Tuesday, April 12, 2016

A Few Days In and Around Palo Alto

Last week Nancy and I had the opportunity to spend a few days on a trip that combined work with vacation. After a case in which I had partnered successfully with the Juelsgaard IP Clinic at Stanford Law School to protect the identity of an anonymous Georgia resident who had posted a YouTube video about a series of abuses perpetrated by a prominent local dentist, I went out to talk in person with the students in the clinic.  While I was around campus, I did a more general talk at the law school about public interest lawyering and online free speech litigation, and presented a CLE course on online free speech litigation to the Bay Area chapter of the Reed alumni association, went into the city to talk about anonymous speech with the subpoena enforcement and safety teams at Twitter.  Beyond that, there was the chance to get together with friends and family, sample some excellent area cuisine, and get out onto the local hiking trails.

Stanford hosted us at the lovely Stanford Terrace Inn;  after dropping our bags, we headed our to look for lunch.  The eating choices within an easy walking distancer were not overwhelming; we settled on a pizza place called Pie-ology (apparently, this is a national chain, but I had never heard of it), which made “custom pizzas” – an unlimited choice of toppings and flavorings can be chosen, with a small choice of sauces, then placed on a thin round of dough which is baked in a very hot oven and ready to eat in about five minutes.  It was an interesting concept, and the toppings were a good assortment, but the dough itself baked so hard that it felt as if I were eating pizza on a matzoh.  The Palo Alto branch does not “yet” have a liquor  license.

We headed back to our motel to get a couple hours’ work in before we had to head off for my evening presentation.  The Inn was a motel with a pair of lushly planted courtyards