Beyond the Underground

THE WEEKLY LAW SCHOOL ROUNDUP . . . It's the Weekly Law School Roundup #211 from Thanks, But No Thanks. A new installment will appear here soon.

AT MY TRIAL PRACTICE WEBSITE . . . Recent posts at my Trial Practice Tips Weblog--

• "Read About the 7th Circuit's E-Discovery Pilot Program"
• "Requests for Admissions: Admitting of Denying Part of a Request"
• "Fastcase: Free Research for the iPhone"
• "How to Organize Simple Cases for Trial Without Software"

NOTES ON OUR TRIP TO USHUAIA, ARGENTINA  . . . We recently returned to Buenos Aires from Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. Here are some quick notes on our trip, with recommendations for other Ushuaia travelers.

The Flight

We flew from Buenos Aires on Aerolineas Argentinas, an airline that is well known for not keeping on schedule. The times of our flights both changed significantly after we had booked the tickets.

If you fly this airline, be sure to fill out the "reconfirm your flight" form on the airline's website more than 24 hours before the flight. You'll get an email back giving you the new flight times. This is a critical step that isn't well advertised.

Excursions in Ushuaia

Before we arrived for our six-day stay, we didn't have much of an itinerary planned, preferring to see what the unpredictable local weather had in store.

 This turned out to be a good plan. Even though it's summer in Ushuaia, and therefore the busy season, we didn't have any problem getting tickets with the many excursion companies that have stands near the port.

Here's what we ended up doing--

• Day 1. We arrived from Buenos Aires and walked around the city, which has the feel of a large ski town. There are tourists from all parts of the world (we talked to people from Holland, Russia, Australia, Mexico, Argentina), all pleased to be in Ushuaia. Many are either heading to or returning from Antarctica--90% of travel to Antarctica goes through Ushuaia.
• Day 2. We hired a taxi driver (who doubled as a guide) to take us through Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego. This was a crazy idea that was recommended in a book, but all the taxi drivers in town are available for this trek and there is a standard published rate. Our driver took us to all the sites and waited for us while we walked around.
       Later in the day, we returned to ride Tren del Fin del Mundo (the train at the end of the world). This was fun for Sam and took us through some parts of the park that would otherwise have been inaccessible.
• Day 3. We took a 3-hour boat excursion into the Beagle Channel offered by Catamaranes Canoero, which has a stand at the port. The company has nice boats and friendly guides. The 3-hour tour featured a walk on Bridges Island.
• Day 4. We returned to the Beagle Channel for a 5-hour boat excursion, again with Catamaranes Canoero. On the longer tour, the boat goes all the way to Isla Martillo (or "penguin island"), but you have to look at the penguins from the boat.
• Day 5. We took a bus to Estancia Harberton and from there took a boat to Isla Martillo, where we hiked and were able to see the penguins up close. This excursion was run by PiraTour, the only company that offers hiking tours of the island. 
• Day 6. We checked out of the Hotel Lennox and hung around town while we waited out a five-hour flight delay.

I posted three sets of photos on flickr, all with captions:

• Ushuaia: Around town
• Ushuaia: Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego
• Ushuaia: Boat Excursions (penguins and sea lions)

Here's Sam with Hans and Cindy from Holland, who we met on our next-to-last last day in Ushuaia--

If you're going to Ushuaia and want more details, please send me an email. Because of all the travel agencies with web pages hawking tours in Ushuaia, it can be hard finding good, reliable information on Google.

