Weather

So this Morning we get up and its raining, then it starts to snow...then it REALLY starts to snow the flakes were as big as golf balls it seemed like. heres some pics from this morning.




We also took some cool video of it which you can see here Videos we have uploaded.
Just watch the snowing and snowing part2 videos...they are pretty cool

walk

So we went for a walk this morning and as soon as we where in front of the church, the church bells/chimes things are starting playing.We decided to take a picture of the church with our cell phone.here is that pic..

..ok if you click the pic to make it larger you can see that that red spot looks like an eye..lol..thats kinda freaky..anyway below are the rest of the pics from the walk and some other pics in there too all taken with the cell phone.The Second Album is pics from the day after christmas

cell phone pics

day after christmas

snow,snow and more snow

so its been snowing the last few days and below are some pics of it.

2008-12-22 snowday

snow photos

this pic is when we went to the jeep to warm it up and a chunk of ice came off the hood. doesn't it look like an ice skate?

This pic we took from inside the restaurant we ate at..thats a snow plow going by the window
..Gina did some driving in the snow today, we only slid and drifted a few times. which was kinda of scary a bit. then we had a few snowball fights with the forkers which was cool. our hair had icicles in it and our snot was frozen..lol..but it was fun..
Below is a video of me walking in the snow..you cant even see my shoes, the snow is that deep..if you cant view the video go to http://www.youtube.com/ostinato2378 and you can view it there.

Pictures

Below are some pics from the lake again and some pictures from the agricultural parade(the towns christmas parade).The last pic in the ag parade album is of the clock that sits in the middle of the street so you have to drive around the clock. can someone tell me why they would construct a clock in the middle of the street?

12-3-08

ag parade

lessons learned

things we have learned about living in a place where there is snow and ice and shit like that.
1. when pumping gas in 8 degree weather with wind chill of -14 degrees wear gloves.
2. sneakers don't work to well in the snow and ice.. you slide a lot
3. long sleeve shirt worn between two t-shirts and jeans becomes the outfit of choice.

This is it for now i'm sure we will be adding to this later as the season progresses.

work update

work is going ok. i'm 32-33 hours a week now which is nice. i have found a few people that are normal that i talk to now( they are not from here and have a brain.lol..). i still cant get over the conversations that these rednecks have in the break room, most of the time its funny and the stupidity level is high. other times its on the scary side and i get out of there...lol..ok here's the injuries at work update..after the incident with the broken glade candle cutting up my finger i have had numerous cuts and bruises.what sucks with the cuts is that when i'm dealing with a leaking bottle of Clorox, and it gets in my cuts oh my god i cant get to the sink quick enough to try and rinse that shit out. this last time i was almost in tears..lol..then while i was stocking the toilet paper,i got a case of it right to the face and bent my glasses up. those idiots in overnight stack the cases 3 high. i tried to take the top two cases and move them and boom the top one fell right into my face.same kinda thing happened the other day and this time the edge of the box got me right in the temple and now i have a knot on my eyebrow that hurts to the touch..then i have been having problems with the tendon behind my knee( think its from having to kneel down fix the bottom shelves at work) well the other night i was fixing the bottom shelf at work and i got up and turned to take my first step and something popped and my leg did a 90 degree thing and i almost fell backwards on my ass..but whatever"popped" helped because it definitely felt better after that.

This Morning

This morning we saw it was snowing so we went for a walk heres a couple of pics we took.



When we went to pick up john the other day from the train station we took this pic.

All 3 pics where taken with a cellphone so quality isn't that great but they are still kinda cool

Weather

Watches and Warnings

Moses Lake Forecast

/O.CON.KOTX.WW.Y.0008.000000T0000Z-081214T0600Z/
MOSES LAKE AREA-
INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS...MOSES LAKE...EPHRATA...
OTHELLO...QUINCY
1111 AM PST SAT DEC 13 2008

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM PST THIS
EVENING...

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW REMAINS IN
EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM PST THIS EVENING.

THE MOSES LAKE AREA CAN EXPECT AROUND 1 INCH OF ADDITIONAL SNOW BY
THIS AFTERNOON. GUSTY NORTH WINDS WILL DEVELOP AND CONTRIBUTE TO
THE POTENTIAL OF BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW. WIND CHILL READINGS
TONIGHT WILL DROP BELOW ZERO FAHRENHEIT AS WELL.

