random stuff

Life is going along, more of the same. I feel like there's not a heck of a lot to blog about. Thus, a bunch of random things:

1. A 50something year old guy named skip proposed to me yesterday on the boat. It went like this:
Driver: What's your name?
me: Jenny, what's yours? (thinking he must be a regular)
Driver: I'm Dave, and this [pointing to passenger seat] is my cousin Skip.
Skip: You've got a pretty smile. Will you marry me?
me, with a grin: Nope!
Skip: Aww, you must get proposals all the time.

2. I spent the day today working with an operator all the other operators can't stand. I can see what they're talking about, but really? It wasn't that bad. I've already decided that I'm not going to say mean things about ANY coworkers on this blog. I did find it interesting that THIS operator is the one most disliked.

3. I've worked for at least 6 weeks now, and I think today was the very first time I didn't hull out (hit the landing too hard, slamming/bumping the hull into the concrete ramp) at all. Maybe I did it once before. But I was very pleased. Today I felt like I had this. I was noticing trailers and loading the boat accordingly. I felt like I've been doing this for a long time and I knew the ropes, knew what to do, knew what I was doing. It felt...easy. Boring, even.

4. For the rest of this week and all of next, I'm scheduled for "shop days." Shop days mean, show up at the shop at 8, and do whatever they say to do. The intention for listing me as shop was so that I could get down to the BV (the new, still not open, ferry that I'll eventually work full time on) and start to play with it and learn to drive it. But they had to take apart the mainline trolley and redo the whole damn thing, so basically the boat's out of commission for the next couple days. (The mainline trolley, btw, is the dohickey up at the cables above us, that attaches the boat to the electrical system, basically. The way it was built, something was rubbing on something else and it could, in essence, electrify the whole boat. Considering the boat is metal...that's not a good idea.) So anyway, I have no clue what the heck I'm going to be doing this week. Or next, really. Some of the other guys, when they've been working on the BV, have been doing real physical stuff, putting stuff together, mechanical stuff. I can do all that, but only if someone walks me through it step by step.

5. A coworker who is not one to lavish compliments, said, "One thing I like about you is that if you don't understand something, you'll ask 10 questions before you touch anything." YES. I'm utterly willing to learn how to do anything (um, hello, I'm driving a ferry!), but I'm not willing to just wing it myself if I'm clueless. Asking questions means, to me at least, that I'll do it better the first time.

6. There's a really lovely park next to the east bank of the ferry landing on the WL. Have you been to Willamette Mission State Park? GO!! It was gloriously warm not long ago, and I took my lunch break over there. I walked a half mile into the park:

Until I got to a point where you could look across an oxbow lake to where the original Willamette Mission had been located. To give you a sense of where it had been, they outlined the buildings with pipe or something. I sort of loved it:

I walked a bit further to a lovely oak grove,

where I found a picnic table to settle down on to read my book and get utterly eaten alive by mosquitos. It was a really nice break. So much nicer than driving up to Maud Williamson park, up the hill on the Yamhill side, and sitting in my car. I go up there mostly cause it's the nearest place with cell reception. It's a sweet park too. No pictures of it though.