A Good Weekend

I had to make a quick run up to Great Falls (90 miles north) to make a delivery for the symphony. It was a perfect day--sunny, but sort of hazy, so it wasn't beating down in all its heat. IPod cranked, windows down, no real hurry so the cruise control was set at the speed limit (which proved to be a good thing...). I was to meet a guy at St*rbux and just turn around to go back. Everything made for a great drive to do some thinking. I don't recall who did it (NYDiva? Dana?), but a couple of weeks ago someone wrote a post listing the good things in their life. That pretty much goes against my nature, but here's the results after my drive (in no particular order, and no, they aren't life-changing things...)--GOOD THINGS IN MY LIFE:

• I'm a guy, which means that when I have to pee, I can pretty much pull over wherever and go and not have to worry about embankments, ditches, or broken glass. A good thing.
  
• Football season has started, and my teams are 2-0 so far (one team starts next week). Hopefully this will continue, and that's a good thing.
  
• Slowly but surely, a dear friend who has drifted away from me seems to be making their way back, and that's a VERY good thing!
• I live in a state where you can find scenery like this:

Click it to big it to see the bug splatters. Had to take this one from inside my car.

• I finalized the details regarding being the production manager for our opera performance this season. Not as much pay as I had anticipated, but it will be a nice chunk of change to my total earnings, which aren't a great deal in the first place. Certainly a good thing.
  
• Starting with a simple email on Saturday afternoon, I spent about 8 1/2 hours emailing back and forth (137 total!) with a friend, getting to know them better (chat wasn't working well). This was a very good thing.
• Name recognition is a good thing. As I was backing out of my spot at St*rbux, a guy yelled at me by name. Not MY name, but Osbasso. I figured that's because that's on my personalized license plates, and that he was going to accuse me of backing into his car or something. I had the window down, so he came up to talk.

Is your name Osbasso?
Are you from Helena?
Are you the blogger?

It was David from Greater Falls! At this point, I should say that in Montana, there's a few recognizable blogs as being from Montana. It's a loose-knit group of people who have a knowledge of who's out here. We gotta stick together! Within that group (from my perspective) are a few individuals that keep track of who's new, or who's disappeared, or general information. I believe David's one of them. He writes a blog that is mostly a "what's happening in Great Falls" blog. But I've heard of him, and been to his site! So when he told me who he was, and that it wasn't because I backed into his car, I didn't have to sit there with that dumbass look on my face. And as always, that's a good thing! If I was thinking AT ALL, I would have gotten the picture, and he'd have been #46 over there -----> It was good to meet you Dave, and I'm sorry I had to run off!

That's about it for the good things I thought about. There were more, but I've forgotten them. Next time, I'm bringing a pencil.

---

I wanted to share two more pictures that I took in my point and shoot and pray method I've been using. Since I had nothing at home that needed attention, I decided to take the frontage road home. For the most part, that road is between the I-90 and the Missouri River. Fly fishermen were out. Rafters were out. Families were out. It was nice. In some of the more scenic parts of the river, there are some great family homes on the banks of the river, with plenty of trees to seclude them from the traffic just a few hundred feet away. Not many of them are fancy, though there's a few... Frankly, who would need a mansion on the river anyway? The river in this shot is at the base of the cliffs.

Click to big!

This bridge is the one that was used in the movie "The Untouchables", with Costner, Connery and DeNiro. Where they intercept a shipment of Canadian whiskey. You remember! I could never quite figure out how they could think of this as anything near Chicago, or near the Canadian border. But there were Mounties there! Anyhoo.... this is the bridge! "Canadian" side.

Click this one to big it too!