Is anyone reading this? say hi in the comment box

If you know me, you know I loved working at the dinner train. What i always refered to as "my fun job". Thanks Pat and Bob for your email and comments. You really don't know how much I miss the train and everyone there. Well anyway...... as of today I'm waiting for an offer from a school bus company here that called me last week to see if I was available and wanted to take over the opeation of an operation of about 100 buses in a growing community that has tripled their fleet size in 4 years and expect to grow at least another 50% in the next 3 - 4 years. They have two high schools now, opening a third next year, Currently 11 elementary schools (K- 8) two new ones opening in 2006 and 2 more in 2007. Growing? yeah i guess so. Gives you an idea of the growth on the west side of Phoenix where I live too.
So hoepfully that's going to happen and I'll have a position that I'm familiar with and will pay the bills.
So there's no dinner train here. I'm at least a 2 hour drive from the nearest tourist railroad. I need something else to do. Well there's a golf course behind the house. Dan and I were over there last week to have lunch. I saw a notice posted that they are looking for a driver for the refrshment cart AKA beer wagon, on weekends from fall to spring. I filled out an application.
Damn, won't a golf cart with a big air horn look great on the golf course !!!

postcards from Arizona

Even a cactus has beauity. Here's a few other pics of the front house and from the rear deck looking at South Mountain.
The front was finally landscaped but I don't know where i saved the photos. I'll have to take another.

A Rhode Islanda Living in Arizona

Well first of all...... I'm not a Rhode Island native but i guess after 10 years there i got used to how things are done there, and how to Rhode Island speak. Every state has it's unique points. Every state has it notoriety be it good or bad. Rhode Island has it beautiful serene beaches and it's corrupt politicians. (so did Connecticut) Arizona has the Grand Canyon, Awesome thunder storms, incredible sunsets, luring deserts, and terrible drivers And Sherriff Joe. Anyone that is reading this, that like me drove a school bus knows the frustruation of idiots passing a stopped school bus. Well most of you would stroke out here if you were behind the wheel of a bus. I've had as many as 20 cars passs me at one stop. hardly anyone stops. It's a joke. You are stopped on the right side of a 6 lane wide road and what you do is just hope the cars in the lane behind YOU stop and you don't get rearended. And anyone that does stop you hope some idiot dosn't rear end them. Most students are right hand pickups and no one really crosses the road.
I was pretty happy i aced my tests to get my school bus license here. Even though i was teaching that stuff at DATTCO before i left. I got one wrong on my written test and passed all my pretrip, skills and driving testsl. The test with the bus was over two hours long. There is a weird emphasis here on the pretrip. and it's done with the bus off, no lights on. I found that strange. There's more parts to the air brake pretrip test, and on the road I only had to do one simulated pickup. Even in training i was surprised how little time was spent on pick ups and drop offs. Isn't that the most risky part of driving a school bus? And the process it's done is minimal compared to what i'm used to. Some things here would make the hair stand on either CT or RI driver testers. NOT being all the way to the right side of the road. Well we go back to all those cars that don't stop so we block the road so they CAN"T pass the bus. And not once was i ever told where to have my hands on the steering wheel or asked about that when getting tested. But if you don't know.

Like my bus? I took a bit of digital freedom to create my own version.

another sunny day in paradise

I thought this might be an easy way to let you all keep track of what me and Dan are up to. When my creative mood strikes i can get on here and spread some news to everyone i've shared this space with. It's a hot Saturday afternoon here and i have an hour to work o this, well less. I have to be at the airport in an hour to pick up Dan. he's returning from his second time out flying for Southwest. He's working a 3 days on 4 days off schedule. He has to leave the night before he reports to work in Oakland, California, so he's gone 4 days. So far he's enjoying it. The first time he was nervous but when i dropped him off this week he was really happy after getting thru the first week and not screwing anything up, spilling a drink on someone or not getting all his work done in time. This week he's learned that aircraft, like school buses, have mechanical issues. Twice they were delayed and what he thought he was doing changed. yesterday the day stretched a few extra hours. But with double time pay I don't think he really cared much. The pic on here is Dan on the day he graduated from Flight Operations training. He was in Dallas for 4 weeks. It was great that I could go and attend graduation. Seeing what he went thru, listening to him talk about it for 4 weeks and see headquarters in Dallas for Southwest Airlines really impressed me. I think he's going to have a lot of fun and he's working for a great company that cares a lot about their employees.