to me they will need two gallons to do that job, and had mistakenly used the basement gallon of La Paloma Gray in the bedroom. Now, the bedroom actually looks fine with La Paloma Gray as the accent (the other walls are Revere Pewter), so I don’t mind, but now there is a ton of Plymouth Rock and I really want La Paloma Gray in the basement. Someone’s going to have some extra paint.

The bigger issue is that they are using Benjamin Moore Super Spec, not Regal or Aura. They have also already mixed a huge freaking vat of the main wall color (Classic Gray) in Super Spec, as well as the two cans of Plymouth Rock, and painted the bedroom in Super Spec. I don’t mind so much that the bedroom is in that grade of paint (or even the accent walls, for that matter), but for the high traffic main floor, up the stairs, hallway upstairs, and basement, I really wanted a higher end paint that is washable and nice. Which is exactly why I wrote on the piece of paper with the paint colors to “Use Regal or Aura Paint” and underlined it.

I confronted the painters this morning, neither of whom spoke very good English, and pointed out the above problems. (I also expressly pointed out again where the Plymouth Rock, Classic Gray, and La Paloma Gray should go. I’m still expecting a cluster fuck of mistakes there.) He called his boss, who I also talked to, and explained the situation. (And pointed out that I had told them what grade I wanted when I gave them the colors. I’m not sure why everyone seems so surprised that I don’t want the cheapass builder grade Super Spec paint.)

I then called my main contractor to explain the situation, and he asked if I had told the painter the grade when getting the quote. I said no, because I frankly didn’t even know about all these paint grades when I got the quote, and like I said, assumed that the paint cost was separate anyway. I also told him that the painter hadn’t said anything about paint grades or asked me what I wanted. I’ll admit that I’m new to the world of getting a painter, but if the grade of paint was important to the quote, shouldn’t he have asked me? The quote says nothing about paint grades. (In comparison, the contractor’s bathroom quote specifies that it is for laying ceramic tile, and stone will cost more, etc.) In fact, the painter said very little when he came by to look at the place and give me my quote. During this call, my main contractor told me that the quote included the paint cost. Color me shocked. That seems incredibly bizarre to me, because the quote doesn’t say that at all, and he never even mentioned the grade. Why would he assume I wanted the cheapo Super Spec?

Given all of that, I’m not surprised the quote is for the cheapest paint. But I find it baffling that he wouldn’t call me up to clarify and/or tell me the extra cost when I expressly stated that I wanted Regal or Aura when I supplied the paint colors. And why use Regal in the bathrooms? Now, he’s plowed forward and gotten a ton of paint mixed in Super Spec that I don’t want. I don’t know who is going to pay for that screw up, but it won’t be me.

So, I’m rather annoyed with the painters. My main contractor said he was on his way over there when I spoke to him this morning, and I haven’t heard anything back from him yet. I don’t mind paying the difference from the quote for the upgraded paint cost, but it’s unbelievable to me that they wouldn’t call me up and clarify if they were confused, before even mixing the paint. Why would I write “Use Regal or Aura Paint” if I was happy with Super Spec? The whole thing is baffling to me. When the bathroom guys were working, they constantly called me to clarify what I wanted and how I wanted it. Why didn’t the painters do the same? In hindsight, I should’ve probably hired painters separately, but it seemed so much easier to just work through the same person.

I’m sure this will work itself out one way or another, but I am so tired of dealing with construction right now. I can’t wait until this is over. Of course, then I have to deal with the carpet installers.

Is the Economy Really That Bad?

2011-07-18T16:59:00.000-05:00

From an observer's viewpoint, ignoring what the newspapers say, it's hard to believe that the state of the economy is as bad as is being reported. Let's take this past week as an example:

On Wednesday evening after work I went over to Nordstrom Rack on State Street to browse. I found a couple of Calvin Klein work dresses on sale, so I decided to buy them and went over to the register. There were fourteen people in line to pay for purchases. (Yes, I counted because I couldn't believe how long the line was.)

On Friday night, I went out for drinks in the Old Town neighborhood. At around eleven o'clock, Wells Street was covered with people waiting in line to get into bars like Benchmark and Fireside Inn. The other bars along that strip (roughly from Goethe up to just north of North Avenue) were jammed with people buying drinks and food.

On Saturday afternoon, I went over to the Bucktown/Wicker Park area around Milwaukee/North/Damen to do a little shopping. Again, the sidewalks were jammed with people, and there were loads of people in every store I went into, many of whom were buying things.

On Saturday night, I went out in Wrigleyville (don't ask), and much like the night before in Old Town, Clark Street was jammed with people waiting in line to get into John Barleycorn's, and the other bars along there weren't doing so bad either, with people buying drinks and food. Wrigleyville on a Saturday night in the summer is usually packed like this, to the point where there are people walking in the street because there is no room on the sidewalk.

And then today I see this article:

Illinois' 10th casino opened in Des Plaines today after years of legal and regulatory fights over its gambling license -- and the result was so successful that casino operators would like people to stay away ... at least for now.

When asked for a reaction to a turnout that clogged roads today in and around the facility, a Rivers Casino repesentative wrote this in an e-mail:

"Due to the tremendous interest this afternoon in our grand opening, our casino and entertainment complex is at capacity. We would ask our guests to consider delaying their visit. Please call back later (888-307-0777) or check www.playrivers.com for updates."

So, I have to wonder...with all of these people out and about shopping, eating out, patronizing the bars, and going to the casinos, are things really as bad as the media makes them appear?

Hollywood Applauds Them, Them Drops Them: Nikki Blonsky is Selling Shoes

2011-07-12T15:13:00.000-05:00

Remember back in 2007 when Hairspray came out, and Nikki Blonsky was everywhere? Hairspray was her first movie role, and she played the role of Tracy Turnblad (which I personally will always associate with Ricki Lake, but anywhoo…) Prior to that, Nikki had been scooping ice cream. She erupted on the scene and made quite a splash. There was a lot of talk back then about how talented she was, the next rising star, and how Hollywood might finally be looking past weight. She was everywhere -- red carpets, movie premieres, interviews, in magazines. I only remember this so clearly because the overexposure was excessive, and at the time I thought…

There’s not a chance in hell that she would have any sort of long term career in acting.

