Last night, while reading bed time stories to the Girl Child, she stumped me. She asked me how to say "clam" in French. I could not remember at all. So I looked it up this morning when I got to work in my handy Larousse. In French, clam is palourde. And now I know exactly why I could not remember this word last night. I never knew it before.

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This was truly cool. Last night, I saw the bat used by Babe Ruth to hit the first home run in the new Yankee Stadium on April 18, 1923.

For baseball fans, this doesn't get much cooler. For Yankees fans, it is nice to know that he hit that home run against the Red Sox.

The bat is being auctioned off at Sotheby's. Here's a press release about the sale.

I also got to see the first Mickey Mantel major league home run ball and a very cool Ty Cobb bat. I was a little surprised that the Ty Cobb bat did not have any blood or human hair on it, considering what I've read of Mr. Cobb's temper over the years.

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You are a cardinal! You love to try & get others
into trouble, even if you have to make up
lies...NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition!


What Monty Python Sketch Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Thanks Margi!

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Thanks to Mark for the Random PG Wodehouse Quote Generator from which I take the following:

I was sauntering on the river bank with a girl named something that has slipped my mind, when there was a sound of barking and a large hefty dog came galloping up, full of beans and buck and obviously intent on mayhem. And I was just commending my soul to God and feeling that this was where the old flannel trousers got about thirty bobs worth of value bitten out of them, when the girl, waiting till she saw the whites of its eyes, with extraordinary presence of mind opened a coloured Japanese umbrella in the animal's face. Upon which it did three back somersaults and retired into private life.

I don't know what it means, really, but it did speak to me.

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It is just going to be me and my son for Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving is not that far away. My wife is jetting off to Norway for her sister's wedding and has decided to take the Girl Child with her. I am more than a little disappointed. I had thought it was going to be just me and the kids all by ourselves for four days and I was delighted. I love having the kids to myself and I am surprised to discover that I am really going to miss having my daughter around. So much so that I want to tell my wife not to take her. But I'm not going to do that.

Instead, I'm focusing on how much fun it will be to have the Boy Child all to myself for four days. I don't really know him as well as I do the Girl Child or as well as I ought to and this should prove to be a golden opportunity to get to know him a bit better. I have not yet formulated any plans or come up with any activities for us to do, but I certainly want to do something fun just for him. Maybe I'll take him to a children's museum or something like that. I hope we both have a good time together. He's only 20 months and really doesn't talk at all yet beyond 2 or 3 words. That can cut down on the possibility of long chats, you see. Still, all in all, this will give him a lot of 100% attention, the kind of attention he can't quite get when the Girl Child is up and running around as she demands quite a lot of attention.

I remember, hazily, last Thanksgiving. We were about to start a trial. I was working around the clock and took that Thursday off. I took the Girl Child to the park to play. We were the only ones there. It was deeply satisfying to be there with her.

The Girl Child is not taking my work schedule (weekends, early mornings, late nights) very well. She keeps asking me when I am going to be taking care of her again. It makes me very sad. I am torn. If circumstances permitted, I'd like to stay home and take care of her full time. I am a reluctant lawyer these days.

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I had the weekend off for the first time in some weeks now. It was glorious. My wife asked me last night what my favorite moment was and I really didn't have one. I told her that it was made up of many small pleasures and that while none of them may have stood out as particularly worthy of an extended memory, in totality, they gave me a lot of pleasure. I did run some errands this weekend: hardware store; supermarket; back again to the hardware store; and the gas station. And I cooked. A lot. I made gallons of soup, a vat of chili, and I roasted a turkey breast. Kosher turkey breast, while more expensive, is cleary the way to go. My wife deemed it the only acceptable turkey breast she had ever eaten. I also did some neglected house things, like throwing out rotted pumpkins, etc.

I did steal a little time for myself, about 10 minutes. I went and sat by the ocean. There was no one else around and it was very windy. I tried to sit there and let the salt breeze blow some of my cobwebs out. I was sad because I realized that while I had been at work, I missed the peak of the leaf change. The glorious reds and yellows and oranges that make the trees look like they are ablaze. I got a little too cold, inappropriately dressed, and went home to play with the kids.

