I'm trying to get a feed all the way from Google Documents to Blogspot and then to Conk.com

Lets see if this post worked.

I have a decision to make.

I currently and happily drive school bus routes for St. Paul for my main income, these days. This is the 2nd year I'm doing so. Last year was great. I made friends with the people I work with and the kids I transported. Last year one of the routes I drove had a bus aid that rode along with the kids. We became friends and quickly discovered that we went to the same church. This year I got the same route, but she was assigned a different bus to aid. The guy that is the aid for this route, this year, also happens to be from my church!

Now, both of them are telling me about a job opportunity at the school (Murray Jr. High). Laura (from last year's route) has said all along that I'd do well in this position. David is encouraging me daily. He says the chances are very good that I'd get the job if I tried for it.

The job would be a teacher's aid with the special education department of Murray. The pay is greater than what I'm doing now and there are benefits. It seems like a very good deal. I figure I could apply and if, for some reason, I don't get the job then nothing was lost. But, if I go for it and end up not liking it... then what? I suppose I could drive a bus again, but I'd lose this route.

I am going to submit my resume. See what happens. Usually, when I'm indifferent about a job is when I'm sure to get it. Its when I really want the job that I don't. So, if that's true, this job will be mine.

I guess I'm writing this for some feedback and just to get it out on 'paper'. Please share your thoughts on the matter.

We celebrated Craig's 40th birthday last night by going to Fasika's Ethiopian food for dinner (which is right next to Big V's which I popped in to say hi to BJ but he wasn't working yet). One of the dishes they served was goat meat. This was the best I've ever had at Fasika's.

After that we had ice cream cake at Cara's folk's house. Craig, Tracey, Nathan and Aaron are staying there while they are here in the US (they live in Kenya while Craig works his ministry working with the environment).

Today is a rare time of getting things caught up. I've been looking at different ways to promote my business and at the same time save money on the cars. Both of our cars have the engine light on. For the Honda its been determined that there is a misfire going on. Jeremy and I spent Tuesday morning replacing the plugs and the wires with no progress. I'm wondering if the same thing is going on with the Jeep. We're going to get auto repair manuals from eBay today so they can be worked on soon (by me!).

Wednesday, I spent my birthday money on the new Battlestar Galactica RPG book. I wave my geekflag high. This is a very well made game. Margaret Weis Productions improved their production since they released the Serenity RPG. This book seems more conceived and clean. The rule system has been refined as well. Great product. Its been a fun read and has gotten me back into the franchise. Too bad there won't be a DVD for season 3 until Spring next year.

Seems like its been a three day full moon.

Monday
Train parked across Como Ave.- The train was dead and there was no going around. An engineer helped me back the bus up. I was 10 minutes late for all the stops after that.
Puker on the bus from Wellstone- There was a bad smell right after picking up students at one of the stops. We dismissed it as another funky odor from the Somalian kids. After we got to the school a boy was complaining about someone puking on his backpack. Apparently a Somalian girl puked, but no one said anything to me (which was fine, because we were already late). Not much we could've done anyways. I drove the bus home and hosed it out and sprinkled baking soda all over. Smell lingered for another day, but not nearly as bad.
Released with not all the kids in PM- Loaded at Wellstone after school and all was fine, routine. The kids were a little crazy so as soon as I cleared downtown St. Paul I pulled over (into the parking lot of Sears right by the state capitol). I called into the base to let them know I was stopping. Got the kid moved to the front (I bet it was the same Somalian girl who puked) and called into base that we were moving again. They said OK, but that I had to go back to the school to pick up more students that were left behind. WHAT!? Its the teachers that clear us to depart. So we went back. It was only Dah and another girl, Wendy, that heard dispatch tell us to go back. So we decided to not tell anyone else and see how long it would take for them to figure out we were going back to the school. We were by 6th street before someone piped up!

