The Bone Yard

Over a packed house Thanksgiving I caught a cold and kept it for ten days and then got a week long stomach infection that was pretty painful. It's been three or four days since I've felt remotely healthy and it hasn't helped the amount of work it's taking to prepare for the Last Hurrah acquisition. Today I'm walking through an area at Last Hurrah called The Bone Yard where all sorts of things left over, not used, confused about, unsure of, unidentified, or homeless, have been planted.

Currently Base Camp is a roughly 2800 square foot building, a small garage, and a couple of mud huts (hogans) on almost 50 acres. It's about to absorb 2, two bed room houses, a monster garage, a boathouse, gravel pit, boat ramp, two pretty incredible hogans, and some other stuff of unique character I'll visit over the next few days on another almost 150 acres.

Most of the last ten years and particularly the last five years since I retired from Let's Play has been without stress. There's always ample money left over at the end of each year and I haven't had to put in that many hours. Certainly not like working at Let's Play where hundred hour weeks for 20 plus years and a total of seven days off during that time was my life. But, it paid off, and I lived long enough to enjoy the fruits of that financial risk and hard work. This year when business increased for the 10th straight year (25%) and days off started to disappear, I closed. Actually I closed three times for three weeks each time, didn't take any guests, and went hiking with Kobae most days. Now I'm about to add 120% to my monthly debt payment. I feel like it's a really good deal and a good mix to Base Camp but somewhere in the recesses I'm wondering if I'm also purchasing a lot of hard work and an ulcer. I need to increase revenue 120%.

I come around the corner and there's a cottontail, not afraid of me, but can't see him very well with the Go Pro. I'm going to change the settings tomorrow on my explorations of Last Hurrah and see if it helps the video quality.

I've had way worse. There was a time in the Let's Play days where we opened so many new facilities and added so much new debt that we had $50,000 a month negatives. I was Prez. We survived that and became amazingly profitable. So, a real job has returned and lots of work to accompany it. In time though, it will change. It always has and I expect this not to be different.

Coming into the clearing and though still bad video there is a mule deer staring at me, like the rabbit, also unafraid. I had six mule deer before the mountain lion showed up.

Opening 25 indoor soccer facilities all around the country, each one had some things new and different and never faced before in previous openings. In those days I slept on or under the office desk or in the bleachers so I didn't waste time driving back and forth to a motel. I didn't see family for many months at a time. I remember coming home one time after several months working at a facility and as I drove up to the house in San Diego my youngest daughter Heather was leaving for school. She said she was late and could I give her a ride to school. Since school was only a few blocks away that sounded wrong to me but she got in and I drove her to the top of the hill and pulled in front of the elementary school. She just stared at me. I said "Get out." She said "I haven't gone to this school in two years. I'm in junior high school." I said "Where is that?" At least this time I'll be able to sleep in my bed and without having to travel be at work when morning comes.

In the clearing five more mule deer show up. Good, all six of them survived the mountain lion while she was here. Usually she takes a deer every year before she goes back up on the Anti Cline through Dripping Springs where I've tracked her so many times before. I had 11 gray foxes when she got here and I haven't seen more than eight at a time since she departed so she may have got a few of them.