April 10, 2010
Went for a walk with Peaches at about 7:30 this morning. Just about perfect out. Halfway up Old Stage Road Peaches lurched around on her leash and I turned to see a large coyote coming right up behind us, within fifteen feet. My big "Hey!" and my flailing arm movements scared him off, but barely. He merely loped off about fifty yards and looked at us contemptuously.

Walked on with no further incidents although I met a woman on a cellphone walking her dog without a leash and she said, "Hi, Baby." Then to me, "Is she friendly?" "Not really," I said as Peaches took a couple lunges at her dog. "She's kind of territorial." Which is an understatement. The irritating thing is, the woman kept right on going with the damn phone in her ear, oblivious to any danger around her (the coyote, Peaches the Predator, etc.). When you think about it, we are all part of a food chain conga line with a predator at every level, for everyone.

Walked on down to the creek at Rockaway Hills and enjoyed the running water. Heard a gun shot, coming from up the creek and marked it in my mind for the potential police report: ("Yes, sir. I heard the gunshot at precisely 7:41, but at the time I didn't know my nutbag neighbor had shot a woman on a cell phone.")

Came back and cleaned out my dark room in the studio and converted it to a storyboard room. Put up a couple peg boards with sketches and ideas for a new video project I'm working on with three talented guys in the biz. This will be under the umbrella of the True West brand. We believe there is room for a new kind of history doc, and a new way of doing re-enacting that isn't so clunky and old school. Besides, those kind of docs are dead and gone.

Did a couple scratchboard landscapes: one of Weaver's Needle and another of Coyote Pass, west of Kingman. I sure enjoy these little landscapes, but sometimes wonder if they're taking me where I need to go. Gee, I wonder what ol' H.D. has to say about this?

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."
—Henry David Thoreau