Wednesday 6/8/2011

Wednesday

I've pretty much caught a break this week: the temps are staying down, less than 100 degrees. Driving around in a semi with no AC in 98 degree heat isn't exactly fun, but it's nothing like what it would be if it were 110 out there. That truck is going into the shop no later than Friday afternoon and that's the end of the story, at least if I have anything to do with it. Next week, they have Friday slated with a high of 112.

Speaking of semi's, we're smack dab in the middle of a nationwide effort to stop commercial vehicles and do inspections. They set up 1,000's of stations all over the country. I have been avoiding the roads and areas where they are known to set up such stations, but that doesn't mean I won't hit one today, unfortunately, as I am heading south to the Indian reservation and one of the areas I have no choice but to drive through goes right by an area where they love to pull over trucks.

On the theme of heat, we are getting it lucky, apparently lots of the rest of the country is not. The bad part about that is, is that when high heat hits areas where people are neither used to it nor are prepared for it, you often read about heat-related deaths in the news. We used to get that at the beginning of the high heat here, every summer as well: construction workers who have just moved here thinking they can just go all day long as they would in some other region and not hydrating or cooling off properly. Heat stroke, baaam, goodbye. Used to, because construction work around these parts is almost non-existent compared to what it used to be before the housing bubble.

I haven't heard from Caleb since I dropped him off, but then again, I wasn't expecting to. I will call him on Saturday or Sunday and see how things are going. I'm sure the leader of that camp uses this training week to figure out who is going to do what in levels of importance and yes, stature. I fully expect that Caleb will excel and thrive in whatever role he is placed in.

As for me, I have stepped up my search for a churchy. I MUST get back into church, I feel almost as if I have isolated myself from the world in not going, not making new friends and basically giving up on the whole thing. It was easy to do during the divorce - quit that is - now it's not so easy to start all this up again.

I am not the most trusting soul after that ordeal and the idea of having to start from the beginning in yet another church isn't very palatable. That is mostly why I haven't really gone, I won't know anyone and I will be starting from scratch. I will have to put forth more energy than I want to to get involved and start building new relationships.

But I am still looking at a couple of places, anyway.

Umm, Rey had a cousin over last night. This was obvious in what was attempting to be done here: hook me up. Problem? This girl is like 20 years old, lol, and has a 4 year old kid! I was polite and visited with them, but clearly made no "advances".

Anyway, that's enough. The fire up north(east) is still out of control, though they seem to be getting it controlled enough to not burn down entire small towns. Hundreds of thousands of acres are already burned. Gag. Our forests are turning into blackened wastelands. I mean, great that they are saving the communities, bad that everything around those communities is going to look like a scene from one of those movies where earth has become a nuclear wasteland.

I'm done. Preparing myself for the day's work ahead.

G'day.

ben

Tuesday 6/7/2011

Tuesday

Well, one thing I have pretty good grasp on: there area where Caleb is, is not threatened, whatsoever, by the Wallow fire. There may be a lot of smoke, I dunno about that. My ex spoke with him yesterday and he is doing well. I am not going to bother him until this coming weekend when all the learning/training is over and he is on the verge of kids showing up and doing - camp stuff.

He will be so engrossed in what he is doing, I suspect, that the idea of getting "homesick" will undoubtedly not even cross his mind.

Anyway, the fire is the big news around these parts and rightly so: many of the communities threatened are Phoenician summer getaways. Go up there to camp or get a room at a lodge and enjoy the mountain fresh air, cooler temps and scenery - which apparently is going to go to pot. Instead of tall pines there's going to be blackened earth. Even if those communities survive the fire, I wonder what kind of tourism it's going to be with that kind of view?

Dunno, can't do anything about it. The only real thing that would stop this fire right now is a good downpouring of rain.

Well, a drive to up to - the mountains. Nowhere near the fire, fortunately as I don't want to be exposed to breathing in all that smoke. My system does not do well in such situations.

I'm also weighing whether I should even take a vacation. Just when you think maybe there is a glimmer of hope for the economy, some of the finanical "gurus" start talking a double-dip recession and even a few of them suggesting a depression just around the corner.

Dunno. Maybe get some camping equipment and just go up to the mountains - where there is no fire, thank you, still plenty of that around just in a different direction - and enjoy something other than sitting at home all the time, especially with summer. I dunno, though, about taking all those dogs with me, I think that might be a handful. 1 dog?

Work day approaches and already before starting time there are have been 2 people in here - in grumpy moods, to say the least, about their situation for today.

Fortunately, I neither had anything to do with their mood or have anything to do with what they are going to have to do today, lol.

G'day.

ben