Not much to say about today. Spent most of it going through literally hundreds of little pieces of paper, many of them stained with blood, adding up all the pronghorn, mule deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep and white-tailed deer that I checked last fall. Sorting them all by hunt area, sex and age.

Don't have a grand total yet. Usually don't bother with one, since it is the hunt area data that matters.

Most of this week was spent with more of those little pieces of paper, going through each observation of live animals this past fall one by one, making sure it was complete and ready for entry into the database.

Been getting lazy in the field, and not recording the locations of many of the animals I recorded. Figuring I could always look it up from the photographs I was taking. So now it is time to pay the piper. Go through the photographs for that day until I find one for the right time, then check it out to figure out where in the heck those critters were when I saw them. Then open the mapping software, find the spot, and look up the UTMs.

Kinda tedious. Maybe from now on, I'll just check the GPS on the dash and write the locations down while I'm there watching the animals.

I mean, if it's gonna take time to get this data recorded, better to take the time when I'm out in the country rather than sitting here, right?

Our new cable company recently began providing us with VH1. As a result, I am sitting here wondering... how does an investigator for the Prosecutor's Office in a major California metropolis go about telling his boss that he needs four or five days of emergency leave?

"Is someone ill? Did someone in your family die?", the boss will ask.

"No. I have to go to London to play a gig with a rock and roll band."

Forget about the band's reunion. That's the reality footage I would like to see.