Up in the morning and off to school - continuing education of the Bar school, that is. I managed to get through the East Bay (ebay?) streets and park at the Claremont hotel where the classes are, with no problem. Mapquest scores again. The hotel is unreal as it looms up all bright white against the mountainside looking for all the world like a computer simulation. It could be heaven in one of those feel-good angel movies. Inside it is like the Winchester house - a real maze with poor signage. Eventually, after almost signing up for a Spa treatment by mistake, I found the MCLE registration desk and they gave me a map - but it was upside down. By noon I was on target with a clear picture of where the meeting rooms are and how to read the map upside down.

What stands out from my first long full day at the law conference? There is a genetic component to addiction and it is related to depression. Cultivation of marijuana convictions are not eligible for Prop 36 probation. Credit card payments can't be made directly to the trust account. I'm sure there was more.

Tomorrow I'll remember all the twists and turns of the Claremont and will slip into my classes with no puzzled standing around, or following people who look like they know where its at. At 8:30 I'll be getting information about ethics for Criminal Defense Attorneys. See you later

And what a long strange trip its being. I hit Eureka with two afternoon court appearances, then I had to get to Yreka. But which way to go. Mapquest said take RT 299, it will take you 4 hrs and 16 minutes. Ok, but its really cold, and 299 goes over some high passes. Suppose we take Rt 96 up the Klamath River instead? Well, Mapquest didn't want to hear about an alternate route. Finally I got it to give me info to Happy Camp, and then from Happy Camp to Yreka. Time: 4 hours 12 minutes. Hmmm, that's quicker, even if marginally so. Why didn't Mapquest show me that route the first time?

Anyway, that's the route I took. By the time I got to Willow Creek - which is the moment of decision since you either leave 299 there for 96, or you don't - it was snowing like crazy. I gassed up and headed off to Hoopa and beyond. The snow stopped almost immediately - it was showers and not a storm - but I passed emergency vehicles pulling some vehicle up out of the ditch. It wasn't bad till Weichpec, which the experienced traveller knows is where the road reaches the Klamath river. There was some snow on the road, and that amount increased as I went on. No driving problem - except I had to go slow because the road has no guard rails at a lot of points where there is a very long drop to the river. Intermittant snow but never much falling. Outside of Happy Camp the road goes seriously up and down a hill (mountain?) and it was icy and I was all over the road going up. Going down I went quite slowly and had no problems. As I proceeded I encountered gravel trucks from time to time, always in the west bound lane, of course, so not helping my travels eastward. It got dark, and it took forever but eventually I climbed up the long grade from the river to Yreka and found snow everywhere. The Best Western, where I had a reservation, had a long line at the check-in desk. It seemed that I-5 had been closed due to the snow, so lots of people needed a room.

I got my room, and then the internet was down. I went to eat, nearby due to the cold, and that was Dennys. It was awful. The people were nice but the food was similar to packaged sandwiches which have sat in the store too many days. I thought roast turkey would be good - it tasted like processed slices. I'll be avoiding Dennys, once more, on my travels.

Back at the motel there was a fellow lawyer from Humboldt sitting in the lobby using the internet (worked there, just not in the room). What was he doing there? Same thing I was, it turned out, he was handling a pot case the next morning. And the next morning it was like a pot lawyers convention. I saw more pot lawyers in court in Yreka than I had at the medical marijuana law MCLE class I took recently. We hung out in the hall and talked pot law - something only interesting to pot lawyers and medical patients probably, but intensely interesting to them. Case after case was pot - Siskiyou county has been busting medical growers at an alarming rate. Three lawyers from Humboldt, 3 from Sf. O
I had a wonderful morning. Every time another lawyer handed someone a business card, so did I (you give them to the court clerk, and the court reporter, so they know who you are and how to spell your name); then my co-counsel began to address the court when our turn came. He said all the right stuff and all I had to do was say "me too." It was effortless, like zen law. We got a huge package of discovery (that is, the police report and other evidence concerning our client, which is given to the defense attorney at the first court appearance) and we both filed requests for a lot more while we sat around waiting for the demur hearing.

A demur is a request for a ruling that the prosecutor has failed to state the elements of a crime when she made the charges. They are the hot new thing for medical marijuana cases. Most of the MCLE I attended was taken up with demur talk. I was tipped off that one of the Sf lawyers had filed a motion for a demur in her medicial marijuana case and it would be heard later that morning. So we sat in court reading our discovery and waiting for the demur. Then it came. She argued well, I thought, and she was quite right that law enforcement had no business busting people who were obviously in compliance with the medical marijuana laws, and certainly the prosector should not be charging them even if the cops did arrest them.

The prosecutor's counter-argument was right out of the dark ages. Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug, it has no medical uses, growing it is illegal, medical status is a defense that must be proven. A Doctor's recommendation from Oakland doesn't take into account that marijuana plants grow differently in Siskiyou County than they do in Oakland. We all chattered about that argument for hours afterwards. I don't know how the judge liked it, but he took the motion to demur under consideration. We'll find out later if he grants it.

Actually I admired the part about the plants growing differently. It's nonsense, of course, from a legal point of view; but it seemed like an original thought and I'll have to see if I ever get the chance in some case to reverse it and say these plants in the mountains are so much less productive than those in the valley that you should let my client go.

