Thursday, August 20, 2009

Where to find me

Having been various places over the last few years, I get asked about where I am so often that I've started to think of myself as the Carmen Sandiego of American legal history. I am writing this from about 35,000 feet over Kansas, on the way from LA to Boston. If airline wifi availability expands, I may do a lot of my blogging from right about here.
I will be teaching legal history and constitutional law at USC this year, and will also be in Sharon, MA, where my husband is, and my dog Frank likes to kayak on Lake Massapaog. The time stamp for the blog will remain on Eastern time, so my early morning east coast blog posts will not seem so early from LA. There may be occasional travel-related gaps in posting. But my hope is that blog readers won't notice much of a difference.

For those of you who have not tried commuting, I can tell you that, at least so far, the LA/Boston route has its advantages over my Northeast corridor Amtrak commute to Princeton a couple of years ago. There was no TSA or security lines, but once on-board it was always so bumpy that writing of any kind was difficult. The train was better for internet access with mobile broadband. Airline wifi works well, but the most reliable source is Virgin Atlantic, where the seats are so close together that the reclined seat in front of you is right in your face, along with your laptop. This will seem old-fashioned to those who go for purple and pink mood lighting, but I will often be on American Airlines between coasts and various other places, where I can usually get an exit row seat and often uninterrupted time to read, write and catch up.