August 1, 2005
Back from a weekend at the Bob Boze Bell suite. The Westin opened in November of 2002 and they comped me six years of free rooms (one weekend a year). It’s a total treat for our family and we hang out, float the lazy river (they have a tubing course that similates tubing the Salt River) and hang out at Kierland Commons, the upscale business center where we feel like hicks in the big city. Big rainstorm blew in on Saturday night and we sat out on the patio and took in the coolness. We were on the fourth floor and had a spectacular view of the mountains to the north.

Ate at El Conquistador on Friday night as an anniversary celebration. It was mole night so Kath and Tomas went with the house specialty ($65 includes tip). Ran into an old KSLX listener and his wife. Nice talking to them. He just retired. Ouch! All these hip rockers are moving down the line. And speaking of oldtimers I just read this morning that Dave Pratt of Red Radio, KUPD fame, had a cancer operation on his rectal area (prostate). Well, he always was an ass.

I lounged around in the room and sketched all weekend for the final push on CGII. Got some decent stuff. Checked out on Sunday at 11, drove home and bailed into scratchboard images. I finished the “Doc Holliday gets a dagger in the arm at a magic show in Tombstone” image at two. Then “Curly Bill’s slumber at the dinner table” at four. And after dinner I polished off the Maxey shooting which I call “In Without Ante-ing,” a tip of the hat to Charlie Russell’s "In Without Knocking." Cow-boy Dick Lloyd rode his horse into a saloon and was shot dead by poker players Curly Bill Brocius, Johnny Ringo and others. They then threw winnings on his corpse to pay for the burial (or so say the oldtimers).

I asked Gus to tabulate how many images I’ve done, so far, for the book and he counts 236. I think I’ve illustrated almost everyone in Cochise County in 1881. Ha. And speaking of record numbers, I’m closing in on 1,000 blog postings. And I’ve got a request for you. How long have you been reading the blog? How did you find it? What do you love about it? What do you hate? I’ll run the best ones on the run up to the blogging millenium. Email your thoughts by clicking here.

Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs."
—Pearl Hurd