A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW...SLEET...OR
FREEZING RAIN WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR
SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES...AND USE CAUTION WHILE
DRIVING.

THIS ADVISORY INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS...MOSES LAKE...
EPHRATA...OTHELLO...QUINCY.

Detailed Local Forecast

* Today: Blustery with snow showers. High 31F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 50%.
* Tonight: Occasional snow showers. Quite windy. Cold. Wind chills approaching -10F. Low 6F. Winds NE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 50%.
* Tomorrow: Windy. Snow flurries in the morning. Cloudy with a few snow showers late. Very cold. High near 15F. Winds NE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 30%.
* Tomorrow night: Cloudy with gusty winds. Very cold. Wind chills approaching -15F. Low 4F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph.
* Monday: A few snow showers. Highs in the low teens and lows in the low single digits.
*Tuesday: More sun than clouds. Highs in the upper single digits and lows 2 to -2F.
* Wednesday: Partly cloudy. Highs in the mid teens and lows in the upper single digits.

12/3/08

its December already. time flies, we have been here 5 months now. anyway.Last week we had a lit bit of snow, lots of fog and its just cold all the time now. on Thanksgiving day we went to Mont lake to look around and we pulled up and this mallard duck comes out of the water and walks all the way up to the jeep.He walked around with us. it was kinda cool.I'll add pics at the end of this blog of the snow and that duck.

work is still the same.I survived "black Friday"..they had me working in the video games area for awhile that day.Watching the cases that the games are in. thats an experience i never want to have again. it reminded me of when working a concert and they told us we had to hold the concourse, and that moment they tell you let them in and you turn around and there's all these people walking towards you wanting you to help them. it was like that. very claustrophobic like.The rest of the day i was back in toilet paper,which for the first time i was glad to be in.lol.i sliced my finger the other day. I was stocking some candles and i picked the box up and slid my hand across the bottom( i was trying to get a better hold of it) and there was a chunk of glass sticking out of the bottom of the box, it took 4 band-aides before it would stop bleeding.

The other night we went to this house a few blocks to look at the decorations they put up. It was cool. they had all their lights hooked up to go along with music.we tuned the radio in the jeep to the station it said to and the lights flashed on and off the the music. we posted some videos on youtube of it. here is the link if you want to look. there's also a video we put up there of all the geese at mont lake.Its kinda neat.Videos

Anyway..Hope all is well with our friends and family in California. Hey Kid if you are reading this we are still waiting for you and grandpa to send us a postcard..lol..love you guys.

The following two pics john sent up in email today.

White

duck

this week

well this week was a ok one i guess. here's the updates
Weather:
at night now it drops into the 20's.its cold, especially when i work at night and don't get off until 11pm. of course i don't have a jacket or sweater on and when i walk out of the store the cold hits me hard..lol.. When we left this morning to go to work there was ice on the jeep. Had to use an ice scraper for the first time.
Work:
work is going ok i guess, the department manager is showing more of the stuff a department manager does and lets me do them, so i can learn it.breaking down all those cardboard boxes from the toilet paper is still kicking my ass. it just slices my fingers up. They bleed everyday,all over the cardboard. lol..This lady came up to me the other day,she barely spoke English she spoke Russian,and she wanted me to help pick out a strong toilet paper and in a 24 pack..lol..all she could say was strong,24( you had to be there to know how funny this was.)..lol..i'm tired of helping people pick out cleaning supplies for them.Its like they think i'm some sort of cleanser expert..helped some chick today pick out a mop.ugh..anyway..
Life in general:
on Nov.21st it was the one year anniversary of moms passing...all i got to say is it sucks not having mom around...we hate it...
we went down to the lake tonight and watched the sunset..its so cool. there were tons of geese on the lake. it was really neat, and they were loud.
Heres an album of pics from the tonight.just click to pic to see them all

mont lake 11/08

Here is a video from tonight. if you cant click this in the email just head over to the blog to view( its a pretty cool video).

11/17/2008--i got to think of better titles for these things..lol..