I’m not saying that to be a jerk, either. It’s just true. Hairspray was the perfect role for her because it required a bigger gal. There aren’t many roles like that in Hollywood for women. Even in roles where an overweight person could be cast (i.e., the ubiquitous “wisecracking friend”), they rarely are. There aren’t many actresses who are morbidly obese who are successful. (I mean, think about it. And Blonsky goes well beyond slightly overweight.) But every few years it seems that some actress gets her big break in a role written expressly for an obese person (as opposed to a role that could be played by a person of any weight), and for a few months everyone in Hollywood pats themselves on the back and talks about how wonderful it is that we can all look past appearances and what huge strides Hollywood is making and how this actress is going to have a long, successful career. (See also, Gabourey Sidibe in Precious.)

Ha.

So, what is this rising star, Nikki Blonsky, doing now? Apparently working at a shoe store. She had a few jobs after Hairspray, consisting mostly of television work. What happened to all the bigwigs in Hollywood who were applauding her performance and talking about what a wonderful actress she was? They all disappeared, apparently, without offering her a job. And now, at the age of 22, her acting career may be over, for all intents and purposes. Sure, we may see her here and there on television or in other smaller roles, but the fact remains that there is very little work in Hollywood for obese women.

The question is, how long until Gabourey Sidibe is also selling shoes or working a cash register somewhere? Since Precious in 2009, she’s had a recurring role on The Big C (where she plays an obese, crabby high school student), and according to IMDB has been in two movies, neither of which I’ve heard of. Although Gabourey seems very sweet and pleasant, I fear she will ultimately go the way of Nikki Blonsky and be forgotten by the very people who seemed so proud to see her succeed.

Casey Anthony Jurors Got It Right

2011-07-06T11:21:00.000-05:00

I’m upset about the lashing the Casey Anthony jurors are getting in the media. As seems to be typical of our society these days, anyone who reaches a different conclusion than what has been pounded down our throats by the likes of Nancy Grace must be stupid, uneducated, conspiring for money, or unable to understand the evidence. Somehow I suspect if the jury had come back with a guilty verdict after eleven hours, everyone would be complimenting them and celebrating, rather than jumping to the conclusion that a conspiracy occurred behind closed doors.

This is the same media who declared Casey Anthony guilty three years ago and has vilified her ever since. Unfortunately, in this country people aren’t tried by the media. Nancy Grace has now moved on to criticizing the jurors and discussing their DUIs and lack of a high school diploma. You’d think as a former prosecutor she would know better. Twelve people arrived at this conclusion, not two or three. This case has always made me feel uncomfortable, with the open discovery laws in Florida, and the media pouring over every document, deposition, e-mail, phone call, and photograph. It didn’t seem right that so many people should be privy to so many details prior to a public trial. Ironically, because of the wall to wall coverage of the case, Casey Anthony will likely be able to make some money on book deals and interviews once the dust settles. If the media hadn’t put so much focus on this case, that would have never happened, and she wouldn’t be in this position. They only have themselves to blame.

To Nancy Grace I say this: I have well beyond a high school diploma and no DUIs, and I think the jurors got it right, based on the evidence that was presented and the charges that were brought. The comparisons to the O.J. Simpson case are apt – the prosecution didn’t prove their case there either. Here, they overreached on the charges and hoped emotion and the horror of a child dying would carry the day. The State’s case was weak, and its attorneys were smug. Smugness and laughter at the other side never wins over a jury.

While circumstantial evidence and inferences are allowed, at the end of the day to arrive at a guilty verdict on the substantial charges required too much speculation. Too many dots had to be connected with no evidence in support other than that Casey Anthony partied in the days after her daughter’s disappearance. The State should have to show more than that to put someone in prison for life. What hurt the State’s case the most is that they did not know the cause of Caylee’s death and there was very little evidence pointing to Casey murdering Caylee (as opposed to someone else, say George, Cindy, or Lee). Iffy chloroform, iffy duct tape, iffy stain in a trunk, iffy Internet searches, and bad behavior. It’s a leap to go from an Internet search on chloroform to murdering your two year old child. And if a jury isn’t sure that a murder occurred (as opposed to an accident of some kind), there’s no way they can conclude that Casey caused the murder. The charges were simply too much for what was proved at trial. In the end, they had nothing tying Casey to Caylee’s death, and the circumstantial evidence simply didn’t add up to enough.

The cries that justice has not been served seem to stem from the idea that someone should be punished for Caylee’s death, and through process of elimination, that person should be Casey. After all, she is the only one the media has focused on for the past three years. But what if it was an accident? That idea has always gnawed at me in this case. Just because she reacted in a way people view as inappropriate does not mean she intentionally (or otherwise) murdered her daughter. In fact, the testimony about her mothering skills seemed to indicate that she was nothing but loving toward Caylee.

I don’t fault the jurors. They sat there for six weeks and heard the evidence, and were sheltered from the shrilling media screaming “off with her head!” I don’t fault them for quickly arriving at a verdict. For all we know, they took one vote and everyone felt that Casey was not guilty. That doesn’t mean they are stupid, didn’t pay attention, or didn’t understand the evidence. The fact is, the case was weak, yet very few people want to acknowledge that.

I do believe that Casey knows exactly what happened to Caylee, but don’t blame the jurors. Blame the prosecution – they didn’t do their job.

Every Day In My Job, I See Something New

2011-06-23T00:16:00.000-05:00

I'm dealing with the most crazy situation ever right now.

We filed a lawsuit, defendants filed the usual counterclaims, blah, blah, blah....after a whole lot of time (years) and nonsense (special master stuff), the defendants threw out a Rule 68 offer of judgment for a certain amount of money, and our client decided he wanted to accept, for various reasons. I believe this totally threw the defendants for a loop. They were not expecting this acceptance. So, we filed it with the Judge, Judge closed the case, etc.

A few weeks later, defendants file a motion to reopen the case, arguing that some of their counterclaims were still in play. I can't share the details about why, but they left themselves somewhat open, but not really. We've offered covenants not to sue, but it's not enough for them. They want to reopen the case, declare the patents invalid, after all has been said and done, and they've paid our client. They want a superbroad covenant not to sue, which they aren't going to get, nor do we have to under Super Sack. They offered what they offered, our client took it, and what's done is done. They never thought our client would accept their offer of judgment, but surprise, surprise, our client did. So they are arguing this ridiculous -- absurd and ludicrous -- theory on one of their counterclaims (not a DJ invalidity), and I'm briefing the issue right now and having some trouble articulating how absolutely insane their theory is without possibly getting myself sanctioned and calling them complete idiots in the process. I truly wish I could talk freely about what their claim is, but I don't feel like I can, even though it is all public in the dockets.

