so lonely

He's gone. Dead to me.

He took his 15 computer screens and left. Gone. Into the big world of people with offices...that have windows. "Offices with window's people". He's far too good for me. Out of my league. Thank God that we're already married with joint bank statements and bad investments, or I would never have stood a chance with him. He's class. High Class.

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On a brighter note, we found our road. It's east to west, and north to south! 2 miles plus, no power lines, fences or angry farmers with guns and dogs! And it's just across the border in Wyoming.

You gotta love Wyoming. Here's the scene:

It's 92 degrees.
A Rancher drives by pulling a trailer lined with horses.

This is what he witnesses:

Chris, clad in his helmet, gloves, 5 layers of clothes, and radio harness. He's wrestling with, to the layman's eye, a green and orange piece of over-sized bed sheet fastened to his back with strings. And to complete the conundrum, he's tied to a rope which is fastened to the bumper of a big a$$ truck. If this isn't baffling enough, his wife, crabby and sunstroked, is preparing to pull him at 35 mph down the road.

This is the Ranchers response to the puzzling predicament:

A nod and a tilt of his hat. Not even a tap on the brakes. Totally at ease in his belief that we are putting his land to its' best use.

You gotta love Wyoming.

movin' on

So Chris is getting his own private office, a step up from the home office. Evidently the 'Fam' (3 cats a dog and me) are way to much fun for him to work around. We must be distracting. I can't imagine. Enthralling maybe, but distracting?

His new office has a wall of windows in it- can you say "movin' on up"? Yup, to the big time. He's finally got'a piece of the pie.

I told him that I'm going to stand below his window and throw rocks at it. If that doesn't make him miss me them maybe I'll moon him.

Don't worry, his window faces an alley.

Forgive Me Please

Health care reform....

Those of you who haven't closed this page follow along for a second. This is important.

Practically put:

The goal is a true democracy is embedded in bipartisanship, or compromise. It's kind of like deciding as a family which movie to rent. Every family member must be taken into consideration. Each has an opinion.

Please understand that politics directly equate to your quality of life, especially the politics of health care. For those of us who have aging parents, children, or loved ones who are sickly, health care should be definite concern.

The following is a great resource in understanding the differences between our presidential candidates views on health care reform.

A Partisan Divide On Health Care Reform
While both John McCain and Barack Obama agree that the American
health care system needs reform, the candidates differ markedly in
their vision of the remedy. Political scientist Jonathan Oberlander
offers an in-depth comparison of the candidates' proposals.

If you can't listen because you're incognito, tucked in you're cubical, then here's authors article:

The Partisan Divide- The McCain and Obama Plans for U.S. Health Care Reform.
Jonathan Oberlander, Ph.D., The New England Journal of Medicine.

Now, to take a load off the stress that I just caused you...think of pina coladas on the beach.

beautiful

Both of these prints are from greenislandstudio's shop

I couldn't decide which print to post because I love so many of them. But I managed to narrow it down to just 2 that I think are exceptionally beautiful. This artist is so lucky to be able to make a living by creating such beauty. It's probably a meager living, but at least they are not in a cubical, and maybe they're even lucky enough to have paint permanently stuck underneath their fingernails.

Land Owners Angst

As I've traveled the dirt roads of Northern Colorado, I've started to realize just how attached to the land farmers and ranchers really are. I'm not talking about the land in the outskirts of the cities. I'm talking about the land that has dirt, weeds and more dirt on it for as far as the eye can see.

The thing of it is, is that these lands are traversed with county roads, which can be translated (with the help of my expensive Urban Planning degree) into "Public Access".

Hence, During our numerous journeys in search of the perfect road, I've seen some great signs that attempt to proclaim, usually in not so many words, that "If your tire is deviating off of the public road onto my private land I think that I may just kill you, probably after I shoot you in the knee and let my dog eat your face off, then I'll kill you. And I can do that, because I have a sign that pretty much says so."

So I've decided that I should start to put my time and gasoline to good use, since I can bet that I'll be spending many more hours/days out there in the hinterlands, and start a collection of these great signs. Not the actual physical signs, but photos of the signs. I'm calling the collection 'Land Owners Angst'.

Here's an example from today's outing:

You have to wonder if the owners of this land are actually peaceful and kind, just with an awesome sense of humor.

Here's another from last week:

Here's what you need to notice: 8 locks! This is a prelude to the paranoia of whomever owns this land. How do they even know what key is for which lock pad? There must be some golden straw in that field...

You're welcome to add any great photos to my collection, I only imagine that the southern states have got some that make these look like pansies.

