Saturday Slight

Bill has already taken off for Priest River for another day of working on controlled burns for the Idaho Dept. of Lands. In his usual, official company lingo, he told me that he had to report in Priest River at O-800!. So, he's on the road.

A major portion of the rest of the family will be on the road by about O-9:30. That would be Lily, Kiwi, Kea and me. We'll be going with Barbara, Laurie, Pita and Dusty. Our destination is the Spokane Equestrian Center where Lily will be going to second grade in learning how to be a good horsie under saddle.

She will remain there for a month under Monty Collison's tutelage. Our hope is that Monty can discourage a little more of the bronc-instincts that Lily puts into full motion every time Laurie asks her to lope. She will also learn more refinement in changing gaits and basics in horse show performance.

Meanwhile, Dusty and Barbara will take a short-course today in preparation for an upcoming Arabian show where Dusty, a 2-year-old, will show in some halter classes. While dogs behave themselves on their leashes at the rigs, the humans will be gabbing away and horses will be wondering "What next?"

Lily's already wondering that. She senses things are different, and she keeps looking toward me for answers. I did explain the drill to her, but I think she's wishing she could just stay home, hang out in the barnyard and keep chasing the two-year-olds. Sorry, Lily.

Another family member is headed off for Vancouver, B.C. That would be Annie, who is running in her first-ever marathon tomorrow. A Teri Hopkins from Battle Ground, Wash., wrote to me a few weeks ago on a search for her track coach who had the same name as one of my classmates. Turns out it wasn't the same person.

Nonetheless, Teri told me of her upcoming plans to run in the Boston Marathon. It's obvious she's totally dedicated to the discipline and very emotionally involved in what it means to run a marathon. When I told her Annie was running one for the first time, she immediately looked her up on the roster.

Yesterday she wrote again, telling me that Boston was disappointing in the running department because she was tired, but she still finished the event. She also wanted to wish Annie good luck, so I passed the letter on to Annie.

In her response, Annie told of her motivation for running in people-packed events. She loves to monitor herself in regard to other contestants who look either ill-prepared or ultra-prepared. If she passes one of the latter, that gives her great incentive to move on. She also told Teri how she hated running in high school, and I could tell Teri how she hated hiking through most of her youth.

Annie has transformed, to put it lightly. A climb up Mt. Rainier. A half-marathon last year. Her first marathon tomorrow. Climbs up Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams this summer. It's all about goal setting for Annie, and the finish line is wonderful but it pales in comparison to the vision of assorted individual goals she hopes to accomplish.

Good luck, Annie and a safe trip!

In the good luck category, I've got some exciting news! It's not really luck, but it's definitely good for author C.J. Box of Wyoming. His book Blue Heaven, a mystery novel set in the Sandpoint area, won the "2009 Mystery Novel of the Year" at Thursday night's Edgar Awards in New York City.

This is especially exciting for the Love family and for Roley and Janice Schoonover who hosted C.J. here in Sandpoint a couple of years before his novel was released. He was doing research at the time, and we've gotten a kick out of seeing our influence among the pages as well as his acknowledgement in the book's opening pages.

I don't know if it's just coincidental, but we loved the names for two of the main characters, a brother and sister who witnessed a murder: William and Annie. You can read more about Blue Heaven on www.amazon.com. Congratulations to C.J., a phenomenal author and a downright nice Wyoming cowboy.

Now, we're looking forward to the movie. If you read the book, which you should, then you can go to http://www.cjbox.net/ and vote for which actor ought to play the main character.

On another note, in 2007, C.J. was nice enough to contribute his thoughts on writing and even some tidbits on Blue Heaven to my blog for Young Authors Conference participants at (www.ohwriteucando.blogspot.com). Look on the right and click on October, scroll down past several other great writers to find his thoughts.

I'm also going to send you to yet another website http://www.idahoforests.org/jobs.htm, where you can read about people who work in the Idaho forest industry. You'll also be reading some of my more recent writing, specifically the forest supervisor, ABCO recycling and the Westslope profile on Kevin Boling.

I'm honored to get to know these people and write their career highlights. In fact, I've got a new batch to work on over the next few weeks, including a lady from South Africa who sells great big pieces of logging equipment to loggers. It's a fun and interesting gig and a beautiful website.

Guess that's enough for now. I'm gonna go brush Lily so she'll look respectable for going to the big city. Am hoping to be home in time for the sporting event of the year: the Kentucky Derby.

Happy Saturday! And, go read Blue Heaven!