I got my truck back today. After several weeks without a vehicle I finally gave up and got a rental car yesterday. Naturally, once I got a rental car they called me the next day to tell me that my car was finished. The body work looks okay, but they painted the bumper jet black and it looks bad. I just realized that the glove box still doesn't close, which means there's still something twisted in the frame or cab. Tomorrow I'm going to call my own insurance company and see was rights I have to get things resolved more satisfactorily.

This whole process is such a pain in the neck - I know I'm going to get totally ripped-off by the time all is said and done. I'm tempted to call the Heavy Hitter...

Yippee!! The rodeo is in town! Rodeo week is my favorite time of the year. Actually, that's a total lie. I can't think of the rodeo as anything other than mass animal cruelty. It disturbs me that so many people enjoy watching the rodeo. I guess I don't really have too much room to talk - I love watching Maximum Exposure. That can't be a healthy thing to enjoy watching, but I do.

My show rarely - if ever - involves cowboys, though, so I see myself as the better man.

As part of the never-ending process of home improvement, we finally have a patio. They poured the cement yesterday. Overall it looks good, but they left one corner square while all the other corners are round. We're going to have to ask them what's up with that when we talk to them next.

Having a patio means that we can have a BBQ and actually sit out back if we want to (assuming we eventually get some outside furniture - ACK! more money), it means we can travel to the lawn and back without walking through all the dirt and getting our shoes muddy, and most importantly it is the last "major" purchase we will need to make for quite a while. Everything from here on out is relatively cheap.

We'll have to celebrate and break it in by having some friends and family over. Pictures soon to follow...BTW my digital pictures of the black widow didn't turn out, but I took some regular 35mm pictures. I'll post those as soon as I get the film developed.