My sole goal in this briefing is to get across -- very professionally -- that these lawyers tried to pull a fast one on us, we trumped them, and now they are running fast to try and cover themselves with their client. Luckily, we have a smart judge, who will hear this argument in early July. I hope he rips them a new one, because if those goes on much further, I am going to file a motion for sanctions for my time and expenses on their reopening the case like this. Frankly, their client should fire them. They filed four motions for summary judgment and lost them all. They are a big firm who is billing, billing, billing, always on crazy ass theories, and their client has seen nothing good out of it. We have won every single motion they have filed over the past three years. Big companies are so dumb the way they immediately go for the big firm to cover themselves with the shareholders. Meanwhile, my medium sized firm is kicking the shit out of them, and has been for years. I can't even convey how absurd the theory they are arguing is. It's so absurd I can't even find a case that is remotely close. No good lawyers make this argument. None. I'm going to have to have someone less angry about it than me read my brief to make sure I'm not being too sarcastic and snarky about their position before I file it. Jesus, I hate lawyers.

Medicaid Recipients Who Used to Go to Planned Parenthood Have Other Options

2011-06-22T23:45:00.001-05:00

I just have to vent about this whole Planned Parenthood in Indiana is not accepting Medicaid patients anymore issue, due to no more federal funding.

Oh, what a drama! The GOP hates women! How can the government do this to us! The sky is falling!

The big argument is that Planned Parenthood provides pap smears and mammograms and STD tests, and such a small part of their business is abortions, and that is not covered by federal funding, so all of these low income women are being denied their paps and mammograms because now they don't have the funding to accept Medicaid patients.

But is it really about paps and mammograms and STD tests?

You can run a search in Indiana to find out how many OB/GYNs accept Medicaid, and there are quite a lot. Hundreds across the state. There are also free health clinics in Indiana that offer OB/GYN services. There are, in fact, a lot of places that Medicaid and other low income women can go to get their pap or mammogram. They also, I suspect, can get STD tests and other typical OB/GYN services. In short, these women aren't without options. Maybe they would rather go to PP. Hell, my healthcare plan -- that I pay for -- doesn't allow me to go anywhere I want. My doctor has to be within the network. Well, for Medicaid patients, PP is now out of network, so you have to find another doctor.

Am I missing something, or why is this such a big deal if it is truly all about paps, mammograms, and STD testing? Just find a new doctor, right? There are apparently plenty of them across the state.

The news articles make it seem as though all of these women are going to be completely without any options, but that is not the case at all. I personally don't think the federal government should be funding PP at all. Where in the hell is that in the Constitution? Cut it off. We are in an economic crisis. Cut. It. Off. There are other options.

Lots of Cops in Chicago Near Rush and Division Tonight

2011-06-22T23:21:00.001-05:00

It's been awhile since I've been to the bars at Rush and Division, which is really Division and State or Division and Dearborn. But that's what this touristy strip is called, so that's what I will call it for tonight. I used to live at LaSalle and Division, so occasionally (well, okay, more than occasionally) I would wander down to these bars. Actually, The Lodge and Butch McGuire's aren't bad places to go, provided you go on a weeknight. Avoid Mothers and Mothers II at all costs. And on the weekends, forget it. This strip is loaded with tourists. However, tonight it was all locals, and maybe just a few tourists.

We started out the night at the Union League Club bar (where I always have to stop on the second floor to view the Monet), and then headed to PJ Clark's at State and Dearborn. The only reason PJ Clark's is awesome is because the bartenders are very nice, and because they serve pints in a truly frosty pint glass. It makes the pint of beer so much better to get that frosty "mug." The ice is still on it when you get the beer! Amazing. They also play pretty good music, have sports on the TV, and generally isn't super packed. I cannot deal with wall to wall people anymore. PJ Clark's is off Dearborn, so it isn't on the main drag, but is in the general area. Then, because it was only a Wednesday night, we made the two block walk over to The Lodge, just for the hell of it.

Now, The Lodge -- despite where it is located -- is a pretty cool bar, and on the weekends it is packed to the extreme. However, on a Wednesday, not bad. Had a couple of drinks there, enjoyed the experience, and now I am home, blogging to you.

But, and I'll admit it's been awhile since I've been to that area, there were cops everywhere. Numerous cops in groups of 3-6. I went out for a smoke, and talked for a minute with a cop who was also having a smoke next to his cop car parked right on Division. Groups of cops wandering and stopping and standing on Division Street. What is amazing about this is that the bars were empty, and there weren't many people even on the streets other than the smokers like myself. Shenanigan's had about 10 people, Mother's II maybe 5, The Lodge about 30, Butch McGuire's, again maybe 30. Very few people wandering the streets, and most appearing to be heading to the train at Clark and Division. There was no one out, yet there were cops everywhere watching.

It was interesting. I wonder if it has anything to do with all of the flashmobs and wildings? Still, I'm not complaining. I like to see the Chicago cops out in full force!

Victoria’s Secret Is Like Walking Into an Acid Trip

2011-06-14T13:18:00.000-05:00

Until yesterday, I haven’t gone into a Victoria’s Secret store in quite awhile. I still buy their products, but I do it online, and I don’t browse around online very much. So it wasn’t until yesterday that I realized how far they have fallen. I remember going to Victoria’s Secret twenty years ago, when I was in high school. Back then, the store had a hushed atmosphere, subdued lighting, paint, and carpet, and an upscale ambience. Even the salespeople were classy. Buying lingerie was an experience. It was relaxing, easy, and seemed appropriate to spend $40 on a bra.

At some point, that all changed. At the Victoria’s Secret on Michigan Avenue, you enter a room with black and white tile, hot pink walls, and flashing neon signs. The underwear and pajamas lining the walls and on the tables are in bright fluorescent shades of pink, yellow, and blue. Dance music blares from the speakers. The sale tables near the door are covered with bras and underwear from “Pink” line, which is supposed to draw in the younger crowd. Brightly colored panties with “take a bite” and other crass sayings on the butt are in piles. The pajamas , rather than being subdued and cute, have huge lettering down the legs, on the butt, and across the chest. The other rooms aren’t much better, especially the perfume/body lotion room, which is also excruciatingly bright and tacky. The décor is like the Rave clothing stores from the 1990s, bright lighting, bright floors, neon lights, and everything indicative of a cheap store. You might as well be at Kmart.

