July 14, 2003
Tomcat called at 2:15 a.m. this morning and had a ticketing problem in Madrid. Kathy helped him get it fixed, but then I couldn’t go back to sleep. Finally drifted off, woke up groggy at 6:11, had coffee, tried to go for a walk with the dogs, met a hispanic crew trying to find a job with a bad map. Used my limited but forceful Spanish on them: “Yo no soy capitano, yo no soy capitano, can-to-lingo-y-pango-longo. . .bam-ba, bamba—bam-ba, bamba... “ Etc. They drove away with some wonderment at Gringos in plaid shorts, I’m sure.

Got into the office at 8:30, worked on t-shirt design slogans, e-mailed several to Dan Harshberger. Abby is working on a batch here. We’re trying to come up with three more. Robert Ray is tickled pink by the slogan: “Rodeo is number one, it just smells like number two.” He really wants that one to work. We’ll see. It’s not original. I saw it in the Phoenix Jaycee’s office in about 1986.

Went and got a haircut at noon from Paul the Barber (yes, in little Cave Creek, people actually go by that kind of moniker). Got mustache trimmed. He went too far (but then, what barber doesn’t? $16 cash). Went home and packed for trip. Tried to fix mustache, but of course made it worse. Look like Clark Gable without the good looks. Oh, well, it’s just the History Channel and it’ll probably only run for a couple decades.

Samantha is taking me down to Desert Ridge in about a half hour and I’m meeting Deena at Rock Bottom, a trendy cafe and brewery. We’ll have lunch and talk about her work problems and then she’ll drive me to Sky Harbor for my flight to Wichita.

Never been there. I’m kind of excited.

“Unlike manure, some memories get fresher with the years.”
—Bob Boze Bell