"Three people failed this class last quarter." A powerful statement in any circumstances, but arguably even more likely to get the attention of someone who attends a school that purports not to have any grades. Failed, you say? Interesting. The Bankruptcy professor went on to inform us that the class is very fast-paced, there is a lot of reading, an in-class final, statutory language that is unlike any we have seen before, and that he fully expects the class to shrink a great deal now that he has shared all of this information with us. He was not kidding. The forms required simply to file for bankruptcy are apparently 48 pages long and written in a cross between Greek and Aramaic. In addition, the unofficial comments provided by our collection of code sections, contain gems such as this: "If your professor has written law review articles about big case bankruptcy filings in Delaware, then it is important to read this section and those articles." Thanks for the tip.

My other classes this quarter (even after four years of undergrad and a year here, it still feels weird to not have semesters) are: Intellectual Property, Trademark Law and the unfortunately named Basic Income Taxation -- which just proves that putting the word "Basic" in front of something does not make it easy. Interestingly, the code and regulations of tax law were written in a different dialect of Greek from bankruptcy law, so taking the two together is not helpful. Rounding out my on-campus presence will be my stint as a TA for my Torts professor, which hopefully will not lead to permanent brain damage of 60 brand new 1Ls who are permanently confused by some ill-formed answer I provide. I actually wonder if NUSL is insured for this eventuality, you know, just in case.

In non law-school news, I spent the long weekend back in Rochester, visiting college friends. Aside from eating as many garbage plates as can possibly be consumed in a three-day span (why Nick Tahou's Hots will not expand into Boston is beyond me!) and trying to keep up with a very active (and much smarter than me) two-and-a-half-year-old, this trip also just happened to conflict with what I lovingly refer to as "moving day from hell" in Boston, the September 1st lease changeover. While I did get to miss out on carrying some very heavy furniture up and down some very steep stairs, I am sure it was a good time for all involved, and as soon as my friends who moved without my assistance this past weekend start speaking to me again, I am sure there will be some funny stories to share. Until then -- I have to go find a Greek-to-English dictionary.

Having turned my arms into wet noodles through the judicious use of kayak paddles and an inability to understand which way the tides pull, but having failed to do any permanent damage to my physical being, I decided to step it up a notch (no pun intended) for the my last week of freedom and do a day hike in Franconia Notch. Now, just to clarify, I wouldn't consider myself a hiker. I bought hiking boots last year, because my honeymoon contained a "hike around this volcano, and don't fall in" component, and I was told hiking boots are kind of important in accomplishing that goal. Aside from that, though, my last real hike was up Mt. Washington, and I was 18 at the time. I also remember being very depressed when we got to the top then, drenched in sweat, ready to collapse, only to see a parking lot full of people getting out of their cars and running around to stretch their legs after that grueling (for their cars) climb up the mountain. Totally anti-climactic.

As a firm believer in "using my whole ass" (in other words not half-assing it), I picked a trail that was labeled a strenuous hike, between 8 and 10 miles long, with an elevation change of roughly 3,600ft. There's a hut maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club about 4 miles in, then you can hike for another mile, turn around at the top of the peak you get to and hike back down (total 10 miles). The hut even has running water and the neo-hippies are said to be friendly in the summer months, unlike bears, who, I am told, are never friendly.

It being a weekday, the trail was mostly empty, but we did manage to meet some very interesting (and immensely friendly) people along the way. A guy and his dog Yoda (panting heavily and cursing all his fur, but nevertheless very happy), gave us valuable advice about scenic overlooks. We were wowed by the woman, looking to be in her fifties, who ran past us up the mountain. The AMC members at the hut even offered us leftover breakfast items gratis, for which I thank them, though I doubt they will ever see this (not exactly an internet hotspot, that hut).

