Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. - John Ruskin So this started happening around 1 a.m. Seven-and-a-half hours later, and it's still coming down steadily. Hence my evening worry and cursed insomnia, knowing P would need to drive in the un-shoveled or plowed places to get to work in the predawn darkness. I worry a lot about P, about this phase o

In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone: snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago. -Christina Rossetti A six-day hiatus from all this. Probably best. Still sort of reeling from the professional losses that piled up over the last few weeks, and what they say about where I am in my career and my loss of connection with the people I'm paid to persuade. No post on Wednesday because they gave P

"I wasted time, and now doth time wasteth me." -William Shakespeare, Richard II A gray morning in the Southern Tier, leaves all fallen but too warm to snow. We're supposed to see a high of 58 tomorrow, four days before December. So much for the great global warming hoax. And tomorrow is my youngest's 26th birthday. Time flies. I saw a reference in the NYT to the fact that the movie Gladiator , which I've never actually seen, came out a quarter century ago. Is that even possib

“ When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I’m beginning to believe it. ” ― Clarence Darrow I'd been looking for a good Clarence Darrow quote about lawyers, and came across this one. It was too good not to post. My last morning waking up to this for awhile. Closing argument in a couple hours, then jury instructions, deliberation, and eventually verdict. As usual on closing argument day, my GI tract is in full rebellion. I used to think I had a bad habi

" Save us from the time of trial." -Lord's Prayer, BCP, modern version So it's Wednesday, and we'll rest our case here in a couple hours, battle off a motion for directed verdict, and flow into the defense case. Really exhausted by now, up since four working on witness outlines, fine tuning arguments, and otherwise trying to get ready. I did give myself the indulgence before crawling out of bed of scrolling through photos of P and me over the last five or six weeks. Lots of a

Today marks the busiest day of the trial--continue the examination of the client with something like 90 exhibits, then a parade of witnesses including one by video deposition, then the other side moving for directed verdict and us working past that threat. Then it's the other side's turn. Up at 3:38, and out of bed at 4 when it was obvious there was no going back to sleep. If anything breaks me in this trial, it's going to be the utter exhaustion when the last hour of my day

Up since three, after a weekend of doing not much else besides trial preparation and sneaking off to eat oysters with an old friend. I need to be in court in less than two hours. Time to boil my mouthpiece and get ready to play this game I'm so, so tired of playing. It's going to be a long week. Here we go.

Each time I see a little girl Of five, or six, or seven I can't resist the joyous urge To smile and say Thank Heaven for little girls For little girls Get bigger everyday Thank Heaven for little girls They grow up In the most delightful way -Maurice Chevalier Back at my computer doing trial prep as the sun rises out there. Feeling a little better than yesterday, when I told P I was as exhausted as I'd ever been in peacetime. Trial is a young man's game, and I'm sure as hell n

I've been running wide open since I rolled out of bed at 5 a.m., and never got around to posting. Pretrial conference begins in four minutes. Here's a nice view of the bay right now.

And when they ask us, How dangerous it was. Oh! We’ll never tell them, No, we’ll never tell them. We spent our pay in some cafe. And fought wild women night and day, T’was the cushiest job we ever had. And when they ask us, And they’re certainly going to ask us. The reason why we didn’t win the Croix de Guerre. Oh! We’ll never tell them, No! We’ll never tell them. There was a front but damned if we knew where. - We'll Never Tell Them, Fitzrovia Chorus Taking my coffee upstair

" There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." -Col. Patrick Bowman, USAF It's looking pretty bad out there, sports fans. A winter wonderland if you're not going anywhere. A nightmare if you need to fly yourself to Florida in a few hours. Yesterday's forecast for today called for a respite in the snow and ice, and maybe a window to fly back to Florida to prepare for this trial in a few days. Apparently someone's still working at the NWS

Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. -Ithaka, by C.P. Cavafy In between hearings and trial prep today, so this basically amounts to an entry to avoid posting nothing today. The snow has arrived, finally. Just a dusting, and barely cold enough t

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." -George Eliot, Letter to Miss Lewis , Oct. 1, 1841 Back in Corning after a very long, nonstop flight from Panama City yesterday. It takes an extra twenty minutes getting here from ECP, compared with Perry-Foley, which means both fuel quantity tapes were very much in the yellow when I landed. A fierce headwind that cropped up over Pennsylvania had

Homeward bound I wish I was Homeward bound Home, where my thought’s escaping Home, where my music’s playing Home ,where my love lies waiting Silently for me -Paul Simon Today around 3:30 the court granted my motion to appear remotely on the 10th. So I get to go home. And it is home, isn't it? I look around and our posse here in PC has grown rather small. I would've gone to the yacht club tonight for supper and socializing, but I've done that several times before and found mys

I am a fugitive and a vagabond, a sojourner seeking signs. - Annie Dillard Quite a morning out there, after an uneventful two hopper down here from NY after lunch yesterday. I have about three-and-a-half hours to finish prepping for a fairly major hearing after lunch. The clients are coming to the office late morning, and I need to have my schtick perfected and in the can by the time they show up. I find the whole exercise exhausting. It's started to dawn on me that we've los

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house." ― Nathaniel Hawthorne, October 10, 1842 We have a surfeit of autumnal sunshine out there over the valley of the Chemung. And yet, such gloom around this grand home, for both of us. The obvious source seems to lie with the fact that I'm crawling back into the Columbia to fly back to Florida for an injunction hearing tomorrow, an event that could surely be done just as well by Zoom but

Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we

" I belong to a group of men who fly alone. There is only one seat in the cockpit of a fighter airplane. There is no space alotted for another pilot to tune the radios in the weather or make the calls to air traffic control centers or to help with the emergency procedures or to call off the airspeed down final approach. There is no one else to break the solitude of a long cross-country flight. There is no one else to make decisions. " - Richard Bach It's Friday, and I have a

“A cornmeal porridge infused with rich, piggy goodness.” -Anon It's definitely getting that late fall look out there. The day before Halloween. Sun below the horizon until 7:30. I reckon all that changes in two days when we "fall back" an hour. I love the change, maybe going back to my early days as a lawyer when I worked all the time. Panama City sits almost on the line between central and eastern time, so deep winter sunsets came at 4:30 or so, even that far south. Some pri

“You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe—when it knocked down our buildings, it didn’t replace them with anything more offensive than rubble.” -Prince Charles, regarding the modern London skyline Not much to see out there on this frozen, foggy Corning morning. That ice fog hung around yesterday morning as well, causing me a little concern as I flew across Virginia in a Columbia frosted over with ice like a beer mug fresh out of the freezer. The cats are taking the weather