Bankruptcy

Besides being a bar class, bankruptcy has the potential to impact many areas of the law and there are some useful tools to know about. Judge Kelly has more than a little expertise in the subject.

If you are considering taking the course, you might find it helpful to know:

• You are allowed to use your copy of the code on the exam, and you may annotate it.
• Judge Kelly threatened to call on people, but ended up only taking volunteers. Don't slack off, though, because on a couple of occasions he offered to add a point to your final grade if you gave the answer.
• In addition to the final exam and the points mentioned above, there is also a 2 page memo part-way through that contributes to your final grade.
• Grades were on Bearweb quickly--it only took a couple of weeks.
• Secured is not a prerequisite for bankruptcy at Baylor, but we somewhat frequently heard things like, "if you've taken secured transactions, you'll be familiar with this concept." I don't think this should put you off from the class if you're interested and haven't had secured, but something to consider if you're out to get the most benefit from the course and you can work it in to your schedule.

If I had the class to do over again, I would put more effort into the problems in the text as we went along.

Resume Reviewed (Or Please Judge Me Now)

Attorneys from Patton Boggs were here this afternoon to review students' resumes. My session went better than I feared.

I know I have some things going for me. One of them is work history, which I'm told many of my peers don't have. Even though my past employment wasn't law related, it does signal that I can hold a job.

Still, there is something inherently depressing in working on a document that distills a lifetime of experiences into a single page of bullet points that you're going to hand to a stranger to judge you by.

Further Escapades In Austin

Yesterday's adventure was, happily, to Austin again. This time it was with Amy. Among the day's activities: We toured the capitol building, ate puffy tacos at El Chile, and wandered around the Blanton museum for a while. The coffee shop we were looking for apparently no longer exists, and she eventually dissuaded me from going to the Zilker Botanical Garden in the rain, but it was still a great trip.

I learned a number of interesting factoids. I'll spare you most of them, but the capitol connects to an addition built below ground level to accommodate everyone who needs to work there, keep the original building in a relatively pure form, and not obstruct anyone's viewing corridor. Only rows of skylights penetrate the surface, letting natural light in over concourses and down the 65 feet to the bottom. It didn't feel underground, other than the knowledge you walked down too many steps.

The Blanton didn't have any impressionists in its wide-ranging collection, but I found no shortage of thought provoking pieces. My favorites were modern art, but I was glad to get to see the exhibition of Japanese prints from James A. Michener's collection, from the Honolulu Academy of Arts, as well.

Awesome Video Game Powers

My cousin Jimmy thinks I have "awesome video game powers." I find this remarkable as (1) I haven't had time to undertake a game since January 2007; (2) I dislike most video games, so it has in fact been longer than that; and (3) his mother was always better at Super Mario Brothers than me when we were children, and probably still is.