Due to a missed left turn, we ended up hiking down about 1/8 of a mile before we realized that the trail that continued on for a mile was in the other direction. Refusing to hike back up, we decided that 8 miles was enough for our first real hike this summer and hiked down to the car. A familiar feeling enveloped me when we got there. Exhausted, with leg muscles I didn't even know I had cramping up, we noticed a sign we hadn't seen on the way up. This sign informed us that the hut we just hiked to and back was 3 miles away, not 4. Just like that, we were robbed of 2 miles of distance. Choosing not to dwell on it, we congratulated ourselves on the successful completion of the hike and headed for the car.

Never before have I looked at the clutch pedal in any car with as much disdain as I did just then.

I type this while a great blue heron sits fifteen feet away from me, curiously but cautiously watching the weird guy in the bright red shirt, overgrown beard and U.S. Attorney's Office of N.H. hat attempts to type on his laptop without making a sound. I think I am as foreign to the bird as he is to me. Soon, something will spook him and he will take off for the relative safety of the island across the creek. For now, however, we find ourselves in the envious position of having nothing better to do than sitting here, enjoying the sunshine and each other's company.

The same college buddy who I referred to in an earlier posting was kind enough to coordinate the birth of his first child (and boy does that make me feel old) with the last week of my internship. I suppose that makes us even, I mention him in my world-famous Admissions blog (tm) and he somehow convinces his wife that it is time to give birth. The timing allowed my wife and I to go down to NYC to see the new addition without feeling rushed to get back for work-purposes, and to extend this visit by spending the rest of the week at her grandmother's house. Which is where I find myself in the staring contest with the magnificent bird.

While there are many worthy topics to write about, such as: the Red Sox putting everyone and their mother on the disabled list lately, the end of the Patriots' training camp, the start of classes in less than two weeks, the curious decision in Nevada where a gym was disallowed from charging different membership fees based on sex, but allowed to have areas of the gym designated as female-only, and so on... I am on vacation, and my new friend seems anxious for me to put away the laptop and go back to my previous activity: napping. And so I shall oblige.

One last note, actually more of a warning: those who do not regularly visit a gymnasium have no business thinking they can kayak like they could when they did visit such an establishment on a regular basis.

Some people think that the Olympic Games started with the U.S. Women's soccer team losing its opening game. These are probably the same people that think the Olympics are being held in China this year. Ha! For the record, the Olympics started last night with an event that can be best described as drunken volley-soccer, in Brighton, Massachusetts. Actually, with the time difference and all, it was this morning at approximately 1:45AM, that your faithful scribe was awakened by the sound of a ball being awkwardly dribbled, thrown, kicked and otherwise smacked around on the access road of Commonwealth Avenue.

Now, I do not condone drunk driving in any way, shape or form, but I do admit that a part of me thought it would be just peachy to combine the gentleman (the term is being used loosely) who got arrested in Gloucester the other day for his 14th DUI with the impromptu sporting event happening outside my windows, for it would have been a reasonably quick solution to the problem of being awakened roughly 4 hours before I had to get up to go to work.

That option being unavailable, however, I decided that I would, in a rather annoyed and loud baritone, explain to the would-be Olympians that they had two options: the first was to lose the ball and go home, and the second was for me to make a phone call to the local constabulary.

An incredible thing happened next: my new, more-than-slightly inebriated friends chose the first option. I am not sure whether I should attribute this to their inexperience (it is August, after all, not March -- they haven't been at this all year yet), or to the fact that I have started to sound more authoritative with age, but I was much amused that instead of being told to perform and act that I am not flexible enough to accomplish (and subsequently having to call for reinforcements), I was instead treated to a "Sorry, dude." and a hasty retreat. Based on this rather sorry performance, I do not think we should be counting on Team USA to receive any medals in drunken volley-soccer.

Incidentally, the last time I was awakened in the middle of the night, it was because one of my neighbors decided to loudly serenade someone with "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt. That was obnoxious enough to require a call to the police without a warning. It also took about 45 minutes to resolve, with the song being cycled on repeat the entire time. I was not a big fan of Mr. Blunt before this event, afterwards, I am about as excited about this song as my brother is about Sweet Caroline being played at the end of Sox games (which is to say, not too excited at all).