The Weekly Law School Roundup #210

From Buenos Aires again (and having just returned from Ushuia in Patagonia), here's your weekly list of good posts from the past week by law students, some current or almost current, some recently-graduated--

Simple What she really wants for Valentine's Day. [Starting to Melt]

Shared Outlines available for perusing. [i don't wear skinny jeans]

Free Fastcase for the iPhone. [Legal Geekery]

Fed Up Costly inefficient high-priced junk. [The Corner in the Middle]

Ride How to win over 1Ls. [Last Call for Recklessness]

Distance The urge to travel. [Only 3 Years]

Eggs Things you learn in law school. [The Reasonably Prudent Law Student]

Evolution Changes in a web presence. [Dennis Jansen]

Love Law students and their computers. [Laughing: with or at you]

Why? Lukewarm on the iPad. [law:/dev/null]

Food The perfect law school breakfast. [Moonshine Project]

Truth Busting 1L myths. [My Legal Fiction]

Look for next week's roundup at Thanks, But No Thanks then it's back here the week after that. You can find some other recent roundups in the "At the Law Schools 2" category, as well as sixty or so older roundups from 2004-2005 here. Finally, if you want to know how I choose posts to highlight, see "How I Write the Weekly Law School Roundup." (If you have a law-student weblog that I don't seem to know about or that isn't in my blogroll, please send me an email.)

ON ISLA MARTILLO IN PATAGONIA, ARGENTINA . . . In the Beagle Channel, Isla Martillo has colony of about 10,000 Magellanic penguins, plus some Gentoo and a single, solitary King penguin. Eighty people are allowed on Isla Martillo each day. We were there today with about fifteen other people, on a bus-boat expedition.

Here are a few photos. I'll post more when we get back to Buenos Aires this weekend. Click to enlarge--

Some more Magellanic penguins. Thousands of penguins make a lot of noise--

A few more Magellanic penguins (Andrea's photo this time). We took pictures of the other species too. They'll be up in the later flickr set--

A FEW MORE PHOTOS FROM THE END OF THE WORLD . . . This weekend I'm going to post some more photos on flickr, but for now, here's what's happening at the end of world (in Pantegonia, Argentina, where I haven't heard anyone talking about the iPad all day)--

This photo is from Beagle Island in the Beagle Channel. There's no pollution here (click to englarge)--

Sam and the flag of Argentina--

 

Sea lions in the Beagle Channel--

 

A lighthouse--

 

The same lighthouse plus a boat--

 

HELLO FROM USHUAIA . . . Andrea, Sam and I are in Ushuaia this week, at the tip of South America. Ushuaia is in Patagonia, Argentina, and is the southernmost city in the world. It's more amazing than I expected.

I'll post some pictures this weekend. For now, here are some of the jagged peaks and cold water that surround us (click to enlarge). I took the picture today in the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego--

THE WEEKLY LAW SCHOOL ROUNDUP . . . It's the Weekly Law School Roundup #209 from Thanks, But No Thanks. A new installment will appear here soon.

ARGENTINA UPDATE #2 . . . This week in Buenos Aires, we spent some time in Recoleta Cemetery and took a two-day side trip to Colonia, Uruguay.

There are a number of new photos of Buenos Aires, Recoleta Cemetery and Colonia, Uruguay in this Flickr set.

AT MY TRIAL PRACTICE WEBSITE . . . Recent posts at my Trial Practice Tips Weblog--

• "Deposing Difficult Doctors: 15 Tips"
• "Using Requests for Admission to Simplify Your Case"
• "Making Jury Instructions Easy to Understand"
• "An iPhone for You"
• "Depositions: Thirteen Tips"
• "Objections During Depositions: When and How"
• "Trial Tip: Authenticating Web Pages"

TWITTER-LENGTH FICTION . . . I have some short fiction up at the website Nanoism. Title: "113 (Mom and Dad)."

ARGENTINA UPDATE #1 . . . The all-night flight from Dallas to Buenos Aires was long but without incident, and we got set up in the apartment as soon as we arrived. The first few days we spent showing my daughter Lydia around the area. She's already left, in fact--she's on her way back to college in the U.S. today. Now we're going to catch up on work emails and phone calls. In a few days we'll pack for a side trip to Colonia, Uruguay.

Here's Sam and Lydia near some art-graffiti in the Palermo Viejo neighborhood of Buenos Aires:

I put a number of other photos in this Flickr set.

