Wyoming... Pt. 4- Get me the eff out of here!

(sorry for the delay in the finale of the series... I've been busy... or lazy...)

Day 4

The best part of Thursday was I didn't have to drive in the morning! I was so excited that I demanded that CoPilot sit up front so I could sleep in the back while Sandwich drove. Anyone who's ever done a road trip with me knows that unless I'm driving, I'm pretty much useless because there is a 99% chance I will fall asleep. This particular day I was exhausted and needed that extra hour+ of nappy time! I woke up as we were pulling into our normal meeting spot in Pinedale. This was, by far, the coolest 5 minutes of the trip. Walking across the lawn of the courthouse and library was a MOOSE!! It was a huge girl moose just walking through town!! It's not every day you get to see something cool like that!

The work day started with me and McD going to the sherrif's office to file a report about the shooting the day before. I thought this was a bit of overkill but apparently it's policy. The sherrif I spoke with was very nice and said he would go out to the house but he was pretty sure that the kid would deny it and the paretns would back him up. I told him that I figured as much and was just, at that point, following percedure.

I was then sent out to finish up my areas. As I was finishing a nearby block McD called and told me that Game Master was finished with all of his areas so he was going to go with me to help do my last area. I went to the meeting spot to meet up and picked up GM. We headed to a quick lunch and then proceeded to the area we were to do. As we pulled up to the first block we saw CP driving up. We stopped and talked to him and asked what area he was doing and wouldn't you know, he as assigened the same area that we were AND already had half of it done!! the tree of us finished the rest of the ara in under 30 minutes and went back to the meeting spot.

After a while of confusion (there were several of us finished and awaiting new areas) we split up the new are that McD had just assigned us. I headed off in search of my new blocks and realized that they were way the hell out of town. I drove and drove for about 40 minutes (I did have to turn around at one point and retrace my steps becuase... you guessed it... the road didn't exsist that I was going towards). I ended up heading into the mountains when +1 called and told me to head to the meeting place because this area was just rediculous... To give you an idea of where I was let me show you some landscape where I was supposed to be "finding houses"


Yeah....

Once we all met back up we caravaned to take our cars back to the airport and then went out for dinner as a group. Dinner was alright, I don't know if it was worth what I paid, but whatever.

Day 5

FINALLY!!! I was on my way back to civilization!! Thank GOD!! I rode in the guys car and OG took one for the team and rode with McD and +1. I totally owe him some beer! It was a fun ride home and I was trilled to finally get back to my own bed and bathroom!


*thanks to all who read my story... it was long and terrible and all I have to say now is.... FUCK WYOMING!*

THE END

Wyoming... Pt. 3- How Could it Get any Worse??

I woke up at 5am to elephants stomping around in the room above me... wait, I guess they weren’t elephants, so I suppose it had to be 3-5 sumo wrestlers in the room walking around oh so gingerly. After fighting the urge to get a stick and bang on my ceiling (where was I going to get a stick?) I put a pillow over my head and got another 20 minutes of sleep before my alarm went off and I had to get up and ready for a 7am departure to Pinedale... oh what fun. The drive, like before, was boring and long and I ate sunflower seeds the whole time just to keep me occupied and give me something to keep me awake.

Upon arrival McD told me that she would be sending CoPilot with me to do a large area assigned to me in case I needed help. Awesome! I wouldn’t have to go it alone... little did I know that had I been alone, I probably would never had made it back alive!

CoPilot and me set off in my car (with me driving and him earning his name CoPilot). The area we were doing was about 10-15 minutes back the direction that we just came from, so we set off, enjoying the fact that we had someone to talk to besides our imaginary friends. CP told me when to turn off the main road and this is when we got our first look at our new area... it was huge... and as soon as you got off the main road ALL the roads were unkempt dirt roads. Remember what car I got from the rental place?



