I was talking to my Dad on the phone this evening, about my aunt's funeral, when the wife got a big smile on her face, and a silenced snicker.

Which is kinda incongruous, you know?

She had been looking at my day planner, laying open to today's page. My notes from the morning meeting in Central City.

So after the call, I asked her what was so funny. And she pointed to the doodles that covered half the page. The random shapes, the memory sketch of Spirit. And then she pointed to the top line of my handwritten notes for the day:

"stay focused"

Yeah, it was that kind of meeting.

Which reminds me, I never recorded my notes from last week's meeting, the one that led up to the snow mobile ride to 11,100 feet the following day.

There are hardly any doodles at all, for that day.

The session started with the annual, obligatory viewing of the videos on Defensive Driving, Winter Driving, and Sexual Harrassment. No new ones this year. Did catch a few interesting lines that I had missed in years past.

One, and I'm not sure which, had the narrator stating "Before you head out, make sure you know where you're going."

Always good advice, I'm sure.

We again had the video, obviously produce somewhere back East, that recommended leaving your vehicle if it breaks down, and hiking to the nearest farmhouse or convenience store.

Lest you fall prey to some carjacker or thief (or worse) cruising the roads.

We've obviously watched that too many times, because there were no longer the usual hoots of laughter. Here, you break down, all the emergency and rescue folks are unanimous... stay in your rig. Odds of dying trying to find some human abode are a lot greater than the odds of being found by criminals.

The fellow who died on Christmas Day when he got his snowmobile stuck in a creek?

Died because he tried to walk out. Made less than a mile. And left behind an internal combustion engine with 11 gallons of gas in the tank, complete with igniting spark plug wire, and two and a half gallons of portable fuel in a plastic jug. Enough to torch an entire tree as a bonfire.

Hell, torching the snow machine would have been smarter than walking away from it.

No one reiterated the serious annual recommendation that a handgun be included in every vehicle emergency kit, so clearly we're bored and need a new video.

Speaking of handguns, there were no new handguns passed around as show-and-tell at this meeting.

It was a new Armalite AR30 sniper rifle, with military metal stock, .338 caliber, complete with $750 sniper scope.

Heavy sucker. I would not want to have to lug one around for far. But the proud parent bragged that he carried it over a mile this fall, with no problems. Killed a critter (I no longer remember if deer or elk) at 600 yards.

Someone made the observation that the animal was probably standing close to the road, and the only reason the hunter hiked so far was so he could get far enough away to try his sniper toy.

Anyone out there wanta be a game warden? Got vacancies coming up soon, and the boss advised the number of applicants is still steadily declining every year. He suggested that the "psychic pay" of working our jobs is no longer cutting it. People want real money, now.

Getting the high octane fuel necessary for modern snow machines is becoming a problem, and is now only available at stations using credit cards. Which is considerably higher per gallon, drawing complaints from the accountants in the Capitol. Someone pointed out you can buy the lower octane fuels, without drawing attention to yourself, and then spike it with cans of octane boosters. To which someone else pointed out that just means you're playing games with the bean counters.

"But it's fun playing games with them," was the response.

Sometime during the meeting, a nearby warden nudged me, and whispered "Your boss's got TP on his boot."

And darned if she wasn't right. And no, we didn't tell him.

Considerable discussion took place on what to do with a couple firearms. Weapons seized as evidence in poaching incidents. The speed of some court cases being such that, in at least one case, the owner died of natural causes before his firearm could be returned. With no known heirs (in this state, at least). The other gun owner just up and disappeared, abandoning the rifle.

Yeah, we need an attorney's opinion on what to do with these. I suggested ebay.

And just a couple notes on the morning drives to these two meetings.

This morning was cold, and foggy in many places. But mostly small, dense fog banks, not large, expansive ones.

And the drive last week was bitter cold, but just as calm, with no wind. And as the sun rose, I spotted a couple felines who knew just exactly how to greet the day.

Took the back roads over the mountains home this afternoon, and spotted two benchmarks (yeah, even with the snow), at least 20 deer, and half a thousand antelope, or so. And pines on top of the mountain that were frosted on their north sides.