Weekly Law School Roundup #208

From sunny Buenos Aires, here's your weekly list of good posts from the past week by law students, some current or almost current, some recently-graduated--

Lecture Exam-taking tips. [J.D.? ... Maybe]

Run An interview story. [Legally Fabulous]

Screw-Ups Examples of #lawschoolfail. [The Reasonably Prudent Law Student]

Television Motivation for a workout. [No. 634]

Focus Is she a dilettante? [Legally numb]

Light Funny stuff from classes. [Teasingly Diverse]

Seriously? The extinction of courtship. [The Divine Details]

Haiti Donate your Lexis points to Haiti. [Nuts & Boalts]

Haiti 2 Or text for Haiti. [Now That I'm Awake]

The Law An all-time favorite professor. [My Legal Fiction]

Anecdote A magnet for the Socratic method. [Thanks, But No Thanks]

Look for next week's roundup at Thanks, But No Thanks then it's back here the week after that. You can find some other recent roundups in the "At the Law Schools 2" category, as well as sixty or so older roundups from 2004-2005 here. Finally, if you want to know how I choose posts to highlight, see "How I Write the Weekly Law School Roundup." (If you have a law-student weblog that I don't seem to know about or that isn't in my blogroll, please send me an email.)

THE WEEKLY LAW SCHOOL ROUNDUP . . . Here's the Weekly Law School Roundup #207 from Thanks, But No Thanks. A new installment will appear here soon.

HEADED FOR ARGENTINA . . . Beginning tomorrow, I'll be in Argentina for a month, living according to the rules I described last year in my post, "If You're Going to Spend a Month in Buenos Aires, the 'Paris of South America.'"

It's summer there, and it will be nice to get away from the snow in St. Louis. But the legal work will continue, a task which the ubiquitous WiFi of Buenos Aires makes easy to accomplish. Last year, I described my methods of working here: "Tech Tips for Taking Your Law Firm on the Road."

As with my recent trip to Costa Rica, I'll be posting updates for family (those who aren't with me) and anyone else who's interested.

ON THIS WEBLOG IN JANUARYS PAST . . . From the archives--

January 3, 2004 "Lawyer" or "Attorney" -- which is the better term?

January 18, 2005 A Satisfying Hobby, One in an Ongoing Series of Essays on "Things Important to Every Lawyer"

January 2, 2006 Blawg Review #38--Or, Tips for Better Blogging

January 10, 2007 The Legal Underground Podcast Episode #51: Advanced Deposition Techniques Part 3

The Weekly Law School Roundup #206

From Costa Rica, here's your weekly list of good posts from the past week by law students, some current or almost current, some recently-graduated--

Circus Harley and the pug. [No. 634]

Sit Advice on law-school seat selection. [i don't wear skinny jeans]

Roar Things animals say. [Starting to Melt]

2010 Resolutions, anyone? [a woman in law school]

Litigation Getting good facts. [Musings of a Computer Scientist turned Law Student]

Food On eating clean. [Legally Numb]

Sherlockia Memories of Sherlock Holmes. [Butterflyfish]

Roundup Moms in the Legal Profession #130. [PT-LawMom]

Look for next week's roundup at Thanks, But No Thanks then it's back here the week after that. You can find some other recent roundups in the "At the Law Schools 2" category, as well as sixty or so older roundups from 2004-2005 here. Finally, if you want to know how I choose posts to highlight, see "How I Write the Weekly Law School Roundup." (If you have a law-student weblog that I don't seem to know about or that isn't in my blogroll, please send me an email.)

COSTA RICA Day 7 (1/2) . . . Most of the day was spent in Manual Antonio National Park along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. We went there to see wildlife and to explore some of the beaches. Because the number of visitors each day was limited, the beaches when we arrived were almost empty.

We saw lots of these Capuchin monkeys--

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE BREAK

COSTA RICA Day 6 (1/1) . . . Another day in Jaco, Costa Rica. Here's Austin on a wave (on his stomach, not his feet)--

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE BREAK

COSTA RICA Day 5 (12/31) . . . Today Austin and I drove south from Volcán Arenal to Jaco on the Pacific Ocean. The destination was the beach, which isn't all as rocky as it appears in this photo--

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE BREAK

THE WEEKLY LAW SCHOOL ROUNDUP . . . Here's the Weekly Law School Roundup #205 from Thanks, But No Thanks. A new installment will appear here soon.

