Fired

One thing I like about The Thursday Chronicles is that we all somehow end up having similar experiences.  It is a comfort to know that I'm not the only one who is having a hard time, and I feel blessed to have such great friends who support each other even when we're literally across the country from one another.

It has been a crazy, crazy, crazy week.  I am exhausted and sore and a little frightened to go to bed tonight. Cimarron Canyon is on fire, and the smoke here in base camp is getting thicker by the minute.  I'm sure the heavy wind is not helping matters at all.

This was taken in town at lunch time.  That's not fog.

This was taken just now through my window. That's also not fog.

Scary, huh?

So it's a good thing I believe in a God of Miracles, and I am ever so grateful for His tender mercies.  It's incredible how something as simple as branding can make me feel 100 times better about my week.

We have these mini branding irons that we use to brand leather belts, wallets, Nalgene bottles, jackets, boots, iPhones--the list goes on and on and on.  In fact, when someone asked me today what we can brand, I said, "If it melts or burns, we can brand it."  I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to brand something like paper or skin (though we did have several guys point at their shoulders when we asked what they wanted branded), but possibilities are almost endless.

There is a bit of a tradition here at PTC, where we are always trying to one up each other with the unique things we have branded.

I don't mean to sound vain, but I may have taken the cake today when I branded an honest-to-goodness MOTORCYCLE.

The Bike.

The brands (top: cattle, bottom: horse).

'Course, then I was getting really vain about how cool I was, so God taught me some humility by allowing me to destroy two nylon bags.

"No project is guaranteed," we warn them before we even pull out the irons.

But I'm still fired.