February 5, 2009
Went home at noon to meet the appraiser. He was late, so had leftover Mad Coyote Joe's homemade mole and a flour tortilla. Ate an apple out by the pool and fed the core to the chickens. Came in and took a short nap.

Woke up and glanced at my sketchbook propped up at the end of the bed. In the blur of my old age eyes, I saw the beginnings of a cloud bank scene in the upper right sketch (these are the sketches I did yesterday):

Yes, that's a quick sketch of Billy the Kid in bottom, right corner. It's funny, but I think there's more likeness in this rough than almost anything I've done in the past. Don't know why exactly, but there it is.

I went right out to the studio and while the appraiser measured the walls and asked me questions ("Evap? Septic? Well? Border Collie?"), I expanded on the sketch and came up with this:

Came back to the office at three for an executive session conference call meeting with the Brinks and Ken Amorosano in New Mexico. Lots of talk about this site and how to keep up with the growth (page views are at 170,000 and growing steadily). Finished at 4:30 and went over our June issue features outline with Meghan Saar. She is so thorough and a delight to work with.

In spite of the apparency of efficiency reported here, I often feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Gee, I wonder what ol' Casteneda has to say about that?

"It is important to do what you don't know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos."
—Carlos Castaneda