COSTA RICA Day 4 (12/30) . . . Another day at Volcán Arenal. In the morning, we went on a guided hike through the rainforest at the Arenal Observatory Lodge. In the afternoon, we ziplined at the Arenal Ecoglide Canopy Tour.

Here's a toucan we saw in the trees (photo taken through the guide's spotting scope)--

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE BREAK

COSTA RICA Day 3 (12/29) . . . After picking up our rental car at the San Jose airport, we drove through the mountains to Arenal Volcano near the town of La Fortuna, Costa Rica. We stayed within the national park (El Parque Nacional Arenal) at Arenal Observatory Lodge. This was the view from our room, once the clouds cleared--

That's smoke coming from the top of the volcano.

MORE PHOTOS FOLLOWING THE BREAK

COSTA RICA Day 2 (12/28) . . . We spent the day in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. Some of the museums we planned to see were closed on Mondays (bad planning), so we did a lot of walking around. Photos--

Our hotel in San Jose: Hotel Grano de Oro --

Austin in the hotel's courtyard, at breakfast--

A giant nativity scene in Parque Central--

MORE PHOTOS AFTER THE BREAK --

COSTA RICA Day 1 (12/27) . . . Today was a travel day--St. Louis to Dallas to San Jose in Costa Rica. Our flight left St. Louis at noon and we arrived in San Jose about 9:00 p.m. The time here in Costa Rica is the same as in St. Louis. 

Temperature when we left St. Louis: 30 degrees with light snow.

Temperature in San Jose: 80 degrees, clear.

Travelers: me and my son Austin, age 17. Here we are at the airport in St. Louis--

Our plans: We'll spend the day in San Jose tomorrow, then rent a car and drive towards Jaco on the the Pacific coast with a stop at a volcano observatory along the way. We won't have Internet during the middle of the week, but we plan to post updates here as often as we can, for the family and anyone else who's interested.

AT MY TRIAL PRACTICE WEBSITE . . . Recent posts at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog--

• "Writing First Drafts"
• "Writing Persuasively"
• "Five More Legal-Writing Tips"

The Weekly Law School Roundup #204

Here's your weekly list of good posts from the past week by law students, some current or almost current, some recently-graduated--

Hell Worst exam yet. [Virgin in the Volcano]

Experience Tips for final exams. [Musings of a Computer Scientist turned Law Student]

Revolution . . . and the Senate. [My Legal Fiction]

Change Things learned during a first semester. [1L Poet]

Evidence A brain turning off. [Balancing Acts]

Hello Do law students need business cards? [The Reasonably Prudent Law Student]

Yes Sleep-deprived, end-of-finals-induced craziness. [Starting to Melt]

Roundup Moms in the Legal Profession #129. [Butterflyfish]

Look for next week's roundup at Thanks, But No Thanks then it's back here the week after that. You can find some other recent roundups in the "At the Law Schools 2" category, as well as sixty or so older roundups from 2004-2005 here. Finally, if you want to know how I choose posts to highlight, see "How I Write the Weekly Law School Roundup." (If you have a law-student weblog that I don't seem to know about or that isn't in my blogroll, please send me an email.)

NOOK, FORSOOK . . . Says Engadget about the Nook hacks, "Hey Barnes & Noble, welcome to the wild west of consumer electronics."

FLASHBACK . . . Five years ago on this weblog --

Advice to Young Lawyers #21 (in which a young lawyer asks whether her short stories are any good)

THE WEEKLY LAW SCHOOL ROUNDUP . . . The Weekly Law School Roundup alternates between The Legal Underground and Thanks, But No Thanks, where you can find this week's Weekly Law School Roundup #203. The next installment will appear here soon, so be sure to check back.

MARKETABILITY . . . For law students, Dennis Kennedy recommends that you think in terms of a portfolio rather than a resume--

Here's what I mean by portfolio - tangible evidence that you are serious about becoming a lawyer, assembled in a way to tell a compelling story.

