If your water heater starts making more noise than usualââ�¬â��a sort of whisle-whine like wind blowing through drafty windowsââ�¬â��does that mean it’s about to die?

Recently the imbroglio began suffering from double-posts and other technical glitches. Those were solved by a PHP hack and an update to the Sideblog plugin that powers the “little imbroglios” in the sidebar. But those fixes caused a new problem: clicking on various pages (e.g., quotes or archives) would produce a 404 error. Not good.

For my own records, and in case anyone else out there experiences the problem: The 404s are caused by a conflict with the latest version of Sideblog (3.8). As i.ndustrio.us explains, when you create a page, Wordpress associates it w/the category you’ve chosen as your default category for posts. If that category is also the category you’ve designated as your “asides” category in Sideblog, then the page will not show up and will produce a 404. I imagine this will be fixed in future versions of Sideblog, but for now, the solution for me was to delete the old pages, change the default category, create those pages again, then reset the default category back to what it was. It’s a little cumbersome, but doesn’t take as long as you’d think.

(This moment of geekery has been brought to you by the letter S.)

If you really want to support the troops this Memorial Day, consider getting rid of the SUV and getting something more efficient. �

Just in case Stephen Colbert hasn’t heard, can someone please tell him that the bears on are on the march? Note to self: Shooting a grizzly with a camera will not slow it down. [tags]humor[/tags]

When you pay $4 for a cup of coffee-flavored foamy milk at Starbucks, part of what you’re buying is an illusion of corporate social responsibility. ââ�¡â��

These schools exist to teach the students how to circumvent the constitution, eliminate the separation of church and state and deprive all of us of constitutional rights. �

Read all about it here, then write your Senator today! Those of us w/buckets of law school debt will thank you!

Welcome back to Kim, formerly of the blog known as “Mother In Law,” who has returned to blogging at the same url but under the title The Merits of the Case. Kim is a blogger with a fascinating perspective on life ââ�¬â�� for many reasons. Kim started blogging a couple of years ago as she started law school; her goal at the time was to write about what it was like for a mother with several children to rearrange her life in order to attend law school full time while also continuing to be a mom. But, as she explained in an email:

I took my blog (Mother In Law) down back in January of this year. I was finding it hard to balance school and the kids, and I felt pressure to write (granted, from myself) but I never had the time. I decided to just can the whole thing and be the best blog reader I could be instead. I’ve missed posting from time to time when I have a really good law school story or when awesome people like Martha and Jen publish books and I’ve contemplated beginning to blog again, but I wasn’t motivated enough to do it. Until now. Last week, after several weeks of tests and worrying, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was out of the blue and has meant quite an adjustment for me and my family. (Should make law school pretty interesting, too.) . . . I decided to reinstate the blog as a way to keep my family and friends up to date about what’s going on with my treatment.

Kim has already begun the process of keeping her readers updated about the progress of both the cancer and her treatment; her first few posts provide an intimate first-person account of the early surgery and diagnosis. Those posts also put law school right in its place as Kim writes:

The idea of a law school casebook reading assignment is surprisingly comforting to me. I never thought I�d say that briefing cases and reading procedural rules could be comforting, but I think it is because it is familiar and I know how to do that. I haven�t quite figured out how to have cancer yet.

What, other than cancer, could possibly make law school seem comforting?¹ That’s only part of what I mean when I say that Kim has a fascinating perspective on life; she’s a writer from whom we can all learn a great deal. She’s also a blogger who can use her reader’s support, so if you have had cancer and overcome it or know someone who has, or if you just have insights to share, stop by The Merits of the Case and say hello. [tags] cancer, blogfriends, books[/tags]

1. Of course, I must confess that, after being out of law school for a year, I have, at times, looked back on it fondly and have even occasionally wished for the days of reading cases and preparing for classes, but it’s different if you’re in it. This point also stands out especially vividly as I read Ivy Briefs, which is really all about how law school tends to destroy a person’s perspective on absolutely everything else. More on that in another post…↩

“It’s ridiculous,” said [Tommy "Tutone"] Heath. “If I wanted to get into it, I could probably take the number away from both of them.” ââ�¡â��

Except when it comes to writing, planning the itinerary takes about three years, and then you have to defend it. �