June 19, 2006
Very busy day in the office. Had our first staff meeting in a long time. I told Carole Glenn, Meghan Saar, Abby Pearson, Robert Ray, Robert McElroy, Samantha Somers, Rob Bandhauer, Sue Lambert, Joel Klasky, Bob and Trish Brink about our very successful trip to Cody. I told them we have come a long way since my first Western Writers of America Conference in Idaho several years ago. We have a much stronger profile among the writers and publishers and it was fun to tell everyone here that seven years of hard work is finally starting to pay off.

I had a much longer post, including comments from Alan Huffines (Jack Black was considered for the role of Travis in the most recent Alamo), Randy Edens, a Father's Day card from Cowboy Dan Martin (quotes and all), a plug for our new Best of the West Reader's poll (click here) and a nasty review of the HBO series Empire Falls. In fact, I Googled the show to find out the spelling of Philip Seymour Hoffman and the blogger post disappeared. Twenty minutes and some very hilarious comments, I might add, down the flippin' drain.

"Nobody cares if you had a cheese sandwich for lunch."
—An early critique on blogs and I've forgotten who said it, but if I had the skills (and the patience) I'll bet I could use the Google bar on our home page and find who said it, but I'm tired and am going home.