Still no word from the surgeon's office as to when they want to schedule eldest son's surgery. Beginning to suspect they took the week off (seriously).

So, on Monday, up at the little circus tent meeting, my boss pulled me out of the tent and off to the side, telling me he had something to tell me, in a voice that would have suggested I was being laid off, or transferred to the eastern part of the state.

Nope. One of the two people we had assigned to handle our outfit's coordination with the federal land agency on the revision of their ten-year plan (which will probably be the plan that decides everything on the public lands for 15-20 years, since the last 10-year plan lasted 20 years, simply because it is such a freakin' pain in the you-know-what- to do) has moved on in her career. And they have decided I am the best available replacement.

Okay, I just spent a week reviewing what the team has done so far, and am unimpressed, so maybe it is better to put up rather than shut up. And besides, I have no choice.

So, today was nine hours in a meeting room with 30-35 people (some folks were coming in and out). At one count, 24 males and 8 females, so a little better than the meeting on Monday and Tuesday. And records were kept by two males.

I am a little hesitant about actually saying anything about the meeting. Apparently our outfit, and the others involved, signed a confidentiality clause, stating there will be no preliminary releases (i.e. "leaks") of any plan material until we've got all our ducks in a row. But a couple things:

After the morning session, several remarked that that session had been much more boisterous than the sessions on Monday and Tuesday, with a lot more controversy.

Since there were only three or so new people added to the mix, including me, it kinda makes us look like trouble makers.

The facilitator was not as good as the one in the circus tent, letting the group get off track too often, or bogged down in details. Main problem is he sometimes had his own suggestions, and maybe wasn't always as neutral as one should be.

One of the fellows running the show had a wonderful German accent. Was a pleasure to hear him, even if he was chewing your ideas apart. Especially fun to watch him make one point by bringing up a map on his laptop, and then trotting around the room to show anybody who would look. Like a parent with baby pictures.

One of the loooong distracting discussion? How do you define when a spring has become "degraded"? Just too many ways to say, and too many opinions about what is functional and what isn't. Discussion finally came to an abrupt halt when one of the cowboys said, in his slow, deliberate manner "It's like pornography... you know it when you see it."

And, after the laughter died down, that was that. No more discussion. And we never did decide how one would define a "degraded spring".

But we were able to move on.

Much of the work of the day involved deciding what would be the range of feasible alternative actions that could take place with each and every possible resource decision (Does that sound like I spent a day with federal bureaucrats yet?). Same cowboy terminated another long discussion with the two possible choices being "We'll never say yes" and "We'll never say no."

And again, that was the end of that cyclic discussion.

As with the circus tent meeting, many of the folks running this show, or typing the notes, were called in from across the country. So, oddly, we had the exact same discussion in today's meeting that we had up in the tent about how one should pronounce "creek". Apparently folks from east of the Mississippi have a had time understanding that that word is often pronounced "crick". And sometimes "creek", by the same person, sometimes in the same sentence.

I think it depends on whether it has water in it at the time, thus earning the full honor of being a "creek".

And that's probably enough violation of the confidentiality clause for today.

Get to do it all again tomorrow.

And Friday, too.

Oh, joy.