…and answer some questions, and because I thoroughly jacked up some of those pictures, I’m going to move a couple to this entry. The ones on this page will be clickable if you want to see them larger.

catie, I’m not the only woman up there historically, of course, but there hasn’t been another one in camp while I’m there in the five years or so that I’ve been hunting with these guys. Sometimes it’s just bad timing, as some of the wives and daughters do go. Most of them are raising teenagers lately, and have sports and events to attend to on the weekends. Those are some tolerant wives, that don’t mind their husbands hunting for four or five days every week for the six weeks of deer/bear season and the six more of pure bear season. And during the rest of the year, they do a lot of varmint hunting to train the dogs. It’s a consuming hobby.

I think the wives know about me (I know some of them do anyway.) I don’t know if it bothers them or not, but their husbands are safe from me anyway.

nanamama, damn straight that’s poker! They played every afternoon in camp; totally cleaned out a 16-year-old kid teaching him not to smile when he bets. I don’t play, so I still own my quarters.

On Friday night, I couldn’t find my alarm clock, so when I went to bed fairly early, I asked Derek to make noise when he got up and I’d get up too. So when I heard trucks moving and men yelling at dogs, I got up, brushed my teeth, got dressed, ate breakfast, and went out ready to go.

Nobody around, although the light was on in Don’s trailer.

What the hell? Did they leave without me? No, all of the trucks were still there, plus a couple more.

Finally I knocked on Don’s door, and there they all were, sitting around the table smoking and playing poker. It was only 11 PM! They laughed like hell at me (and so did I.) I went back to my trailer, found my clock, and went back to bed. Two mornings that day!

And with that in mind, I took pictures this weekend. Lots of them, because I had a feeling that mere words wouldn’t convey what I was seeing, and I wanted to show you all the everyday beauty that I live in the fall. So without further ado, my weekend, in pictures:

Whoops, scroll down. While it’s the top entry, the pics are too big to fit around my sidebar. Classy, no?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

No, we didn’t shoot the bear, since it was a sow with two cubs. Besides being illegal, that’s what produces more bears to hunt next year. We just made sure she was good and high in the tree and then pulled the dogs off and walked back out. Exhausting weekend, but very, very satisfying. I’ll be back in two weeks.

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Oh, and I got back into town kind of late Sunday night, cranky and tired. And I sat down at the computer while I was messing with the pictures and found all of those nice comments you guys left about the job interview. Thank you so much, you really completed a fantastic weekend! 

Well, that went pretty well, all things considered.

I went in there expecting to dazzle them, and I may have; I don’t quite know. I don’t know why I expected to be the only candidate; maybe because the position’s been open for months? But they said that they were interviewing ten people this round. That kind of makes me wonder; did I squeak my application in just in time, or did they look at my resume and think “ringer?” I’d gone in assuming the second, but now I don’t know. My confidence may have come from having held a similar position in my agency for so long; I was looking at my interviewers more as peers than superiors.

In any case, I think I did fine. I was confident and jumped right into answering questions, and I know my shit within the realm of my previous experience. The only question that threw me (and I totally should have known better as it’s a standard interview trick question) was, “What is the worst mistake you’ve made in a job?” That one caught me completely off guard, and they smiled and acknowledged that it’s a trick question, and then waited for me to answer it anyway. I really haven’t made any huge mistakes in any job I’ve been in, so I didn’t know what to say. I’ve never blown up a carbon vessel or rolled a backhoe. I’ve never pushed the wrong button and shut the plant down for two days. I’ve never been fired or even had a bad review. I finally came out with something along the lines of identifying more with the working crew than management and therefore annoying management, which is true but not particularly evil.

I’ve met two of the three interviewers, including the department head, and I knew that they knew the basics of my current job, so I could reference that in my answers. I think I had some pretty good questions of my own when it came time for that; no interviewer wants a candidate that sits there at that point as if they either know everything there is to know about the position or is just too dumb to ask. Sadly, one of the answers was that I would have to shut the business down or take it out of the county, but for a little job security, I can do that.

I felt good, but I won’t know more until next week some time. Oh, and they did mention that it’s a new position, basically one that’s going to get the bottom of the barrel for work, but that’s fine. I can do my time learning new stuff. They know that my strengths are with the water department. I managed to keep from dashing out of there when it was over; in fact, I was comfortable enough to tell them the story of how I’d found the posting and gaped open-mouthed at it as I read the requirements and realized that here was something that combined everything that I’d ever done. I told the boss that I would like to work with him and he said that he hoped I still felt that way in a year.

