December 14, 2004
Wrestling with a small scratchboard of Wyatt Earp as a possible spot illustration for the top of the March cover (5:15 P.M.). If you were my wife you might ask the question, "Jesus, Bob, you have been drawing this guy ever since we got married and you still can't get him right? What is your problem?" And, if you were my wife, you'd be right.

Got our True West Christmas postcards back and have been sending a few out. Very nice scene, a cowboy struggling along on horseback through deep snow looking for his pickup.

RG and I had lunch with Ruth Daly from Destination America on our upcoming Gunfighter Tour. She flew in from LA. Had a two hour wait on the runway because of fog. We ate down at Tonto Bar & Grill (TW bought) at about two. We talked about future tours, possibly to Custer Battlefield, Cody, Dodge City, Badlands, Deadwood, the Alamo, Alaska, Nome even Copper Canyon and Casas Grandes, Mexico to see where Mangas died. It's just about endless and we are going to have some fun, I tell you.

Trying to work on teamwork, hard to accomplish with some of the hard heads around here. Someone put a flyer in my box, "Dealing With Difficult People." Interesting. I was especially struck by the following course content:

• Handling the person who says one thing to you but the opposite to someone else.

• Dealing with touchy people who take things personally.

• How to cope with excuse-makers and blamers.

• When and how to let someone save face.

• What to do when people make promises you suspect they won't keep.

• How to deal with employees who have a negative attitude.

Every one of these I have to deal with, but the funny thing is (and I wouldn't say this to too many people) when I hold up the mirror, I can honestly say, when I was an employee I was guilty of almost every one of these (I didn’t have a negative attitude, though, I was just a realist. Ha.). And, of course, the people who make up these seminars are not at a loss for paying customers because every business in the world has these problems. Hell, every family and every marriage has these problems. Still, I've got to go and find out for myself. It's $149. And if you want to join me, check them out at careertrack.com.

"Any married man should forget his mistakes. There's no point in two people remembering the same thing."
—Old Vaquero Saying