"...and myyy, how soft your hands are!"

So last week was kind of unique. I got to go to Phoenix on a work trip Wednesday night through Friday night for a Dealer Training Course at US Screen Print & Inkjet Technology.

First, somehting about the Phoenix area:
I could not live there. No way. And it's not just the heat. (It was really hot though. About 100 each day, PLUS it was humid, which was unusual, but I guess it happens for a couple weeks each year.) But that heat makes the landscape really... well... UGly. Yeah, with a capital 'UG'. I know it can't be that UGly everywhere, but as far as my eyes could see beyond the city, everywhere we went, it was just this barren, rocky, red/brown/grey, dusty, hilly pile of a landscape. None of that beautiful desert you might see on nature programs either. No dunes. No canyons or rock formations. Just dry piles of rock and dirt.

I guess I'm used to seeing natural greens (grass, trees) when I look out my window... the nature that we have around here is somewhere that I want to get away to. To relax, run around, whatever. From what I saw (and again, I'll admit that my views were limited... I saw nothing like the Grand Canyon area I've been to before) The Outdoors around Tempe and Phoenix looked only like a place you'd get away to... to die. :) Driving back to the airport on Friday, I realized for myself what you hear all the time about how 'there just should not be a major city out on that desert'. It really looked like the surface of an uninhabitable planet. Like I wouldn't even be able to breathe out there. The Outdoors, as I imagine them, is something I value too much to ever live that remotely from it.


The actual city of Tempe, where we stayed each night, seemed nice enough. (We never got a chance to see much of Phoenix itself.) And the people at the Screen Institute, as they call it, were pretty cool. Most of our days were spent in a classroom setting. We learned about everything from inks and maintenance, to artwork and software, to what the competition has out there. We got to see some of their bigger printers in action. We met Scott Fresner. (He's like a celebrity in the screen print business.) And we ate. A lot.

The hotel that they had us up in served a full breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, yogurt, fruit, cereal, juices, toast, pastries. So that was awesome. At The Institute, they brought in lunch each day, and they also had cookies, dough nuts and bagels around all the time to snack on. Thursday night they took us out to dinner, which I've learned means - start by 6 with rounds and rounds of free drinks for everybody, then eat a little, then go out drinking again - if you're on a business trip. Lots of food and booze went on not only US Screen's company card last week, but also the Northwest Graphic's card for Wedneday's and Friday's evening meals.
I don't think I'm cut out to be a salesman. I snuck off to bed earlier than the others each night. (Actually, both Wednesday and Thursday night I stayed up watching American Gladiators on ESPN classic. What a great show.) I had good trip over all, and it was definitely nice to break up the routine. I don't think I'd spend any of my own money to get back to Phoenix though.

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Back at home Saturday, Änna and I decided to start in on our landscaping project. Our plan is to tear down half of the retaining wall that separates our yard from our garage, and then build it back up, but parallel to the house instead of curved out towards the alley. Our goal is to gain both more usable yard-space AND more driveway-space, which may not seem possible, but you'd get what we meant if you saw the yard. This, I recognize, will be a whole different kind of 'work' than the couple of days I'd just spent in Phoenix.... Like Boston's Big Dig, only without the tunnels and car crushing ceiling panels. :) Eventually a privacy fence and some more soft-scaping (plants, etc) would be nice, but we'll see what our budget allows.

I put in something like 6 hours Saturday and 11.5 hours Sunday of taking down 70 or so of the 50 lb. stones, stacking them up, digging out the new shape, and loading out fill. Last night my hands felt hot, bloated and raw because I was too tough to put on gloves after so many years of working on a landscape crew without them. And today my body feels like I played a tournament over the weekend, or at least had a really good Acceleration workout. I also lost the 4 lbs that I gained 'working' in AZ. :) I can't help but be amazed at my[former]self for being able to do that kind of work every day, every summer, for 7 years.... and I'm SUPPOSED to be in good shape right now! But I guess it's just a different kind of fitness.

We forgot to take before pictures, but maybe I'll get something up here as the work progresses. It will be pretty sporadic though. For the month of August anyway we'll be out of town quite a bit. There's our backpacking trip next week, the Hagstrom family Lutsen trip, the Spawnfest tournament in Washington state... But I guess that building a rock wall would be a good, symbolic way of spending our 1 year anniversary coming up at the end of this month!