Here's some other random pictures that I'd like to show off:

I've never seen a sunflower farm in real life. I'm wondering if they actually harvest sunflower seeds from flowers like these. I've always figured that they just came from the grocery store- along with crab legs.

This is what I love about living in Colorado verses Utah-the massively loud thunderstorms that flood the streets and make the windowpanes shake.

This is the best photo of them all. Both Chris And Dyggs are yelling at me to get into the truck. Now if this happens to you as you're trying to capture pictures for the 'Land Owner Angst' collection, just yell this: "It's not only about YOU ALL-OF the time!" (you really have to lay into the capitalized words for it to be breathtaking. It takes some practice- at least it did for me.

Why?

This one requires a background story. The following is my memory of the first time that I set eyes on our house.

It was about 6:00 p.m., and we were on our way to look at a house to potentially purchase. The route to our destination took us down the street that is home to our current house.

My eyes first landed on the for sale sign in the front yard..pan..... to The House- a perfect little light green bungalow. The perfect component of it being the porch, which houses the porch swing. This is something that I have coveted since I can remember, a remnant left over of a childhood spent on my best friends porch swing.

The house sits caddy-corner from a high school track field, which, I was told was no longer in use as a school, but was being converted into an arts center. The field serves as the neighborhoods off leash dog park. Disclaimer: This is where my memory might be a little skewed out of proportion, a chronic symptom of the romanticism in my DNA. As we drove by the house, everything converted to slow motion. I watched as the neighbors -leashed dogs in hand, gleefully exited their homes and trolloped down the walk to the dog park, all the while -get this- calling out Hello's to the passer-by's. Maybe I had seen a few too many musicals at the time. As I recall, it had been a particularly long and dark winter.

I was sold. I wanted, I needed that house. But the problem was that it was way out of our price range. So, as the story goes, we made an offer on the other house, the one that we were on our way to see, we were out bid and sad for about three weeks until.....the perfect little green house- with it's swing and it's dog park- dropped in price, making itself affordable to us!

That was a very long back story- sorry, I can't help myself- having your undivided attention and all- I get excited. Here's the meat of my story.

So, we buy the little green bungalow and we move in. The start of 'The Beginning Of The Rest Of Our Days', staged in front of the setting sun, gin and tonic in one hand, a book in the other, sitting on the porch swing...together, happily ever after until....

Enter................................

THE MARCHING BAND.

Oh My God! This Is Surely Hell.

First, let me ask you this: Did you know that college marching bands compete, much like college sports teams, to be number one in the nation? And that to be number one, it takes a whole lot of practice, like 4 hours a day of practice, in the morning and in the night. Second, did you know that there really is such a thing as 'Band Camp'? I thought it was a farce the only happens in the movies, usually revolving around the flute player, but believe me, Band Camp is real. So is their never ending schedule.

And all that practicing takes place in the field caddy-corner to my house- to my porch swing, in the very field that people are suppose to act gleeful- and my interpretation of Glee does not include trombones, drums and the devil himself with a head mounted microphone.
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Later....
This is to prove just how serious I am:

This is 1/4 of the kids. Yes, those of them that are not in the photo also have instruments, probably a trombone, tuba or drum.

Getting his fix

I haven't posted for three days because Chris and I have been spending all of our spare minutes driving aimlessly throughout the back country dirt roads of the Colorado flats. Why? Good question. This is a good one:

We're searching for the perfect east to west, or west to east, dirt road that is relatively flat and straight and at least 2 miles long. Wait, there's more. The road must not only meet the requirements that I've just listed, but it must also not have power lines, houses, tall fences, mean dogs, scary people with guns, or bulls..and it needs to be smooth enough to drive 30 mph on.

You'd think- or at least I thought that this would be a relatively easy task to accomplish.

I was so wrong. I've lost days of my life...days of blogging! All for the love that a wife has for her husband.

I forgot to tell you why we're doing this. This road, given that it meets all the necessary requirements, will serve as a tow road for our new tow winch. Or from my selfish skewed reality, it will allow me to fling Chris a mile into the sky so that I can get some peace and quite and work on taking some photos.

We found a road, it's not perfect, due to some very tall and sharp barbed wire- which resulted in me getting a tetanus shot- but I successfully towed Chris for the first time completely alone, meaning all by myself. He claims that it was an awesome tow. I'm very proud- it's o.k. to brag a little when you're really feeling it- like I am right now.

Here's a picture of him- get out your reading glasses. I'm going to guess that he's at about 10,000 feet. Can you see him? Clean your computer screen- that was my problem. He's almost in the very center of the photo. You can also click on the photo to enlarge it.

Here's a couple other photo's from the day. Colorado really is a beautiful place.

And of course, a happy man after his fix.