Category Archives: Personal

In a couple of weeks, my house is going to be covered with a thing like a circus tent.

Before that happens, I have to take out all the food, medicines, houseplants, and anything else that could end up in a mouth, as that tent is going to be pumped full of noxious toxic gas.

Yes, we have drywood termites. The flying kind. Indeed, judging from the number of tents sprouting in the neighborhood, every other house is infested.

We went through all this about ten years ago, and it seemed amazingly hard, a once-in-a-lifetime mess. A wiser colleague warned me that tenting every ten years or so was just an incident of life in south Florida. I didn't believe him, but he was prophetic. And after hurricanes, teenagers, and the odd medical crisis, it doesn't seem so bad.

That gurgling noise was the water pump leaking.

I've just been appointed this coming year's Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law. It's a one-year, rotating, appointment, and I'm the second person to have it, following in the large footsteps of my colleague Bruce Winick. Needless to say, I'm floored.

UM is unusual in that we don't have many chairs — at present only two us have permanent chairs. The rotating chair idea is also something new for us.

Here is the Dean's message to the faculty:

I am delighted to announce that during the 2010-11 [academic year] Michael Froomkin will be the Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law. As you know, Bruce Winick was the first recipient of this award and, given his great body of widely-praised work, set the bar quite high for subsequent recipients. Michael's projects, repeatedly exploring problems of internet governance, widely recognized not only nationally but internationally, plainly meet the standard. When we work out the details, we will invite all faculty to join us and other members of the larger university community in celebrating this award and, of course, the generosity of Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein.

Among their other claims to fame, Silvers and Rubenstein are founders of the Sci Fi Channel, although the cable channel is now controlled by others (who changed the name to SyFy so they could trademark it). This should make watching Stargate Universe even more fun.

Admittedly, there's something slightly ironic about being so honored in the midst of the (involuntarily) fallowest period in my career, but I guess this is one more incentive to get well quickly and attempt to prove I deserve it.

According to Walk Jog Run my current figure-eight walk around my block and the one north of me totals 0.87 miles, which seems significantly more than I would have guessed. Anyway on a good day I do that route in about 30 minutes, which given my condition would be very good for .87 miles, and isn't bad for the .6 or so I thought it really was.

Is Walk Jog Run (which is based on Google Maps) reliable for short distances? I could imagine an evil business model based on making runners feel good by making them think they were going farther then they really were….

I went into the law school today, mostly to sit in the quad (“the bricks”) and enjoy the sunshine. I saw a number of friends and colleagues, and they said I'm looking great. Apparently reading my earlier updates on this blog convinced them I would be looking like death warmed over.

Part of that may just be continuing progress. In addition to reportedly not looking so bad — and having lost 20 pounds or so the hard way — I can walk longer distances this week. I'm going twice around the block on each walk on good days, and not collapsing in a total heap when I'm done. I start outpatient rehab later this week, and am hoping it will add to my still limited strength and stamina. My hands are not normal yet, but they are distinctly improved.

So things are better. I'm still a convalescent, and likely to be working on mending for some weeks/months to come. But the trend, however slow, is good.

My recovery continues its slow but steady trajectory. I can walk around the block, but it takes 20 minutes what with all the shuffling and stopping. The details are otherwise too boring to relate. Assuming things continue to progress at this rate, it will be some time before I'm near normal.

I don't think I'll resume my old blogging ways until I feel more renewed. What energy I have will first go to Jotwell, currently in the able hands of my colleague Donna Coker, who heroically stepped in as temporary editor until I (literally) get back on my feet. Check it out tomorrow afternoon for an announcement of a new section.