We threw ourselves into work and found that this wasn’t going to cut us any breaks at all. CP did the first block while I drove, stopping in front of each house, which went well. I did the next block (so that we got even numbers between us) and as I was driving down the road I asked “Is that a fence in the middle of the road?” Yes, indeed it was. Someone had decided, HEY a fence would go great here! and built said fence right through the road. Turning around was the big problem and we ended up going through the weeds and dirt to get to a driveway that would take up back to the road... Don’t mind us folks! We’re from the government!

Fast forward to after lunch. We are hot and dirty and have come across more roads that don’t exist or don’t connect than we can count. We are constantly editing the maps and roads. CP was doing a block and we came to a particularly bad spot in the road where the bottom of the car kept making these fun crunchy noises as it scraped on the dirt from the ruts. I turned the car so that we could finish the block and shortly after I brought the car to a hault... this is what I saw...



That’s right. There in front of us about 3 feet was the road we were trying to get to and between it and us was a ditch about 3 feet deep. CP and I sat there just saying over and over, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME??” “REALLY?” There was no way to get to the road by this way and the road was so narrow that CP had to get out and help me turn the car around without falling off the road.

Once we were out of that...

In one certain area there were no numbers on the houses except for the first one on the road so we had to guess what the other ones were... #50... the next one should be 52, the next should be 54... oh there’s a house down here with a number... #66?? Well that is the opposite of helpful... CP and I looked at each other... fuck it... go with it.

One thing that kind freaked us out all day was all the white pickup trucks that we saw. I mean they are EVERYWHERE! If you live in Wyoming for so long do they give you a white truck as a prize for surviving hell? That would be the only explaination why people stuck around...

They liked to look meanly at us as they drove by in their huge trucks, spewing dust and exhaust into the air. Don’t mind us, this is just your tax dollars hard at work....

As the day progressed we swore a LOT more often and a LOT louder. Especially when we came upon roads like this that were completely unpassable.


How do people even live here???

At one point we ran into our ACL Sandwich... wha? We pulled along side each other and asked “What are you doing here?” The first thing out of his mouth was “This fucking sucks!”. Our sentiments exactly. Turns out that he had the outside of this hell hole while we had the inside area. Something that really was upsetting though was that we overlapped and that shouldn’t happen EVER. We went our separtate ways and CP and I felt bad for Sandwich because he had to go it alone... and then we realized that he had an SUV and we had and Aveo... the sympathy stopped right there.

We were to meet the rest of our crew at 5:30 and around ten till 5 we were getting close to finishing our last block. It was a biggie and giving us all the same problems that we were having with previous blocks (roads to nowhere or that don’t exist). We were coming up to a road and turning right when I looked to the left and said to CP “That kid is pointing a gun at us... ... That kid is really pointing a gun at us!!” Next thing we knew there was a loud PING on my side of the car. I immediately stopped and CP and I got out to look at the car. There wasn’t any damage but when we turned to look for the kid he was headed off on his bike. Since we were running so close to the deadline we decided to continue on since there was no damage to the car(at least not from the BB gun.)

We pulled in front of a large house and as we were trying to figure out what the address was a man came out and we explained who we were and why we were sitting in front of his house. He was really nice (which is kinda a shocker when that happens) and we got the info we needed from him. He told us that if we go up this little dive next to his house it would be easier to turn around up there than in his driveway. Wow... thank you! so up the little drive sure enough was a large flat area for us to turn around which I did and then headed back down the drive... for a second anyway... until the passanger front wheel slipped off the road and we were successfully in a ditch not going anywhere! SHIT!! Luckily, like I said before, this guy was super nice and when he heard the commotion he came out and got his truck and a chain and pulled us out. I sat in the car and manned the controls...



As you can see, I’m working hard.

After this fiasco we said fuck it all and went to the meeting place... but not before stopping to get beer to take back to the hotel so that we wouldn’t have to run out later.

At the meeting place we found out that we were going to leave some of the cars there and carpool back to Rock Springs!! Yay! Me and CP went with Sandwich and was that a fun ride! We swore and told horror stories about our areas all the way back. By the end of the trip I had successfully lost my voice and was hacking up a storm. Very lady like.

