Monday misc.

Monday.

It was a pretty good day for me.  A good rest Sunday night after a productive weekend ($  The weekends pay better than the dailies did). I was in a surprising (to me) good mood all day.

Part of the good mood was that I got my #25 bus back – MY BUS.  In the three months I’ve been a school bus driver, I have driven a half dozen different buses at least, but I am most familiar with 25.  It was in the shop all week last week, so I was driving #30, a twin 84 passenger Bluebird bus as old as my 25.  It ran ok, but the thottle spring on it was really tight, and it was more difficult to drive because of that.

Smoothness counts to me.  (and maybe to the students who ride it?  I hope so)

#25 runs well and accelerates better than it used to, and most importantly, it does not smoke nearly like it used to.  Most diesels smoke some, but 25 was really bad – but now it is as it should be.  I looked behind me on Theissen Blvd. today, the long hill I climb from the skill center to my high school, and while it didn’t seem to go uphill any faster than it did before, it did not lay a smoke stream behind it, covering the traffic behind me.  I used to feel sort of guilty about that – now I just feel a little bad that I am so slow.

Last week, the Elementary kids were pestering me to assign them seats, but I told them that since I was driving a temporary bus, that they’d have to wait til this week to get assignments.  So, of course that was nearly the first thing they shouted at me this afternoon.  I don’t particularly care where they sit in the mornings – it’s only about 8 blocks anyway, but the way home is a bit longer because I have to drive down one main street and then through a neighborhood back to their street.  That extra couple of blocks can and has seemed like a million miles at times, what with 70 some kids screaming and playing and hitting each other.

Since I am driving on a busy street, most of my attention has to go to the driving, and I don’t have much time to stare in the student mirror above my head at what they’re doing back there.  When I began this route back in October, there were many days when I had to pull over and read ’em the riot act – or even shut off the engine, get up, and go back to resolve issues.

They may be getting used to me – I certainly am to them.  I’ve never had children of my own, and the limited contact I had with young ones in Japan was in a classroom setting, often with a bi-lingual assistant… and Japanese kids are typically better behaved than these kids are.  Screaming used to set my nerves on edge, but there is screaming and then there’s screaming for real.  I think I’ve become accustomed to the screaming that they do at each other… most of the time.  I can see where I’ll be pulling over in the future, but they’re pretty subdued the first part of the week, which gives me days to get used to them again.  Fridays, with the propect of the weekend ahead of them, they are more rambunctious on the way home, but hey, it’s Friday, and I can deal with it.

I’ve been doing this job about 90 days now, and I really like it.

People at the bus barn seem to like me to, which always surprises me.  Yeah, I’m a hell of a guy, to me, anyway, but it is sort of surprising that others see that too.  I got used to working alone with the paper routes, so working with a whole bunch of other people is refreshing and fun.  One noter said that I was such a social person, and that surprised me a bit, because for years and years, I haven’t felt very social.

It’s rather nice to be me these days.  Women smile at me and make efforts to talk to me (which is surprising and gratifying at the same time).  Men treat me as an equal (although as a new bus driver who has things to learn)  Life has improved quite a bit, for which I am grateful.

***

I picked up my check from the boss today and he says he has found a replacement, a young woman who has a Dodge Durango to do the routes with.  He sounded pleased with her so far, and I am glad he found a replacement.  Not that I felt terribly bad about leaving that job – I did give him a month’s notice – but I was good, dependable, and mr. reliabilty, so it’s nice to learn I’m not the only one around like that.

Doing the Sundays on the weekend means that I am working about seven days a week, and I find that that’s ok.  Neither job is particularly difficult, and both have their rewards.  I’m not making much, money wise, but I am happy and enjoying my life, and that’s a very good thing.  Making lots of money but being unhappy would suck.

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My van turned 160,300 today.  Weeks ago, it turned over 160,000 and since I’ve stopped using it for the dailies, it seems "happier".  The transmission still leaks, so I have to check up on it pretty much every day, but it starts and runs and goes like it should, and that’s enough for me.  I put far fewer miles on it now than I used to.

We’ll see how it does the day after tomorrow.  An artic air mass is moving south to cover us tomorrow night, and the prospect of snow and ice is high.  I know that some who read my diary live in places where snow is a common thing, but one of the reasons I live here and have for so long is that winters tend to be mild, compared to other places I’ve lived.

I saw -23 degree F once at Great Lakes NTC outside of Chicago, and it stayed cold and snowy there for months at a time.  That time, my car wouldn’t even turn over.  I lived in Maine one winter, and the snow that shuts down this city is like nothing I saw in Maine – it’s really kind of a joke.

Speaking of snow, next Monday is Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, a national holiday, and of course schools are closed that day.  There will be bus driving to do though – we are going up to Mt. Hood to drive in the snow.  Practise, you know.

I haven’t been up to Mt. hood in years, an

d not in the winter ever.  It is icing on a sweet cake that I get to be a passenger (for the most part) and that I’ll get paid for the training too.  Of course I will be bringing my camera too, so next week, I should have some good shots to post.

(Ever seen "The Shining", with Jack Nicholson?  It was filmed at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood)

I like the way my life is going right now.  There is room for improvment, as always, but things are going well now and look to do so for the foreseeable future.  I know it could be worse; it has been, but is not now.

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In my last entry, I mentioned stories about drinking in Japan, and we’ll see those, but I’ve been thinking about high school days, so the next intallment of Southwestern Daze is coming up.

***

Heh.

This stuff must be interesting – I get an average of 113 hits a day on these entries.  Of course some show as two second hits, but some people have lately been spending a surprising amount of time reading stuff I’ve posted.  I know that some who write here make their entries private or delete them after a while, but I’ve left most everything open, and since I bought a membership to Photobucket, those photo entries will live as long as I maintain my membership.

One of these days I’ll get to scanning prints.  I have a lot to post that we haven’t (you haven’t, anyways) seen yet.  Lots to see and read coming up-

Stay tuned please.

*****