Busy, busy few days in Dallas. I went up Wednesday night with Jamie for the 2009 State Bar convention, where I had Litigation Section events and dinners Wednesday and Thursday, a speech (on venue in patent cass) Friday morning (opposite Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but fortunately some people still showed up!) and picked by thre authographed copies of books by speakers on baseball, Constitutional history, and legal writing (by Justice Scalia) all of while I'll post on at more length once I get the books read. Oh, and I also met Doris Kearns Goodwin, but forgot to bring my books by her to get autographed. Also had a Texas Bar Foundation dinner Friday night, and saw some old friends there.
But the important part is that the boys came up with a friend Friday afternoon, and we spent Saturday and Sunday doing family stuff. Saturday was a surprise - we took the boys to see the stage musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 
at the Dallas Summer Musicals at Fair Park and as you can tell, all had a great time. The purpose of practicing law also became clear when I saw the souvenir stand and after a few seconds of shock (after all, I've been collecting Chitty stuff since I was five years old) I basically ordered one of everything and four t-shirts! They had a big Chitty car with figures, and the boys have already broken three pieces off of it, so they're having a great time. After the play we went to dinner at Texas de Brazil 
in Addison, which the boys loved, carnivores that they are. Only problem is that large helping of meat apparently have a negative effect on sleeping - or maybe it was just three boys can't sleep in a double bed any more. 
Either way, VERY bad night! This afternoon we went back to Fair Park to hit the Museum of Nature and Science's exhibit on espionage and spying, and the boys really enjoyed that and the Museum's regular exhibits, all of which were very kid-friendly.
Not for the first time I was struck by the way the boys could sit down at a strange game on a keyboard or touch-sensitive monitor, and even though C&P can barely read, they could always manage to puzzle it out quickly. I always thought it was only on Star Trek that Spock could sit down at a strange control panel and intuitively figure out what to do. Now my own six year olds can do the same thing. They just assume they can figure it out, while I'm sometimes baffled at what the objective even is.
On the way home we had the usual Trek-fest, watching Space Seed and A Touch of Armageddon. The boys are lobbying heavily for Devil in the Dark tomorrow so we can resolve once and for all whether a Horta is to be called the Pizza Monster of the Meatball Monster.