Tuesday
worked on cars- fixed nothing! Jeremy is Leesha's bio-father and he is a bit car-savy. It could be a lot more awkward hanging around with my wife's ex-boyfriend/step-daughter's father, but its not too bad. He has changed his attitude about Cara and Leesha and we've found common ground to actually be friends. Jeremy had some nice things to say to me about who I am and who Cara ended up with. As for the car work. I think he messed up the spark-plug wires and tried to hide it from me and to make up for it he put 110% effort into the work that morning. We also topped off the transmission fluid, which he purchased for me. It wasn't bad hanging with him. The only bad part was it took up the time I usually spend chilling. So I lost some 'me' time.

Wednesday
actual full moon.

Today was all about the Zoo. We were a large clan: David, Darlene, Craig, Tracy, Nathan, Aaron, Cara, Leesha, Jack and me. We met our cousin, Melanie who works at the zoo. She let us in for free!
We saw all the standard stuff plus a 3D movie about dinosaurs which was really good. The gibbons were disappointingly mellow. Watched the dolphin show from the underwater window. I think that may be the best way to see it, actually. Also saw the bird show. Jack stayed awake the whole time. Thank you, Melanie.

Last night, just as I turned out the light in our room I heard the chain-link fence between our yard and the neighbor's. So I went to the window. Our room was completely dark. I watched three guys moving through our yard right by the window that I was looking out. I waited for the first guy to get right next to me and then I yelled "Hey! Get out of our yard!" Ho ho, how that guy jumped! He kind of said something like "Eh!, Sorry, sorry." and they RAN. I couldn't stop laughing.

Cara and I have been watching the 3rd season of MillenniuM. This has always been one of my favorite shows (even before it aired). One major reason is Lance Henriksen. He is amazing in anything he is in. Another reason is this series deals with spiritual warfare. There is a lot of dark truth through-out the show around that aspect. And the secret society/conspiracy always is a winner if done well- which this is.

Since Leesha and I finished ROBOTECH, we started a new series called LAST EXILE. I've seen this show in its entirety and its pretty good. This may be pushing her to try to understand some more mature sci-fi concepts for this show is a bit intellectual. I think she's up to it. Of the shows I've shared with here I think she'll identify with similarities I saw in NADIA
- Secret of Blue Water, which was the very first show we shared.

Leesha and I finished ROBOTECH. This is interesting timing since there has been notable ROBOTECH news lately.

Could the following news mean the end of Tobey Maguire in the role of Peter Parker? The Hollywood Reporter is (fittingly) reporting that Maguire has acquired the rights to ROBOTECH, a classic anime series from the eighties. Toby will be producing and is looking to star in the film that takes place in an alternate universe where "Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle." They then use this technology to fend of a bunch of alien invasions. Basically Toby will be strapping into giant robots and blowing up a smorgasboard of shit.

After the success of TRANSFORMERS, I'm sure most studios are looking to get into the giant robot business (in this film they're called mechas) and Warner Bros. is thinking franchise with this one, which like I said, could spell the end of Tobey as Spidey. Too bad Topher Grace was wasted on Venom, because he easily could have been the next to suit up.

Extra Tidbit: Tobey's production company is called Maguire Entertainment. How modest/creative of him.

Link

Last night Leesha and I watched the 2nd to last episode of ROBOTECH. One more to go. Probably finish off the series tomorrow.

I started tracking the LCTs Leather Clad Trucks today. Here is more information on what that's all about.

Jack is 6 weeks old.

First day of school - went very well. Its good to see many of the same kids from last year. Seems most of the trouble makers on the Elementary route graduated last year. Yay!

Really good bible study

Best birthday since #9.

T's, Willis West, Capital Ws, CaraJoy's folks. Greg made me two t-shirts- one of Dr. Midnight and the other was Snake-Eyes vs Storm Shadow. Very good Birthday

Jack is a month and a day old.

Took him to the MN State Fair, we did. Eric, Cara and I. Saw the old KSTP crew: Zack, Swifty, Schmitty, Char, Katie, DT, Glen, Becky, Amanda, Dave Dahl, John Mason, Leah McClain and Tommy. Felt strange not helping them do the news.

