Bored in Northern California

For the last couple of days, I have been watching coverage of the Scott Peterson trial on television. And I haven't just been watching the same panelists on Larry King. No, I'm in Northern California, and I get trial coverage right on the local news.

The only real difference that I see in the trial coverage is the abudance of those courtroom drawings of the trial in action. It makes me wonder who sits there and draws court all day. Is that a paid official of the court? I spent a minute or two searching for an answer, but didn't really find one. At least one writer did kind of have the same ideal that I did. I have to believe that this article was buried way in the back of the San Francisco paper when it did run.

Here's another question: are criminal court rooms bathed in wierd light that make it the right choice for the artists to use all of those pastel colors? Wasn't there anything in the trial that appeared in dark blue?

One thing that I had kind of secretly hoped before coming out is that I would feel a real, real mild earthquake, just to see how it might feel. Don't get me wrong. I just want one where the pictures on the wall shake a little. Maybe it could knock a dring off of a table and onto the floor. Nothing more than that.

Sure enough, there was one a few hundred miles from here yesterday, and I understand that it had decent strength. But it wasn't strong enough. I felt nothing.

The client that I'm visiting has their lending operations in a strange building, which must have been very state-of-the-art in the 1960s. The work is done in a big church-style chior loft, which hangs over a large branch. The opposite wall -- where Jesus would hang on a cross, had this actually been a church -- is pale green, and covered in stuffed ducks. I can't really begin to explain that choice in decor.

More baffling is the original bank headquarters building a few blocks away. It is a beautiful old building, completely decked out in marble, with teller windows that remind you of George Baily's savings and loan. In a fit of the bad-taste mania that somehow affected America in the 60s and 70s, they made the decision to abandon this headquarters, and move to the world of art-deco. Alas.