Osler's Razor

Apparently, IPLawGuy has an amazing knowledge of our nation's presidents. Here was his winning entry:


First Term G. Cleveland
Made tough choices, did not pander
Lost election.

And his bio:

IPLawGuy is an innovator in two worlds: Intellectual property law and skiing. In the realm of his vocation, he is well known for a series of cases which defined the “Garofalo Doctrine,” which allows for the free and uncompensated use of celebrity names and images to promote businesses that provide goods or services related to pancakes, time-share condominiums, nail-care products, and interstate trolley service. Similarly, in the field of skiing, he is generally recognized as the creator of the “windmill” technique, by which a skier proceeds down the mountain while pinwheeling his arms madly while exclaiming “Yi-yi-yi!” before colliding with either a row of motorcycles, live bears holding paint cans, or any bendable object that will make the noise “B-wonnnnnggggg!” when struck by said skier.

It's spring break time here in Minnesota-- which seems a little odd, since we are getting a half-foot of snow this weekend, piling up on top of all the snow that we already have.

So, I'll go skiing.  IPLawGuy and I do every year for spring break.

I think having breaks from the usual is part of how we are supposed to work. We are programmed for cycles: to celebrate holidays at the same time every year, to recognize the change of the seasons, and to sometimes put down our tools. I have the luxury of a job--teaching--that has a precise rhythm. We have new students every fall, and we graduate others in the late spring.  There is a poignancy to it, those starts and ends, the people who are at the center of your work coming and going.

When IPLG and I are skiing, we have different styles. I just ski, eat, and watch basketball on TV. He is usually working, even on the ski lift. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't found a way to take calls as we go down the slopes. I suppose it's because his work is different-- most adults do not get spring break, after all.

Perhaps he gets his cyclical reality in other ways. He's Episcopalian, and they take the liturgical year very seriously: the liturgies are in a cycle, of course, and the whole church changes with each season: Lent has a whole decorative and costuming theme, which abruptly changes at the onset of Easter. I love that.

How do you get yours?

Last week was spring break at the University of St. Thomas, and (besides doing the trial of Jesus in Nashville and Oklahoma City) I spent some time skiing with IPlawGuy in Colorado. Most of it was great, though I did make the mistake of letting IPLawGuy set up the rental car:



Other than that horror, things were great. The weather was sunny, there was adequate snow, and many of my questions about intellectual property were answered (for example, did you know that "Airplane" is actually a registered trade name? It's true!). We ate well, enjoyed many good runs on the slopes, and then ate well again. Not a bad break, actually.

We spent most of our time at Beaver Creek, and one day at Vail. There were no crowds, and no lift lines. There was an unfortunate moment where IPLawGuy decided to "practice the biathlon," but fortunately the rifle he had seemed to come from... well, the same place as the jeep.


Then there was the "scarf incident," in which he lost his beloved Manchester United scarf somewhere on the slopes, where it was found by a drunk Arsenal fan who kept it until a dramatic fistfight that concluded at the top of the clock tower high over Beaver Creek village, after a lengthy chase on skis, snowmobiles, and dogsleds.

In the end, his scarf was recovered, my x-rays showed no severe break, and all was well...

I'm on vacation (there is nothing like adults having Spring Break), so no politics this Thursday. I just can't. In the meantime, maybe y'all can convince IPLawGuy (pictured above) to wear a helmet when we are skiing. He claims that wearing a helmet would "mess up his hair" and that if he had a helmet he couldn't "wear a cool hat like this one from [Walgreen's]." (At least I think his hat was from Walgreen's-- it had that swirly "W" on it).  I rigged him up a helmet out of a trash can lid, but he claimed it "didn't fit right." I guess I need to find a bigger trash can.

Yesterday was a great day on the snow. It was sunny, and you could see the mountains stretching out forever. The hills are steep here, and the snow is deep. I'm still getting my feet right, but by the end of the day I was doing ok.

I know people who are great skiers, but I am not one of them. I'm a pretty good skier who really loves it. And, frankly, on a day like today I would be fine just standing around on top of the mountain looking around.

Luckily for me, I got to do more than that. At the end of the day, as the people thinned out, I found myself heading down. I was under control, but not dawdling. After about 1,000 feet from where I dropped in, there was a ridge before the next part of the downhill. No one was on the downward slope, but there were a few people on the ridge staring over the edge. I decided not to stop.