As soon as I got back to the hotel I took a shower and changed into some nice clean clothes! Plans were that everyone was coming back to my room to watch the Nuggets game and drink beer. My mini fridge was stocked and we ordered pizza. The end of the day was fun, chilling with all my co-workers, drinking beer and eating pizza. There was plenty of swearing and telling of stories. I was just happy to not be driving on dirt roads any more.

The Nuggets won and the night ended. Could tomorrow possibly be any worse???

Wyoming... Pt. 2- Just kill me now and get it over with

Day 2-

Our day started with a quick meeting with the local team at our hotel and then we started our 1 1/2 hour convoy to Pinedale where we would be working. Why we were staying so far away? No clue. Imagine driving for 110 miles and not seeing any houses, gas stations, fast food... NOTHING but sagebrush and antelope. Just before we got to Pinedale we entered the “town” of Boulder... pop. 75.

There in Boulder was a single gas station/bar that we stopped at to go to the bathroom before hitting the streets for work. I was having a hard time staying awake during the drive so I bought a Diet Mountain Dew and some sunflower seeds and chatted with my co-workers until we were all ready to go. As we left, in all my awesomeness, I rolled my ankle on the less than 6” step outside and fell to the ground. Looking back I must have looked a little something like this...



My left ankle did this awesome snappy crunchy thing and I was in a LOT of pain. After getting some ice and taking some time we decided to take me to the “hospital” in Pinedale. You would think in a small town the wait would be shorter because how many people could possibly be hurt? Nope, me and McD waited for an hour before I got called back. After 6 x-rays and lots of prodding it was determined that no, it wasn’t broken, just a bad sprain. They gave me a big walking boot brace and then the nurse went to find me some crutches. When she came back she gave me the crutches and told me that they were going to be too small but they didn’t have any other sizes except for someone who was 5’10” or over... I’m 5’2” on a good day so too small it was. At first it wasn’t too bad but very quickly I got rashes where the top rubbed on my ribs and elbows. Not fun.

McD and I finished paperwork (yay worker’s comp!) and went to get lunch since it was now 2:30pm. It was decided from the powers that be, that if I wanted to work, I could do my routes from my car and that would be fine. Awesome, thought I, I won’t lose any time. After lunch I decided to do a small area I had about 15 miles north of Pinedale. I thought this would give me time to chill out and just drive.

It was a beautiful drive, clear and cloudless skies and mountains that were beyond breathless.

When I got to my area I got a small taste of what the rest of the week was about to hold... as I was driving around my block (which was square on my map) I got to one corner to take a right, there was no right... there was a field to my right and a fence in front of me... hmmmm....
I took some time to watch the antelope run in front of my car and then did the other side of the block the hard way... driving around the long way.


After finishing up all of the 8 houses that were there I headed back to town.

Wouldn’t you know it, when I went to pull out from the country road onto the main road here comes a white truck flying over the crest of the hill. I had to either slam on my breaks in the middle of the road or floor it... so I floored it and took off as fast as the Aveo could go (which wasn’t very satisfactory). I continued to go fast because when someone pulls out in front of me, I’m pissed and they had better be going at least as fast as me. Well apparently, in Wyoming, white truck is code for UNDERCOVER COP... great. Lights go on and I pull over cursing to myself and wanting to crawl into a hole and DIE. The officer asked my my license and registration and asked the age old question... “So, are you in a hurry?” I explained to him my day and he excused himself to his truck to run my crap. As soon as he started walking away I started to cry... what was I going to do? I couldn’t afford this? Am I going to lose my job? Well, Mr. Officer was super nice and came back and told me to slow it down, he didn’t want to have to clean up an accident. He asked me if I would be ok, to which I told him yes, I would take a moment before I started driving again, and then he was off. I collected myself together and then, very cautiously, set off. FUCK!! REALLY?!?! Whew. That was close.

Luckily, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Once we got back to Rock Springs OG and I went to Applebee’s for dinner and had a MUCH needed beer. OG and I grabbed 6 packs at the store and watched the Laker’s game in my room which was not exactly a relaxer... but oh well. After that, all I needed was sleep, and sleep I did....

