The Inverted Cow: Consequences and feedback.

Well Inverted Cow Fans another two weeks has blasted past and you never even knew it was there. Things are finally starting to return to a degree of 'normal' out here. But I do have a recap to do.

Last post I had made a couple of comments. I am not talking about the whole Racism thing, or the segregation thing or anything else but a couple of comments in my stories from the cheese wagon segment. In those comments I mentioned a Hyper child who gave me a apology letter for causing the bus to be stopped while I regained control, and small story about giving the kids in the back seat a little "air time".

My telephone was disconnected because the idiots at MTS will not allow me to make alterations to the phone as it is under Marianne's name. They were grossly over-billing me, I could not get them to fix the account or give me credit for what was in essence their error. As a result I am now phone less, and I had to switch to Emil only, as a primary source of communication. In my signature is a link to the Blog. My boss read it and was so upset that I had any fun with the kids he wrote me a full page letter about the above mentioned topics. I am also no longer driving that route. Apparently although the normal driver is no longer fit to drive he was miraculously able to get another spare driver to take over the route while I drove a field trip for three days, who is now able to drive full time on the route. So now I am out of work, but there is NO connection between the letter or me getting to sit on my arse at home all day now.

Now do not get me wrong I love and even welcome constructive criticism. Some of the points he made in his letter were valid. I had an image where the school division name and bus numbers were clearly visible in the background. This is a faux pas on my part. I usually take great care to not show any names or information. He also mentioned that I was critical of the School for feeding unhealthy amounts of sugar to the kids on the bus causing them to be hyper and that one student gave me a apology letter the next day. I had mentioned the gender of the student in question and he stated that it could cause harassment or other issues. More on this later.

Both of those have been adjusted. But he poked at a few other things that I feel need clarifying. In particular the story about the bit of airtime I got. So I feel that an amplified version of the story would be necessary to ease the hearts of those who feel that I am a reckless driver. (nothing about the 20 plus years of professional driving with out a single accident on my record, or the fact that I have more kilometers under my wheels than most people will put on in a lifetime.)

So first I will copy and paste the story in question AS IT WAS WRITTEN, Then I will amplify it using Italics in the parts that are added. Sorry for the long read, You may want a cuppa coffee or something. C[_]

Stories from the cheese wagon; recap amplified

After I was able to get the hyper kids off the bus, the rest of the ride was reasonably nice. I had no kids on at the last stop, but the stop before I have two, they are good kids who do not make much noise and who sit quietly for the trip. These two kids do not vandalize the bus, are at the stop, on time, every morning, do not yell, jump around, or move between seats while the bus is in motion, they do not leave garbage all over the place, and do not backtalk to me when I ask them to do something. These kids deserve all the kudos and fun they can get. The thing is, on the road to their place the frost has caused a culvert to push the roadway up and it forms a bit of a jump.The "jump" in question is about 6 to10 inches high of the roadway with a decompression on the far side in the direction of travel for the story being portrayed here. I have mentioned the "jump" to the safety people and to the school as it is a concern for when spring comes and it is unmarked and will become a driving hazard. If I have the kids from the last stop on I will slow down and go over it slower, slower on a 'normal day' meaning this is an unusual event, Also slower means I normally hit the bump at less then 40 KM/h the reason the kids in the last stop are mentioned is they are high school kids who lay across the seats with their muddy boots on my clean seats and are plugged into the MP3 players I could set off a box of fireworks and they would not even be aware of it. but these two LIKE the bump, so on the way down I told them to get ready. They are now aware that I am planning to hit the jump and have secured anything that may 'fly' around, I kept the speed at a normal speed this being 60 KM/h and counted down using one hand till the jump, 3 2 1 jump. The students were aware of the jump, were prepared for the bounce, and were able to get ready so to not be caught off guard. Hit the bump and sent the bus ever so slightly air born. This line being the one line that caused the contention, "ever so slightly air born" means that I had enough negative Gravitational forces to produce a lifting of the bus to the point where the bus was relaxed on the suspension but the wheels were still in contact with the roadway at all times. At no point was there a possibility that I could ever loose control for even a hairs breath of a second. They were giving me a couple of cheers for that. The next morning one of the two thanked me for giving them a bounce on the bus and gave me these:

In the letter my boss had mentioned that I should be driving according to my training. My training states that I am to drive at a prescribed speed of 80 KM/h If I hit this bump at that speed I could have the wheels come off the ground and I could very easily loose control of the bus. The roadway is icy, it is gravel, and I do not give a rats ass about my schedule I will not drive that stretch faster than 60 Km/h because to do so would be cause for problems such as this.