One errand I ran this weekend got me to thinking about the concept of roots. We are a peripatetic society, or so it seems from my perch. I've lived in a couple of different states and cities and even countries. Americans, as a group, cherish their freedom to relocate as they chase the next big opportunity from state to state, region to region. And as they do, the concept of roots becomes harder to define.

For some of us, roots can be about big things. For my wife, it means that in her ancestral city, there are a couple of streets named for her family. For others, it means that significant cultural institutions are named for their family, college buildings or libraries. Others have Mayflower roots or have joined various heraldic-type societies like the Daughters of the American Revolution. There are few people who have roots like that, I think.

No, for the majority of us, roots may mean that our families have lived in a place for many generations. And as we move, roots become the place where our children went to school and grew up. As we become more mobile, it seems to me that it roots become more and more shallow and easier to put down. They become a collections of firsts. This was the first town our child was born in, the first town I was promoted to vice president in, the first town I got involved in a political campaign. So that roots become easier to pull up when you move and easier to recreate when you stop moving. And I think it is no accident that I use children in so many of my examples. Children give us roots and a place in a community that we not feel when we were younger and had less of a permanent place in it.

It may be that as you associate roots with the first time kind of experience, or even roots that simply reflect your attachment to place that it becomes harder to accept change in the physical place. As things in the physical get torn down and rebuilt or as stores go out of business, we find it harder to accept that change. What do you mean that diner closed? It's been there forever! I dislike that kind of change, even though I understand it. For instance, the cider mill in Armonk is gone. It was part of my childhood and I looked forward to sharing that with my children.

I navigate my way around Westchester, to my wife's amusement, by disappeared landmarks. I navigate a landscape inhabited sometimes only by my memory. I superimpose my map over the real topography and who is to say which one is real? Especially when my reference points are shared by someone on the other end of the telephone and we agree on a set of directions by reference to long gone places. We share the same map. We share each other's roots, a common touchstone of experience and place. Even if that place is gone.

Maybe that's what they mean when they say you can never go home again. Maybe home has changed because your roots are gone or because the roots you take with you exist only in your mind. Beats me. I just know that I agree.

Roots are not just about places, though. They are also about people. For instance, I consciously sought them out this weekend. I demanded continuity. It was my daughter's first dentist appointment. She was such a champ. After the hygienist finished, she asked me if I wanted the dentist or his associate to perform the examination and I told her that I wanted the dentist because, with this examination, he would be treating four generations of the same family. My grandfather, my mother, me, and my daughter. She was surprised to hear that. I guess it is pretty uncommon but I liked it. It gave me a feeling of connectedness, of continuity.

Roots are also about connections, about the seamless way that people interact and cross groups. About board memberships and friendships. I guess what I'm trying to say is that roots are about networks. About knowing people who can and will help you, whether from church or temple or school or professional association or clubs. These relationships are about roots. And they are not moveable. They are place specific. They may assist you with an introduction in a new place, but they won't really do more than that.

Anyway, let me leave my extended meditation with the interaction between the Girl Child and the Dentist on Saturday.

D: How old are you?

GC: I'm 3 and three quarters.

D: [Visably amused] Is that older than three and a half?

GC: Yes.

D: And when do you turn four?

GC: On my birthday. In January. January 12.

D: [Looks at me, smiles, looks back down at her] You are so cute I could just eat you right up.

GC: Oh, no, I don't taste very good.

D: That's not what your grandmother says!

GC: [Very earnestly] Oh, she's just kidding!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:47 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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The first day of trial has finished. In preparing for this and attending the first day, we have billed over 400 hours of time. Is it any wonder that high stakes ($30 million in asserted liability) corporate litigation is too expensive for ordinary civilians to conduct on anything but a contingency fee basis?

In any event, the judge has great animus for our client and, by extension, us. This is the same judge I got in a fight with before (here for story). She is hypertechnical, snide, rude, and not too swift. She is creating an appealable record. In other words, she is making errors with her evidentiary rulings. This is the kind of thing that an appellate court can seize on to reverse a final determination. As for snide, she actually over-ruled an objection by saying, "maybe I'm just not as smart as you are". Astonishing sarcasm from the bench.