I was going to Berkeley from Yreka, for another MCLE session, so I headed down I-5, right into a huge traffic jam. A trucker told me that a tractor trailer had flipped blocking the south bound lanes, and we waited for about 1..5 hours, just sitting on the highway, looking at about a mile of unmoving trucks, watching the daylight dwindle and wondering if this would mean I needed to get a motel somewhere instead of driving on through to my friends home in the East Bay.

After we got going again I got sleepy and pulled off to doze for 20 minutes or so. I find this really works well. I can usually go for hours and hours after a short nap by the side of the road. I dream intensely during those naps.

So, in the end I made it by about 10. Got some good wine, nice conversation, and a very pleasant East Bay cottage to sleep in. All is joy.

It is cold. It is very cold. This is the second time in the 27 years I have lived on the 10 Springs Ranch in Alderpoint, that we have had a sustained cold spell. Last time it froze up and blew out all the pipes. I learned my lesson that time. But I forgot it, and this time I have a lot more pipes which look like springs or fountains when the sun hits them. By the end of the week it should be back above freezing during the nights, and then I'll see just how bad things are. So far the irrigation system valves have all blown, but 1. The outdoor shower hot water valve is gone, and that's the same line that goes to the washing machine so no hot water in the washing machine until the shower valve is fixed. We've been leaving faucets on dribbling, and so far to my surprise that has worked.

Still, the trees were beautiful Saturday morning, bare branches coated with ice and frost, and Smiles the dog loves the frozen grass. She runs thru it, then rolls in it, her entire body expressing joy, as if she were at some exotic high-end spa getting the ultimate treatment.
Last night I slipped and fell directly on a pier block which caught me in the ribs - quite painful but I don't think there was any lasting damage. Today I uncovered the hydraulic log splitter and split almost a face cord of wood so my sweetie will be ok next week while I go to the far reaches of the State protecting the wrongly accused. I do think about installing gas heat when the cold waves come - and then joining those Amercans with the $800 a month heating bills, I suppose.

Actually right now we have electric cooking, wood heat, gas hot water, and a real land-line phone as well as the carry-arounds and cells, so we can get through the times when one or another of the systems fails. Power outages are the most frequent problem. But I'm 66, going on 67, how much longer will I be able to lift those logs up for the splitter? (A long time I hope).

I had real deja vu when I saw Bush give his "surge in Iraq" speech. He was talking, but nobody was listening. The polls according to CNN show that there was no bounce for Bush after this speech. The few who liked him and his war before the speech still liked them afterwards, and the many who like neither still did not like either. There seem to be very few undecided people now that Bush's support is down in the 20s.

What it reminded me of was Nixon in his last months. He would give a speech about something and no one paid any attention to him at all. They would ask him about Watergate no matter what he wanted to talk about. Bush is in the same situation except no one wants to ask him about anything. We all just want him to go away, and we're waiting out his term because that might be better for the country than impeaching him.

It was a spooky feeling tho. I had totally forgotten how it felt to see Nixon in the final days. Bush has that same ambience. I tune him out. I listened to the speech, but I was not listening to his reasons or even for his plans, I was listening for the only thing I want to hear from him, and that is a statement that he has realized that his entire approach to the terrorist threat has been wrong and he's ready to do something about it. I have not paid any attention to him for what seems like a couple of years, other than wondering if he was finally going to wake up.

I tune Hillary out, too. I've been waiting for her to take the moral leadership on the war and until she does, I just don't care what she has to say. I don't think I like her, anyway, but politics is not about liking people. I liked Reagan just fine, I just didn't like what he did. I could stand not liking President H. Clinton if she represented things that I do like. Right now she does not. I saw that she "broke with the President" over the war recently, but I think that means she doesn't want to sent 20,000 more troops to be shot at for no purpose. I don't see her leading the charge to get those troops out of Iraq.

So, here's to the nostalgia of having a President who is inconsequential through his own actions.

Well, the iPhone was better than a yawn. In fact I probably would have bought one right on the floor except for two things: they aren't ready and I don't get Cingular service in Humboldt County. Still, it was pretty impressive and the presentation at the Apple booth was marked by outbreaks of applause throughout. The new operating system looks pretty cool, too, and I can use it here at home. I'm ready when Apple is.

Still, I didn't buy a 17" Intel Laptop. The price was a few hundred more than I anticipated and that took the steam out of my urge to add to my Apple collection. I actually gave the hall a once-over and was out by 3. Considering that the 11 a.m. opening was delayed 10 minutes or so, that was pretty quick. I really wanted the portable bar code scanner, which comes with 10 bar codes you can scan, for $200 or so. But without the computer,..... Still, I had a good time. I got iLife 6 at the Apple store a few blocks away from the Moscone Center, and at Macworld I got a weather/map program which does things just like the weather maps on TV. I think the demonstrator was a native Russian speaker. Interesting.

The drive home was unmemorable I guess. I don't remember much about it. I was going to stop at Padrone in Ukiah but it was only 5:30 when I went through. Then I thought about the Purple Thistle (?) or the Mexican place in Willits, but I must have blinked because I missed them, so I went to the Mateel Cafe in Redway for dinner. As usual I really liked it. Always an internal struggle between the interesting and healthy salads and the really good steaks. Pizza is just off the board for me these days. I ended up with a Merlot, Quesida, creme brulee, decaf and a satisfied mind as well as an satisfied appetite.