Until I woke up at 5am the next day... will this hell never end??

Wyoming... Pt. 1-Don't worry... I will

Well my bloggy friends, after a week (ok 5 days) in Wyoming and a weekend to unwind back in civilization, I think it's time to update you on the amazing mess that was my trip.
(names have been changed to protect the innocent bystanders)

Backstory (in case you live under a rock) - I work for the Census Bureau and the region that I've been working in has been completed. Thusly, they decided to send some of us good eggs to help in Wyoming where they were having some... issues... I was one that got picked... We left on Monday

Day 1- Steph took me to Safeway to our meeting point. There were 7 of us going none of whom I had ever worked with, seen, or talked to except for one phone conversation with McD, our CL. We were to meet at noon and at 10 til we pulled in and had no idea what to look for. We were going in government vehicles wich look just like any other vehicle just with different plates. We drove around the parking lot to no avail so we parked in the back to keep an eye on things. Finally I saw a guy walking across the parking lot with a suitcase, dead give away that you AREN'T there to grocery shop! I got out of Steph's car and met my new co-workers. Already there was OG, Game Master, and our ACL, Sandwich. Co-Pilot showed up soon and there we were, 5 strong, waiting for McD +1 to get there. at 12:30 they showed up and I became one of 3 women, though CLEARLY the guys were going to be more fun. McD said that I should ride with her and +1 so we could have a girls car and a guys car.... ummm... ok, sure. The ride was terribly boring but I got a lot of knitting done so that was good. Every once in a while during the 6 1/2 hour drive they spoke to me, but I wasn't begging to be part of the conversation so I pretty much remained in my little iPod world.

Once we got to Rock Springs we had to go to the airport to pick up our rental cars... this is their idea of an airport....


and what airport could be complete without dead animal heads mounted on the walls??



We had to call the girl from the rental car company to come and give us our cars. They were open but a note on the counter said that she was "in town cleaning cars. Call for assistance". So we waited and watched the end of the Bulls/Celtics game (awesome!) on TV. The only other person we saw while there was the 1 TSA agent that works there... yeah... big airport.

My car was a red Chevy Aveo. As long as it gets me from point A to point B who cares right??? I was soon to find out that that theory was not even close to being right.



We caravaned into town and went to dinner at a terrible place, but it was 10 o'clock at night and we were starving. Finally we checked into our hotel and went to sleep. The next day was to start at 8am... and start it did.

Rewinds and Reruns

Things here in the Mile High City are going good... good enough anyway. Things keep rolling along as they always do. All you can do is roll along with it and hope for the best. April means 2 things... Amy's birthday and taxes. Amy's birthday is tomorrow and I hope, for once, she has a good one. Amy has a perpetual streak of having a bad birthday on the actual day of her birthday but good celebrations for her birthday on other days. I hope tomorrow is wonderful and breaks the bad streak!

Taxes, on the other hand, are always bad and this year sucks more than normal because, you see, my dad's accountant does my taxes (they are a little complicated actually) but the accountant had to go to the hospital last week because of heart problems so there was a delay in getting them done!! Therefore my dad is UPSing me my taxes over night. I have to get them all signed, checks written, and in the mail tomorrow!! I DO NOT want to have to deal with other last minute tax doers at the post office... I don't like going to the post office on a normal day let alone the busiest day of the year!! That's why I want to get them out tomorrow as opposed to waiting until Wednesday, the actual deadline.

Work is going alright. Our team is actually almost completely done with our region and as we finish up we will be sent to other regions to help them finish. I was asked if I would be interested in going to Wyoming to help there because they don't have enough people! It's still tentative but I would love to go just for a change of scenery for a little while. Besides, I've never been to Wyoming!

Well, as most people know, I LOVE reality TV so here is my take on my favorites this season as we grow closer to the end of many of them...