On another note, ( I said I would get back to this) the only way that the hyper students in question could be identified is, if it was me, them, or someone who had direct knowledge of the events, or the student's parents identifying them. I routinely call the kids on the bus "My Kids" and for what it is worth I treat them as if they were my own kids. I would never endanger them or in any way cause them to come to harm, I would give my own life before any one of them is caused to be hurt. So to say that I am being reckless is uncalled for.

Yuck I got to go wash my mouth out with something.

Stories from the cheese wagon, this edition

As I mentioned in the segue to the whole blog today I had a three day school trip. It was supposed to be a two day trip but we got a blizzard on the second day and had to postpone the trip home. Teachers/ Chaperone made the call not me.

For my part, We loaded in Ashern took off to Asessippi Ski hill. (Coming from Alberta where we have real mountains, this is more of a bunny hill than anything) The kids played on the hill for a few hours and we tootled off to Russel.

The kids got a nice hotel with a swimming pool and waterslide. Of course they had security tape placed on the doors after lights out, but that was part of the fun. I got the Jolly Lodger. I made the mistake of looking it up online before hand, it is a roadside flop house no bells or whistles.

Bed, TV nothing fancy.
Also if you look both pictures on the wall are the same.
Gideon's Bible is in the drawer.

Water closet, almost big enough to squeeze my fuzzy
butt into without knocking my knees.
Biffy is so small I almost had to be a contortionist to use it.

The first night the idiots in the room next to me were drinking and smoking pot all night long. I had a nice blue haze in my bathroom in the middle of the night as the bathroom vents apparently are not installed with back draft dampers. What happens in one room gets shared with every room. Not good if a fire breaks out. For those who do not know pot and most drugs react violently with me, the smell of the pot in the next room gave me a nasty headache I had to shut the bathroom door and leave the fan on to clear it out. Another noise to keep me awake.

The next morning I had a fresh 4 to 6 inches of snow on the roads it was still blowing and not very nice out but off we went to go skiing again.

Not a great shot but this snow kept up all night long
By morning we had a nice soft powder on
the ski hill, and the roads and everywhere else.

I sat in the lodge and watched over one of the chair lifts under my window was the skipatrol and the rental shops. Having spent enough time working on the ski hils in Alberta when I was in my early 20s it was fun to just sit and watch.

Of course not everyone had fun I saw one kid get a arm put in a splint, I am guessing sprained wrist. Another in a sling. Wrenched shoulder or collorbone and another who sprained an ankle. Fortunatly none of the ones we had with us appeared to be injured.

Another night of hotel calafornia and it was off to Ashern again. The kids were in no real hurry to get home. we loaded at ten thirty and stopped for a "30" minute break that took over 45 minutes. We drove the rest of the way and got back in time for half of last class. I had just enough time to get the bus to the garage and get my arse chewed out, (read above) and that was it. Everyone had a great time I love doing charters just to know that people can have fun and get home safely.

The Wolves at my door.

Yesterday the last of winter was attempting to make one more gasp. I was outside shoveling the worst of the snowdrifts from the driveway when on the roadway I saw some foot prints. These were dog prints but they were about 3 and a half inches in span. There is no dogs, and no traffic out here. Even the poachers have moved to a different area. The coyotes are not big enough to make prints much larger than the cats, and the bears are sleeping for another month. That leaves Wolf. I wish I had a camera setup to catch a shot of him as he walked right down the middle of my roadway. Kyle wants to set traps all over the area. Timber wolf pelts are worth more than all the other pelts he has turned in so far this year combined.

He brought some stuff around, and was all excited as we have not had a wolf this close to the highway for decades. We set traps for the coyotes instead. I doubt that the wolves will be back in this area again for a while as it appears they were tracking a heard of elk through the area.

Most kids in their teens buy fancy perfumes or colognes.
Kyle buys Wolf urine.
I can see the advertisement for this:
The boys use Axe
Real men wear Wolf Urine!
Guaranteed to make the ladies HOWL

Final Thoughts.

Spring is almost here. The weather reports are calling for plus tempetures for the remainder of the week. Snow is melting and I am getting excited, as spring is, by far, my favorate time of the year.

I have to get old red and little red working shortly. Also dig out the rototiller and get it ready to go. Still need to repair the pullcord for it. I am planning on making a smoker before the suckers start running so that we can make some smoked fish. ( I am hoping to solicit the help of the folks and mayby some of their friends for the adventure)

Also as I have eluded to this time I am without income for the time being. This means I have time but no money. (one or the other but never both) I have taken my time and loaded a few more links on the Support the inverted cow page. Please check them out.

I am also thinking of starting a photo blog and calling it "Cow Spots: Manitoba Memories" I will be posting photographs of some of the historical buildings just sitting out here in the middle of nowhere and when possible I will be posting a caption of the history of the building.

Just a sample: