saturday - a most excellent breakfast

Today is Saturday. One day before the new time change (this bothers me in the way mindless irksome new laws that are justified to save money and do no such thing are irritating.) Though Jon Stewart had a hilarious sketch on the Daily Show about the impending Time Change Disaster which made me laugh. Since I am irritated by this new sped up change, I refuse to pay attention to it. In fact, I am going to ignore any devices that refuse to change and be like those irritating people who travel to different time zones and say "It's 3 am for me now! I should be tired!"

Do I sound grouchy? I must be.

However, I did have the best breakfast ever - this morning. I woke up at about 9:30 and longed for a diner-ish experience, preferably at the Rockridge Cafe. We went, and surprisingly there was no wait.
I like the Rockridge Cafe because it has REAL maple syrup, and real honest-to-god butter. I always get some form of pancake/waffle regardless of anything else I order, just because I want to support a restaurant that cares enough to serve REAL MAPLE SYRUP. Anyway, alongside my whole-wheat waffle (excellent) I ordered some concoction that was eggs scrambled with chorizo sausage, with cheese, stacked on some corn (tostadas? - they were hard) and then on top had a generous dollop of sour cream and lots of seasoned guacamole sauce. OMIGOD were they good. So good that I ate most of it. (Well, with a waffle and a meal, it was plenty.)Oh wait! I found the official description:

~ Tortillas Piladas con Guacamole y Huevos 9.25 ~

We scramble chorizo sausage in 2 eggs with green onions, Monterey Jack cheese, and Miguel’s homemade avocado tomatillo sauce. We cover a tostada tortilla with the scrambled egg mixture, and layer another tortilla and eggs atop. On the stacked tortillas we pour more of the sauce, sprinkle with cheese, and top with a dollop of sour cream. Served cut in wedges

However, mine was not cut in wedges. But still yummy as can be. Not to mention they brew a fine cup of coffee and serve it in a nice thick white diner kinda cup. However the white sugar on the table, is, frankly, not so good. Will have to bring some rapadura in to make it truly scrumptious and a little more healthy.

From there we went to the toy store on 4th street in Berkeley and bought a few of the Japanese "re-ment" miniature boxes of Japanese products. (Think doll-house tiny.) Cooking supplies, stationery supplies, Japanese food, all rendered in exquisite detail and unbelievable care for functionality. (The teeny tiney pencils don't write but they fit in the pencil case, and the notebooks all have real paper, sewn spines and the graphs and styling just like the originals.) They are from a company called re-ment and are very addictive to collect because you do not know which set of 10 different varieties you might get when you buy a box in that series. (The sushi series, the school supply series, etc.) I bought 6 boxes, and got a Japanese pencil case, pencils, ruler, erasers, pen, notebook and pencil sharpener in one box. It was perfect, because when I lived in Japan I used to collect pencil boxes and erasers. (Yes, I did.)

Here's the US Website for re-ment with scary hyper-blonds. And here is the Japanese Website. This new find is not my own however, I have to thank one of my staff - who gifted me with 2 boxes last week.

Now I am reading blogs, thinking thoughts about legal research, re-reading some of my favorite Liaden books for the 3rd or 4th time, and generally just relaxing the day away.

Hope your Saturday was as nice as mine was. I know your breakfast probably wasn't. If you come visit me, I'll take you to Rockridge Cafe and maybe the Tortillas Piladas con Guacamole y Huevos will be on the menu.

high-flying aristocratic me

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Marchioness Schelle the Arboreal of Frome Valley Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I think what would have been really cool about this is if you could post a few things about yourself, and somehow this would roll up nicely in your silly title. This one appealed because of the Arboreal (in a valley) quality.

