We’ve left Northwest Colorado and headed back down for five days with the kids on the front range. Craig was good, the job went well, saw lots of birds, and even got in a game of racquetball with the executive director, my first racquetball in months. Didn’t get to explore the surrounding countryside as much as we wanted; maybe next time. No freeway routes for the ride back to the front range. We took the scenic route, highway 40 east through Steamboat, Rabbit Ears Pass, and Muddy Pass. Highway 14 through Walden in North Park (the moose viewing capitol of colorado), Cameron Pass north of Rocky Mountain National Park, and down the long winding Poudre Canyon to Fort Collins, then south to Longmont. We’re at St Vrain State Park. It used to be Barbour Ponds County Park. They’re upgrading it. Nice pads and electric at all sites. Next year they’ll have some full hookup sites. It keeps getting better and better for us. Meanwhile, family for the Fourth of July.
Las vegas
After the conference, we exposed ourselves to the slot machines. Dropped a few twenties, then my machine started dinging. Then Judy’s machine started dinging. Played a little longer then quit. It seemed attractive to leave with a little of the casino’s money in our pockets. Judy left with a hundred. I left with five hundred. We’ll keep it for bail money we might need the next time we go back to Texas (no word yet from the jury coordinator’s office).
Conference
It was a good conference in Las Vegas. It’s a conference for small firm owners, so we always get lots of good business ideas. This year, we had an additional agenda. We’re at capacity for our mobile office jobs, but there is more demand for what we do. It’s fun to promote what we offer, but we can’t do that without adding capacity. We want to recruit another team or two to do what Judy and I do, travel around Colorado and New Mexico in an RV, working with nonprofit organizations. How hard could that be? All we have to do is find the intersect between the population of Certified Public Accountants, and the population of people who have RVs and want to live full-time in them. We’ve put some ads out, but haven’t had any qualified responses yet. So we went to the conference armed with handouts. At the roundtable luncheon for small firm owners, we always break into discussion groups. I presented my problem to the discussion group. The moderator got hold of it and had me present it to the entire room. A couple days later, at the breakout session for building a specialty practice, I got called on again to explain to the full room what we’re doing for a niche practice and what we’re looking for. I was introduced with references to old hippies, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson. Lots of good exposure; a few hundred people heard about us. Nothing has come of it yet, but I’m sure we got a lot of people thinking. We handed out cards, so no telling who will get in touch with us. It was a good conference.
Killdeer
Killdeer in Cortez at the KOA. Eggs perfectly camouflaged so they’ll be safe. No predator is going to spot them right in the middle of the driveway.
Some days
Some days are more fun than others. The first part of Monday was fine; we met our new client and got a good start on the job. It was less fun when Annie ate rat poison. Luckily, Judy saw her do it, got her to stop, and cleared all the unswallowed poison out of her mouth. Within fifteen minutes, we had Annie to the vet, and the vet had given her a shot to induce vomiting. Most of the poison got out before it made it into her system. D-con rat poison thins the blood so it won’t clot. Annie will be on blood thickening, clotting, medication for the next few weeks, just in case. Judy and Annie settled in for a quiet recuperation back at the motorhome and I went back to work, but then Judy tried to knock herself out by accidentally walking into one of the motorhome slides while she was outside. She didn’t actually knock herself out, but she did knock herself down. Left a mark. Mild concussion, taking a few days to resolve. A while back, Skip asked us to keep track of all the mistakes that can be made while motorhoming, so he’d have a complete list of things to avoid. Well Skip, we’re still working on it. Life on the road.