I think that generally there has been an irretriveable breakdown in the civil relationship between the bar and the bench. Judges and lawyers are just downright more hostile and mean to each other. I really don't know why. I suppose I have some guesses, but there really is no excuse at the end of the day. Moreover, judges who are rude are abusing their position, I feel.

Trial is an odd thing. Its billed as a search for truth. Its more like a formalistic dance between skilled lawyers who try to thread their way through, or impede their opponent from doing so, a complex thicket of evidentiary rules designed to protect the fact finder from unreliable information. The Rules of Evidence are fascinating, archaic, and a trap for the unwary. We're pretty good on them at my office and can often use them to trip up the other side. The judge has an obligation to follow them but only if you call the correct rule to his/her attention at the correct time. This is a situation of make the correct objection in a timely manner or have it be deemed waived. Once the information is in evidence, and thus been accepted as reliable, you can argue from it to your heart's content. This includes, by the way, documentary evidence.

All documents are, by their nature, out of court statements usually offered to prove the truth of the matter they assert. Thus, classic hearsay. Sometimes more than that. Sometimes the document may also report on what someone else says. Say its a memorandum of a telephone conversation. Then the memo is hearsay and contains hearsay within hearsay, or double hearsay. You need an exception, and there are a lot, to each level of the hearsay objection or else the document isn't coming in. At another trial some time ago, I made the hearsay within hearsay objection and kept out of evidence a whole series of memoranda and caused opposing counsel to actually get so angry that he began jumping up and down. It was . . . sublime. In fact, that lawyer then complained to the judge that he let in all of my similar documents and the judge responded that the fellow didn't object at the time and he was not now, at the end of trial, going to revisit every one of his evidentiary rulings. A very satisfying moment, indeed.

So, maybe trial isn't really a search for truth but a search for reliable information upon which a fact finder can make factual findings based on, among other things, the credibility of the source of the reliable information. Plaintiff is still putting on its case here and the fact finder, in this case it is the judge, is judging the credibility of plaintiff's witnesses. By and large, so far, they look credible. We'll see what happens when we reconvene next month. Next month, you may ask yourselves? Yes. It is a bench trial so it goes in dribs and drabs, starts and fits, whenever the judge has an odd bit in her calendar and can fit us in. Then we do post-trial briefs, proposed findings of facts, post-trial motions, etc. and she makes her decisions.

It was a long day and has been a long couple of weeks.

Yesterday was also my wedding anniversary. I called my wife to wish her a happy anniversary and said, has it really been 11 years? And she said, yes, and they have been the happiest 3 years of my life. Zing!

I was on the 8:40 train home last night (early for this week, actually) and it broke down in Pelham. They evacuated the whole thing and, happily, had another train to us in less than 15 minutes but it was not fun there for awhile.

I am off to the wine store shortly to buy something fun to drink. Tonight, we light a fire in the fire place, drink wine, and put on the first episode of To Serve Them All My Days. I cannot wait.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 12:33 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!! I hope you have a lovely evening. Sorry it happens to be in the middle of trial. With the nutbar of a judge....

Posted by: Elizabeth at November 05, 2004 01:42 PM (ehQxN)

2 Happy Anniversary!

Posted by: JohnL at November 05, 2004 02:46 PM (YVul2)

3 A very happy anniversary! 11 years, that is so wonderful. What is the 11th anyway? The popcorn anniversary? Origami? Screw it. Wine works for every one of 'em.

Posted by: Jim at November 05, 2004 04:26 PM (tyQ8y)

4 As a juror in a first degree murder trial, I was very, very happy to get the juror instruction that says if a witness can be shown to have lied on one part of the evidence, you can throw out all the rest of his testimony. That had a big bearing, though not the only factor, on a verdict of not guilty in this case. It seems to me that rules like that make things a lot easier, whether or not they prove absolute truth. But as you said earlier, you're not going to find absolute truth in a courtroom.

Posted by: John Bruce at November 05, 2004 05:50 PM (AtiUs)

5 Wow... sounds kind of cut throat, to be honest. Then again, I'm having major problems with a cynical world. Anyway, hope you enjoyed your time in front of the cosy fireplace... always a good way to feel better!

