He drove over 150 miles, leaving before sunrise.

Just to interview me.

Took all of 10.146 minutes of tape (I peeked at the counter). That's fifteen miles per minute.

And that includes the microphone tests. You know, "Testing, one, two, three... three, two, one."

I wasn't as articulate as I wanted to be. Seems the older I get, the harder the words are to snatch out of memory. Or a similar-sounding, but wrong, word jumps out in its place.

'Course, it was well below freezing, and the wind was whipping unabated across the saltbush flats. Had to shove my hands into my pockets to keep the fingers working. My hair was still damp from my morning shower. Brain freeze sounds like a perfectly good excuse for poor vocabulary skills.

I told him I expected him to edit it so I sounded smart and articulate.

He said he would.

And then we were off. The masked heeler and I to wander the buildings(flushing a red fox in the process), and him to leisurely make his way back to Capitol City.

I'm pretty sure this was more of an excuse to get him out of Dodge than it was any real need to film words coming from my mouth.

Got home before the wife arrived for her lunch break. I jokingly suggested I should ride back into town with her and spend the afternoon at the coffee shop, reading and making notes on the four-inch thick environmental impact statement I have to review.

Been awful hard concentrating on it at either the desk or in bed. Only a few dog-eared pages indicating I had found some error or comment to make.

A little over three hours of sitting on a window stool, decaf raspberry mocha with whipped cream at hand, and I've got dozens of comments ready. More than I came up with in the previous two weeks.

This despite the four high school girls flirting with the high school boy.

Or the screaming toddlers that came in later.