Wheels Spinning

I grew up in Wyoming, where the snow is deep for several months of the year, and cars and trucks routinely get stuck in one fashion or another. One of the first things a native resident learns is how to get "unstuck" - and it is generally counterintuitive. It seems like the way to get out of the rut is to give the gas pedal a good thump and apply lots of power, letting the engine do the work. But of course, the only thing that accomplishes is a deeper rut dug perfectly by those spinning tires, and the vehicle is stuck even worse.

What do summers in Phoenix have in common with Wyoming novices stuck in the snow? Well, it seems like there is a lot of wheel-spinning, with not much result. Pretty much everyone in the metro area leaves town for some period of time - sometimes long periods of time - but it may not be the SAME period of time as everyone else. So it's a good bet that someone who makes decisions or makes things happen is going to be unavailable at some point during the summer; and if any decisions are connected to other decisions, well, you can just forget about closure.

There is a lot of activity happening in Morrison Ranch, and it all contributes to the whole, but the activity hasn't yet translated into the moment where we say Ta-Da! There it is! Albertson's is near closure; the signs don't match the information we received informally, which was August 10, so we are going with the signs for the moment. The shops on the south side of Albertson's are completed and ready for tenants, but the next step in the tenant process is to get approvals from the town for the improvements, and that takes a while even if nobody is on vacation. In The Raw is working on their tenant improvements, but they don't plan to open for a while yet. The lights are going up on the tanks, but it isn't complete yet. Lakeview Trails North looks great right now because it has been all graded; it is about to look awful as they start trenching soon. They are putting up the chain link fence now, to make sure nobody falls into the trenches; a nice addition to the short black fences, don't you think? Out at Highland Groves, the electricity hasn't had its inspection, so the sod that was supposed to be laying in the parkway on this very day is postponed once again.

The Mister is on the phone, in meetings, and traveling to meet partners for the industrial site, but even that has yet to receive the stamp of completion. And there are a myriad of other details that the rest of us in the office are working on; they all contribute to this feeling of giving it the gas, but just watching the wheels spin. Eventually things will get unstuck, and it will feel more progressive than it does right now.

In the meantime, on a personal note, The Mister and I ran up to Williams AZ yesterday to visit our Number One Son where he is working at a youth camp run by Young Life. He is running the cleanup crew in the Pits, also known as the kitchen. The Mister wanted to jump in and help, and Number One Son was quite amenable to having another worker. Here they are, hard at it:





Let's just say The Mister slept very well last night; it is a lot of work, and especially last night, because a new group of campers had just arrived, and camp was full - about 500 people full. This week is an especially poignant camp, consisting of 130 moms, 140 babies, about 60 mentors of the moms, and another 140 child-care workers ( a one-to-one ratio for the babies!). These are teen moms, who are often ostracized by family and friends once they become pregnant; they are usually in financial straits, and at risk of entering a cycle of poverty and undereducation and hopelessness. These campers arrived from Arizona, California, Texas and Colorado; the arriving bus pulls up to the "depot" where the staff and crew are waiting to greet them:



There is plenty of loud music from the beginning to the end of the week; lots of fun (they bill the camp as a five star resort for kids, and it is, from the cloth tablecloths and napkins and good food to the no-sleeping-bag policy for the dorms to the toys like waterslides, olympic size swimming pool, zip lines, giant swings, frisbee golf, and more), and most important, life-mentoring for these girls, providing hope for their future. We are privileged to be involved with Young Life, helping to raise money for them for projects such as these.

And lest you think The Mister might have been one of those vacationing decision-makers, I will say that he participated in a conference call, set up a couple of meetings, dealt with a couple of emails and a couple other issues relating to Morrison Ranch; all this on top of working for his son in the Pits!