It honestly made me dizzy. There was just so much going on. My 2 ½ year old nephew loved all the colors and action, but I couldn’t wait to leave, which should be the opposite reaction of what they want. Could it be that I’m just getting old? Do I just not “get it” anymore? Am I not cool? True, I’m probably not their target audience anymore. (Which never makes sense to me anyway, since when I was in my late teens and early twenties, maybe if I saved up for weeks I could afford to buy a bra or two, whereas now I have plenty of money to buy $40 bras.) The schizophrenic atmosphere in the store isn’t one that makes me want to pay full price for anything. Maybe I’ll spend $10 or $20 on a few pairs of underwear (minus the sayings in the rear end), but any exclusivity or classiness is completely gone. I mean, when I’m dying to get out of the store, chances are slim that I’m going to drop any serious money.

Obviously people are still spending money there, though, since Victoria’s Secret seems to be doing better than ever, and even I will probably continue to buy online occasionally. But the stores themselves – ugh. I will not be going into a store again anytime soon.

The Bathroom(s) Remodeling Project

2011-06-08T22:09:00.000-05:00

I think I've mentioned that I am remodeling all three of my bathrooms. The term might be "remaking," but I am basically pulling everything out (tile, vanity, toilet, tub, shower in the basement), and replacing it all. This is a huge job, but the bathrooms are 1980s original to the building of this joint, and it needs to be done. I've hired a great, well reviewed, contractor (who did work on Obama's house here in Chicago), so, hopefully it won't be too much of a pain, other than for the three to four weeks that this will be happening. They are also painting practically my entire townhouse (I have some super high ceilings, so I can't do a lot of it myself without scaffolding and stuff) and tearing out a couple of closets in the basement. (Can you believe I am removing closets? Yes, I am. One is oddly shaped, so basically useless, and there are a ridiculous amount of closets and storage in this place anyway, so I'd rather have the extra square footage down there for an office area.)

What this means is I've had to design my new bathrooms. I am not a designer. I know what I like and what I don't like as far as looks go. Generally, I think I have good taste -- at least when I've had people over they've complimented things such as my furniture, rugs, paintings, etc. Or at least decent taste. I'm not a person who has to think about it a lot or mull over faucets and tile and stuff. However, this is really hard. I've never done this before, and I've never given much thought to it, nor did I even realize how many different kinds of faucets, tubs, and toilets exist. What kind of shower head is best? What kind of faucet, the separate for left and right, or the single spigot that swings back and forth? What kind of tile, trim, glass? (The tile choices are utterly overwhelming these days -- stone, porcelain, glass, in all different colors and designs.) What kind of toilet? I mean, seriously? I have to decide all of this?

So, I did. Quickly. I work fast. I'm not planning on moving anytime soon, so I'm doing this more for myself than for any sort of resale type thing, but I still have to consider that. Luckily I lean toward more neutral things for bathrooms.

Here's what I'm doing:

Master Bath: Silver travertine 12" x 12" tile (it has some beige in it and also some blue, along with the silver, which is more of a kind of metallic gray) floor and wall surrounding tub; 3" glass tile trim around the 3/4 high point of the tub and covering the front of the tub (I got a tub with the tile on the front) that is clear, dark gray, light gray, and dark blue long staggered strips; dual flush white toilet (same for all baths). I have to pick out the vanity finish on Saturday, but I'm thinking either dark brown or maybe dark cherry, depending on the options. I also have to pick the vanity top, which will be stone of some kind, and probably a light gray. Sink will be white undermount. The medicine cabinet will be the main mirror, inset with shelves, and it folds out and there is a mirror on the inside also. (Very cool). Nickel faucet with two thinner square handles (this was a splurge, but it is so cool!). The bath faucets and shower head is also nickel. I was told that most shower/bath controls now are the circle single control, as opposed to the old dual faucet, so I went with that design for all three baths. I went with the rain shower. Towel bars also to match the faucets.

Second Upstairs Bath: Porcelain cement look light beige finish 12" x 18" tile floor and wall surrounding the tub (the porcelain options these days are amazing and very cheap); 3" dark brown glass trim around the 3/4 high point of the tub (this was $49.99 a sq ft -- ridiculous, but awesome, and okay since I didn't need much); dark brown vanity with white ceramic sink/counter that is all in one. (It looks cool). Silver single handle thick faucet, silver faucets and stuff for the tub. Same medicine cabinet as the master. Silver towel holders that match the faucets. I went with the rain shower.

Basement: This was my place to get crazy, and is also my main bath used when people come over since I don't have a bath on the main floor. I went with autumn slate 12"x12" for the floor and shower walls, a subway tile size for the shower base. Going with slate might be a dated move, but I love slate. Every time I see a bathroom all done up with slate I squeal. So, I'm going to have one in my house! It's a lighter slate (since it's a small space), but has the different colors of your standard slate. I also got a square, glass vessel sink in that turquoise color (slight splurge), and a sort of spouting silver faucet that will be either centered or off to the side. (Maybe off to the side for something different? This faucet was the other splurge. It's awesome.) I have to pick out the vanity color Saturday, and the color of the vanity top, which will be some kind of stone. Probably light gray or beige. Here I went with one of the showers with the rubber handle that you can swing around. I felt like at least one bathroom needed one of those. All silver, as are the towel bars and toilet paper holders and such.

I still need to pick lights and paint, but that shouldn't be too difficult. I hope. Ugh, I just hope it all looks good. I think it will. I'll post pics when it is all done, hopefully by late July. I'm super excited, but just crossing my fingers that nothing goes terribly wrong.

More Stupidity From Me as a Fairly New Homeowner

2011-06-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

My thermostat has always been hard to read. It's old -- like 1990s old -- and it has a touch screen that requires a stylus, that amazingly is still with it, even though it is not attached by a string like the pens at banks. Ever since I moved in, back in August of 2009, I've always found it difficult to read. The light has to be right, you have to be looking at it at the right angle, etc. Somehow, though, I figured out what I need to push at the beginning of winter and the beginning of summer to keep this place at my optimal temperature. Although it allows programming for certain hours of the day, I couldn't see the screen well enough to try to accomplish that, especially without an instruction manual, and although there is a brand name on this thermostat, there is no model number, and it is so old I can't find anything like it online. (This is the best part about buying a house -- you have no idea what previous owners installed.)

Recently, it's gotten even harder to read. I could barely see it, but luckily I knew generally what area of the touchscreen to press to get my a/c on, and it's all been good. Yet, still annoying. Why couldn't I read my thermostat? Did I need a new one? Could I install a new one myself if I bought one at Home Depot? All of these thoughts kept running through my mind. Then, out of the blue (and I don't know why, an act from a sympathetic God maybe?), something occurred to me.