The point, for those who think I must have one: when choosing your housing, be extremely careful where you decide to live. Boston is a city of neighborhoods, and one block can be vastly different from the next. Almost seven years ago, I chose to live in a "student" area, because it is never boring. And as long as you don't mind being awakened in the middle of the night with a friendly game of volley-soccer every once in a while, I cannot think of a more fun place to live. However, those that prefer a more controlled environment should probably seek refuge in a different section of town. Ask your realtor, ask your friends, or ask complete strangers. If you have doubts (and time) -- tour the place on a Saturday or Sunday morning when the evidence of late-night debauchery is still fresh on the sidewalk.

And if all else fails -- maintain perspective. I would much rather have an impromptu Olympic event break out at 2AM than be faced with real problems.

One of my good friends from college, during a marathon procrastination session, figured out that he shared a name with the composer of a theme song to a popular 1980s show (it was set in a bar). Since this realization coincided with our school "gently prodding" us to set up personal websites (kind of a pre-historic facebook or myspace), my buddy decided to add this as an accomplishment of his. Imagine his surprise when he received an email a little while later that went something like this: "You know, that's funny, I could have sworn that it was I who wrote that theme song. Come to think of it, I keep getting the royalty checks, so it must have been me." The email was friendly and a great source of entertainment, but it brings up an important point: even in the very early stages of the internet, anything you put online can come back to haunt you.

I will not launch into a lecture about how you have to be careful about what you put on the Internet for three reasons:

1. Last I checked, I was no one's mother.
2. I have a publicly accessible blog, which I have used as a personal soap box for over nine months.
3. If you don't know that already, you are beyond help.

Sometimes, though, you don't have a choice. If you type in my name into your favorite search engine (and no, it's not the over-hyped and so far unspectacular Cuil) you will find out that:

I have over 30 years of experience in management consulting, marketing, information technology, product development and applied research. I was a combat navigator assigned to the 100th Bomb Group of the 8th Airforce during World War II. I am also an 84-year-old violinist who specializes in Klezmer music. Interestingly, I was a French artist who died in 1990. Making my grandmother extremely happy: I have a medical degree, and am a successful dermatologist in California.

Well, either that, or Leon Schwartz is a slightly more common name than I thought. No matter, the Sox just lost to the Angels for what feels like the 17th time this season (it's only the 7th, but who's counting?), and I have all this material to put on my resume...

Plus, I just realized there's no entry for Leon Schwartz in Wikipedia! This is a travesty that needs to be corrected before my account is banned, and so I best be going.

There are two weeks left to my summer internship, after which I will have just under two weeks before classes start. Having enjoyed the summer "job" immensely, I am not sure exactly how I am going to get myself into "ready to be in class" mode in under a month, but that is a problem for another day.

My non-work hours this past week were spent getting ready for our OCI process. OCI stands for On Campus Interviews (or at least I think it does), and is the process through which we apply for summer associate positions. Summer associateships are highly-coveted positions with mostly large-firms that not only help you see what working for a firm is like, but also can lead to post-graduate employment with the firm. So, the pressure to "not bonk" is definitely there. The biggest challenge, so far, has been attempting to convey my previous work experience in a way that doesn't put non-techies into a coma. This coma business is unfortunate, since most of the people kind enough to proof-read my resume for me are not techies, and have been dropping like flies.

The next step is something called "the bidding process", where we apply (on-line) to the firms we want to work for. Then, my understanding is, you sit, hope and pray to the deity of your choice that the firms are interested in having you work for them and call you in for the preliminary on-campus interview. If you do well there, you get a follow-up interview, which hopefully leads to an offer, and then world peace. Well, perhaps not that last part.

