short absence

There is probably only a few of you still reading this blog lately because I have been updating so seldonly, and it is not going to get better in the next week. I will be leaving in the morning for Houston to go to a friends wedding, and judging by my previous weeks posting habits, it might be slow around here for a while. After several weeks of having almost nothing to do, things have picked up. I am working, volunteering, and taking a class. Plus, with the summer weather, when I am done with those activities, the last thing I want to do is sit longer at the computer.

This seems to be one of those posts where I return to the theme of blogging itself. I occationally, like many bloggers, feel obligated to reflect on this practice. I was reminded the other day that one of my more egotistically motivated reasons for started to blog was to get more name recognition when self-googling. It seems to have worked. If you googled my name last fall you came up with a listing for a town in India and a manufacturer of helicopter parts. Those listings are still there, but they have been bumped to the second page after a full page of hits that actually point back to me. This has had the added benefit that those who wish to find me can, such as old friends who I have not spoken to in years and whose random e-mail landed in my inbox as a pleasant surprise. All that aside, now that I can be found, I feel somewhat obligated not to disappoint, which means that I do hope to make blogging a more regular practice.

Until then, check out this fun blog that collects gossip about the federal judiciary, Underneath their Robes. Also take a chance to read up on the recent Supreme Court decision that barely held on to the protections of the Clean Water Act. You can read the Kennedy opinion and the Scalia dissent here. That should keep you busy until I get back; it is a 30 page opinion. For myself, I am heading to the the urban wetland of Texas that just this week is receiving a foot of rain a day.