October 12, 2004
Deena made an appointment to get the oil changed on her new ride, so I drove it up to Tobias at 7:30 and then walked to work (about a mile). Felt good.

Had a staff meeting at 9:45. A full third of the crew was late because of a major accident at Cave Creek Road and Carefree Highway. Traffic backed up for miles.

I called a certain actor about being on the cover of True West for the April issue. Hint: he played Wyatt Earp, opposite Marie Osmond as Josie. Oh, and his wife is the president of SAG, and she was also the star of a popular tv show about this teenie, little house on the prairie.

Jana Bommersbach came out at 11:30 and we went over titles for her upcoming new book on Western Women. Jana had some good ones and I'll share my favorite as soon as I can.

Started a scratchboard of Mickey Free utilizing some of the reference Jim Hatzell shot last summer. I’m on to some movement techniques. Need to stay with it.

At noon, Jana, Meghan, RG and I went down to the Satisfied Frog for a working lunch. We went through five years of True Wests to pick out nominations for the Crown book we have been contracted to do. Chose about 20 articles, narrowed it down to "Oh Homo!", "The Split: Did Doc & Wyatt Split Because of a Racial Slur?", "How Did Davy Really Die?", "Eating His Weight In Democrats" and "Salty John Cox: Saloon Brawl In Magdalena" among others.

Came back and Emailed the short list to our editor in New York and she immediately got back to me that she was "thrilled" with the selections. It does have the potential to be a good one. The contracts for this project came in around two and RG went through them. Many changes. Glad he’s a detail man. I would have just signed them.

Had Abby drop me down at Tobias and when we got there they were closed! At 5:02! This really steamed me. Now Deena's car is locked in the compound and I'm on foot. Fortunately, Samantha drove by and yelled out the window, "Hey, Bob! Need a ride?" (thank God for living in a small town) So Sam, in spite of a case of severe hives, drove me back to the office, and I came back in and had no choice but to clean my space (Wow! Crazy Talk!).

“Happiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from hard work.”
—David Grayson