The power went out in my apartment this afternoon, so I decided to drive around the Pacific Palisades. It’s one of the areas I’m least familiar with in LA, and also one of the closest to my apartment. I don’t know why I didn’t discover it years ago.

I started by finding an overlook called The Point near Temescal Canyon Road. It’s one of the best ocean views I’ve seen in LA and the neighborhood surrounding it is very Leave It To Beaver.

The houses in the Palisades aren’t as beautifully mid-century modern as the Hollywood Hills, but they have their own unique charm.

The homes go way back into the Santa Monica mountains.  At least two gated communities, The Summit and The Enclave, offer amazing views from a few thousand feet above sea level.  You would have no idea that LA was a few miles away. Of course, I stopped taking pictures by the time I got up there, so you’ll have to settle for two more shots from The Point.

My last post showed you my home office. Here are a few pictures of my real one. It’s getting painted this weekend and then I’ll put up the poster and other artwork (tbd). But I finally had the furniture rearranged today — the bookshelves used to be side-by-side under the window — so it’s ready enough for public viewing.

One of the nice things about LA law firms is that they don’t have facetime requirements. You still have to work a bunch, but sometimes you can do it from home. Since I pay a small fortune to live in my apartment, I’m trying to leave the office relatively early and come do a few hours of work here. Which is why I finally cleared out our living room nook to set up an office space. I have two monitors (one of which is my laptop screen), lots of desk space, and a paper lamp supported by a desk chair. We just need some art above the desk and it will be perfect.

I’m technically not a lawyer yet, but I’m already working on being more pretentious. The first step involves golf. I’ve been playing golf intermittently for most of my life, but I’ve never played it in a place with ocean views. Thanks to my friend Gopi, it looks like I’ll be doing that with regularity.

I just finished my first lawyering assignment, which gives me some down time to settle into my office. Because it rained yesterday in LA, the smog is down and I get to enjoy my view. My phone captures the view poorly, but it’s all I’ve got. The first picture is a zoomed in view of Santa Monica in the distance. Santa Monica is largely on a bluff, so you can only see a sliver of ocean. The view from my left window, however, includes a nice view of the Pacific past Ocean Park and Venice.

I feel really lucky. I’m sure I will grow to dislike this space after countless night and weekends, but for now I’m just trying to enjoy it. I’ll post pictures of the interior once I decide how I want to arrange the furniture.

My first day as an associate was spent leisurely filling out paperwork and watching training videos. But I also got to move things into my office and watch part of a sunset. Here’s the view I’ll have as I long to be in Santa Monica.