Could it possibly need a new battery? Could this thermostat, that looks adhered to the wall, possibly come off, and have a battery inside?

I decided to find out on Sunday. Upon closer inspection, I realized there were slots on the outside, which indicated that it was possibly capable of popping off the wall. I pushed them in, and it popped up, showing a whole lot of circuit boards inside. I won't lie, I panicked when I saw this initially, because I was afraid it was broken. Circuit boards are scary. I hated EE201 in college. But then, there they were -- two double A batteries. Since I have practically a lifetime supply of batteries, I popped in some new batteries, and somehow managed to align the thermostat to the wall, perfectly into the slots. Best of all, the a/c continued to crank, so I didn't break that. (If it's even possible to break it by doing this, which is unlikely.)

And? I can read the screen perfectly now. This is amazing stuff, and I can't even believe I didn't think of this before. Honestly, I never thought it might have batteries in it. Maybe that's dumb -- I don't know -- but I have had no experience with thermostats prior to this. When you are renting, you just call the landlord about this kind of stuff. (And everywhere I rented in the past had either highrise controlled heating/cooling, or a really old dial type thermostat. This is my first experience with a touchscreen.) So, maybe now I can actually figure out how to program it, since I can actually see the screen!

I'm very proud of myself for figuring this out. I also successfully changed the lightbulbs in my garage door opener over Memorial Day weekend (I got up on a ladder and everything), so that's another success. You have to understand -- I just don't do this kind of thing usually. It's funny because I'm in an amazingly technical field and have an engineering degree, and can spar with the best of the experts at a technical deposition, but anything actually hands on technical related to my house terrifies me. I'm always afraid I'm going to break something. Yet, I never have. Maybe I should have more faith in my abilities. (LOL, like changing a couple of lightbulbs and a battery is a technical ability! But hey, it works now!)

And Suddenly, An Explosion of Coverage on Chicago’s Wildings/Flash Mobs

2011-06-08T11:19:00.005-05:00

I’m not complaining. This is out of control, and it’s nice to see the media stepping up to the plate. It's kind of funny, though, how quickly after Mayor Daley stepped down that the media started doing their job. Makes you wonder what kind of dirt he had on some of these news organizations. Anyway, these stories have also been all over Drudge (yay, national news!), so I won’t extensively repeat what happened. Rest assured, it is more of the same things that have been going on for the past year, only now it’s actually being reported, and the CPD is actually arresting some of these thugs.

On Saturday in the Streeterville neighborhood (basically just east of the Mag Mile), four (or five, depending on the news source) robberies occurred in a ten minute span at around 8:30 in the evening. It was light out, and there were a lot of people in the vicinity:

In the first case, a man was beaten about 8:25 p.m. when a group of 15 to 20 males approached him near Northwestern University’s Streeterville campus.

The second incident happened a few minutes later, law enforcement officials said. A man was knocked off his bicycle in the 700 block of North Lake Shore Drive and punched by a group of teens who stole his cellphone and camera, law enforcement officials said.

In two other incidents, two men — ages 68 and 42 — were robbed of iPod and other electric devices in the Streeterville area.

The 68 year old was a doctor who was in town for a medical conference. The 42 year old man was a Japanese tourist, and also a doctor. The first victim tells his story here, along with details of the other incidents. (By the way, can you imagine sitting on a bench, enjoying the day, and suddenly being surrounded by a swarm of teenagers? Scary.)

At least five black male teens from the south side were arrested in connection with these robberies, which is good news, except that probably nothing serious will happen to them. Some are juveniles, so I’m sure they will be back out on the streets almost immediately. That's the real problem -- there are no consequences for this type of behavior. It doesn't scare anyone off to be arrested. (I was watching Judge Judy the other day and she asked one of the parties if he had ever been arrested before, and he said "Obviously." The Judge Judy death glare to that response was a sight to see. It's like being arrested is no big deal anymore.) Anyway, I'm sure the teens arrested are all “good boys” who got straight As and were on the path to college. I’m still waiting for their mothers to show up on the news clutching their school pictures and talking about how they have been wrongly accused and were turning their lives around. At least that's how these events usually go down.

The Mayor and Police Superintendent (both new to their jobs) have addressed the incidents, but have almost brushed them off, stating that there is nothing to worry about. They have it under control. Right. In fact, the Police Superintendent had this to say:

Asked whether tourists and people wanting to enjoy the lakefront should be concerned, McCarthy said, “No. No. But, what we do have to do is have awareness. You don’t want to walk in dark areas by yourself after having a fight at a bar with a friend and you’re going home. We still have to pay attention to common-sense things to do. We have to be aware. That’s the nature of the world today. But, nobody should be afraid of this.”

Here we have four (or five, depending on the news source) people who were out enjoying the day, minding their own business, in a nice neighborhood in a well populated area, in broad daylight who got jumped by a group of black teens. And McCarthy is talking about people walking home in the dark by themselves after a bar fight? Is he serious? What connection does that have with anything that happened? This has expanded well beyond drunk college kids getting their iPhones stolen at 3 a.m. during their walk home from the bar, which many people could at least acknowledge isn’t the smartest thing to do in the city. No, this is happening in broad daylight in well populated parts of town that – at least until now – have been considered the “safe” and “nice” parts of town. The "common-sense" part of his statement irks me, too. I guess it's using no common sense these days to expect to be able to walk around in downtown Chicago during the day without being rushed by a mob of thugs. What an idiot.

So sorry, Mayor Emmanuel and Superintendent McCarthy, but it isn’t over yet:

Charges are pending against three people arrested after a group of 10 men attacked at least one person Tuesday night in a “flash mob incident” downtown.

Same general area, same thing, three days later. Mobs of black teenagers from the south side coming north to commit crimes. Here’s more on that, including the news report.

There has also been a rash of robberies in the Lakeview neighborhood – again, committed by black males – who use pepper spray on their victims and then steal their phones and money. Once Lakeview issued a community report on June 3, they moved south to Lincoln Park on June 5. Oh, and the Lincoln Park incident happened at 7 a.m. So much for people getting into fights at bars and walking home in the dark as being the cause. Also, the American Apparel off the Belmont stop in Lakeview was flash mobbed on June 3. That's what's really interesting about all this. If the cops step up on the Mag Mile, will the criminals move north to Lincoln Park, west to Old Town, further north to Lakeview? Because you know they will be going somewhere.