How do you do that, especially in a tough economy, as a law student? Something as simple as a blog reporting on developments in an area of interest can lead, over a year or two, to articles, speaking opportunities and interviews in publications or even radio or TV. If you aren't working part-time (and developing a portfolio with deatils of the work you do), you want to do volunteer work that is law-related, including ABA or other bar association activities. If you know what area of law you want to go into, look at showing initiative by attending continuing legal education seminars and asking questions and meeting people.

Kennedy's full post: "By Request: Advice for 1Ls."

AT MY TRIAL PRACTICE WEBSITE . . . Recent posts at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog--

• "Conducting Discovery by Focusing on Witnesses"
• "Illinois Practice: Documents Produced by Your Opponent Must Still Be Authenticated"
• "Choose a Citation Style, Then Stick To It"

X-MAS GIFTS FOR LAWYERS . . . Thinking about a briefcase? Maybe you should read this first, for background--

The Collected Four-Part Examination of the Lawyer's Briefcase, One of an Ongoing Series of Essays on "Things Important to Every Lawyer"

You say a briefcase isn't flashy enough? Then how about a big-ass yacht?

KINDLE SHORTS . . . The Atlantic will be publishing short stories on the Kindle that won't be available in its magazine. Christoper Buckley explains why he's signing on--

“Sure, ideally, I would like it printed on archival paper and bound in red morocco with gold embossed for a limited edition and signed by the author,” Mr. Buckley said. But if the Kindle edition “grabs some eyeballs — and I guess grabbing eyeballs is what the Internet is all about — then I’m all for it.”

The price? $3.99 each. Seems steep, though Buckley's "short" story is 15,000 words.

The Weekly Law School Roundup #202

Here's your weekly list of good posts from the past week by law students, some current or almost current, some recently-graduated--

Comic Dating during exams. [i don't wear skinny jeans]

New Google Wave in law school. [The Corner in the Middle]

Ingenious The Laptop Steering Wheel Desk. [Legally Questionable Content]

E-Persona Cleaning up a Facebook profile. [Last Call For Recklessness]

Famine Sex at finals time. [The Life of a {Law School} Wife]

Quiet The benefits of earplugs. [HATE is easy ... love takes COURAGE]

Contracts! Tiger Woods: spot the issues. [Write and Wrong]

Irritability More signs finals season. [My Legal Fiction]

Look for next week's roundup at Thanks, But No Thanks then it's back here the week after that. You can find some other recent roundups in the "At the Law Schools 2" category, as well as sixty or so older roundups from 2004-2005 here. Finally, if you want to know how I choose posts to highlight, see "How I Write the Weekly Law School Roundup." (If you have a law-student weblog that I don't seem to know about or that isn't in my blogroll, please send me an email.)

WORDS . . . Google now has a dictionary. In many languages, too . . .

AUTHOR INTERVIEWS AT THE ATLANTIC . . . The Atlantic has collected all its author interviews on one handy page, featuring discussions with authors, poets and critics like Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, Jonathan Franzen, Richard Wilbur and Harold Bloom.

GIFTS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T READ BOOKS . . . Buy them a TV. Or choose one of the "10 Awesome Books to Give Your Nonreading Friends."

Non-reading lawyers, of course, will want a yacht.

First link from Bookninja.

A TWITTER FAIL? . . . At MobyLives: "Rick Moody undergoes Twitter Storm."

Said one of those who received 140-character installments of a Rick Moody short story over multiple feeds, "Worst use of Twitter I’ve ever seen. Please, please stop the madness."

A better experiment: complete stories in 140 characters. See Nanoism.

THE 2009 ABA BLAWG 100 . . . Congratulations to the weblogs mentioned in the Third Annual ABA Journal Blawg 100.

I was happy to see that Beyond the Underground made the cut, especially since the editors specifically mentioned my compilation of favorite posts: "The Sixteen Types of Lawyers, and Other Observations from a Lawyer with a Weblog."

If you haven't seen it, please take a look.