If I figure it right, on paper at least, it has been three weeks since I last worked.

Yes, I answered lots of phone calls, and a few emails during the past three weeks. Maybe wrote a memo or two, and flew one aerial survey. But since I was technically on "annual leave" at the time, those duties were more voluntary than work.

That's the beauty of doing work when you're "on vacation"... you only have to do the things you want, or the things you consider important.

Not any of the other crap that other people want you to do.

Like bosses.

So, guess what was waiting for me today...

Yeah, I know. Practically everybody else on the North American continent went to work today to the same holiday backlog. But I bet mine was bigger than yours.

Fortunately I spent at least two or three hours on the phone, mainly talking to nonresident hunters trying to plan their hunts for 2010 because their application deadlines are fast approaching. More fun than slogging through emails. But it was kinda annoying having two phones ringing at the same time, and if the next call on the cell phone had been much earlier, I could have been talking to three people at once.

Good thing the other cell phone is out in the truck.

And I am still editing my way through the holiday photos, most of which you folks would find boring. Like the previous GrousePic, I am practicing playing with some of the manual settings on the digital camera.

A little more challenging at night, at 60-75 miles per hour.

So here's another night photo, taken on our moonlit drive across Utah early last month: