Finally The Education is Making Sense!

All thru college, I took my courses seriously. I knew that I was going to make a career out of government work, and everything that I was being trained for in college would be invaluable.
Then I worked in government, and I became very VERY disgruntled because the agencies I worked for were incredibly stupid. The managers were there because they'd been there for a certain length of time. NOT because they deserved a management position, or because they had the education or experience to do the job. They were in a supervisory role because they were there. And they were awful. I mean, AWFUL. One of them was pretty much unemployable in the field she'd chosen. But because she slept with the right person, she was the boss. Amazing. That was a Federal job. The other one was a supervisor because she had an education, but it was in a completely unrelated field. She knew how to micro-manage, and that was about it. I watched as she misappropriated funds, belittled employees, and committed fraud on a daily basis. One of the worst bosses I've ever had. That was a County job.

Incredibly frustrating for a person who worked her ass off to get a degree in Government.

I recently saw an advertisement that our City government was looking for applicants for something called the Community Investment Advisory Committee. This is a committee that watches over budgetary issues and advises the City Council on how money should be spent. It's complex because you have to know lots of little details like Fire Dept ISO ratings, Grants, City infrastructure, water supplies, population trends, and current laws. And you have to be up on the State's current financial position.
You also have to know people in each government department that can give you knowledgable, truthful answers about how their department is run. And know what questions to ask.
This is all stuff I know, which would be silly if wasn't able to put it to some kind of use.
So, the City Council appointed me to this committee. I was excited, until I went to our first meeting today. Then I was IMMENSELY excited because I realized that all this information that interests me, is now being put to good use and I can actually have a function and make an impact!!!!
We meet once a month, and we are given information and assignments according to the areas we are researching. I can't wait to show the committee the results of my studies. AWESOME!!

Shay's New Career

Just ordered Shay a guitar on Ebay, and set him up for guitar lessons. His teacher is the leader of a blues band, and he is a bit of an Elvis impersonator as well. Can't wait. I will definitely be sitting in on these lessons!

When I was four years old, my dad took me down for guitar lessons, and after only a few minutes I was told to come back after I grew a little. My hands were too small to hold the instrument. I always wanted to learn the guitar and piano, but couldn't. Moving every year made that pretty difficult. So, here I am, living vicariously through my eleven year old!!

A Memory

Growing up, I attended many schools before entering 9th grade. Nine, to be exact. There was Cash Elementary in Arkansas, Western Hills Elementary in Omaha, Minne Lusa Elementary in Omaha, Fort Calhoun Elementary in rural Nebraska, Saratoga Elementary in Omaha, and shoot I can't remember the one I went to in the 3rd grade. Once again, our family was moving as I was getting ready for 7th grade. We were leaving from a beautiful spacious house in northeastern Nebraska and a school that I'd grown quite attached to. The landlord had died and his son wanted the house we were in. It was such a neat place. It sat on many acres, had pine trees, bike paths, the house itself had four fireplaces and a wrought iron spiral staircase up thru the house's center, and there were even a gaggle of dogs that were left there by the previous occupants. The elementary school had precious teachers who cared about their students, a good natured principal who was always hanging out with us on the playground, and an overall feeling of a pretty little community.
When we had to move we didn't have many choices; back then the rental market in that area was very tight and our parents settled on a piece of shit house in a very dirty isolated housing development called "Goose Haven," in Iowa. Most of the residents lived in shoddy trailers while we were considered the "elite" because we were in one of the few stick-built houses. However, our shangri-la had no siding. Just tar paper. The garage was a very tall shack, with no front door. The interior of the house smelled and looked as though homeless people had been crashing there.
Every time I smell Windex mixed with dirt I think of that place.
We learned very quickly that the neighborhood kids were like a bunch of "Lord of the Flies" psychos, who probably hadn't had parenting in several years.
I recall sitting in the bed of my dad's pick up truck staring at this new address of ours, trying not to cry.

Of course we cleaned up the place. I remember the flooring in the kitchen was plywood. The flooring in the living room was patches of very old linoleum and an old rug. Many spots of the house had nothing on the walls, just bare two by fours.
Aaaaah, Iowa.

We immediately began riding our bikes out in the neighborhood, exploring. The kids we encountered were vulgar, filthy, and wild. The Missouri River was walking distance, but the water was so muddy and nasty that if you put your foot in it you had to find something to wipe the mud away.
One particular family, the Camdens, were tall and mean. April and her brother (can't recall his name) were like the most awful thing. They would say nasty things to us in an attempt to start a fight. Every day. EVERY DAY. Didn't matter what we were doing, they were always there trying to pick a fight. Screaming, cussing, intimidating, and just plain mean.

So then school started. We had a 17 mile bus ride to Missouri Valley, and unfortunately the whole way there was torture with all the vulgar, wild neighborhood kids. I have no idea how Mr. Hileman the bus driver ever put up with it.
There I was, once again the new kid in the school. I was the new kid nearly every year so I'd gotten kind of used to it. I found ways to suppress the anxiety, I suppose.
My homeroom teacher, Mr. Hornbeck, was okay. He was just another teacher. The students stared at me of course because I was the new kid. My locker partner was this 6 foot tall enormous girl who wasn't very bright and she would steal my text books when she lost hers.
Another new school. No friends. And I had to search desperately for text books.

But then this girl named Brandy Sherman started talking to me. She sat to my right in Mr. Hornbeck's classroom. I remember she had all this curly light brown hair, and she wore makeup. MAKEUP!! Eye shadow and everything. I'd never seen that before. But she was so friendly. Nobody had been friendly to me in so long. She introduced me to all kinds of kids, and soon I was feeling more comfortable.
Seventh grade was starting to look okay.