Posted by: Hannah at November 06, 2004 07:17 AM (7dELN)

6 Congratulations, Random! Astonishingly close, our anniversaries. Freaky thing! ;-)

Posted by: Mick at November 06, 2004 01:42 PM (VhRca)

7 RP, based on the Judge's conduct it sounds like its a darn good thing your building up a good appellate record. Is this a jury or bench trial? You may have mentioned that before but I missed it. In any event, good luck and hope you had a great anniversary. Ivan

Posted by: ivac at November 06, 2004 05:55 PM (xy2ZU)

8 I hope you had a wonderful anniversary. Maybe it is good in some ways that the trial comes in dribs and drabs; you get some breather between entries into the lions den.

Posted by: Rachel Ann at November 08, 2004 01:52 AM (OnNyU)

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Hi, all,

If silence is golden, this blog is bling.

Trial starts today at 2:00 in New York State Supreme Court, New York County. I have been billing 12-14 hours a day. My kids know me only as a voice on the telephone at this point.

In the midst of all this craziness, I have been invited for a job interview doing something really cool. I can't say much about it at this point other than that it is prosecutorial in nature and would involve lots of trial time. I interview just before Thanksgiving.

So, Bush, huh? I expected it. I voted for him. I did not expect my vote for Bush in NY to matter and of course it did not. As I said all along, I needed a good reason to switch Presidents in the middle of a war and John Kerry never gave me that reason. Simple as that.

Anyway, wish me luck on the trial. We've actually managed to construct a defense and, if we're right, we defeat a claim for $30 million. That. Would. Be. Sweet. Besides, I would also like to stick it to the other side who, in a short time, I've come to dislike (but that's almost always the case in litigation).

Thanks to everyone who left me happy birthday wishes. I appreciated and enjoyed all of my virtual birthday cards, I just have not had time to reply individually and I'm veyr sorry about that.

Pax tibi.

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I have a friend. He is my oldest friend. We have been friends since we were 2 years old. He lives in Europe now and has for some years. He just, out of the blue, called to chat. He did not remember that it was my birthday. Again. This is the third time, at least, that I can recall him doing this. Once, he called to quiz me on 80's movie trivia because he was in Germany and no one he knew there could answer any of his questions. This year, he called just to chat and catch up.

Cost of the phone call: $10?
Time spent chatting before reminding him that its my birthday: 20 minutes
Reminding him that its my birthday during the call: Priceless.

I love these calls. I'm still smiling as I write this.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:18 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Today, November 1st:

Birthdays!

*1500 Benvenuto Cellini a fascinating charactor of the Renaissance. He was a sculptor, goldsmith, assassin, and writer: "Much of Cellini's notoriety, and perhaps even fame, derives from his memoirs, begun in 1558 and abandoned in 1562, which were published posthumously under the title The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. As noted by one biographer, 'His amours and hatreds, his passions and delights, his love of the sumptuous and the exquisite in art, his self-applause and self-assertion, make this one of the most singular and fascinating books in existence.'"

*1871 Stephen Crane US, novelist and poet, known best for the Red Badge of Courage. But he also wrote Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets (1893), his first book, about a girl from the slums and he moved to the slums to live in order to write about it. He was also a well known war correspondent.

*1902 Nordahl Grieg, a fascinating person, was a Norwegian poet, dramatist, newspaper man, and novelist. He was an anti-fascist at a time when that was not popular and served with the Norwegian Goverment in exile in England during WW II. He died during a bombing run over Berlin in 1943.

*1942 Larry Flynt magazine publisher (Hustler). Heh.

*1961 Mags Furuholmen Norway, from the band Aha (I'm sure you are all singing, "Take on Me")

*1963 Rick Allen Def Leppard drummer.

*1967 ME! "I was born a small, black child in Mississippi." Quote?

Events:

Ok, there was a lot of interesting stuff that happened today and I regret that I lack the time to do my usual history links to it all but I want to put it out there anyway.

