Why We Live at The Lake

It's more expensive to live here than other places, (you gotta work at least two jobs to scrape by) we have some pretty awful heat to tolerate in the summer, there's always some sort of tourist who's going to piss you off in the grocery store or gas station, and we're quite isolated from the big cities that have all the services and stores.
So why do we live here?



Because if we get our act together, on a Sunday afternoon, we can put the boat in the water in a matter of minutes and have the lake to ourselves.
It was nice; a small cooler of drinks, a bucket of KFC, and the quiet of the lake.

Later this year it won't be so simple. The water is crowded 24/7, the launch ramp is a nightmare because of the amateurs trying to either get on or off the water with daddy's big boat, and the noise from all the stupid ocean-size type boats make it not so peaceful.

I'm My Own Boss Today

Funny,last week the boss was unbearable. This week he's actually willing to let me do my own thing and make my own decisions. Probably because he's given up.
He's supportive to the stuff I'm discussing with him on the phone, he's understanding when my own errands are more important than his (shit, he doesn't pay me to do those, anyway!) and he's not yelling at me about his short-comings.
Things had gotten so tense between he and I, that on Saturday my boss was talking to me at our car show and Steve heard what he'd said. Later on Steve commented, "I don't see you working for Todd much longer..."
I've gotten so much done today, without Todd crawling up my butt trying to be controlling.

On a lighter note, I am currently working on Steve's Valentine's surprise. I got him a huge card, and wrote some nice things in that. Now I am putting together a love note to give to him while we're out at our date tomorrow night. We're going to the same place we went last year; a beautiful night club that sits next to the water and the London Bridge. In fact, we had his daughter's 16th birthday there a couple of months ago. For Valentine's they have a thing called "Night Of A Thousand Candles." With the lights turned low, they place lit candles everywhere and serve a special menu with seven courses.

Finally Able to Post

Every evening I have found myself either too busy or too pissed off to post, it's been a busy week.

My boss has all these demands yet he doesn't want to help or follow thru with anything that I've gotten rolling. So we spend a lot of time bitching on the phone. And I get to sit and listen to him complain about his problems. Meanwhile, nothing gets done.

We have a little car show tomorrow--an "easy" one by most standards. No fencing or equipment to set up, no sponsors to deal with, just Corvettes and Vipers, and trophies at the end of the day.
The Resort where we put on a lot of our events offered for us to use the outdoor nightclub--Kokomo's--to use for our venue. Park the cars, turn on the music, hang out, that's it. They said they'd have the bar available and also a food vendor.

So I started doing the publicity for it. I got the trophies ordered. I got door prizes for the car owners.
Then yesterday the Resort told us they had no idea we were actually doing this car show. They hadn't gotten the bar stocked, they didn't have a bartender for it, they had no food vendors available, and they didn't really think they needed to go thru the trouble of all of it just so we could have our little show.

I didn't throw a fit, but I did start to loose my cool at one point when I said, "Have I been working on all this for the past month for nothing??"

After I left, they decided to at least have the bar open and available for us. They called and told me they were working on it.

So today I'm getting my registration forms ready, and I'm resting. The stress of this week has resulted in a lot of sleepless nights and I am really feeling it.

Sand in my crack

Sand in my ears, sand in my shoes, you name it.



We went camping in Glamis this weekend, using Steve's boss's semi truck for our motorhome. It's a $100,000 rig with an actual motorhome for a sleeper. His boss doesn't use it, so Steve asked to rent it for $150 a day. Way better than taking Steve's ancient motorhome that breaks every time we drive it somewhere.
Last time we took the motorhome, the three hour drive to the dunes turned into six hours because of break-downs and problems. With the semi truck, we have the huge trailer to transport as much as we want without having to stack quads, rearrange stuff, and struggle to get it all to fit.
Buying a nice rig like that would hardly be justifiable, considering we never make it to Glamis more than once a year. So the sand toys just sit in the garage. Steve's got quads for both his daughters, he gave a quad to Shay for Christmas (a used one, thank GAWD) and then there are two spare quads, just in case I guess.
Steve has a red four seater sand car, and I ride with him in that.
Here's the five of us posing for a pic:



It's fun to watch the other campers out there, doing wheelies on their bikes and in their sand cars--showing off how much they're capable of. There's huge hills, with names like China Wall, Oldsmobile, and Competition where everyone kinda congregates to watch the loonies. I'm always amazed when I see a tiny little kid go by on a miniature quad behind his family thru the sand dunes--that takes a lot of skill and guts!

