Duck Lake

Sonnet and I walk to Duck Lake in Stanislaus National Forest. We split the house at 6AM where, BTW, Moe and Eitan awake preparing for the day: "swim lessons, 10AM!" Eitan shouts. Our hike is reasonably tame - only four miles - but the views of the mid-sierras brilliant and the alpine lake is isolated, surrounded by ridge-line and a deep meadow. We end with a four mile jog and I may report that my wife is a serious runner - she weighs less today than when I met her and the London marathon has her in all kinds of shape. Also her stride has changed - faster and better form. She's thinking about signing up for a few races in the fall.

Moe and I talk about the law - he retired in '97 at age 62 and notes that the business has changed since he practiced. "We used to bill maybe 1,200 hours a year and barely kept track" he says. "Now a top partner is expected to do twice that amount." (Moe watches Eitan and Madeleine in their swim class - what joy, no doubt).

We receive a scratchy NPR on the radio - enough to know that the Labour Party lost their third test in Scottish burough which three years ago was soundly pro-labour. Scotland of course is where Super Gee is from. While many of the UK's problems are not due to Brown, he was the chequer while these problems were in the works - like Britain's borrowing where we are the most leveraged consumers in the world or the housing market which is perhaps worse than the US. Brown has also made a hash of things like the non-dom and ten "p" tax and of course the withdrawn elections. His ass is grass.