Author: Steve

Tuesday Funny thing about the Honda. It doesn’t have a thermometer or compass. Why
would they build a car without an outside thermometer and compass? Last full day to get my Denver work done. The Durango job is my only
remaining project from the Western Colorado trip. I stayed home and worked
at the house all day to get it done. And done it is. Finally. We won’t
look at the realization on that job. We’ll consider it an investment in the
future. Sue, the bookkeeper, promises me a 20 minute audit next year. Sat on the porch swing tonight and admired the lightning show. Annie sat
between us and shivered. It was a good show, even if Annie didn’t think so.
We heard reports of golf ball size hail to the north of us, and three foot
drifts to the south of us. We just got a light show and heavy rain.

Saturday. The Wedding Day. The morning was a blur. Flowers. Film. Errands. When we go to Fort Morgan to Larry and Lolly’s, it isn’t really Fort Morgan.
They’re at exit 73. Fort Morgan doesn’t really start to happen until exit
80. The Wal-Mart is at exit 82. You have to go all the way to exit 90 to
get to Brush. You can go down Highway 34 to get to the middle of Fort
Morgan from Larry and Lolly’s if you want. It doesn’t involve the
Interstate, but it is more direct. We made that drive back and forth quite
a few times this visit. And, like always happens when we hang around
somewhere for a few days, we’re really getting to like this place. We
particularly like the home base, parked out next to the hog barn. The afternoon was a blur. The pre-wedding dressing and conversation. Got
it on tape. Pre-wedding pictures. Got some of that. The ceremony. Got it
all. The post-ceremony photos. Skipped that part. Then, back to the ranch
for the party. And what a party it was. A barn dance. The bride and groom
arrived. Jodee and Todd. The DJ got the party started with his
introductions. The barn got packed with two hundred fifty happy people. We
all got food. As the evening progressed, everyone got happier. And louder.
The DJ was engaged till ten. He went into overtime. Larry and Lolly don’t
have any close neighbors. It’s a good thing. And I got it on tape. I wanted to go see some purple martins this trip. We’ve never seen purple
martins. Our bird count is still at 296. I want 300. I know exactly where
a colony of purple martins lives in Kansas. I have a map. And we have an
invitation to come see them. Nine hundred purple martins living in hanging
white gourds. We’re already in Eastern Colorado, so it couldn’t be much
farther to pop over to Kansas. Except that it’s on the other side of
Kansas. Six hundred miles each way. I counted the number of days between
now and when we leave Louisville for the conference in Las Vegas. It just
doesn’t work. No purple martins this trip. There is some good purple martin news, though. I found a name on the
internet to contact. She wrote me back. There are purple martins in
Colorado. You just have to know where to look. She knows where to look.
And she told me. Sunlight ski area. It’s outside Glenwood Springs. All we
have to do is get back to Glenwood Springs in the summertime and I know
exactly where to go to find them. I checked the internet for a bird list for Southern Nevada. It looks
promising. If we can get to some canyons outside Las Vegas while we’re
there, we should get to see some interesting birds. Tomorrow, the last of the wedding events. The opening of the presents.

Sunday. We get to wake up to different birds here than at home. Well, the robins,
mourning doves, house sparrows, starlings, grackles, red-winged blackbirds,
and house finches are the same, but here we have meadowlarks. At home, we
don’t hear meadowlarks from our house in the morning. Here, we’re
surrounded. Meadowlarks, kingbirds, and orioles. We don’t get kingbirds in
Louisville at all. We woke to the sounds of birds singing. Birds singing
and leftover balloons popping in the morning heat. It’s hot already. The day-after-brunch. There were a lot of presents. I got it all on tape.
And let me say that I’m confident these videotapes worked. I backed up and
viewed enough samples to know they’re all there. Time enough for a quiet visit with Larry and Lolly before moving on. It’s a
nice place to stay out there. Larry and Lolly are threatening to move back
there this fall. It was ninety degrees out by the time we left. Ninety degrees outside, and
a hundred inside the motorhome. Fired up the generator and started the
central air. Started the engine and the dash air. It took awhile. Tanked up at a truck stop. We paid 20 cents per gallon less than we did for
the last tank. Guess the annual Memorial Day gas crisis is over. On the way out from Louisville, Rags took his drugs, then went to sleep it
off in the cat box. For the trip home, he stayed awake and his chin didn’t
even get wet. He’s such a manly cat. We’re back to Louisville for three days.

The barn, in preparation.

Friday Drank our morning coffee and watched Annie and the squirrels. There are
always a few squirrels around. Red squirrels. They like the maple trees.
And the cottonwood trees. And the phone wires and the blue spruce and our
rooftop too. We have had as many as five squirrels in our yard at one time.
Annie’s job is to keep them all in the air at the same time. At least off
the ground, anyway. This morning was a record six squirrels. Squirrel
juggling. Six squirrels in the air at all times. A quick teleconference to present an audit report to a client board meeting.
This client is a Denver client, but they have board members all across the
state. So we have a phone meeting. I like it better when I’m in a room
with some people and a few others attend via conference call. It’s always
strange when I’m the one on the phone with no one else in the room. I don’t
get much feedback. There is a little shuffling of papers in the background.
Sometimes some muffled conversation I can’t quite make out. I try to speak
at an appropriate pace, and make appropriate pauses, but it’s so blank. It
illustrates how much we depend on expressions, gestures, and direct
interaction to pace a presentation. Off we go. On the road again. As we head down the road, Matt and Kari have
gone back to the Colorado River State Park outside Grand Junction in their
fifth-wheel to hang out there again for a long weekend. Sounds like sunny
hot weather for them. Here is my challenge for this weekend. I have been assigned the video
camera. I have been elected videographer. This would not be cause for
concern, except for having been assigned this responsibility at Jacob and
Yousun’s wedding. For that, I was unprepared. I had no experience with
video cameras. They handed me one and showed me how to use it. It didn’t
look too hard to use. Downright simple, in fact. Almost idiot proof.
Almost being the operative adjective. I went about my assignment thoughtfully, working to capture all the key
events from the best possible angles. I turned it off and on, zoomed and
unzoomed, recorded and paused. I did it all. I left, pleased with having
executed my task so well, considering my lack of experience. Later, I found
out the tape was blank. It’s not possible, but the tape was blank.
Somehow, I taped the entire event, without once properly engaging the record
feature. For this occasion, we came properly armed with our own video camera. We
bought our own, and made sure I was familiar with all the features. I know
I know how to use this one. Motorhome on the toll road, transponder on the dashboard, sixty-five miles
per hour, no traffic. An easy loop around to Interstate 76. Checked the
fuel while we were driving. The last time we tanked up was in Durango. We
still have half a tank. I like that. Out through Eastern Colorado towns. They pass quickly. Lochbuie, Hudson,
Keenesburg, Roggen, Wiggins, and Fort Morgan. Lunch on the road. Judy
prepared it while I was driving. We stopped in Keenesburg for a few minutes
to eat it. An eighty mile day. The motorhome parked next to the hog barn. A wedding
rehearsal. A rehearsal dinner. Lots of happy people. Lots of video.