Northern Virginia Roll Call

Day eight if the road trip:

Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands.

Gwen's driving and says: How long have you had the crack in the windshield?

Me: Um, whatCrack? Drivers side comes in about 3 inches and curves down about 4 inches. We'll see how the road treats it and try to get it home.

At White Sands about 1630 and walk around the truck. Passenger rear looks aired down for an off road excursion. Except it shouldn't. Put 25 pounds of air in. It held, but we're at Discount Tire getting it checked.

Edit: Valve stem leak. No charge.

And our water proof cargo carrier in the bed decided it didn't want to be waterproof after two days of driving through rain, some pretty heavy. A few things got wet, but nothing we couldn't dry out.

If these are the only things that go wrong, I'll call it good.

Of to Oklahoma City today.

 

It's not an official trip unless you get a flat tire! Bua haha

 

The planned somber stop on the trip. Another one of those days where you remember where you were and what you were doing. I was working at the Federal Reserve in Detroit next to the Federal Court and two blocks from the McNamara Federal building, locked down.

Two entries, one on either end. One has the time 9:01and the other 9:03. The time before the destruction and the timet he community rebuild began. Very impactful at night, and the better time to be there.

Murrah Building Memorial, Oklahoma City, OK.

 

Anyone looking for or know of someone looking for a hunting dog, see below. In Ashville, will travel. Rescued from a kill shelter.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/lets-see-your-dogs.2844/page-1598#post-27951008

 

PSA

 

If you want your oil to smell a little less oily,

 

This was cool. And we'll done.

https://fb.watch/gko7cve-gP/

 

The Ohio State Marching Band always puts on a good show. Cool that they were able to coordinate with Iowa too

 

This weekend at work we had a Bus Roadeo, which is essentially a skills competition and about as close to wheeling in a bus as one could get. The last obstacle is decreasing width barrels. Bus is 8.5' wide and widths between barrels decrease 11', 10', 9', and another 9'. Had to hit at least 20mph before entering and stop before a cone in front of that person centered in the lane. I hit 27mph going through without hitting any and stopped within about a foot of the cone. Only drivers to not hit barrels this year were the previous two Roadeo winners and me, so I'm pretty proud of that!

 

That sounds like a blast! Nice work Ryan.

 

Thanks! Driving the bus really is such a fun job, I love it and am sad to have to leave when I finish school.

 

Who says you have to leave it? Forget higher education and engineering, be a bus driver for the next 40 years.

 

This is true. There are several people that work at blacksburg transit that got degrees from tech and just decided bus driving was more fun

 

This is my opinion only. I have been working national training and education for a few years for a project and I can tell you that all these parents who push kids to go to college is a huge mistake. As a 17-18 year old...good luck trying to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life. There are more college graduates with debt who make less than 50 k a year and will start life out in the negative. As for blue collar workers, we don't have enough of them. Mechanics and plumbers, etc.. can make six figures now starting if you're willing to work. We're so out of balance right now that it's called the bathtub effect (old timers are retiring and there is no one behind them and then some younger people come in and the workforce comes up again). Anyway, I liken this to the china syndrome....only one child allowed so they all valued boys. Well....now they have no girls to marry!!!! lol This is why government shouldn't get involved in peoples life decisions! lol Sorry for the rant.

 

I am extremely jealous. This is the type of shit I do on xbox

 

It is kind of a wild event, but apparently it's quite popular among bus companies and there are state and national competitions for this kind of stuff. I would have done it for free, but we even got paid and fed two meals lol

The supervisors were joking that this is the only time we were allowed to hit stuff. Everything is intentionally super tight, so some other drivers dragged cones under the bus for the entire course and it was quite funny. I tail whipped a whole line of cones while alley backing and they all went down like dominoes

 

That's fantastic! Is there a spectator area? Seems like an event that could definitely draw a crowd. I would much rather watch busses do this than police motorcycles. I've watched some youtube videos of local municipalities doing similar things for heavy equipment like dozers and excavators too. Seems like a blast!

 

They didn't really announce it to the public for spectating but a few drivers had brought their families kind of thing. There were dedicated areas to walk through the garage and poke out to see the bus go through different obstact

 

Nice job, Ryan!

They actually have Rodeo Nationals (or used to) for the big rig drivers. An old timer I knew had been them a couple times.

 

GRTC, in Richmond is hiring. See commercials every night for it on the tv.