*79 Pompei buried by Mt Vesuvius
*1210 King John of England begins imprisoning Jews
*1512 Michelangelo's paintings on ceiling of Sistine Chapel, 1st exhibited
*1604 William Shakespeare's tragedy "Othello" 1st presented
*1611 Shakespeare's romantic comedy "The Tempest" 1st presented
*1755 Lisbon earthquake kills more than 50,000
*1765 Stamp Act went into effect in the British colonies
*1776 Mission San Juan Capistrano founded in California
*1894 Vaccine for diphtheria announced by Dr Roux of Paris
*1922 Ottoman Empire abolished
*1950 Puerto Rican nationalists try to kill President Truman at the Blair House
*1952 Fusion occurred for the 1st time on Earth
*1956 Nagy government of Hungary withdraws from Warsaw Pact

My wife gave me, last night, a very cool gift. She gave me the entire DVD collection of the Masterpiece Theater presentation of: To Serve Them All My Days. I loved this when I saw it 20 some years ago and it remains one of my favorite books. Thanks, honey!!!!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:08 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 Ohhhh... first to wish you a happy birthday! AND the first chance to guess at the quote! Many happy returns, and I hope you get to do something non-work related on this happy day--I know I am happy you're around these parts. I bet the quote is from The Jerk", with Steve Martin.

Posted by: Mandalei at November 01, 2004 10:10 AM (LcyhB)

2 Thanks, Amanda! And you are correct. It was, "The Jerk".

Posted by: RP at November 01, 2004 11:51 AM (LlPKh)

3 Happy Birthday RP! I loved that movie "The Jerk" especially the bit when he was oblivious about the guy shooting at him.

Posted by: Oorgo at November 01, 2004 01:03 PM (lM0qs)

4 Oh my god! I got it right! even better than having your name tattooed on someone's ass! Happy Birthday, again!

Posted by: Mandalei at November 01, 2004 01:10 PM (LcyhB)

5 Here's wishing you a very Happy Birthday RP. Many, many happy returns!! Clink!!

Posted by: Wicked H at November 01, 2004 01:25 PM (iqFar)

6 Happy Birthday, RP!

Posted by: Howard at November 01, 2004 02:22 PM (X88j1)

7 Happy Happy Happy!!!! It sounds like you've already got a great start at a wonderful day. So, my brilliant deductive reasoning tells me that you are either a) much younger than I, or b) LOOK young because I've "celebrated" my last birthday. From now on, it's anniversarys of birthdays. You know, fainstance: the eleventh anniversary of my twenty-ninth birthday? :: giggle :: Here's to hoping that, during the next year, you receive ALL of what you need and most of what you desire. xoxo m

Posted by: Margi at November 01, 2004 02:27 PM (MAdsZ)

8 Brillant deductive reasoning? More like ZERO reading comprehension. (I blame the Blogheimers.) 1967. A very good year. I was two.

Posted by: Margi at November 01, 2004 02:30 PM (MAdsZ)

9 I missed your birthday!? ARGH! Happy Belated Birthday, Random! The Jerk is one of my favorite movies ever; I got the quote instantly. I wish they'd come out with the widescreen version (well, maybe they have; I haven't checked for awhile). Favorite scene? When Steve Martin has lost all his money and is writing out all those checks for $1.XX and starts going out the door shouting, "I don't need YOU, I don't need ANYTHING! I don't need this house, or these things or... Well...maybe *this*" and he picks up a phone..."But that's ALL! That's ALL I NEED!" He starts dragging out the door again shouting he doesn't need ANYTHING from ANYONE. Then he stops "...well, maybe *this*" and he picks up another stupid item..."But that's ALL! THAT'S ALL I NEED!" Needless to say we've picked up on that phrase and when anyone says, "I don't need blah-blah"...we go into the whole bit. Annoying, ain't we? ;-) (Happy Happy Belated Birthday Wishes!)

Posted by: Amber at November 02, 2004 01:17 PM (zQE5D)

10 Happy birthday and many more to come. You'll need them to get through that DVD collection.

Posted by: Simon at November 04, 2004 11:37 PM (FUPxT)

11 Sorry I'm late wishing you a happy birthday, but here it is anyway: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And I looked at the link for To Serve them All My Days... it looks really, really interesting. I'll have to look up the books, so thanks for the link!

Posted by: Hannah at November 06, 2004 07:20 AM (7dELN)

12 Hi! It's my birthday too today (Nov 1 2005) and I stumbled on your site after doing a search (sad or what?) Have a good day. Lorraine

Posted by: Lorraine at November 01, 2005 10:47 AM (ALMw6)

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