Mowed the lawn today for the first time in a very long time. Not that the yard needed it. Its been very dry all summer until this last week. Nothing but rain, almost.

It has been many weeks since our road had pavement on it. Jack and I watched them finish the job this morning. Well... I watched. Jack watched me.

We had our 2007/2008-School-Year-Is-About-To-Begin-meeting today.

The company is expanding so much that they didn't have room to hold the meeting at the base. So it was held at the owner's other business (or one of the other businesses), the top floor/meeting room of Premiere Bank. Everyone hopped on a bus and was shuttled there. I took my own bus because I had a YMCA charter after. As soon as I parked the bus near the bank and walked in, I was informed that my charter was canceled. Oh well.

Lastnight Jon and I played HALO till the wee hours of the morning. What a fantastic game.

Tonight I watched Leesha and Jack all by myself. Let Leesha watch a movie (Spirited Away) and gave all my efforts to Jack to keep him satisfied.

Oklahoma

Sunday evening my work called me to see if I was able to go down to Oklahoma on Monday and drive a bus up with a few other guys, just like I did last week from IL. I was able. So I was at work at 3AM Monday and we piled into a cha
rter van like this one, but ours had an AC unit on the top back-->
A lot of reading and sleeping. Somewhere around Iowa and Missouri we entered triple digit temperatures. The van was our inverted oven. The windows were very hot to the touch from the outside temperatures.
We arrived in Oklahoma at around 4PM. The bus manufacturing facility was huge. It was an old military bomber factory in its history, I guess. Paperwork was processed and we ran down a checklist on our brand new buses. If it was over 100 degrees outside, imagine what it was inside the buses!
We were on the road at about 5pm, but then it took over an hour to fill all 7 buses at the very first diesel station. Eventually we got going. Drove for about an hour and a half to Joplin, MO to a hotel our leader was familiar with. Got in at about 7 and finished paperwork and logbooks at around 8PM.

Comfortable Hotel. I roomed with 3 other guys while another room held 3 more. 7 in total. Mark, Marty, Josh and I in one room. Dave, Steve and Kirk in the other.

We had a very good breakfast at about 6 and headed North just after 7. Somewhere in Iowa three of the fellas kind of took off ahead lead by the grumpy Mark. He wasn't excited about following anyone else's bus- even when I was leading most of the way. Someone passing him lead to him trying to one-up them and they went on ahead.

When the van needed to refuel, Dave just had us remaining three fill up our tanks which made us good for the rest of the trip. He drove off to go find the other jokers so they could have means to refuel- I believe they would be waiting for him in Albert Lea, MN. That left Marty, Josh and I to make our way by ourselves.

We decided to stop at the last rest stop in Iowa- a two level barn which was very nice. Once we had our rest we got back onto 35. As I passed the exit for Albert Lea, Mark fell in right behind my bus. He stayed there all the way back to base. The other two jokers were about 5 minutes ahead of us.

With a few stops for stretching and one for fuel we made it back to the Twin Cites at about 6:30 to 7pm.

It was a good trip. And a good bus.

Willis weekend

Mom and Dad came up to see Jack Elliot (like they did when Simon was born). They stayed at David and Darlene's house. The plan was to have everyone (including Greg and Mandy and Simon) come to our house on today, but...

We lost power last night storm.

So we met for a short time at David and Darlene's house and then continued on to Greg and Mandy's and spent the day/evening there. Very good time. Cogs and Eddie are great and adjusting to Simon very well (except for Cog's need to dominate Eddie occasionally).

Went to Illinois for work

7 of us rode a bus to Hastings, got on a different bus to Sycamore IL to pick up newer buses for Monarch. 4:30 AM to 9:00 PM. I lead the convoy.

The one we rode from Hastings to Sycamore had seats in the front half. The rear was nothing but mattresses. Strange.

The buses we took up to MN are not brand new, but they are very nice. AM/FM radios, tinted windows. Nice ride.