All firms are interested in your resume and your course and co-op evaluations. Some also would like a cover-letter which explains your interest in the firm. It's a pretty straight-forward process, and as someone with almost ten years of work experience, I should be kind of old-hat for me. Yet, it feels different and somewhat strange. I am chalking it up to being in a new field and moving on.

In other news, a tornado ripped through New Hampshire this past Thursday. We're certainly not in Kansas anymore, folks.

Something called a HellBoy cuts off his horns. Of course, they grow back, which forces him to cut them off again. This must be somewhat more difficult for him than my weekly ritual of making my head look like a cue-ball, but that's not why I bring it up. I mention this little tidbit only because the conversation I just had with my wife about it is not the most nonsensical event of the today, and I think that's amazing.

The gentleman behind the counter at the local auto parts store, who after ringing up my purchase of a funnel, eight quarts of transmission fluid, a tub of degreaser and a grease-gun asked if I wanted a bag does not get the top prize either. I channeled my inner Mitch Hedberg and replied in the negative. "No, I juggle, but I can only juggle eight quarts, if I'm ever in here buying nine quarts, you go right ahead and bag them up."

That prize goes to an attorney, who shall remain nameless. His motion to dismiss floated across my desk and included a four-page-long legal argument which can best be described as a bowl of spaghetti -- you know it begins somewhere and ends somewhere, but it's not really possible to tell where. The best part was that it was all based on a single holding in a single case out of a district that is not ours. Better yet, the attorney misrepresented the holding. Actually reading the case very clearly shows that the court rules the opposite way of what the motion suggests. As best as I can tell, the attorney was expecting neither the prosecution nor the judge to actually look up the case cited in the memo. I am not exactly sure that a legal strategy that begins and ends with fingers crossed behind the back and a hope that "they don't notice" is a good one, but perhaps this is something that one understands better after he passes the bar and gains more real-world experience.

I find myself in unfamiliar territory. Recent events unrelated to our nation's birth have me bound to this little place called New York City. In the interests of full disclosure, I should state now that I have what I consider a very healthy hatred for NYC. However, I have been known to make occasional trips to Gotham, usually clad head-to-toe in Red Sox gear (though not so much since 2004, for obvious reasons), and as such the trip itself cannot be said to be unfamiliar in any way. It is, instead, the mode of transportation chosen for this trip that is anything other than normal. You see, faithful reader, I have traded in the comfort, convenience and barely sub-sonic speed of my personal four-wheeled chariot for something called a bus. I am not sure if you have ever heard of it, but it is basically a plane without wings (which is therefore incapable of flight). The basic premise is that forty strangers agree to fork over varying sums of money to sit in close proximity to each other for four hours while someone drives them from point a to point b. Some of these strangers seem to have an aversion to showers and/or deodorants, which, I admit can become a problem. Now, the bus should not be confused with a train, which is like many buses strung together in a line with a magical place called the "bar car" somewhere in there. The bus is decidedly lacking in the "bar car" area. It does, however, have a restroom. Thank god for small favors.

In non-bus related news, work continues to now feel like work, and not like a break from school. I am juggling a prosecution memo (a report based on a case file discussing whether we should prosecute the individual and what he can be charged with), a couple of suppression hearings and most recently crafting an argument to extend the Belton car-search exception (allowing for warrantless searches of cars in some situations) to cover more situations than it currently does. This last task is especially interesting, since it involves the intersection of law and technology, and is an opportunity for the law to catch up.

In non-bus and non-work related news, we got our "grades" last week, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that not only will there not be a need for me to retake Constitutional Law, but that the professor somehow mistook my nonsensical drivel for a coherent answer -- always a bonus. I guess, it's official -- I'm a 2L. Feels good.

The first sport I remember playing was hockey (I'm Russian, it's like being Canadian when it comes to hockey, but a little less weird), but the first sport I truly loved was basketball. Truth is, basketball is an easy sport to love. It requires a minimum investment: you need a ball, and hoops are everywhere (and do not come with a per-hour rate, like ice time). It's a team sport, but unlike baseball and football it can be enjoyed by two people, playing one-on-one.

