February 21, 2008
Got home last night at 8:30 and turned on the TV and lo and behold, there was Stalag 17 playing on Turner Classic Movies. This was Billy Wilder's next film after Ace In The Hole and I had never seen it. Great flick, and it's obvious it was the model for the hit TV comedy series Hogan's Heroes. Big storm blew in while the movie was running, lots of lightning. After a particularly close flash and a loud thunderclap, Buddy Boze Hatkiller headbutted the front door and ran in, cowering at the far end of the couch. He knows he's an outside dog, but he kept pretending to be watching TV, and would look over at me from time to time with that look, "Don't make me go out. I'll watch this damn show with you, but just don't make me go out!"

I walked to the front door and called him and he reluctantly came, as did Peaches, who was hiding in the bedroom hallway. This time I closed the front door completely and went back to Stalag 17. Several more headbutts later, Kathy came home and I went out on the patio and sat with the dogs on their little round beds. Peaches was shivering (from fear), as we heard it start to hail. Small, marble-sized hail peppered the patio as we rode out the storm. Buddy parked his big, fat butt in my face, in case the Thunder Monster grabbed him I could save his ass.

They are dogs, and I have to tell them this from time to time: "You're dogs," I say with some emphasis. "You're dogs!"

Did catch the ending to Stalag 17 and Robert Osborn's wrap-up commentary. I told Kathy I could listen to Osborn all night long. He is so smooth and so good.

Got into the office early to fight a fire. We have a train wreck layout for the main travel piece ("Booking It") and it is unreadable (too much reverse out type). Although quite ambitious, the concept just proved to be too unwieldly, with too much copy for the opening spread. Robert Ray was already working on it and between him, Meghan and I, we think we salvaged the effort.

Made a couple tweaks on the Steins Pass Classic Gunfight, and we are currently proof reading the last pieces of the giant puzzle. This is traditionally our largest issue of the year and it really gets complicated at the end as we squeeze in all of the commas, ads and graphics.

Fun though. This is what I do.

Ray Gier sent me a funny cartoon:



It's by Dan Piraro and it ran in Parade magazine on January 6 of this year. Very funny Dan.

"Just because you're a perfectionist doesn't mean you're perfect."
—Old Vaquero Saying