And besides, I looked hot. I stopped by the office to have Marv take a picture so y’all could see my fabulous new interview suit and he could barely keep his tongue off the ground.

 

 

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Don’t look for me sooner than Monday, and if the weather is really good, I may stay up in the hills through most of the day. I’m going hunting but I don’t know where yet. I’d like to go with Eric; the weather gods smiled upon both hunters and loggers yesterday, giving hunting loggers the weekend off due to squishy roads. He’s got some work to do on the truck in the morning and then I may go with him and his dad.

If not Eric, then Dennis, who wants to go but doesn’t feel like dragging his trailer up there. The bear hunters are going to be looking for me anyway, since I told them two weeks ago that I’d be there, but Dennis knows that I may have alternate plans. If I don’t go there, he’ll day-hunt; if I do, he’ll stay with me. The hunting looks good in either zone right now. There’s snow at 6,000 feet! (I’m bringing the chains.) Woohoo!

So, no job interview yesterday. They called me late morning-ish to reschedule to Thursday. No problem, but I was just a little privately irked. Had I known that I didn’t have to print resumes and get my shit together on Sunday, I wouldn’t have wasted a rainy day at home. I’d have been up hunting, where I belong.

But in this land of small coincidences in which I live, I now have two more names to drop and some more insight. It’s a long story, involving my day job and some poor people possibly getting evicted until their slumlord gets their house up to code. The County would never have noticed their horribly-wired firetrap with the gooshy septic system had we not called them out to approve of our new electrical construction. Which is to support the new well we’re going to install to get these people off of the County water supply. Which is at the County’s request (different department. These people do not speak to each other.)

But while I was standing around chatting up the building inspector, she mentioned that it was Environmental Health coming out. Ah-ha! The very people with whom I’m interviewing on Thursday. She thought that was very interesting, and had some good insights for me about who to talk to and who to reference. And also some tips on moving to her department, if I was so inclined, the next time they had an opening.

Once the Environmental Health lady came out and did her inspection, the Building Department lady introduced me as an interviewee, rather than in the role I’d been working in. She had even more insight for me, gave me some interview-type questions to think about, and had some very interesting suggestions about possible positions that they would like me to fill. Since I have my Hazardous Waste certification, she said I was golden; they’re always looking for someone to do that job. That wouldn’t be my first choice of careers, getting suited up and wearing a respirator to clean out old meth labs; wouldn’t even be my thirty-seventh choice really. So I quickly pointed out to her that what I really like is water, and I have all sorts of certifications in that. She got really enthusiastic at that point, telling me that the main water guy might not have the budget for me but might be thinking about getting out of it himself. Oh-ho! I’ll keep that in mind!

I called her back this afternoon to give her an address, and she said that she was sure that I’d fit right in and wished me luck. Both of them said that they’d like to work with me, although I might not want to use one as a reference as she has a reputation for being somewhat of a cowboy in the field. Perfect; my kind of woman. If nothing else, I could see being friends with both of these women, and how often do I run into that? Not very, that’s how often.

So, wish me luck for Thursday now. I have a feeling that I’m going to completely smoke that interview, and the hardest part will be negotiating salary and start dates. High on the one and late on the other. We’ll see!

Mike called me up a couple of days ago to let me in on a surprise going-away party for our friend Big Jeff. I suspect that he’d forgotten about me, because I think he’d been planning it for a few weeks, but whatever. I called up some of our friends that he wouldn’t have known, and last night Jeff thought he was coming down to do a DJ job for Mike’s mom.

Nope, it was a surprise! He was pretty well surprised too, although he recognized cars once he turned the corner. But hey, a surprise a minute or two off is still a good thing. We had a good selection of his friends there: our old crowd (all four of us who started the group,) some people from work, softball teammates, most of his replacement DJs, and the more modern drinking crowd. I knew more people than I had thought I would, and it was a good time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My original three amigos, JJ, Jeff, and Dennis

 

 

Jeff’s getting pretty nervous about going to Iraq; can’t blame him there. We expect him to come home in one piece around May. I was going to run the water business while he was gone, but it seems that I have a job interview with the County tomorrow. If I get that job, it will be a huge conflict of interest to be the water operator for a County system at the same time, so he’s going to have to get the replacement trained. If I can get them to hold off on hiring me until he gets back, that would be ideal. I don’t really expect that to happen though.

I’d planned to run up to the mountains today, and hardly drank at all. But I stayed later than I’d originally intended, and with an interview tomorrow, I figured that it might be smart to get more than three hours of sleep today. I can get the house cleaned and print up some extra resumes and all of that. Good thing I bought that suit ahead of time, and good thing it fits.

Things are changing all around.