Things around here are going about the same. the weather is still on the cool side. the high is in the 40's, no snow yet. Heard about the fires back home.that sucks hope everyone is alright.

The last couple of weeks have been kinda tough. haven't been sleeping all to much, migraines are back, ulcer is acting up. i think it has to do with the fact the 1 year anniversary of moms passing is this Friday. its all i think about.i cant believe its been a year already. some days feel like its been a year and others feel like it happened yesterday. its going to be a hard week this week.

Work is still the same. They are still looking for Gina's application. like we have said before everything runs at a snails pace here. here's another example of that, at work i had my 90 day evaluation on day 45 of me working there. i asked why is this my 90 day if i haven't worked here that long. they told me it takes them that long to get the evaluation into the system..lol..My evaluation went pretty good. it was the department manager, me and the manager above her. They told me that they want me to work towards being a department manager in a few months. they said i'm a rare find around here,i have a brain and most around here don't i guess..lol, they told me that they wish they had 10 more of me and shit like that. my department manager told me she wants to mentor me and help make the transition to manager.thats cool and all but i don't get it. I've only worked there 45 days and haven't done anything extraordinary, i have actually been fighting it the whole way, only doing what i need to to get by, and totally ignoring calls to the register.weird.. being manager would be cool but I've been thinking do i really want to do this. i would have to dealing with all these yahoos that work there and try and tell them what to do.what do you guys think?should i do it or not?

Check out this picture,we put our hamster 13 in a stocking..lol..he loved it.

11/11/08

ok here's whats been happening.
Weather:
Its still cold and cloudy. Been raining most of the last few days. no snow yet, that sucks.Trees have little to no leaves left.
Pets:
All the pets are doing good. no new ones.
Work:
It still blows. I'm getting all cut up and bruised.I was unloading some chicken broth( they had me work the grocery side of the store the other day) and got my finger caught between a couple of cases and cut it open..lol.i sliced open my other finger with cardboard, of all things,the other day when i was unloading bleach and bleed allover the boxes.lol.When i went to work yesterday i had to clean up the bottle of downy that someone just emptied onto the floor..anyway. Gina reapplied so hopefully she will hear back soon. told the department manager about her and they said they were going to look for her application.
Other stuff:
The town is starting to put Christmas lights on the trees near "downtown" or whatever they call that area.lol. gas is down to 1.89 here.a week or so ago(maybe longer) we went to Mont lake to watch the sunset and we saw a blue heron fly across the lake. it was really neat.so hows everyone back home doing?
Pics:
to view some pics from blue heron park,all of us playing in the leaves in blue heron,or news pics of 13 click the pics below.

blue heron park

playing in leaves at blue heron park

13

11/3/08

Well here's the latest update.Halloween has come and gone. it was kinda neat here. it was cold and there was leaves all over the ground, it looked like something you would see in a movie..at he bottm are some pics of the Halloween decorations the forkers had up(just click the pic to see all the pics).the weather is about the same with some rain tossed in there. work is about the same too, it sucks..but i guess i should be grateful to have a job..here's a couple of pics we took which we thought came out nice.its 13 and the leaves that have fallen off the tree right outside the apartment.

halloween2008

Pretend there's an interesting title..

Here's what happened in the last week.
Weather:
It only gets into the 50's during the day and gets down into the 20s at night. The wind is cold, and the leaves are starting to fall off the trees. One weather Report said it might snow sometime in that first week in Nov.So the weather is pretty nice right now.
The Pets:

Well our hamster shit stain died. She was an older hamster when we got her, and they don't live long either so we knew she wouldn't be around long. We got a new hamster this time a regular sized one with long hair.we named her 13. shes our 13th pet in the last 6 years.We also got a new turtle a little pastel red eared slider. we named her XY, because we call zelda "Z" for short so now we have XY&Z.The pics below are shit stain,13,and the last pic is of XY&Z

Work:
Work is going about the same. Still avoiding the calls to go register. yesterday they came and got me to go up and register guess they knew i was just going to keep ignoring the calls to go up there. so i had to do that for a few hours. The last couple of days they have been pulling to go help out in other departments. yesterday i worked in the grocery aisles..fucking hated it. i gave up 4 and half hours later when i hit the canned vegetables and went back to the toilet paper and chemicals..the day before they had me help out in the Halloween aisles.. what a mess that was.. i don't know why they cant just leave me alone to work in the department they hired me for.they started to give me more hours. i'm now up to 29.50 hours a week..i dont know why they cant give me that 10 min and make it an even 30 hours .Another week down in Hell-Mart.
Other Stuff:
Below is a couple of pics taken the other day at this pumpkin patch thing we all went to.oh fable 2 for xbox360, good game!.Thats about all that happened in the last week.