Then there's an area known as the Sand Drags, where people drag race each other on a quarter mile stretch of sand. I got some pretty good pictures of that:

Jealousy

I'm bored, and sitting with the laptop in front of the t.v. Reading blogs while watching some reality show on Mtv, about jealous couples. One thing the couples all share; they're trying to stay together after SOMEONE cheated. Surprisingly it was the guy. Okay that was sarcasm.
So this show chronicles these couples making each other miserable, calling constantly on the cell phone, "Where you at? Are you out with another girl?"
Playing games and being suspicious. Oh god just give up and break it off!!


Most of the blogs I've read were bizarre, written like it's a business venture or something. Sheesh. I was hoping to read other blogs written like journals (like what we do) but mostly I found people who seem to specialize in one field or another and they're boasting about that on their blog. And more than once I found a blog that was dormant, with the last entry being, 'Visit me on my webpage'
Gay.

Gettin' Our Kicks

I hate the song, but really we did get our kicks on Route 66 the other day. We were treated with some very unexpected but much needed rain, and instead of sitting in the house staring out the window we got in the truck and started driving.
An original portion of the old Route 66 is about an hour's drive, so we decided to explore that area. From a distance it looked as though the storm was really culminating to a hurricane up that way, and that was exciting to us desert dwellers.
We wanted to see some more weather!




The first thing we saw looked like Grinch Mountain, pictured above.

But then a waterfall appeared in the mountain next to the winding highway we were on, so we had to pull over and listen to the water as it cascaded down the rocks.





We came across some active mining claims, which was exciting. There are some people out there who are still making there living digging gold and copper out of mines in this area. Only, you have to be very very careful because new laws allow the miners to defend their claims with whatever means they deem necessary. That's right, they're allowed to shoot yer ass.

We travelled on to find some beautiful views. This next picture shows the Route 66 Highway down below:




We ended our journey with a very swift drive thru the old mining town of Oatman, which is a joke of a cowboy town/tourist attraction. Not even worth mentioning. It has all these great old buildings from the 1800's mining boom, but the inhabitants are all just a bunch of dirtbag junk peddlers. Too bad, it could be a really cool place. Burros crowd the streets, begging for food from the tourists and it can tie up traffic at times.

Just Pile it On

My boss excitedly called me this morning after I'd gotten a whole three hours of sleep, to tell me that I'm even busier. It was not well received.

1. I didn't sleep because I sat up most of the night worrying about stuff that needs to be done. I worked on the computer from 10 to midnight, just to get a head start on Friday's junk.

2. I'm hugely busy right now because we are in full swing with the American Cancer Society stuff as well as the event planning for my job, and also the fundraiser for this guy I know who is running for Superior Court Justice. I just signed on to help him and his wife have a couple of political fundraisers.

3. My boss and I have been at odds with each other over our current projects and just how much effort it actually takes for everything to get done.

So he called me to let me know "we've" been hired to put on a Spring Break event, right in the heart of all the spring break activities. It's going to be one of those Motocross/skateboard freestyle things that cost a ton of money. Oh yes, and don't forget the concert. Gotta get a concert put together.
Logistics is something that gives me anxiety attacks. It keeps me up at night. It makes my head hurt more than usual. An event like this is HUGE logistics.

He seemed a bit miffed when I didn't respond too excitedly to all this great news of his. Well, he has no idea how much pressure he put on me. The people who are paying for this event are very shrewd business men who could CRUSH us if they are not happy. And they are good friends with my boyfriend. I don't want them holding anything against my boyfriend because this Spring Break deal went the wrong way.

Lucky for me, I've got some contacts with some people who might help make this event turn out pretty cool. I've got Billy Bob Thornton's manager's info, and if I booked him for the concert it could actually be bitchin. And I also have the info for booking Tony Hawk, who puts on a big freestyle jamboree type event quite regularly.
Just waiting to hear back from them, to see if they can help me.

I took the time to sit and talk with an old friend last week, when I saw him outside of Starbucks. It was a smart move; his son works for West Coast Choppers, as the General Manager. Not familiar with that company? It's Jessie James and Sandra Bullock. So now I've got this guy's business card, and I think I might pitch to him the idea of coming to Havasu for my truck show that I'm having in April. We're going to have custom bikes on display as a part of the show. My boss keeps yelling at me that we're going to lose money on the truck show; I keep telling him that if we find something that will attract tons of spectators, we can make a lot of money on the admission charges. This could be the ticket.

So there it is. Just Pile It ON.