Back from four days in California (Laguna) for Christmas, seeing my wife Janet’s
parents. No
matter how many Christmas’s I have spent in California or, earlier in my life,
Florida (Sarasota, where my parents retired), I simply cannot get used to
waking up the morning of Christmas Day to palm
trees and balmy breezes. But then again, the entire Sunbelt phenomenon
escapes me—New York City is about as far south as I could comfortably
live, and, to me, the comforting warmth of piling on layers of wool beats the
hermetic recycled cool of airconditioning hands-down. I will confess
that my morning runs were lovely, with the sun barely rising over the Santa
Ana mountains as I covered the rolling terrain of Orange County over its 8-lane
boulevards with their meticulously graded and all-but-unused broad sidewalks.
Highlight of the trip by far, at least to me, was the opportunity for Janet
and me to have breakfast Sunday morning with the world-renowned J. Craig Williams
of "May It Please the Court,"
(Craig is one of the "Savvy Blawgers") and his engaging, outspoken, and thoroughly
professional significant other, Lisa, who has no uncertain opinions about the need for lawyers
to leave the management of their firms to adults (read: businesspeople
such as her). I am relieved to report that Craig, who "hasn’t balanced
a checkbook since I was 18," agrees with her. He must be doing something
right, because his
law firm, which is less than
two years old, already has five lawyers—something their business plan
envisioned for the fifth year of operations.
I have always believed that
the virtual blogosphere can create and subsequently help cement personal connections
in the off-line world, and this happy meeting only confirms that. A Christmas
gift from cyberspace.
