Another email soon after moving to Bakersfield

Hey all,

Hope you're all well. Some updates on what's been going on with me lately:

Up until 3 weeks ago, I've been living with my folks in Orange County, working for Kaplan as an occasional teacher and really more as an academic manager, supervising and training other teachers. And getting involved again at my church in Irvine. And watching a whole lot of tv (I joked that I made up for all the tv I didn't watch last year when I didn't have one). And sending out applications for legal work. And then, about 2 months ago, I got an offer from the place I'm at now.

So I've been at my new job for a little more than 3 weeks now. I'm now working for the city attorney's office in Bakersfield, CA. It's about 1.5 hrs north of LA, on the 99.

Before coming here, I'd had the fear that it would only be marginally bigger than those tiny towns you drive through on that drive (you know, those places with a handful of gas stations, fast food restaurants, and not much else). But as my friend J found out on wikipedia, it's a good sized city, the 11th largest in CA, with a bit more than 300,000 people.

The job has been really good, at least in the 3 weeks I've been here. I'm going to get a lot of experience doing a number of different things. Part of my time I'm in the office, doing legal research on issues affecting the city. The other part of the time (which may be the bulk of it), I'm in court or at the DA's office learning and starting to prosecute minor crimes.

(Which reminds me that I should write another post sometime about the level of certainty within a prosecutor's mind regarding the guilt of a defendant, both for trial as well as for plea negotiations.)

These last few weeks I've been spending a lot of time at work, partly to alleviate some of my vast ignorance, and partly because I don't have an Internet connection at the place I'm temporarily at. You don't appreciate what you've got until you don't have it anymore.

One of my co-workers in Irvine described Bakersfield as a blend of a central valley city (like Sacramento, Fresno, Stockton, etc) on the one hand and a greater LA area suburb on the other. Some of my coworkers leave town every weekend to go down to LA, or the bay area, or the central coast. The good thing is that there's a number of outdoor activities that aren't too far away, some camping, rafting, Sequoia isn't too far, and the coast (SLO) is about 2 hrs away. Or so I hear. I've gone back to the OC every weekend so far, though that won't continue for long.

One thing that a lot of people here say is not so good is the air quality. Since the city is at the southern edge of the central valley, we've got mountains on 3 sides that contribute to an inversion layer. So all the pollution from us (and partly from LA) stays in the area, and as the summer continues, my coworker tells me I'll gradually lose sight of the hills and mountains because of the smog. Apparently, LA puts some of its sewage in the fields in Kern county. Lovely.

Another thing almost everyone mentions is the heat. They say that Bakersfield summers are really really bad, and that while it's usually a dry heat, sometimes it's also humid, too. (I think it had something to do with that inversion layer.)

I'm not sure what to make of that. I spent the last 3 summers in Davis, and that first summer in particular, I remember was bad. Sitting in my apartment at 11 pm sweating and thinking to myself--when is it going to cool down? Visiting Safeway on a Sun afternoon to enjoy free air-conditioning.

And my second summer, working in Sacramento, it got so hot that the glue that held my rearview mirror in my car couldn't take the heat. A bit later, my brother glued it back on, but then another few months went by and the glue couldn't take the heat. So, how much worse than Davis is it going to be? Guess we'll see.

The plusses: Bakersfield is big enough to have all the major stores and restaurants: Costco, Walmart, supermarkets, Borders, Barnes and Noble, Trader Joe's, etc. There's a mall that has a Macy's though no Banana Republic.

And it's small enough not to have traffic. I live now about 5 miles from work, and on a good day, it takes 10 minutes to get to the parking lot at work. On a bad day, it takes 12 minutes.

And many of the people have the friendliness and genuine niceness that seems characteristic of the central valley.