Today I went to work at my favorite community center/coffee house. After the great loss of the laptop yesterday I spent frenzied minutes trying to come up with a quick money making scheme only to realize that working my ass off on the plans already under way is a more likely way to get Lee a laptop sooner, rather than later.

So this morning, infused with a new sense of purpose, off into the land of legal research I went.

One of the things I love about research is the sense of archaelogy I get when I am stuck in the middle of it. I often feel as though I am digging into the vastness of the earth, dusting off bits of information one moldy bit at a time and trying to piece together bits of information into a picture that turns into a cognizant legal claim. Today was a total Indiana Jones day. At one point in time I was buried under my laptop, fifteen tabs open in firefox, shifting back and forth between scientific publications about various types of insects and looking for references to the de-watering of the Ogallala Aquifer. I briefly wondered if my clients would be better served by an entomologist turned lawyer while I tried to understand the classification language I was sorting through.

Finally, glinting out from within the internet dust, there was an article I could use as a starting point to my claim! Success!! I delicately removed it from the pile of detritus surrounding it and emailed it to myself, feeling triumphant and happy that my diligence had been rewarded.

Of course tomorrow I have to look up the articles behind that article, so I will have to break out my virtual dust brush and leather brim hat once again.