Celebrity Apprentice- By far one of the weirdest things I've ever seen was Joan Rivers getting mad... she looks exactly the same as when she is happy except she narrows her eyes a little bit. I'm glad Brian was gone; let's face it, he was just plain boring. I'm rooting for Jesse James because, unlike Peirce (last season's winner), he's not a complete douche but is super good at what he does.

Amazing Race- Still in love with Margie and Luke. Looks like some serious drama is going down next week with them so that'll be interesting. I was really pissed the midgets didn't get eliminated this week, they bug the hell out of me.

America's Next Top Model- Allison better thank her lucky stars she looks like a Madame Alexander doll because that's all that's saving her from going home. I think she's fabulous and am rooting for her to go all the way but wake up girl and give us a smile or something!

Hell's Kitchen- Now that they are down to the final 5 I am rooting for Robert. I hate Ben, Paula is boring, Andrea's a bitch, and Danny just doesn't do it for me (he is, however, my second choice). Honestly though, I've never seen a shittier season as far as service goes so it's been a bit painful to watch.

Survivor- I only have one thing to say now that the merge has come and gone-- If you don't kick Coach off soon I'm going to start banging my head on the floor everytime he comes on the screen!

So there's my reality catch up but seriously, if I only had to pick one show to watch a week it would be LOST. I love that show!! I know it's either a love it or hate it show and I used to be the former beleive it or not! ABC put all the seasons online for free so over the summer, when everything was between seasons, I started watching it from the very first episode and was hooked! For those of you who watch, can you beleive that origionally Ben Linus was only supposed to be a minor character on the show for a few weeks?! The response was so good that they turned him into arguably the most important character in the show!!

Alright, I suppose that's enough for now.

~HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!~

Stand up and be counted!

It's been a while since I posted a REAL post so here's a little update on my life... as if you care...

I started working for the US Census Bureau as an Enumerator on March 19th. This is actually a temporary job consisting of 10 weeks but I could be offered more work after that if I'm needed/wanted. I have a hand held computer which contains lists of addresses and maps. My job is to verify every address on the list and make a spot via GPS on the map as to where the house is. This includes a LOT of walking... to the tune of about 7-8 hours a day of it. Every address in the country will be done like this (even yours!) so be nice to them and don't give them looks like they are a stalker or something. Also- don't call the police on them, that's just down right mean!

Thoughts on this job so far:
~I like to pretend I'm really house shopping for my dream house. I see a lot of houses for sale but so far I'm sure I can't afford any of them.
~I have a an even worse hatred for Windows based operating systems now and I didn't think that was possible. Our hand held computers have awesome capabilities but because they are Windows based they CONSTANTLY crash, freeze or both.
~I judge people by the contents of their recycling bins. I don't have much to keep me amused so yeah, if you have an empty container of Muscle Milk and a million bottles of Vitamin Water cluttering up your bin... I WILL judge you, your life, and your family.
~I love talking to people but I HATE knocking on doors. Part of our job is to make a "courtesy knock" in order for people to know who we are and why we are standing on their steps. It's like a FedEx knock; real quick and then we bolt. However, if you answer the door I have to turn around, go back, give you my spiel, hand you a little form and then answer all your dumb questions. Please, just let me do my thing and know that I am not going to rob you... besides, no one is trying to rob you during daylight hours... that would just be stupid.
~I NEED to get some new music on my iPod. I have over 2300 songs on my iPod which would last me 6.1 days but it's a lot of shit I don't want to listen to any more so I'm bored with listening to the same thing over and over during my 8 hour shift.
~The cats brighten my day, even more so if they let me pet them! I carry my camera with me and whenever a kitty comes up to me I take a picture of it. I will eventually put the Census happenings as it has to do with cats up on here soon. It will be super adorable. DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!!
~Lastly, (for now) if you don't know what the census is... please educate yourself!! I know that we all can't be smart, but honestly, this happens EVERY 10 years... without fail... It blows my mind that people don't know what I'm talking about.

Right... that was more than I thought I was going to write.

That should hold you for a few days at least... BACK BLOGGER!! BACK!