Some of my happiest memories involve basketball. From after-school games that could go all night if our parents didn't figure out our circular "I am doing homework at fill-in-the-blank's house" stories to playing with my dad, who still has the ugliest three-point shot anyone has ever seen (and I have no idea how the heck it goes in all the time, but it does).

The last Celtics game I went to was the opening game of the '06-'07 series. Red Auerbach had always said that the Celtics would have cheerleaders over his dead body, and he was not kidding: he died a few days before the cheerleaders were to take the court for the first game of the season. So, the Celtics "dancers" were postponed a day, and the night became a tribute to the man behind each of the Celtics' 16 championships. For one night, the Garden felt like the old Boston Garden, loud, boisterous, ready to win. The Celtics lost that game, and they would lose many more that season, on their way to the worst record in the Eastern Conference, and all I remember thinking was that Red didn't make it. He didn't make it to banner #17. Sitting there with my dad, watching the Celtics play I wondered whether both of us would get to see that banner being raised. After the tragedy of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis, after years spent watching the likes of Dino Radja and Sherman Douglass and after Rick Pitino ran himself out of town -- I wondered if there would ever be another banner hoisted to the rafters.

Wonder no more. The Celtics beat the Lakers, they won #17, and they did it in spectacular fashion. That it came against Phil Jackson, a man on the verge of breaking Red's record for most championships just makes it that much sweeter. That they did it when no one in the media thought they could beat the Lakers just makes it that much sweeter. That they did it the first year with KG, Ray Allen and Pierce playing together makes me excited about the years to come.

For the first time in twenty two years: The Boston Celtics are World Champions!

For the sixth time in the past eight years Boston had a parade for a sports team that won it all. Indeed it was -- a beautiful day.

Of course, the converse of that familiar statement is also true: the early worm gets eaten by the bird. Sometimes in life, it is difficult to tell whether you are the bird or the worm, but at other times -- this distinction is perfectly clear.

For example, when, on the hottest day of the year, your right rear tire decides to disintegrate on your way to work in the morning, forcing you to replace it on the side of the highway before the clock even strikes 8:00AM, you are certainly the worm. If you've never had the pleasure of changing a still-smoldering hot, completely destroyed tire while wearing a tie, trust me -- it's not something you should look forward to. Likewise, I would stay away from dead batteries in the dead of winter, while we're on the subject of car-related activities that should be avoided.

In other somewhat work-related news: I got to sit in on a meeting with a couple of Russian prosecutors this past week. In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that since the then-Soviet government branded me an "enemy of the state" at the age of eleven, I've had what I consider a healthy fear of Russian authorities. However, I have nothing negative to report about this experience. The meeting was fascinating as a way to see the birth of a new system of justice. Being able to observe systems all over the world before settling on the details of theirs has allowed the Russians to "cherry pick" ideas and concepts they think work. In the process, they have built a system that is both very similar and very different to our own. For example, while jury trials are available, they only become a right in cases of serious crime (with the possibility of serious punishment). The juries consist of 12 members, but only a simple majority is needed for conviction. The appeals process seems much more stream-lined than our own. Most importantly, their prosecutors not only get government cars, but also government chauffeurs, a revelation which may have gotten them some new applicants from the pool of current assitant US Attorneys.

One other thing I noticed is that four weeks into working for "big brother" it has finally started to feel like a job, and not a break from school, which I admit is a great feeling.

I leave you with an actual quote from an actual decision in an actual case. The judge was explaining the presence of "exigent circumstances" allowing the police to enter a hotel room without a warrant. As you read it, please remember not only that a real judge wrote this in an opinion on a real case, but that a real human being went to jail as a result.

"Moreover, delay risked the life of the person in the room reported to be dead, if there were such a person."