Howdy y’all! Yep; I’m really back this time!

After bein’ out of the country for a couple of weeks in Brazil, then another week sorta recoverin’ from it (I don’t think I’ve ever labored so physically hard in all my life!), I’m feverishly working on writing up the things I’ve learned.

In fact, there’s so much material I’ve decided to publish a book about the adventure. I’ll do my best to share as much as I can here as I work to get my notes transcribed and edited. Fair warning, though: the stories I tell may, or may not, be in chronological order. But what the hey, right?

So bear with me a little longer, ‘K? In the meantime, I’ll start with this one:

An Ominous Sign

One day I was helping another fellow drill holes in some lumber (the wood we used was so hard you couldn’t just drive a nail in it; you had to drill a pilot hole first). We were kinda off to one side, away from where everyone else was working.

So there we were, merrily drilling away when suddenly the power went out. On the one hand, it was a mite irritating; there was a LOT to do, and we were on such a tight schedule we could scarcely afford the holdup. On the other hand, it was nice to take a break!

While we waited for our power to be restored, the other guy went over to get a drink (I’m tellin’ ya, Bubba – it was HOT!), but I decided to just pull up a cinder block and have a seat.

After a while, someone – I don’t remember who – called out, “Hey Bob, are you okay?”

I looked up, surprised at the question. “Sure,” I responded; “why do you ask?”

“Well, look up, why don’t you?” he replied, pointing upward.

So I did, only to discover about 15 or so vultures calmly circling above me. Well! I guess it’s probably not a good idea to, er, stop moving around here, y’know? Luckily, after about 20 minutes or so they apparently got tired of waiting for me to drop dead from exhaustion and moved on to search for easier prey.

Nevertheless, that’s a fairly good lesson for life, too, don’cha think? If you’re not continually moving, you might just be assumed to be dead!

But from then on, I did make a point to move and arm or a leg every now and then, just in case. No sense takin’ any chances.