Edited to add: This just popped up on the Tribune, and it annoyed me even further:

A 17-year-old Chicago boy has been arrested in Wilmette after allegedly breaking a woman’s hand during an attempted purse-snatching.

Wilmette police arrested James Myer, 17, of the 6800 block of South Dorchester Avenue at 2 p.m. Tuesday.

So, we have a 17 year old who is nearly 30 miles from home (Wilmette is a northern suburb) at 2 p.m. on a school day. Nice.

Edited again: Jesus, there's been another attack. From the Sun Times:

A man was hospitalized after being attacked by four others and robbed of an iPhone and wallet while riding a CTA train on the Near North Side on Wednesday afternoon.

Four males attacked a man as he rode the Brown Line about 3:40 p.m. in the 300 block of West Chicago Avenue, police said. The man’s iPhone and wallet were taken.

This one is west of the Mag Mile area just north of the Loop. Another person attacked who obviously wasn't stumbling home wasted drunk at 3 in the morning after getting into a bar fight. Nope, middle of the afternoon on a very busy el route (in fact, my el route to and from work) an hour and a half before rush hour officially starts. At 3:40 p.m., this guy wasn't sitting on that train alone, I can assure you. I can't even believe how brazen this is getting.

Chicago Shuts Down the Beach, Votes for Casinos, and Wants to Drug Test

2011-06-01T20:47:00.001-05:00

Oh, there has been so much juicy Chicago news over the past couple of days.

Wilding and Gang Stuff

On Monday it was in the 90s here and unbearably hot and humid. Predictably, many people went to the beach. Many, many people. I wasn't one of them; I went to Benchmark for lunch and drinks and then to the Lincoln Park Zoo. The North Avenue beach is one of the nicest in the city, and the nearest to the Magnificent Mile, Lincoln Park, Old Town, and the Gold Coast. So, usually it is covered with college students, families, tourists, and people from the suburbs.

Apparently they decided to shut down the North Avenue beach on Monday because it was too hot. Yes, you heard that right. They shut down the beach because it was too hot. I guess some people were passing out and getting sick. (I don't know, could alcohol be involved maybe?) Have you ever heard of a beach being shut down because it was too hot? Isn't that the point of the beach? At least, that was the story the Chicago Police Department and Mayor Rahm Emmanuel were telling.

Word on the street, and reported by WGN, was that the thugs were out and the CPD got nervous about being able to control the crowds. Various bloggers and commenters who were there have said that it was very crowded and a, shall we say, bad element, was making their usual appearance and starting to cause a commotion. Obviously such reports have been vehemently denied. It was refreshing to see WGN questioning why the beach got shut down, but the Sun Times and the Tribune just took the CPD's word for it that it was too hot so the beach had to close early. Ridiculous.

Drug Testing CHA Residents

I also missed the protest by CHA residents downtown today about potentially having to be drug tested. If you have time to protest, you have time to work. Go to work so you can pay your own rent. I wish I would've known about this before, or I would've made my own sign and wandered over there for a few minutes. If the hearing tonight wasn't way far away on the south side, I would probably go. I don't think this will ever pass, but it is good to dream. Florida's governor just signed an executive mandate to do this, but predictably, the ACLU has already filed a lawsuit to stop a similar law down there against drug testing state employees, so a lawsuit on the welfare recipients can't be too far off.

Casinos in Chicago!

The Illinois Senate passed legislation to allow casinos downtown, at O'Hare and Midway, and in other locations in Illinois. I'm all for this. Casinos have infused a ton of money into Detroit, and we can definitely use the money here in Chicago. Plus, I'd like to be able to go downtown and play blackjack every now and then. And frankly, if the choice is between raising my taxes more or building a few casinos, I vote for the casinos. But of course Governor Quinn calls the plan "excessive." He's such a jackass. The first thing he did when he got into office was raise taxes, while he continues to spend, spend, spend. Even our state Treasurer is saying that Illinois is on the verge of financial disaster.

Interesting Facts About Christian Louboutin

2011-05-27T14:57:00.001-05:00

Reading Complaints filed in lawsuits can be very revealing, particularly in the area of fashion. The Complaint lays out the facts of the case, and describes what goes on within the company straight from the horse's mouth. I finally read the Complaint for the Christian Louboutin v Yves St Laurent trademark lawsuit, and some things caught my attention. The lawsuit is over this mark:

(I linked to a different red sole mark in my previous post on this, oops.) This mark was applied for in March 2007, published for opposition in July 2007 (allowing anyone else to complain about its issuance), and registered in January 2008. The Complaint is against the red YSL Tribute, Tribtoo, Palais, and Woodstock shoes, which apparently are shoes that are all red -- outside, inside, and sole. The shoes come in blue and purple also, of similar design -- i.e. all blue outside, inside, and sole.

Throughout the Complaint, Christian Louboutin goes to great lengths to describe the exclusivity, distinctiveness, and fame (or "well known") of the mark. Here are some paragraphs from the Complaint about the marketing of Louboutins that I found interesting (numbered as they are in the Complaint):

33. Plaintiffs have made the conscious effort to keep Louboutin Footwear as a recognized luxury item and thus away from what is commonly known as mainstream marketing. The manufacture, design, promotion, distribution, lending and sale of Louboutin Footwear are all done by Plaintiffs with this fundamental strategy in mind.

34. Plaintiffs have strictly limited the locations (known in the industry as "doors") where genuine Louboutin Footwear may be purchased. Louboutin Footwear is only sold in Plaintiffs' own free standing eponymous boutiques, high end department stores, a few very select small individual retailers, and on the Internet via Plaintiffs' website, and the e-commerce sites of Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and Net-A-Porter.com (which is considered by many to be the Internet equivalent of Neiman Marcus or the like). In particular, in the United States, consumers can purchase geniune Louboutin Footwear in only seven stand-alone Christian Louboutin boutiques located in major cities, at the high end department stores Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom, at a very small number of unique luxury boutiques and via the Internet sites stated above.

35. To maintain demand, Plaintiffs often will not fill an entire order that a vendor would like to receive, preferring instead to keep product in short supply and sufering "sold out" status from time to time. Consumers thus watch carefully for all deliveries and often are on waiting lists for a new product.

36. Plaintiffs carefully screen all requests from editors of magazines, celebrity stylists, writers, photographers and others who make public use of Plaintiffs' footwear to assure that such use will enhance the reputation of the Christian Louboutin brand and the Red Sole Mark. For example, for publications Plaintiffs screen the readership, photographers, content and advertisers to confirm that the Louboutin Footwear is in the right publication and that the products advertised therein are similar in style and luxury.

