July 27, 2009
Stayed close to home most of the weekend, although on Saturday night we drove down to the new Marriott at Desert Ridge for a surprise graduation party for Frank the Tank. Deena put it all together and some 25 of us had a side room where we yelled out "Surprise!" at about seven.

The restaurant served $17 pizzas and fried calomari (sp?) and I didn't have one bite. I have been on the Engine Two diet for 27 days (they recommend 28 days avoiding anything with a face) and I wasn't going to blow it on the last night. I was tempted though. Man, that melting cheese looked good! Full confession: I did have two La La's flour tortillas on Sunday with a bowl of homemade pinto beans. White flour is a no-no.

Spent most of Saturday, before the party, working on a bad drawing of Curly, the bad Apache scout who is the villain of our piece:

Our Curly had Mojave blood as he was well over six feet tall (Mojave males are prone to be very tall). The soldiers called him Curly because he wasn't, the Mexicans called him "Tall Tree" because of his favored head gear (turkey feathers that made him look look like a tall tree) and Mickey called him "Mangas, Jr." because he felt Curly wanted to be like Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves).

Also whipped out some interesting landscapes, framed within a frame:

Finished twelve sketches each day and the current bad drawings quest is at 9,560, with 440 to go.

"Most of the failures in this world are from riders reining in their horses in the middle of a jump."
—Old Vaquero Saying