Grand Canyon Sunrise                                               click to enlarge

So 2013 is so over. Good riddance because just between you and me it really, really sucked. I mean it’s suckage went right off the chart. But it’s gone and now we have 2014, which according to all the bones and auguries and communing with the suckage gods, is going to be a much better year. I think we’re talking about a year filled with bluebells and puppies and fresh breezes and new friends and everything that can be different from last year. A nice year.

The Institute is slowly getting back to normal with staff trickling back in at an alarmingly slow rate. We’ve got a lot of stuff to wrap up from last year. Many of our very important projects are on hold until we get most of our critical staff back. We’ve still got people missing. Our young photographer that was trapped in Yellowstone National Park because of the shut down is yet to be accounted for. As far as I know we have at least one employee still in a Mexican border town jail. I’d bet on more actually. We should probably do something about getting him out, the dipstick. If you remember we told him not to go down there but do they listen? Noooo. So he’s been there since maybe October.

We had staffing problems and food riots and people getting caught on the razor wire while trying to escape, I mean leave without checking out. The compressor went out on the food lockers leaving the staff with only the frozen Lamprey to eat that we got at such a good price, and that caused some problems. Our attempt at restoring our usual good morale that had sunk to an all time low backfired, right into the crapper actually, it seems turning off the heat to the staff sleeping quarters to get those bad apples to straighten out didn’t have the desired results, and consequently resulted in a huge loss of many of our valuable room furnishings, as they used them for an unauthorized heat source. A lot of them were irreplaceable treasures gleaned from Goodwill and other major retailers and will be very difficult to get reimbursed and replaced by our insurance company.

There were some problems last year and we blame mainly the government for them and we blame mostly our sorry but pathetic legislative body which cannot seem to get their act together. We feel confident that things will change for the better as they, the sorry but pathetic legislative body, who are most of our government if you don’t count the autocratic bureaucracy, have told us that they’ve changed their ways and they’re  sorry and will try to do better and we believe them. Because why would lie to us. They’re there to help, right?

As you know by now The Institute has satellite offices scattered around the globe and the Southwestern United States, and one of the principal responsibilities of the Director is to visit as many of these offices as he can squeeze into his busy schedule. I attempted to do this over the holidays as sort of a working vacation and found a truly deplorable situation in many of our off site divisions. Things were not up to our very high standards and as a result many of our bureau chiefs and section heads will be finding their way to the local unemployment office to see if they qualify for a career in home healthcare. The Institute is more than just a clever tax dodge, it’s an INSTITUTION for god’s sake. We demand excellence. Things are going to change for the better in 2014. We’ll be bringing you updates on our new improved operations as they occur so stay tuned.

While visiting our many branches I had a few opportunities to photograph some of the incredible locations we work in. I will be sharing some of them with you through out the coming year, such as the view above which was taken off the deck of our new Bureau headquarters on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I would like to thank our friends at the Department of the Interior for allowing us to construct our new buildings on the south rim since there would be a slight inconvenience to the visiting public. Rerouting the many thousands of annual visitors so they wouldn’t interfere with the delicate projects we have in progress was a big help, and providing the visitors with the opportunity to hike that mile and a quarter around our complex will improve our national health index also. Everyone needs more exercise. (We were tired of them using our deck chairs and letting their kids use the pool without asking. That chain-link fence was a godsend.) Kudos again for posting photographs of the views on the new alternate trail that they would normally be seeing if we weren’t there was a nice touch, Thanks guys. And a quick note of thanks to the park service for being understanding when our blasting removed a large part of Mather Point. You guys are the best.

So once again, here’s to 2014, it’s got to be better.