37. Plaintiffs do not give away footwear in return for photography placements or celebrity use, nor do Plaintiffs purchase advertising space in return for use of their products in photograph spreads by the very same magazines or newspapers. Virtually all products provided for editorial photography or for celebrity events are returned to Plaintiffs upon completion of the event. This strategy is very different than those employed by competing brands. If celebrities want their own Louboutin Footwear, they purchase them. If a magazine wants to use Louboutin Footwear in an editorial, they must request and then return the footwear, if provided at all. Such strategy has had great results, with both celebrity and editorial use of Louboutin Footwear growing each year through the date hereof.

38. Although Plaintiffs give a small amount of money as co-operative marketing money to certain of their upscale department store retailers, Plaintiffs themselves do not buy advertising space. Plaintiffs rely almost entirely on filling the numerous requests to loan footwear for product placements, women's magazine fashion editorials, and celebrity events as the strategy to publicizie and market Louboutin Footwear. [......]

The Complaint also goes into great detail naming all the celebrities who wear them, movies they've appeared in, Jennifer Lopez's "Louboutins" song, accolades and awards, and social networking sites dedicated to Louboutins. The claims against YSL are trademark infringement, trademark dilution, false designation of origin and unfair competition (federal and state claims).

YSL's Answer basically states the following (1) red soles have been in use since the 1600s; (2) YSL has used red soles since the 1970s, and the shoes accused have been sold for years. They list a huge amount of shoes sold since 2003 by YSL that had red soles; (3) Louboutin lied to the Trademark Office to get the mark; (4) Louboutin interfered with YSL's business by convincing the department stores that YSL was infringing; and (5) Louboutin's trademark should be cancelled.

I'm finding this lawsuit pretty fascinating. The hearing for the preliminary injunction (which would halt all sales by YSL immediately) is on July 22.

Casey Anthony's Defense Does Not Ring True

2011-05-27T10:20:00.000-05:00

I haven’t paid much attention to the Casey Anthony case lately, but now that the trial has started, it’s almost impossible to get away from it. I’ve only read a few articles, but from what I’ve seen, the approach taken by the defense is baffling.

The story told by the defense goes like this: Caylee accidentally drowned in the pool. Casey’s father, George, found her. He and Casey panicked and disposed of the body. Oh, and George molested Casey. (This was described in excruciating detail in the defense’s opening statement. I do not believe this at all, and feel terrible for George, especially considering that they have stood by Casey during all of this.)

All I can really gather is that the defense believes Casey will be found guilty and is trying to mitigate a death penalty sentence, because the story they are telling does not make sense, and especially doesn’t make sense after Casey has spent three years sitting in jail. As Judge Judy likes to say “If it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t true!”

Let’s imagine for a second that you have a two year old child. You take your eyes off them for a minute; they fall in a pool and drown. What do you do?

(a) Call 911.

(b) Get rid of the body and spend the next month partying. Tell your friends your child is with her nanny. When confronted by the police, make up a story that your child was kidnapped by her nanny and claim you didn’t call the police because you were looking for her yourself. Sit in prison for three years knowing that you did not kill your child.

I’m not a criminal attorney, but the “accidental death” defense seems like a nonstarter, given the events of the past three years. Even if Caylee did accidentally drown, and even if Casey did panic and dispose of her body, doesn’t it seem like Casey would have admitted that to the police over the past three years rather than face the death penalty? She was young (and probably very stupid) when this happened. Wouldn’t you expect her to just break down and some point and say “Here’s what happened. I panicked. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.” Maybe she still faces prison time, but certainly not death. Instead, she is on trial and facing the death penalty, claiming that Caylee accidentally died, so thus she did not kill her. That’s the defense?

It’s an odd position to take. Remember that the prosecution has the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I’m not that into the case, but from what I know there isn’t any pure, direct proof that Casey is the one who killed Caylee, or even how Caylee died. Casey was living in a house with her mother, father, and brother at the time this happened. It seems like some doubt could be raised as to who actually did it, rather than taking the position that Caylee accidentally died, Casey knew about it, and did nothing. That raises more red flags than the “prosecutors can’t prove this to you beyond a reasonable doubt; all they can prove is maybe that Casey was a bad mother in that she was out partying after Caylee disappeared” defense. (Not a great position either, but it’s a big step from being a not so great mother to actually killing your child.)

I don’t know, but the story being spun by the defense seems like a loser to me, simply because if it is true, it makes no sense that Casey would be sitting in the defendant's chair at trial facing the death penalty right now.

Drug Testing for CHA Residents

2011-05-27T09:41:00.000-05:00

I really despise the ACLU. I think at one point in time they did good things and helped a lot of people. Now, however, it seems like every time an ACLU spokesperson is quoted or a lawsuit is filed on the ACLU’s behalf, it’s over something that makes no logical sense. Everything is a "civil liberty" these days.

For example, in today’s Sun Times, there is an article discussing the following:

The Chicago Housing Authority wants to require all adults who currently live in, or apply in the future for housing in any of its developments, to be tested for drugs — including senior citizens.

What is wrong with this? Let’s recall that most of the projects in Chicago were just torn down due to years of dangerous conditions, drugs, and crime that obliterated any good standard of living for the people who lived there. Those have been replaced with mixed income housing in some areas, as well as other new low income housing. Apparently some of the new mixed income housing already requires drug testing. The people who live in this brand new CHA housing (as well as other older CHA housing) are living there at a huge discount, if not for free. And if you aren’t doing drugs, you have nothing to hide, right?

But oh, their civil liberties might be infringed upon! I guess that means their liberty to do illegal drugs while the government pays their rent. Where is that in the Constitution?

The American Civil Liberties Union charges the public agency seeks to place a double standard on the poor.

“From our perspective, drug testing without suspicion is humiliating. It’s stigmatizing. There’s a double standard here,” he said. “All across our city and our country, when most of us who are in whatever income bracket rent housing, we don’t have to take a drug test. This is an emerging one standard for poor people and another standard for everyone else.”

Here’s the deal, Mr. ACLU: if someone else -- especially the government -- is paying your rent, you shouldn’t be held to the same standard as someone paying their own rent. You should be expected to, at minimum, follow the law.

