Flew from Arcata to LA last night for a case - my only case south of SF in my career -and lucked out. I got a Horizon flight direct to LA which avoids having to layover in SF and change planes. Luckier than I expected I was sitting in the Arcata airport restaurant having a sandwich (BLT- and not bad) because Horizon may fly at mealtime but they do not feed you - when I heard that United flights were delayed due to conditions in SF where the storms and their aftereffects were keeping the planes on the ground that needed to fly to Arcata and pick up passengers. No problem for me. My plane arrived, and as we took off I was expecting a bumpy flight. No such thing, we were behind the storm line and it was smooth sailing to LA. Then my ride found me right away, and the baggage was in the same building as the arrival lounge (unlike United which has passengers go to an adjacent building for their baggage).

Spent several interesting hours talking with Dr. Courtney and co-counsel Bill McPike about all sorts of medical marijuana legal facts and theories, and so to bed. Probably you need to be a mmj lawyer to have the kind of fun I had, but if you are one you should've been there.

Court was short. We put things off. The sky was blue, the air was clear, and the Van Nuys courthouse has a glass front. From the 6th floor outside the courtroom we had a great view of the mountains. I phoned home to find that it was snowing (I'm writing on March 27) and there was snow on the ground - that's rare at the 10 Springs Ranch because we're at about 500' elevation. Did we get any photos of it (not that I could show you). Probably not, it seemed that all the camera batteries were dead. I'll just have to believe they weren't kidding me. On the other hand I didn't bring my camera so everyone'll have to believe me that I was in LA on a day with no smog.

Got to the airport before lunch. That's good, and bad. Good because I was early. Bad because the only Horizon flight to Arcata leaves about 7:10pm. Bad, too, because they won't accept luggage for the flight until 4 hours prior to takeoff which means I had to drag the suitcase as well as the rolling law case all over the airport.

I went to the International Terminal because they have a great food court - lots of international cuisine, naturally, and lots of international passengers wandering around speaking a myriad of languages. I noticed some oriental appearing people eating at the Japanese stand, so I had pork on noodles there working by analogy on the principle of eat where the truckers eat. It was great. Also a can of green tea. I didn't know such things existed. I was a nice thick, sturdy can which felt good in the hand. It also felt like it wasn't empty after it was. Contents are by volume, not weight.

Just looking at the departure display makes me want to go somewhere. Fortunately my passport is at home so all I can do is dream. It doesn't help that Viking River Cruises sent me an e-mail which I just read offering 1/2 off on cruises of France, the Rhine, and the Danube. My sweetie wants to return to Budapest, and Vienna - and to go to France. Sigh. Even my aversion to the aftereffects of long flights isn't enough to overcome my desire to be places seeing things.

But, after all, tonight I sleep in Eureka and tomorrow the town is mine in my free time. Perhaps that will settle my travel bug for now. Do ya think?

I am sitting in Schat's Bakery and Deli in Ukiah, across the street from the courthouse. They have a wireless network and I'm on it, as is the guy sitting next to me. The sun is shining outside, I just finished a scone and am working on a cold tea. I've been here about an hour, working and thinking. I booked a flight to LA for a court appearance next Tuesday, got some dates together to look at marijuana the police have seized, spoke with my office, read my e-mails - and still have 24% of my battery. A class of high-schoolers was doing a field trip to the Bakery this morning, and I heard part of the presentation (respect your employees, and require respect from them). Nearby is a man in a beret, looking intense and intellectual in a way I fear I don't. (Yesterday a woman asked me if I was a professor, so perhaps I'm post-intellectual). I hear a couple speaking a language that sounds like Russian. All I need is to see someone playing chess to complete the picture that I've carried in my mind for all these years.

From my student years in Berkeley in the early '60s, I have aspired to being an intellectual sitting in a coffeehouse in the morning, enjoying a treat and thinking about life. Then the locus of my aspirations was the Med, a major coffeehouse on Telegraph Avenue. For a time I considered getting an apartment near it so I could go there every morning while preparing for classes. In actuality I was only able to spend a few morning there - reading the Berkeley Barb, I hope. Leisure enjoyment has never been a major part of my lifestyle - that's probably why I aspire to it. I get too restless and too many other possibilities come up.

How am I able to be at my leisure now? Well, I'm pinned down. I have a court hearing at 1:30 so I can't really go home. The wireless computer internet lets me do quite a bit which would otherwise be just idle thoughts passing through my mind as I worked out major philosophic issues which have plagued humanity for all these eons. Now I can do that and deal with e-mail. To quote the Fugs, "Technology will set you free. Its the mother and father of so many things."

Today I had to get on the road early. I left home at 7:30 and drove up the mountain. I go from about 450 feet at home to about 2500 feet at the Pratt Mountain pass. The valleys were filled with tendrials of fog burning off. Wonderful. Flowering trees in Willits and Ukiah still in bloom. Wonderful. I got a good photo of a lone flowering tree on the Alderpoint road most of the way up, near the rock outcrop where the wild goats used to play.

Tomorrow I'm out the door at 6 a.m. I know you farmers have no compassion for me, but lord have mercy, I'm just a city boy way out here in the freaky country, to paraphrase the poet.

Recommendation for drivers: The Teaching Company series on Great Books of the Western Tradition is excellent. Today it was Faulkner, Brecht, Becket, Camus (long drive, little NPR).

My emails have been full of news from Mendocino County. The Ukiah Journal has strongly endorsed Keith Faulder for DA. They said, in effect, that Meredth Lintott was old news and didn't have Keith's experience (his cv on his website is well done) and that Bert Schlosser was a really nice guy but what does a defense attorney know about prosecution.

I think the DA's are back at work with mediation scheduled to work out their strike issues. I'll know tomorrow when I show up for court at 10 a.m. If there's news I'll bring it back.

Meanwhile I'm enjoying the weather. I wanted to get photos of the wild plums in full bloom, and barely did. You've really only got a day or two to get these shots. Some of the scenes on the Alderpoint road, like a meadow filled with California poppies, are now or never shots. You see 'em, you shoot 'em, because the next time you drive by the magic will be gone. That's the trick with photos, I think. I see great photos all over the place, all the time, but I'm not a photographer, I'm a lawyer so sometimes I have to just drive by and go to court. Besides I can't upload to this site anyway (you know the Mac makes emailing photos so easy....."

I'm staying in the Best Western in Ukiah because the Economy Inn's wireless internet was down (again). I always try to eat at Patrona's in Ukiah, so I asked Mapquest how far it was from the motel. Three-quarters of a mile. Hah! I could walk that in my sleep, so I set out at dinner time. It was still unseaonably warm. My old shoes have new soles and to my joy stayed comforably on my feet even with my thin court socks on (I wear thick white socks when not dressed for court, thin black or brown socks to go with my suits in court.) All the cherry trees were in bloom and I photographed some to send to China. And some redwoods. Met a nice guy while photographing his Schlosser for DA sign. The guy wants to form a local group to fix up people's houses on a volunteer basis. Great plan. Sorry I don't live here to help. I helped Habitat for Humanity remodel a house in San Diego while I was a law student in the 20th century and it was fun. Before I knew it I was at Patrona's. I got the waitress to take my photo so I can send that to China - ED eating at a restaurant with brick walls and a wooden table. Actually the photo looks very much like the Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing. Perhaps it won't seem exotic to my Chinese correspondents. I also figured out that it's Patrona with a "T" rather than Padrona with a "D". Had the sausage pizza, really thin crisp crust. Some Cabernet with it. Heaven. Dessert was poached pear with pistachio icecream. Walked it off coming back to the motel (I wish).