Brandy and I were buds for quite a while. By a while I mean that whole year.
She lived with her mom and stepdad in a farm house outside of Missouri Valley, so it wasn't actually possible for me to just hop on my bicycle to go see her, it would've been a 16 mile ride. And I couldn't call her because it was long distance from our house.
But at school we were inseperable.
We were busted in class all the time for passing notes. And they weren't ordinary notes. They were pages and pages of writing, drawings, jokes, you name it.
We stood up for each other whenever there was trouble. We spent our lunches and recesses together. We were really great friends.

Through a series of awful circumstances, Brandy had to move in with her sister in Iowa City. To a 13 year old, that may as well have been Japan. I'd lost my bud. Before she moved she gave me a gold band and said, "This will be our friendship ring." I put it on my finger and never took it off.
We wrote letters, but then after a year or two we lost contact when I moved yet again and she moved to Colorado Springs.

I hate to say that Classmates.com is so effective, but it would be silly to deny it. I had registered my name under several different schools, since I went to more than a few, in case any of my old classmates were interested in looking for me. I had no way to find Brandy because I didn't know what high school she went to in Colorado. I had tried for a year or two with no luck.

Then one day I got an email thru Classmates.com from "Hey It's Me Brandy." I cried that whole day. Everyone thought I'd lost my mind. When I told her I was still wearing the friendship ring she had no idea what I was talking about. To her defense, she'd given it to me in a very troubled time and it had been over 13 years. We spent hours on the phone and exchanged emails quite regularly, getting caught up on every little event in each other's lives for the past 13 years.

But now we're so sophisticated, with our blogs and facebook pages. We can see each other with just a click even though we're 2,000 miles apart.

After getting seperated from Brandy I never had a friend like that. To this day, I still have never had someone as close to me as Brandy was in seventh grade.
Stephen King wrote at the end of "Stand By Me" (originally titled "The Body") that you "never have friends in your life as good as the ones you had when you were twelve."

Standin' on a Corner in Winslow Arizona

We're used to the typically mild temperatures of home, so a weekend trip to Winslow where the elevation is several thousand feet up can be quite a shock.

Rodney Rucker, who builds custom vehicles and who also collects them, had finished a project for Steve's boss and we headed up to retrieve it.
We'd been there before in September, and I photographed many of his unique collection.
View those here: http://squeakyteepee.blogspot.com/2008/09/car-adventure.html


As we traveled, I stayed in the sleeper of the Freightliner because I could read my book, play on the computer, and listen to my ipod. Steve and Mike drove up front. I had also decided that it was a "cowboy day," and I dressed like an idiot. Here's me in the sleeper. Not a normal sized semi truck sleeper, as you can tell:


After driving for three hours, we discovered this foreign substance all over the ground. Preliminary testing was inconclusive as it melted as soon as we brought it into the labs:


The work was being completed on some last minute items at Rodney's shop in Winslow, so we milled around and watched. This "tank car" was something Rodney had built for himself and he has actually driven it in some of the most prestigeous racing events in America. The Great Race is one, for example. New York to San Francisco. Of course on this last trip he stopped in Omaha Nebraska and the car was broken into. Everything he had in there, including some irreplaceable memorabilia, was stolen. Yep, that sounds just like Omaha.
So here's the vehicle, it's named "Sneaky Pete" because the body is a Peterbilt. The engine is a V12 tank motor.


After Mike bought the car he had Rodney install THESE on either side of the engine:


This is Mike, Steve, and Rodney going over some details:



We met Lucky, the Shop Dog, who Rodney rescued from Gallup New Mexico. He runs a company that takes care of the major construction and maintenance on the BNSF Railroad, and while in Gallup he discovered her hiding under some equipment.

She was such a sweet girl. Can't imagine a family turning her out in the middle of winter. But I guess that's the world we're in.

We stayed that night in a very old historic hotel, that had a gorgeous gift shop in the lobby. I couldn't help but photograph some of the over priced trinkets:




I learned something about historic hotels; it is always cold, you can hear even the slightest noise coming from every single room in your hallway, and the shower takes about 10 minutes to warm up. I'm glad we brought ear plugs, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten any sleep. The next morning, Steve called Mike's phone to wake him up (cell phone--because there were no phones in the rooms) and we could hear Mike's phone ringing. He was two doors down and across the hall. Wow.
It would've been nice if the staff was the least bit friendly. They were all pretty grumpy, and the owner was the worst of them. He was downright rude. No use in complaining to him, huh?

We went to breakfast at a wonderful old cafe, like, at least 50 years old. The food was tremendous. Great staff, great service, oh, the food. Some of the best Mexican food we've had in a while. And there were functioning antiques, like these:



As we made our way back to Rodney's shop, we heard the weather forecast that included snow. What is snow?
I stayed in the Freightliner, reading, while the boys worked in the shop:


I ventured out to the shop around the yard at one point, to take pictures of the Blues Mobile parked nearby. This is one of the few remaining vehicles from the Blues Brothers movie. Many were destroyed, some were sold off and scrapped, but this one has survived!
The dash is autographed by Charles Napier, who was Tucker in the movie. Too funny.




The Blues Mobile was parked next to the Shopping Cart, the Blazing Saddles Stagecoach (Not from the movie) and a new acquisition, the Fire Truck:


Finally, it was time to head out and get home. The four hour drive would be eating up much of our day so we needed to get started on it. Rodney pulled Sneaky Pete out of the shop with the guidance of Tim, his shop manager:


We climbed in the Freightliner, and headed down the road.

Shortly after leaving, this strange white stuff started accumulating everywhere:


Didn't know what to think about that!!

After a long ride, we made it home. And reveled in the warm temperatures. I think it was 60 degrees in Havasu. Sneaky Pete is in his new enclosure, the hangar out at the airport.