Our updates for all of you

Today was another snowy day. Just about a half inch on top of the now frozen remaining snow pack. This past week was several days of snow and then every time the temp rose above freezing and into the almost forty degree range so it became a slushy mess. Also was occasionally tense on those morning bus drives for me. At least the route I'll be driving for the next month or two is fairly level for its run. There are several routes that include many hills of varying steepness and on Tuesday afternoon it was snowing heavily and on the service radios I heard that several buses got stuck in the snow to different degrees on their routes. None had to be towed out, but it was close for one. On Thursday evening it decided to become wintry again and the temps dropped into the teens. Since then it has stayed in the 20's daytime and low teens at night and has snowed off and on, just not much snow to add to the accumulating base. Stacy is at work right now on her dispatch shift, but only has

At least for me it will be. It usually is for Stacy with her shifts, but that all changes on January 4th. For me though, I'm driving a regular route the rest of the week and probably in January also. The driver of the route had a real disaster occur last Thursday night. They had a fire and their log home burned totally down. The wife (the driver) and her husband both suffered 3rd degree burns of various extents. But in addition to losing all they owned they also lost their youngest daughter in the fire. But it goes from worse to worser for them, they had no home owners insurance and the wife was the only one to have medical because she worked for the district. Stacy and I both feel sorry for her, she is a genuinely nice person who cares a great deal for her bus "kids". She'd buy things at a local auction that Stacy and I occasionally go to and have raffles for different things with her route kids. For me personally this means I've got to get up at- GROAN!!!! 4:40

And well, it kinda has to be a relaxing day because its been snowing since yesterday afternoon and so far it's about 4 inches. So no rush to get out in the mess. The highways are usuallykept clear, the county roads it can take a day or so to get those all plowed. Stacy just left for her shift at dispatch. She's still on cloud nine over the new position, I am also for her to have regular hours again! After working with those friendly folks from India for Belkin last night it turns out that the wired connection problem with our other computers is with the router. They say we need a new router and last night were all ready to send out a new one and then we'd send back the old one. But they called back this morning and said they don't have our model in stock so we'd need to send in ours to get fixed and sent back to us. When I asked how long we're talking about, he couldn't say with the holidays and such coming up, one week to a month, so I guess we'll get a

Better watch out, better not pout, cause I'M the BOUNDARY COUNTY JUVENILE PROBATION OFFICER!!!! Still can't believe it. The job opened up on the 11th of this month, I met the Head of Probation on Tuesday the 12th, and I was told the job was mine today. They didn't even do a formal interview. Yes!!!! I went directly from the Probation office to the Sheriff's Office and put in my resignation, but I still will be in dispatch until the 30th of the month. Just didn't think it was fair to leave them in the lurch during the holiday season. I officially start my new job on the 4th of Jan. I CAN HARDLY WAIT!!! Talked to Laura this morning and she is applying for an Animal Control position in Bettendorf. I am keeping my fingers crossed for her. My grandson, Tyler, had a bad case of Bronchitis this past week, and almost ended up in the hospital. Poor guy, Laura was so worried about him. He's doing much better now, but Laura and Russell are sick. When it rains

As we're watching tv I've been checking out some more things to add. I'd just added some of the photos taken on the trip to Mike and Brenda's. It is on the Picasa Web Album and can be seen with the captions. I did see that I could add all the pictures as a slide show on this blog. So I did and it looks good. I think though that our family/friends with out high speed might get bogged down with the slide show addition. So I'm not sure about that widget. More later, Tad

As most of you are aware, I have been working both dispatch and the jail. This has really been fun and challenging! We've been having a little office turmoil too! Rule One: dispatchers shouldn't date the Deputies that other dispatcher like!!!!! We'll have to see how this turns out. Hopefully I will be able to do my normal Christmas cookie baking this next week. I was going to start it this week-end, but as Tad told you, I ended up driving a big truck to Coeur d' Alene to pick up 40 bikes and helmets for the needy kids in the County. It was a great day. Met a few of the County Sheriff's, and felt really needed!! One Sheriff is down two dispatchers in his office and was doing his best to recruit me. I am going to get a big cup of tea, so I'll set this on Tad's lap for a few while I'm gone.. Well, my day was a meeting this am at the bus barn for the drivers. There was a rep from the state and we all went over the things the state does and doesn&#

Ah the choices of setting this up! It will take a little time to 'fine tune' the page, but its a start. Okay so what have we been doing? Well, two weeks ago now Stacy and I went to visit with Mike and Brenda to see their new home as well as visit with my Father and Mother who were visiting. We had to work around Stacy's days off so it was a three day visit with one day there and two travel days. All the storms flooding and disaster in the Seattle area happened right after we'd left. It was a great visit and we really like the new home. I haven't been able to see any of them since last year so I really liked the visit and getting together again. We got the grand area tour which was nice since I'd never spent any time in that part of the state before. The area is very picturesque. Mike's home is very near the flight paths of the area navy base and that brought back memories of our home in California. The first few years we lived there George A.F.B. was still