Visited BorgHealth this afternoon for the periodic check on the nuclear power nodes.  Gotta make certain the containment field keeping the mutating mutinous cells that tried to take over the world from their 70s-retro Headquarters in my prostate is still working.  I was expecting the anti-drone, my really cool urologist, to break out the big probe.  At least slap some lube and latex around and see what’s going on behind the radioactive seeds that keep humanity safe.  Instead we talked about my bloodwork, talked about BorgHealth’s new computers, talked about holiday travel, talked about the choice back in 2003 of surgery versus radiation, talked about the impact of a dead prostate on my life, and called it a week.  Labs in six months, lets chat next November.  All because I passed a blood test I didn’t even study for.

I’ll never get over the sense of dread in anticipating these visits.  No idea what the surviving cells within the radioactive containment might be mutating into.  Someone will probably say gay transforming robots.  In my nightmares I usually envision it as the thing battling the Atom in the opening pages of The Dark Knight Strikes Again.  Regardless, what we can’t detect won’t kill me this year – here’s to four years of successful whatever it is that’s happening in there.

San Diego gets new bears, and from Idaho at that.  Two new grizzly bears will be serving their time locally after they developed a bit of a taste for the forbidden picnic baskets up north.

So, when the Business of Law™ finally gets too frustrating to deal with, one of the options is to grab the camera and go find something to watch until my mood improves.  I was thinking of heading down to the jetty and wait for a wave or twelve to wash away the unholidayish feelings I’m having for a couple of people. At least until I found the camera inexplicably dead in its padded case.  It turns on, it zooms, the controls scroll through the options – the world is just black.  Nearly as black as my mood is right now.

It’s Big Game week, even if the local alums seem to be ignoring it this year.  Actually, Cal Football is probably better off forgotten this year, even if Big Game is something that can never be completely ignored.

But, in a fit of irony, Cal Men’s Water Polo will be playing for the national championship over at Stanford this weekend.  The Cardinal will be be seen only carrying towels and checking the chlorine levels.  Four teams remain in contention for the Division I Water Polo championship: USC, Cal, Navy and LMU.  There’s a good writeup at CSTV.com.  I’ve only seen one of the four teams in action this season (LMU twice, for a win and a loss at the Triton Invitational), but I’m cheering for Cal regardless of the rankings.

Drinking too much coffee this morning, when I really should be on decaf.  Need a zen moment or twelve.  Its nearing the end of the month, and the end of the year for that matter, and I’ve been contemplating the Business of Law™. 

Every year there’s a slump through the holidays.  Competing for people’s money with christmas bonuses (the business clients) and christmas presents (the personal clients) is just futile.  That chubby guy in the red suit gets it all.  Looking at the numbers this year though, it didn’t start at Thanksgiving – it started during the wildfires.  The checkbooks were thrown into the evacuating cars along with the passports and treasured photographs, and that’s that.  

The numbers are really reinforcing some conversations I’ve had recently about local legal industry layoffs and a discussion over Thanksgiving about a major insurance carrier doing an out-of-state relocation.  Maybe it’s just the winter SAD kicking in, but I’m not that optimistic about the local economy.  I’m beginning to think this this will be a domestic issues election in 2008, with Why didn’t war in Iraq bring us cheap gas? replacing Why war in Iraq? as a key question.  Be interesting to see when the candidates pick up on this: before or after the Christmas shopping season plays out?  Does any candidate have the cajones to say Don’t shop, save, dark skies ahead?  If a front-runner said it, would it end up being a self-fulfilling prophesy dragging down the retail sector even further? 

Yep, way too much caffeine this morning.

Alumni posts have admittedly been lacking of late.  Cal Football melted down, Cal Water Polo hasn’t traveled this far south in years, and my seasonal efforts to twist the minds of America’s youth by pimping Cal at college fairs with the alumni went up in smoke at the same time as the local hillsides.  Nice to see this post show up in the morning news feed.  Cal Men’s Water Polo and early indoctrination for the next generation of Golden Bears.  Football can be ignored until Big Game next weekend. 

Just caught this early pilot for 24 and laughed my head off. 

Sometimes you forget how far communications have come in the last fifteen years.  For perspective, 1994, the year of the “pilot”, was the year I arrived in Togo.  I’d had dial-up AOL on my Mac Performa 550 while I’d been back in DC for french school earlier in the year, but no home internet in Africa.  In Lome Chez Chuckie had a rotary-dial phone and an Embassy-net walkie talkie with no encryption and no privacy.  It was like being on an old small-town party line where everyone listened to everyone else’s business and denied gossiping about it the next day.  No cordless phone, no cell phone, and no pager.  E-mail was internal only, and synced to the rest of the State Department once or twice a day.  I don’t remember being able to e-mail internet addresses until 1996 or so, right before I left to go to law school.  I vaguely remember a fax machine in the office, but don’t remember it being used for anything substantive, and certainly not for overseas calls.  I remember that policy was to immediately photocopy incoming faxes for the files because no one wanted to deal with rolled-up and fading thermal paper in the official files. Long distance to the U.S. cost six dollars a minute.  I still handcarried my telegrams to the communications unit, or sent larger documents via DHL or the diplomatic pouch (the courier visited every two weeks or so).

Ugly, I’ll admit, but we made it work.

So, in that one moment when ten conversations along the table go quiet at once, what words are heard from the last young man talking at the far end of the table?

…dude, I’m like stalking at Victoria Secret now.

The redfaced youngster tried to explain to three generations of extended family that all he did was put merchandise on the racks.  I’m not certain if anyone believed him.

The holidays are here.  Every nook and crany of the condo smells of fresh-baked pumpkin pies.  I’d share photos, but I’ve been busy working on the leftover brandy from Ms. Glenn’s recipe.  Holiday cooking can be a rough job, but somebody has to do it.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Nice series of photographs of lifeguard towers over at Hang Ten.