A quick one. Busy, busy, busy.

I'm back in the library in San Saba, gettin' ready to transcribe some more of my scribbles onto my thumb drive. Just thought I'd catch everyone up on stuff. No pictures to show you, accept for these, from Mondays shoot. Enjoy. The trip pictures will be done when I get a chance.

I started workin' on the story again after a long dry spell, getting interested in it again after comin' back to work about a month ago. I get ideas now, here and there, and write them down on paper. Then, when I get computer time, I plug the bits and pieces into the story where they fit and try to flesh things out. It's slow and tedious, but it's all comin' together, sure enough.

Funny thing is, the story seems to be coming to me backwards now. I finished a good version of the end a while back, then thought about what would happen just before that, and today, sitting in the class at the prison, I jotted down some of the stuff that will happen before that next-to-the-last bit. Weird, but it seems to be workin'.

It's gonna take me a while to get it all together, and then even longer to get it set up in such a way that doesn't sound so infantile to me (TO ME, which is what matters), and then we'll see what happens. It's like that old story about how you eat an elephant... One bite at a time.

We had a great time this last weekend in San Antone. Drove down Friday night and got into our hotel room at the Holiday Inn Riverwalk. The next morning, around noon, we walked out and began to see the sights. After brunch at the Hard Rock, we walked over to the Alamo. It was jam packed, and we'd both seen it too many times to put up with the line, so we just wandered out behind it, taking in the gardens and the Long Barracks. It's always beautiful, and inspiring. I'll never get tired of seein' it.

After that we wandered down to the river walk and took it all in. It's a beautiful place, seemingly getting more beautiful each time I go there. We did the boat tour, and then stopped at the mall for some marble slab ice cream. We walked back up towards out hotel after that and stopped for drinks at the Texas Land & Cattle. A margarita for the little lady and a tall beer for me.

After that, tired and dripping with sweat, we walked back to the room, showered and relaxed with some HBO. We laid back in that big, comfy king size bed and watched The Secret Life of Bees, with me thinkin' "chick movie!" But I have to say that I loved the hell out of it!

After that we got dressed up and went over to the theTower Of The Americas, and had a fancy dinner at the Chart House Restaurant. There's nothin' like drinkin' a nice sweet wine, eating stuffed shrimp and sauteed mushrooms with the incredible view of the city laid out for you through those big windows. And the thing is, while you eat, the place is slowly rotating on its axis, so the view slowly changes, giving you a full view of the city in the space of about an hour.

After that, er, I should say, after picking up a cool t-shirt and a few cool books in the store at the base of the tower, we went back to the room and crashed.

The next day, Sunday, we drove over to a Denny's we'd seen from the tower the night before, and had a nice breakfast. "Yes, I'll have a Moons Over My Hammy, with hash browns, milk and OJ, thank you very much!"

Then we drove over to Lackland Air Force Base to try to get a few pictures for my buddies who trained there, some time back in the paleolithic era. Then we drove on over to Sea World and spent the rest of the day seeing a few Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales, Shamu, the sharks, the seals, the dolphins, and huge, smelly, ridiculous hordes of people, most of whom had their squalid little rug rats in tow. Guess which part of all of that sucked the most?

Between critter shows, Denise held all my possibles while I rode a few roller coasters. She's not into that stuff, so I had to go it alone. One was the Journey To Atlantis, which was fun, but pretty straight forward. You go up, you get spun around, you go backwards a bit (which was almost the best part) and then you plunge down and get all wet when the thing you're sittin' in splashes down at the pool at the bottom of the ride. All good fun.

Then, as we walked over to try to get closer to another critter show, I saw the Great White. Holy fuckin' shit, dude, that thing is awesome! It's the closest I'll probably ever come to a ride in an F-16! I'm tellin' ya, it'll shake the shit out of ya, spin you around, toss you through two loops and several twisting dips, and then back to the start with a jolting stop, almost like being hooked on a carrier. It must have only lasted three or four minutes, but you're friggin' DONE by the end of it. Seriously. I just thank God I didn't eat all that BBQ BEFORE I rode that sucker. It would have been uuuuuugly!

By dark, we were done. We got back into the car and drove home, getting back by about 11:30PM. Pooped, but happy and glad we'd done it all.

Monday morning, Denise slept in while I drove up to Gatesville and went shootin' with my buddy Dave and a few of the other regulars. Again, you can click on the link at the top of this post and see those shots. There's even an interesting little video there, for your amusement. Enjoy.

Now it's back to work, and it's rainin' like crazy as I type this. It's my pool night, so wish me luck. I'll try to have the weekend pictures done soon. Until then, cheers!