New adventure...

So, this happened yesterday:

Yeah, as crazy as it might sound, I am going to go to law school. St. Francis is an all-online law school, accredited by the State Bar of California, awarding a J.D. degree which meets the legal education requirement to apply for admission to the California Bar to practice law.

I have been kicking this idea around for a while, and almost did it last year, but opted instead to enter a post-master's certificate program - a program I dropped after one class. That class, in higher ed law, was a lot of fun, but the syllabi for the next two courses convinced me that the core of the program would have been pretty old hat for someone with over twenty years' experience in higher ed - a conclusion supported by the fact that most of my classmates were much earlier in their higher ed careers.

I had chosen the certificate partly because is seemed a lot more doable than another full graduate-level degree, given my, ahem, not-inconsiderable years, but then I was inspired by this:

credit to Michelle Rial

I thought what the heck - and I'm all in now. I began the application process several months ago and just got the official word. There's an orientation that starts in a month, and then the term starts the middle of August, kicking off something between 192 and 208 weeks of year-round synchronous and asynchronous online instruction - and one trip down to California for the "Baby Bar" after the first year of instruction is complete. It'll be a heavy lift, but the program is specifically designed for working professionals, and since Coco is immersed in her grad program in counseling, we'll just be a household of bookworms for a few years. Then, maybe admission to the California Bar.

In any event, I anticipate the legal education will serve me in good stead for the rest of my active career as well as in any post-retirement consulting. And who knows? Maybe when Coco and I retire to Palm Springs, I'll even hang out a shingle.

James Caan in Poodle Springs

Season's Greetings

So, with that most generic of holiday salutations, here is my annual wish of goodwill toward all. I expressed it last year in a somewhat more lengthy post:

But frankly, right now couldn't we use even the hokiest reminders that kindness and caring are important and that we should all demonstrate a little compassion and generosity in our personal, professional, and public lives? 

So whatever you celebrate at this time of year, from whatever source your goodwill springs, I wish you peace and joy, and I ask you to spread love and hope wherever you can.

And of course, since Coco and I are in Palm Springs for winter break this year, no holiday greeting would be complete without the Three Kings Three Drag Queens.

Up and down The Ten

So, the vacation continues!

In a perhaps surprising choice, Coco and I went on an honest-to-goodness hike on Friday. Not just our usual two-to-three mile walk around a neighborhood, but a drive out to Tahquitz Canyon and a two-mile loop through the desert terrain, up to the fall and back. Dang, you'd think we were from Bellingham or something.

 Coco took the opportunity to play with her real camera.

The falls were almost totally dry this year, but still quite lovely.

This item from the visitor's guide caught my attention:

 I mean, I may be a city boy, but even I know desert canyons don't have water fountains...

That evening we switched gears and went out to the Fantasy Springs Casino & Special Event Center to see the Brian Setzer Orchestra. It was great fun; I have no pics, just two observations: 

• smoky casinos are pretty yucky
• rockabilly can be pretty damn great

On Saturday we got a little crazy, jumped in the car and sped/crawled down the San Bernadino Freeway to make a visit to L.A. The first stop was more of a pilgrimage: the L.A. City Hall building stood in for the Daily Planet in the old Adventures of Superman TV series, and I wanted to get a look at it in person.

Even though the area around it has gotten a it congested, it did not disappoint.

The next stop was the La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum - I guess I have more of an affinity for the older, classic attractions than for new-fangled stuff. I really wanted to see the spot that appeared on the the movie The Two Jakes (which I cannot find a still of online!) but if my memory of that scene serves, it appears that spot actually never existed outside the film - at least I couldn't find anything remotely resembling it, except a utilities deck on the museum. It was a great visit nonetheless.

A favorite Pleistocene mammal, many of which met their end in La Brea

And since we were already in L.A., we decided to jaunt out to make sure the ocean was still there and dropped down to Ocean Park in Santa Monica. The tide was too far out for easy toe-wiggling, but we took a long walk down to Venice Beach and back. It was a great walk marred only by the poor air quality - an unhealthy 161!

We broke up the ride home with a stop in Claremont to have dinner with Coco's California cousins, and capped the activities for the sixth consecutive day with a dip in the hot tub that is mere steps from our room.

It's good to be back in the desert.

Desert time

So, in the past, I have blogged daily from vacations, or even started a whole separate blog just dedicated to a particular vacation. For this winter holiday getaway to Sunny California, not so much, eh?

I recently came across this article, and while it's not top shelf, it did resonate with me:

Click the image to read the article - and be sure to click through to his GeoCities site!

Since I have abandoned Facebook and I guess still have the urge to post about my life online, another outlet would be welcome. I have been on the Twitters a bunch, and have ruminated on that recently, but when it comes down to it, I agree with the main thrust of this fellow's argument: that the heyday of social media was that time when there was a vibrant ecosystem of personal blogs, each unique, each demonstrating style and personality and positioning in ways far beyond simply choosing your own header on your Facebook page or your own handle on Twitter.

Okay.

So here's some vacation tidbits on day five of our eleven-day excursion to Pam Springs, Hollywood's Waiting Room for Heaven.*

This is less an adventure and more of a relaxication, and we found a tiny nine-unit "resort" that fits the bill perfectly.

We did make a trip out to Coachella Valley Nature Reserve to experience the Thousand Palms Oasis - right on the San Andreas fault line in the middle of the desert. Pretty amazing to walk through what was essentially a palm forest with pools of water.

Despite intervening years of increasingly intrusive human habitation, the sense of what the oasis must have felt like way back when was still palpable.

But it hasn't all been spiritual-connection-to-nature stuff, of course. We have gone to a big band show, checked out the art museum, have tickets for a Brian Setzer concert tonight and a drag show brunch on Sunday, and went to the Wild Lights at the zoo and the downtown street fair last night.

Wild Lights is the name for the zoo's holiday lights extravaganza, which would have been way cooler if we hadn't been thinking all the time about how annoyed the animals must be with all the distracting lights and music while they were trying to sleep, and if the crowds had been a tiny bit more respectful of them. (Zoos are problematical.) Anyway, the lights were fun.

The downtown street fair was an elaborate affair, with several blocks closed off for food vendors, entertainment, activity stations, craft booths, public agencies, and suchlike. There was even some merchandise that we actually wanted to buy, and Coco did get a t-shirt.

We stated off the visit with art, though - our first stop was a create-your-own-acrylic-painting booth run by a sweet young woman who wrangled the (mostly) kids through the process with aplomb.

Coco in her element:

She always brings it:

As for me, well, I didn't go too far out of my comfort zone with this study of Arthur Curry:

More to come, I promise. We're restoring the ecosystem.

*Because old and ailing stars came here to die.