December 13, 2004
After four days of video shooting it's back to artwork. I'm rusty of course. Worked last night on two nocturnes, one of Curly Bill shooting out a street lamp on Allen Street, and the other, from the opposite corner of the split second before Virgil Earp loses his left elbow. Too much murkiness. Verdict still out.

On Saturday, Paul Hutton waded into my studio and immediately pronounced the cover scene that I gave up on, as superior to the one that I finished (see journal entry last week). So, I put the unfinished mess up at the foot of my bed last night so that when I woke up this morning I could study it first thing. Lots of problems, don’t know quite how to fix them, but I will. Paul liked the "hint of a fence." Damned college professors!

This morning, got a call from the security service that someone had set off the alarm. I asked what time it went off and the woman said, 7:44 A.M. and she wanted to know if I wanted the sheriff's office to respond (they charge us for false alarms). Knowing the time, I said, "No thanks. This is one of my employees who just can’t wait to get to work!" I was right. It was Robert Ray.

Speaking of which, I took Robert and Abby Pearson out to lunch at El Encanto to talk about staff morale and teamwork. After I gave my positive, passionate pitch Abby told me to go stuff myself.

Not really. They were both quite responsive (Hey, I was buying) and even had good ideas on how to make us more pro-active. See, here's the rub: sales invariably runs roughshod on deadlines, selling past the deadline and putting severe strains on production (imagine that!). Then in the final week, when Robert, Abby and Gus have to put out the magazine, editorial and ads, they get sandbagged with clients who have designed their ads on Dos computers that are prone to not be compatible to our Macs. Robert Ray said, "I'll gladly hold the client's hand at any time except in the crunchtime of the last week." So, now that we know that we can plan for it. Abby is going to write up the five most asked questions by clients and the answers, so that Amy, or Sue, or Crystal or Mike or Joel can answer, at least the most common questions. Now that was worth the lunch ($32, includes tip. charged to True West account).

Gus and I went over the CGII book and plugged a bunch of holes with cool photos and big plans. Going to be a great book, at least visually. Very excited.

Got a new poll up. What was the Old West's toughest cowtown: Dodge, Hays City, etc. Click right here to vote.

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."
—Eric Hoffer