October 2015 – Page 2 – Bus Driver Jim

Cosmic Apple

Today was the second annual Reach For Rainbows daycare trip from Driggs to the Cosmic Apple organic farm in Victor. Last year I just got pictures of the kids coming off the bus so this time I captured them as they arrived at the farm and when I came back to get them, I grabbed a couple more around the farm.

These are pre-schoolers: small, adorable, loud and energetic. Teacher Cindy kept telling them to keep the noise down so as not to upset me, but hey, I deal with loud kids all afternoon, just older. Besides, I get to go home to a quiet munchkin free house.

Click the photo below to see the pictures…

Stateline View

I snapped this shot from the bus window after dropping off my new little old friend I call Stateline Lady. I was heading down the driveway of the new house her daughter and son-in-law were finishing up prior to winter. Great house, great property and a pretty fair view. That’s Fred’s Mountain off to the left and I told her to watch the skier torchlight event on Christmas Eve. They’re from Texas…

New System

I’ve been starting my day lately by scanning through my onboard computer to see what kids are riding home with me. I was writing the names down on a sticky note and I checked the kids off my list as they boarded and paid, and kicked the kids not on my list to the curb. I figured parents would learn real quick to book a ride in advance.

I realized yesterday that the process sure lends itself towards a spreadsheet and since I’m a geek I whipped up a Google Spreadsheet last night with the names I had. Now I can print a clean one out every morning, put little circles next to the kids I find on my bus computer for checking off as they board and add new kids to the list as they occur. At the end of the day, I can throw the list away, or take it home to add new kids.

This system allows me to visually determine how many kids I have for sixteen seats and if it stays within that limit I’m good, otherwise I call dispatch and bitch at them :-)

Old Jackson Hwy

It was another amazing mid-October day here in the Valley and I took this shot from the south end of the Old Jackson Hwy where it connects to Hwy 33.

…and, the sign was down!

My Space

I was testing out some different settings on my camera while pacing the interior of my bus and took this shot. It pretty much sums up my daily existence behind the wheel of good old 801, the largest vehicle in our fleet.

Jammed

Yellowstone had a record number of visitors this year and the nice weather brought a few more people up to the park this last weekend. The wait was a bit long, trying to get fifty lanes down to twenty can be a challenge, but the park staff handled it well.

North Leigh

I just unloaded my camera containing a couple shots from yesterday evening and some more from this morning’s drive up to North Leigh Creek. Click on Steph’s stuff below to see all nine of them.

Here’s a video I shot of both sides of North Leigh Creek from the little bridge:

Dogs vs Cats

Sometimes you come across an image that really makes you want to have a dog. I’ve had some great dogs over my many years, and now I have a cat. She hates riding in my truck, much less on the back of a motorcycle!

You can take dogs to the store with you and have them hang out in front until you’re ready to go. You can take them for a walk without restraint and they come to you when you call. Cats do none of these things!

Piper hates dogs and until last night I thought she hated other cats. We had the deck light on waiting for her to stop catting around when I walked by the kitchen window and saw her hanging out with another cat! It was a pretty little thing and Piper was enjoying it’s company, rolling on her side in a cute little submissive manner.

Piper is a sweet cat and I guess when she meets another sweet cat, she’s cool. No hostility or cat fights involved. I learned something last night…

Stressed

I’m trying to get jQuery $.Deferred() Promises working, and it ain’t…

Update: Ok, not so stressed anymore, I got it working: Symegry

My Friday

I had a long break between rides this morning so I clocked out and drove my truck out to the Big Hole foothills. What an amazing October day, brilliant blue skies and crystal clear air made for some great photos. I actually broke them up into two photosets. Each photo below opens an individual set. Just click one to see the set and then come back to this page to view the other.

Below is a set I call Winterized. It illustrates the length that the hay farmers will go to protect their summer harvest through the upcoming brutal winter. Impressive! Click the photo to view the set.

Early October

October is an interesting time of the year around Teton Valley. The fall colors are transforming into gentle soft scenery, the farmers are turning their fields into smoldering scorched earth and Broulims has pumpkins aplenty.

Piper and Mice

I was having dinner last Monday evening when Piper appeared on my left in her food sampling position. She likes to check out our dinner and most of the time just sniffs at the piece of food I’ve set on the floor on the corner of a paper towel, and walks away. That particular night she just walked away, which I thought was odd.

As I was doing the dishes later, I heard Steph shriek. There was a dead mouse under my chair that Piper had caught outside and brought to me during dinner. She wanted some acknowledgment, not food scraps. Me bad…

This morning she was stalking another mouse under our kitchen catchall thing so I banged on the side of it to chase the mouse out. Sure enough, it scampered out and ran down the kitchen floor, under the refrigerator. Piper didn’t try to catch it at all, she just gave me this look like I had spoiled her game, and walked off.

Trying to understand cats is like trying to understand women. Sheesh… I guess if you’re outside you kill the mouse, inside you just play with them!

Teton Fall

We’re heading into some more nice weather as early fall blends into the depths of winter. Here’s the backside of our neck of the woods.

New Fire TV

My new Amazon Fire TV arrived today. It was actually released today nationwide but since I pre-ordered it about three weeks ago I got an early ship. I already own two Fire TV devices: the original Box, and the Stick. Actually, you haven’t been able to buy the original on Amazon for a while, you had to wait for this one.

So, what’s the big deal? It has a quad-core processor and Alexa. You know Alexa, she’s the cloud brains behind my Echo, which I also purchased as an early adapter. Voice search on this device takes on a new meaning as Alexa is integrated into the whole experience. It’s very cool so far!

My Echo is now in the kitchen and she’s probably aware I have her sister in my office since Amazon knew this was my third Fire TV, and named it as such on the way out of their factory door. I’m now a three Fire and two Echo, Amazon Prime ~~sucker~~ devotee.

This new device actually has one more major feature, it streams 4K video! This means that if I replace the Samsung in my office with a new 4K TV I can move the Samsung to Steph’s room and plug the Stick into it, move my old Fire TV to the family room, and then have an unbelievable TV experience in my office! Just sayin…

Note to self, go to bed and get to work tomorrow so you can afford a 4K TV...

Pot Ribs

I’ve got a new technique for cooking baby back ribs. First, Steph removes the membrane, cuts them in half and then I take over. I use Charlie Vergos seasoning for the rub and make my own custom marinade (Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce, ketchup, A.1. steak sauce, French’s Worcestershire, brown sugar and a dash of liquid smoke).

I place the ribs meat down on aluminium foil and fill the bottom curve with red and green peppers and sweet onion. I drizzle the remaining marinade over them, add fresh ground pepper and Johnny’s salt, and then double wrap them with foil into tight packages and set them in the refrigerator.

In the morning, I place two large mason jar lids in the bottom of our large crockpot and set one slab of ribs on top of them. Then I put two smaller lids on top of the slab and place the other one on top of those. I add about a half cup of water to the bottom of the pot and slow cook them out in the garage all day. When they’re done the crock pot is clean and my Pot Ribs fall off the bone. I thunked this up all by myself…