As I went over the ridge, I found myself in the air. It was only a moment, but it was a great one. I pulled up a little, stayed tight. But there was something in that moment-- there was nothing under me. I was flying. It was thrilling. 

And then I landed. And it was fine-- I didn't crash or pinwheel my arms madly or land on one ski awkwardly (though I am very capable of all of that, probably at the same time). I came back to the earth, and kept on going, thankful. I got to the bottom and found IPLawGuy--who had finished before me-- reading a book.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"Pretty good," I told him. "It was a good day." 

And so it was.

 

So, my birthday surprise was a visit from IPLawGuy, and tomorrow we will head down to the Wisconsin Dells to do some skiing. On the way, we will stop in Tomah, Wisconsin to dine at Mr. Ed's TeePee Supper Club, pictured above. It's kind of a snowmobiler's paradise. Plus, they have food.

So, what's your favorite restaurant? Tell me about it in haiku! Here, I will go first:

IPLawGuy eats
Fried stuff and garbage and beef
He'll love Mr. Ed's!

Now it is your turn... just make it good and fun and 5/7/5, and no one gets hurt.

Last weekend, I went skiing in Wisconsin with (among others) my sister Kathy and IPLawGuy (pictured above). It was a great trip.

However, IPLawGuy spent the entire trip singing "Sky Pilot" at the top of his lungs, particularly on the chair lift. It was fun but eventually a little disconcerting...

 

Yesterday, the Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, closed pretty much everything worth going to: restaurants, bars, gyms, theaters, churches, and pretty much every other place that people gather. He was following the lead of others across the country in doing so.

On my way home from work yesterday I stopped at Costco to pick up a few things--olive oil, parmesan cheese--and it was there that I realized that we have reached The Turn where things get real. They were out of chicken in any form. They were out of pretty much everything made of paper. There was no... well, they were out of a lot of stuff.

That was the end of a day that also included teaching my first lecture class on Zoom, where I'm looking at a screen and seeing tiny little pictures of my students. It didn't go great-- I'll be honest. I'm a person who feeds off the mood of my students, who relishes the give-and-take of a courtroom or lively classroom. I need to read a room. Perhaps I will get used to this, but it will be an uphill struggle.

And, of course, I have it good. I have a job where I can at least try to do it well in these circumstances.  The people who are really suffering are the less affluent, especially those in the gig economy. There are going to be deep and enduring tragedies that come out of this, breaks in family trees and sad stories that are alluded to years later.

I suspect that in the coming weeks we are going to have to build new and different social structures. I don't know what that will look like-- after all, one week ago I was out at Whistler skiing with IPLawGuy, never imagining what the next week would hold.

 

 

 

 

I've been enjoying my spring break quite a bit. IPLawGuy and I have been skiing in Sun Valley, and it has been a blast. It's a beautiful place, and apparently a secret given how uncrowded it is.

Let's haiku about spring break this week! Here, I will go first:

Up on the big snow
You can see sky forever
And then there is lunch.

Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 formula, and have some fun!

As yesterday's post attests, it has been a not-so-great week thus far.  But, it is Spring Break at UST law, so at least I have a chance for a little escape.

IPLawGuy (pictured above, driving the Barbie Jeep) and I are in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for some skiing. If you haven't heard of Jackson Hole, here are some key facts:

-- "Jackson Hole" is apparently an amorphous term used to refer to almost anything or anyplace in Northwestern Wyoming.

-- At the same time, nothing around here seems to be a "hole." In fact, it's all up above 6,000 feet or so, which is pretty much the opposite of a hole.

-- This seems to be a place for really serious skiers. You know, the kind with their leg in a cast. I'm not sure if that bodes well for us.

-- When we were renting the Barbie Jeep, there was a series of warning signs about the dangers of hitting very large animals. There were actually two different signs warning about hitting moose and elk, respectively. The one about elk featured a drawing of an enormous elk lying in the road, bleeding from the head as a totally smooshed car sits motionless while the driver, apparently dead, slumps over the wheel. So: don't hit an elk. Got it.

-- At the grocery store, everyone else seemed to be in the same boat as we were, meaning that they couldn't remember if the place they rented had a coffee maker or not, and if it did what kind of coffee it took. So we all stood around in the coffee aisle and talked about it for a while....