And of course the residents disagree:

“It’s such an insensitive proposal to even bring to the table,” said Myra King, a resident of the Far South Side Lowden Homes development. She chairs the Central Advisory Council of tenant leaders from CHA properties all across the city.

“Singling us out for this type of humiliation is a slap in the face of what this whole ‘Plan for Transformation’ supposedly is about,” King said. “CHA says they’re doing this plan to make us privvy [sic] to the same standards as any other citizen in any other community. If that’s true, why are we the only citizens to be drug tested?”

Oh, it's so insensitive. Maybe if we didn't coddle people so much and worry about their feelings there wouldn't be people who live in CHA housing for their entire lives. Remember back in the day when it was humiliating to be dependent on the government? Remember when people were embarrassed to use food stamps and leech of others in society? Maybe some of our government spending problems could be taken care of if we went back to those days, and cared less if we were hurting someone's feelings. I'm so sick of hearing about "loss of dignity" and all that crap. Maybe you can create your own sense of dignity by supporting yourselves. Lots of jobs require random drug testing, why shouldn't housing? You are the only citizens for housing being drug tested because you are the citizens who expect the government to pay your rent. If the government wants to pay part of my mortgage, I will happily take a drug test. I’ll take one every week! Unfortunately, the government will not pay my mortgage for me.

The measure is among several changes to the lease and CHA’s Admissions and Continued Occupancy Policy proposed by CEO Lewis Jordan. Under the policy, a positive drug test would subject leaseholders to eviction proceedings.

Why should people be allowed to continue to suck money out of the government for rent, when they are out spending the money they do have on drugs? There is a massive waiting list for CHA housing right now, so big that only every few years or so they open it up to add new people. I have no problem helping people out when they need help, but if they take advantage of the system, that’s when I have a problem. Let’s allow some of the other people on the list who need help to have their chance by evicting the people who are abusing the system.

Lady Gaga Annoys Me Further

2011-05-26T10:57:00.000-05:00

I'm still laughing over this quote from her latest Rolling Stone interview:

But, she says, please don’t confuse her actions as attempts to gain attention.

“I have attention,” she says in the interview. "Is it that you believe that I am attention-seeking or shock for shock's sake, or is it just that it's been a long time since someone has embraced the art form the way that I have? Perhaps it's been a couple of decades since there's been an artist that's been as vocal about culture, religion, human rights, politics.”

Really? Really?

Gaga continues, speaking directly to her critics, “I'm so passionate about what I do, every bass line, every EQ. Why is it that you don't want more from the artist, why is it that you expect so little, so when I give and give, you assume it's narcissistic?"

Everything about what she says here seems completely narcissistic to me. But maybe I'm crazy or just a hater. If she really wants to change the world, I wish she'd stop plagiarizing Madonna and her own previous songs. I'm just so completely over her.

Random Thoughts on May 22

2011-05-22T21:55:00.000-05:00

1. Once again, Justin Timberlake stole the show on the season finale of SNL last night. Lady Gaga was there also, and she was all right, and participated in three sketches. She was okay, but again, she never looks like she is having any fun. Justin Timberlake takes on every sketch with gusto, and is probably the best host standing right now. I was never a fan of his, but his ability to make fun of himself and just go for it on SNL has made me a huge, huge fan. He's awesome. I couldn't stop laughing at him in the Liquorville sketch last night. I hope he wins an Academy Award someday.

2. Speaking of boy bands, I'm going to the Backstreet Boys/New Kids on the Block concert on Wednesday night. Some of my friends went on the cruise a couple weekends ago and got free tickets to the Chicago show, and since they are already going to like three other shows, they have given me their free tickets. Hurray! So, I am gathering girls (much harder than you might think, for this particular show), and we are going. I saw them live back when they first started the reunion tour, and on the one cruise I went on (out of pure peer pressure), and say what you want about the NKOTB, but they put on a damn good live show. It also helps that I know the words to every single fucking song.  What happened to me? Oh well, I'm excited. It's always good for people watching, at any rate. And I really love the BSB "Larger Than Life" so I'm kind of looking forward to hearing that live.

3. I took a full carload of crap to Salvation Army today (Goodbye all of my VHS tapes!), and still feel like I haven't made a dent in all the things I need to just let go. (No, the Cabbage Patch Kids are still here!) It's really weird how you feel like you've gotten rid of a lot, and then when you look at all your stuff it seems as if no dent has been made.

4. Drain flies are back. Not a ton, but Jesus Christ. Maybe the bathroom remodels will take care of this, when the plumbers get in here. If not, I don't know what to do. I'm stumped as to where they are coming from, after checking and taping all of my drains last year and having my sump checked.  I'm convinced they are getting in from outside somehow, and not through my drains. But where? And how? Ugh.

5. I thought I could go to Menard's and find a "Garage Door Opener" lightbulb, because on the Internet, there were a lot of specially labelled "garage door opener lightbulbs." You have to get a special one that can handle the shock of the opening and closing and whatever.  (I mean, who knew?) They did not have anything labelled as such in the four aisles of lightbulbs at Menard's, and the worker there seemed to think I was crazy. But I swear I saw them on the Internet. So, I will either order off the Internet, or just suck it up and take the cover off and see what I need. For now, I have a flashlight in my car. I am resourceful, if anything. And it hasn't been a huge issue, since I only drive my car about once a week. And if you can't tell, I really don't want to deal with this. Maybe I should just call a handyman company and tell them I want them to do this for me. I wonder how much that would cost. I have, however, determined that if I really push my car over to the far left, that I can leave it in the garage and still change the bulb, so that makes life a little easier.

6.   The French Open has started! Yay! Federer is the underdog, but you can't count him out. I'd like to see him blow past Nadal and Djkovic. There are no women from the U.S. in the draw that anyone has ever heard of. It's kind of ridiculous how everyone pulls out of Roland Garros because its on clay because of supposed injuries, when you know they are all just getting their game ready for Wimbledon. You'd think that wouldn't be allowed, but tennis is weird.

7.    My asshole neighbor who has had his place up for sale for the past year or so and was under contract (yay!) had the contract fall through (boo!) because the appraisal came out too low. This also happened to another of my friends. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't market rate be what someone is willing to pay? I had to get two appraisals when I bought my place for the same reason, because they brought up a guy who lived in northern Indiana the first time who had no fucking idea about the neighborhood and location to do the appraisal. It seems to me that the housing market may be suffering not due to people wanting to buy or not being able to buy, but to appraisals that aren't reflecting the market price (i.e. what people are willing to pay, within reason) of the house.