Colors

Below is some pics of the trees in town that changed colors.just click the pic below. if you cant click it in the email, you have to go the blog itself to click it.

Fall Colors

ramblings

so let me wrap up week three in hell-mart for you ...BLAH!... only bright spot was payday(damn its been so long since i had one of those..lol.)found out that another toad(Lurch) of ours in California escaped the tank and our brother stepped on him..so now lurch and fire crotch are dead..there's only two left now.

fire crotch

got a phone call from home last night. one of our toads(fire crotch) that we left behind died last night.... r.i.p fire crotch....
in the picture below he is the one sulking on the rock in the middle of the pic

week 2--hell mart

so week two is done and over with. i went ok i guess. one day they called me to register so i decided when in Rome do as the Romans. i played dumb and called the people over who are in charge of the cashiers( i don't remember what they are called) over to my register almost for every transaction. made it look i didn't know what the hell i was doing..lol..told people in line you might want to go to another register this is going to take awhile..the last time i called them over they just shut my register off( the store was still packed of people..its always that way.lol.) and told me to go on break..lol..they didn't call my name the rest of the night to register..lol..so i guess my plan worked..then an other night the lady that is in charge of the overnight stocker's had a cow because i didn't make a cardboard bale..don't know if you know what that is but there's this huge machine that you throw cardboard in and it compresses it and makes a bale of it to put on a pallet and take it out of there. thats a two man job and she expected me to do it. plus i was never shown how to do it. she made one of the night crew guys show me how. well we get that done,and I'm walking by her and she gives me this look. well i stopped and told her you know if this company where to actually train their employees on how to make a bale maybe that would have gotten done. she told me well the floor people have a tendency to leave their cardboard and my guys wind up making the bales..shes like well i didn't mean to sound bitchy to you and i told well you did and walked off...I'm still not going to make the bales.. fuck that..I'll hide the cardboard first..lol..think i'm going to have to make this job a game..get out of doing the register,, hide the cardboard, me against them...judgment: do i like working there...not really...I'm i going to keep working there?..what other choice do i have.

bigfoot

Gina goes into the pet store the other to buy crickets for the fire bellies. they had another fire belly toad. except this one is a little off. it was swimming in circles and had this weird head tilt. and he was huge. so of course we brought him home named him Bigfoot. pet store let us have him for free. guess they didn't think they could sell him with him swimming in circles like that. hes in the tank with the other toads. they seem to like each other none of them have tried to kill each other yet. We noticed that besides the size difference one of Bigfoot's hands is smaller then the others. we are thinking he was a birth defect or something. thats ok with us, hes kind of fun to watch, swimming the way he does and he looks at you with that funny head tilt of his. I'll try to get a pic of Bigfoot up here later.

