Another Marketing Day is taking place at the greatest little law firm in San Diego. I’d love to say that’s a good thing, but it means that the inventory of billables is temporarily depleted running low. People are enjoying the wonderful weather and extending their holiday weekends and not getting back to me dammit. So I tinker with the websites. I call old clients and ask their voicemailboxes if they want to meet for coffee. I get out and shake hands. And when I get sick of it all I pull on the goggles and go for a swim.

Water usually has a way of calming the inner bouncy feelings. This morning I went back to La Jolla Cove and did one-half mile. Out to a buoy and back. Damn I’m slow. When I’m getting passed at the gym pool it’s usually by young athletes and I can write it off to being an old desk jockey. But today I’d say I was feeling old, but I got my ass kicked by an elderly (and very cool) Scandanavian woman. Only my second attempt at the open water, with no reference points like the handy black line, and the added challenge of shaking off the hitchhiking seaweed, but it still humbled me. Minimal trouble with the distance, just too much lost time from pausing to see where I am.

I like knowing where I’m at. It helps.

It was a long weekend, and the need for coffee to get motivated this morning is confirming that it was well-spent.

Friday started off with a bit of a boost in helping X-Men 3 set all kinds of box office records. Great movie with amazing effects, though I think I prefer the story in the second.

Saturday was for lunch and time with the parents because it was my dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday again!

Sunday involved a new Sunday brunch restaurant (well, new to me for Sunday brunches, if not business lunches) and an open-water swim at La Jolla Cove. As a first practice for possibly doing the La Jolla Rough Water in September, it was good in the sense that the amount of work ahead of me is now better understood. Lots of work ahead of me.

Monday was a bit of a roadtrip away from all the people conducting their Memorial Day reminisces at the local beaches. We headed a few miles inland and about 5000 feet up to CalTech’s Mount Palomar Observatory. An interesting place that I hadn’t seen since I was a kid, and I’m still amazed that technology based on a mirror nearly sixty years old is still cutting edge. In some ways I’m too much a product of the disposible generation. The telescope was amazing, but the inside images were disappointing due to the lighting from the visitor’s gallery. May have to go back soon for one of the tours.

Stopped off a few times on the drive back to a poolside lunch for to try and capture some fast-moving photons on the tighter corners. From my perspective the results were mixed, but I learned a few things and may have to try that again soon too.

Fun times, and the laws (relevant or not) were scrupulously obeyed.

Just in case you forgot. Because we wouldn’t want things to get out of hand at your Memorial Day bash. I’m surprised Ponch and Jon weren’t out there just to make sure things stayed under control.

Some weekend images are up – more, and maybe even some words, may come later.

“We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes “legitimate journalis[m].” . . . We can think of no workable test that would distinguish “legitimate” from “illegitimate” news. Any attempts by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil the fundamental purpose of the First Amendment, which is to identify the best, most important, and most valuable ideas, not by any sociological or economic formula, rule of law or process of government, but through the rough and tumble competition of the memetic marketplace.

From page 36 of yesterday’s Sixth Appellate Division opinion in O’Grady v. Apple, reviewing Apple’s efforts to obtain bloggers’ confidential sources to enforce claimed trade secret rights. Best write-up is over at Bag and Baggage.

To all of you leaving town, please drive safely.  Your brethren have allready screwed up traffic enough.  And thank you for taking a long weekend road trip to keep the ‘demand’ part of that supply-demand thing up high.  Yesterday’s price paid: $3.49 per gallon.

Old dogs can learn new tricks. I’m not beyond hope. Why isn’t thumbboy teaching me to surf?

NGF (Non-Googleable Friend, now in this third appearance here without a better name) suggested this weekend that we should complete the La Jolla Rough Water Swim this fall. It looks like fun, but the ‘no wetsuit’ thing scares me more than the distance or the competition. Even wet, I like being toasty warm. Of course, then this kid’s Alcatraz swim makes the news this morning. Longer swim, colder water and he’s just seven years old. Now I just feel old.

At least the La Jolla swim would be age-group adjusted. Aquablather has the benefits of age groups right. Even though I won’t even win my age group (no chance whatsoever given last year’s times), at least I won’t be directly competing against the kiddies who do this much better and much faster than I ever will. With all the large swimming programs around here, the humiliation potential is just too high. That lets me focus on my goal of finishing in some other position than last.

Great sounds, great smells, great company.  A very nice Sunday was had at the North Park Festival of the Arts.

Three hundred (plus or minus) identical spam messages received in the last two hours.  Filters are handling the incoming now, but this is really annoying.

Spent a great afternoon with the local alums talking up Cal to prospective transferee students.  I think it went well, and need to again thank the snackmaster for turning me on to Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts as the appetizer to take – they went over very well.  But there’s only so much we can do.  I wonder how many of them went home to read about another Cal alum who took a different path.