Continuing on my Legal research brainstorming, today is all about legal research assignments for summers. Idea is this: take (real) sample assignment and let each of them brainstorm alone on paper for a little while on possible approaches. Discuss. Talk about why this or that strategy is good, or less good. Put them into 2 teams. Tell them they have 30 minutes to play out a team research strategy whichever way they like. Online, no online? Only using print? At the end of 30 minutes, must write quick memo. 2 paragraphs (consult with attorney on this point to see what type of legal memo would be ideal) Read/Share memo? and then discuss. Vote on best results? Prizes awarded.

Show them an ideal one? Librarian enhanced one? Hmmmm.

That sounds actually like a 2 hour project. A bit ambitious for one hour.

But interesting possibilities?

a little break for a cold

I've not been around blogging, but I've been enjoying a quiet house to myself for the last few weeks and I've been recovering from a cold, so that has kept me mellow.
I should have kept a daily log of the last few weeks to see what it is I do when I'm alone. Mostly I cleaned the house, watched a little TV, read a few books, surfed the Web, and I have been working late way too many nights. It's easy to stay late when you have no reason to be home at a specific time.

I have also been brainstorming about teaching legal research to associates. How to do it, how to make it relevant, how I am failing in some ways, succeeding in others, and what I can do to improve.

I probably need to find a powerful partner to be on my side. Am thinking of approaching someone if I can carve out a few minutes of his/her attention.

As for legal research writ large - I have had ideas, and am using my most wonderful VooDooPad to keep my thoughts organized. I should publish it all to the Web, but I want to wait until I have more things to say. I realized that if I want to have anything important to say, I have to see what else has been said and done and published. The only thing I know for sure is that most summer associates and 1st year associates are ill-prepared for legal research in a law firm, and it usually doesn't improve. Perhaps I'll have an article or two at the end of this. I don't care about publishing to get something "published" I'm not in Academia (thank God!) so I just want to help other law librarians with this if there is something worthy to share.

Here's one of my brainstorming sessions, only partially complete, and it surely needs to be edited, but just a taste, here it is for your reading delectation:

LEGAL RESEARCH - MAIN POINTS
• In a law firm, you should always start with a treatise or a practice guide. This will save you enormous amounts of time. Practice material will give you the bearings on where to begin with your research, tell you where an issue has been, where it is now, direction it is heading. Point you to all important statutes, regulations and cases.
• You should never be searching in cases until you have a firm understanding of your issue. Cases update the treatises, and other research, you should only need to search caselaw on Wexis to supplement and update what you have already found elsewhere.
• If your issue is a procedural question, you should be looking in procedural resources.
• Statutes are the law. Always go to the relevant statute and read it/them.
• Find out if there are regulations related to your statutes. Agencies are empowered by statutes to create rules to enforce the statutes. This is called rulemaking. Your Federal rulemaking sources are the CFR and the Federal Register.
• Know what the Federal Register is and when you need to use it.
• Know what a final rule is.
• Know why you might sometimes need to look at a proposed rule.
• Know what the CFR is.

(At this point I quit, and realized I should look back at the MacCrate report inspired Legal Research material posted at AALL.)

Here was a bit about librarians...

• Librarians are a resource.
• Librarians save time.
• Librarians should be able to help you find all of the available resources on a topic.
• Librarians should know or be able to find all the relevant treatises, databases, articles, etc., that cover your topic so that you don't miss anything.
• Librarians usually know the fastest way to find the answer to a discreet question.
• Librarians are experts at formulating complex search strategies.
• Librarians should help you think about an issue in a new way.
• Librarians do not judge. Okay, we only judge if we never see you. Then we judge that you are not using your resources wisely.
• Librarians do not judge you if you do not know the answer.
• Librarians do not judge you if you have made a mistake, they just want to help.
• Librarians are here to save you time and money.
• Librarians know that when you succeed, the client succeeds, and we succeed. We want to help you succeed - that is what makes our day. Every interaction with a librarian is based on the fact that a librarian wants to help you succeed.
• The more information you give a librarian about your issue, the better job the librarian will do and the better the results will be.

So, that is where my head has been. Lots of work to do. Have been perusing the literature. Continuing to brainstorm GAMES as a way to make this STICK.