3,4,5

day 3: of work they had me come in and learn the cash register. i get up there and they put me with this girl and i watched her register for a few minutes and she turns to me and asks me do you think you got it. i said sure. i get on the register, and took to it quickly and a the girl said wow in the 5 years i've worked here you are the only the 2nd person to catch on that quick...so they made me cashier for the next 6 hours. ugh, i hated it. then they made me do the 20 items or less line. i almost slipped and said the f word too. this guy comes up with what looks like a tree root to me and i turned to the girl training me with root in hand, and almost said what the fuck is this..lol.i caught myself..apparently it was a ginger root.so that was day 3.
day 4: they finally let me work the floor( the job i was hired for).they had me work with the department manager. she gave me the rundown and i went and did what she explained we had to do.i finished pretty quick everything she had me do. she told me your doing a great job and catching on quickly, she said that she gets a lot people who work there that are basically dumb as dirt( this whole town is dumb as dirt, its kinda scary too..lol.)i told her i noticed that with this town, told her i was from California. she said that explains it.lol...so she showed me how to do the inventory gun and pick merchandise from the back and stuff the department manager does..lol..that was kinda cool.
day5: this was Saturday night and i was on my own. there was on one else working in my department. which i liked i didn't have to answer to anyone. so i go in and restock the toilet paper( it amazes me how fast the toilet paper goes, there must be some big shitters in this town). clear the aisles of stuff that doesn't belong, break down the empty cardboard boxes, turn in damaged stuff.When i went to turn in the stuff that doesn't belong in my department i ran into these three girls that just gave me shit when i asked what bin does these items go in. they were like figure it out, if you cant just scan it and it will tell you ...well i said fine and i started to put the stuff away my way..lol..i put spray paint in the toy bin, toys in the food bin, food with the apparel.. as i was leaving that area i was thinking to myself have fun sorting that shit..they called for registered trained associates to come cashier like every ten min. i ignored every call. fuck that I'm not cashiering.until they actually call my name over the intercom to come up to cashier i'm not doing it..lol.whats cool is i don't have to be back to work until Wednesday.
Judgment: do i like the job?, yeah i guess. there's a lot worse jobs i could be doing i guess.week one went ok, wonder how week 2 will go.

autumn

Day 2

toady i went to day2 of training at 12:30. we had to fill out a few more papers. then went on a Safety tour for about 10min.they showed us the correct way to cleanup and dispose of blood, vomit,feces...nice way to start a day off..lol..then we started the computer based learning crap they make us do. its was 29 different lessons you read and listen to then take a quiz at the end of each and you have to pass with 80% or more right on each quiz or you have to go through it all over again...well by the time i left i got through all but 4 of them. so tomorrow i get to finish those up and then its on to cashier training. they told us we have to be in full uniform tomorrow since we will be on the "sales floor" for training..it will be nice to actually start the job and be done with all this stuff they make us do first.this way i can make a judgment on weather i like this job or not. oh found out today that they (walmart) has a zero tolerance policy on foul language at work..you guys know me..thats going to be a hard rule for me to follow. think i'm going to have to just not talk at work..lol..anyway...will let you know how tomorrow goes..

yesterday

so yesterday i had to go in to walmart at 9am for orientation(my job title is floor associate..guess i get to associate with the floor all day).Stupid me thinks its only going to an hour or two..wrong.was there until 4pm..WTF!..i knew it was going to be a long day when the first thing they do is bring out the boardgame..thats right people boardgame..so we can learn the history and crap of walmart. there was 4 of us in there going through this and they made us each read the questions out loud and we had to collectively disscuss the question and comeup with an answer...this went on for i think 5 hours..5 fucking hours..then, you'll love this, they sent us on a scavenger hunt through the store to find things and fill out the questions in our workbooks..LMAO..then came the video's, there was a handfull of those.My favorite one was of wee-zee from arkansas explaining her health benfits she gets from walmart..lol..sounded just like wee-zee from the jeffersons..honestly i dont think any of this was necessary..but i get to do it again today but i go in at 12:30 and possibly could be there till 9pm..again WTF!...then on wed we get to do the same shit plus cashier training. I'm i the only one who thinks this a tad bit overboard to work at walmart..

Update Sept.22 2008

Well its getting colder up here.70's during the day and 30-40's at night. leaves are turning. going to try and get a few pics of that up here later. Here's a pic from the sunrise a few days ago. Jill(Johns wife) took this pic, we think its a pretty cool pic.The next pic is of John doing the chain gang at the high school football game. hes the one in that orange thing.



Well today I had a interview over at walmart. sales floor position in the chemicals,paper, and pet supplies isles. if i pass the background check and drug test then they call and tell me when to come in for orientation. Its funny they sent me over to the clinic to get a drug test(pee in the cup). i get there and they hand me a cup, i swear the size of some large coffee cup and tell me to fill to the black line...well that was easier said then done. had to take it three times because i never had enough pee to make it to the black line.plus every few seconds i was in there trying to pee the lady kept knocking on the door asking if everything was allright, i wanted to tell her to leave me the fuck alone and let me piss in peace.lol..i had to drink so much water i felt like i was going to puke,havent felt good since then.

Zelda and Shit Stain

Took some new pics of them.