April 13, 2004
Finally put the finishing touches on the Custer piece this morning and Abby uploaded it to the printer (the rest of the mag went out by UPS yesterday). Worked all day yesterday, pruning, adding, tweaking, designing. Woke up at 5:30 this morning thinking about two cutlines that needed fixing. I have a photo that shows Custer wearing basically the same outfit he was probably wearing at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Yellowstone Expedition, April, 1873, with the dead elk). It was past deadline, and a tight fit, but I knew, the way it was written that I would get beaten up over the hat being wrong (he is shown wearing a black hat and we know he bought a white straw before the battle).

So I came in this morning and Meghan, RG and I hovered around Abby’s computer and kept tweaking the copy until we got all the info in, and it fit. Not easy to do, because when we would add an extra word, it would break and throw off all the rest of the body copy on the page. Here’s final cutline:

“With the exception of the dark hat, Custer, in 1873, wears the outfit he is thought to have worn at the Little Bighorn (he removed the buckskin jacket prior to the fight). He also holds a Remington Rolling Block rifle that he used in the fight.”

Whew! I love this stuff (even thought it's probably still wrong!)

Just heard from my son T-boy, who is on a “dangerous” (our word, not his) trip to Egypt and Morocco. Like most kids, he writes when he needs, well, here you read his message:

Hey dogs
I’m typing on a crazy computer right now so it would take too long to tell about my travels thus far. In brief Morocco is a gorgeous country that has everything from desert that looks like Arizona to rolling green hills with sheep that look like Ireland. Not to mention more adobe than you can handle. Entire towns. I’m very tired from an overnight trip into the sand dunes and then driving all day. When possible I’m going to need money to get back with this weekend. The ferry is 25 euros and the bus 60. I also owe Ben 75 euros for the rental car which i can pay in Valencia. I’m going to take out another 100 euros for spending money gas and lodging. Thanks. There are so many misconceptions about Arabs and them being dangerous is one. I’ll expand later.

tomcat

“Humor results when society says you can't scratch certain things in public...but they itch in public.”
—Tom Walsh