Better

Two pretty cool things happened on Monday. Jax limped outside to pee and as he walked by Michelle's Jeep he smelled a squirrel. He stood up on two legs with his top legs on the tire, smelling limping round the Jeep, under the Jeep, then he stood in front of the Jeep with his tail wagging wanting someone to open the hood. I did, and lifted him up, and he was Jax again.

Later in the day I put my gloves on to begin unloading wood and Jax got all excited thinking we were getting ready to glove fight. He's coming back only a week after all the damage.

Monday Morning

Home (Jax uses up another life)

I got back Thursday night at midnight Moab time. When I got out of the truck, gathered a few things, and closed the truck door, the interior lights went out. I looked up and despite having lived here 12 plus years I was startled at all the stars in the sky. Gone only a week, but a focused city week, I had forgotten what the sky looks like. I wanted to cry it's so spectacular.

I went through Terrible Herbst gas station on the way back and there were 20 or 30 cars at the pumps. I felt a little better about the place for the guy who's idea it was. Last week I was pretty sure he had been taken outside and publicly executed in front of the Headquarters building but seeing this, perhaps he's just in a corporate jail cell somewhere serving 20 years.

 Michelle called me a couple nights before I got back to say she had run over or hit Jax with the side by side. At some point in the night Michelle went out to move the side by side from the front door and last saw Jax on the front porch. When she backed up she heard something snap and him yelping and got out to see him limping away. Taking him to the vet in the morning he has two cracked ribs and a broken shoulder. It's so painful to even pick him up to put him on the bed but in just the four days I've been back he's getting a little better everyday. The first video is Friday and the second Sunday.

Best Friend and Hiking Buddy

While Michelle and Jax are watching the lodge I've been pulling ten hour shifts with daughter Heather at San Diego Indoor cleaning up some stuff but it doesn't mean I don't have some time to take Linny to school and check in on my hiking buddy who has been stuck in the garage under the heat lamp for five days of rain.

Working in the Rain

Every day Heather and I work together at San Diego Indoor Soccer and every day it rains with the pumps going constantly draining water off the fields. Most outdoor fields cancel games when it rains but folks that have been playing at San Diego Indoor for the last 30 years no we play rain or shine. It's interesting to see somebody kick the ball down the field and it just stops in a puddle. Every one comes in soaked but you can tell they're having a great time.

Un-retirement

I got a call from Let's Play the indoor soccer company I founded 32 years ago and retired from seven or so years ago asking me to come back in for a week or two in San Diego to solve an issue that had come up that I have extensive experience at. During the drive to San Diego from Moab I stopped for gas 12 miles short of the Nevada/California border. I was stunned at the size of this gas stop called Terrible's Road House. There were 96 pumps and when I hit it around 3am I was the only one there. I walked around inside the massive building that housed what was more like a mall with various shops for tourists to include an auto parts store. There were five employees, one at the counter and four that were cleaning. The only store front that was open at 3am was a large beef jerkey store with a counter about as long as an average Subway store selling exclusively beef jerkey. There was one guy parked in the lot changing into a suit. I waited for ten minutes to get a picture of a car at the gas pumps but nobody else came while I was there.

Ferrell Gas

On 31 Jan I changed propane gas companies. $1 a gallon less, 2500 gallons, very professional. Found multiple propane leaks in the old equipment and got them all fixed and sealed. I couldn't recommend anyone more strongly.