The Agrinautica

May 5th, 2013, California – "This is not a game of survivor, no one is getting 'voted off the island,' we hope for a fun, casual week."
   I’ve barely been back in the States for 24 hours but now I’m up in Chico, California, for that job interview. For four days five of us candidates for two positions will be up here working with the existing staff, who will determine which two get the positions. I understand they don’t want us to look at it like some survivor gameshow, but, well the set up is the same.
   Everyone’s great and we have a lot of fun. We tour the organization’s local offices and are told about what the job entails and how the organization works. The job would be traveling around testing beehives for diseases. We spend a day out in the field with beehives going through them doing the kind of testing we would be doing – visual inspections of frames for number of bees and signs of disease; also tests where a section of the brood (developing larvae) is killed with liquid nitrogen and a week later it is re-evaluated to see how many of the dead brood the bees have detected and cleaned out (“hygenic behavior”). One of the candidates has a bad reaction to bee stings and has to leave the field early. The staff have no critiques on any of my techniques. I think I’m doing very well, though at least two of the other candidates I feel are very strong contenders so it’s not in the bag.

   I had initially been told they’d make a decision within a week, so afterwards I visit friends up and down California before returning to my parents’ house in Orange County. If I don’t get the job the plan is to return to my job in Australia.

May 17th – They haven’t made a decision yet. I have emails asking about projects in Nigeria and Kenya, and a potential beekeeping job in France, but all I can do is wait.

May 31st – after three weeks I finally learn I didn’t get the job. In fact eventually I learn that all four other candidates were offered jobs with the organization, leading me to ever after wonder what terrible thing I had done to curse my candidacy. Someone in the organization later says she thought maybe they didn’t think that I would stay. I think I would have, but I suppose we’ll never know. What I do know is over half the people they had in that position did leave within the next year.

   At this point the potential projects in Africa are no longer on the table, nor is the job in France. I call my boss in Australia, but he’s found a replacement.

   So three weeks later I fly to Turkey to spend more time with Deniz.

   Recounting this event is inherently snarky I think, but I think it's important to include because the deep feeling of "what is professionally wrong with me??" over being the only one not hired in this circumstance got me down for literal years and years. The first person they hired was the guy who couldn't complete a day of work during our assessment, WTF??
   The one other possible explanation I encountered was that I was talking to another extremely well qualified beekeeping professional (with a PhD) and he had said he had been in discussions to work for them but felt they'd dropped him over his expressing his views that "the bees are disappearing" was a misleading and untrue statement -- I had also publicly said the same thing (you'll notice it's now 11 years since they were saying that and the bees have not, in fact, disappeared), and the principal body keeping that belief alive is... this organization. Obviously their funding and such kind of depends on it and they're good at releasing true but misleading news releases stoking the idea.

   Hours are funny things. By which I mean, the hours you are "clocked in."

   Today my assistant and I were driving to a bee site and diverted just a little out of our way to the Moriac Store for lunch. In such a case I consider myself "clocked out" for lunch starting the minute I go off course for my lunch spot, but it occurred there is nothing inherently different for my assistant between sitting in the passenger seat on the way to the bee yard and sitting in the passenger seat on the way to lunch. I reckon my lunch break began when I diverted off course and hers began when we got there?

   When you drive to work you're obviously not paid, but when you get there you're paid for time in transit to whereever you're working right? I used to work for a guy where, we were all staying on the home farm but would drive nearly an hour every morning to the bee sites where we were working. Also of note, we definitely _would_ be working before we departed on said trip, just ten minutes or so loading the truck up but its still work. I initially started my hours when I started work helping load the truck ... but then a week later when he looked at my time card he said no I should start my hours when we arrive there. An hour there, an hour back, two hours a day where I sure am not at my leisure in any form. I quit shortly due to this and many other problems (he wanted me to pay $100 a week to sleep on the porch!)

   The other day I had to move some bees at a bee site about half an hour west of my house, which is half an hour west of work. After moving the bees I arrived back at my own place at 10pm and called it a day. But the next morning I still had to complete the return leg back to work, where the work truck lives, which I reasoned meant that in THIS case I was actually justified in "clocking in" the moment I got in the truck in my driveway. (Which for practical purposes meant instead of leaving at 7:30 to arrive at eight I felt justified in lollygagging about until 8 and THEN getting in the truck and heading off to work)

   And of course, you don't clock out when you run to the bathroom, so I've always made sure to only use the bathroom when I'm NOT on my lunch break, why waste valuable time!

   And I've never been sure if I should be considered on the clock while tallying up my hours. Which is a bit recursive, but mainly its more convenient to do it while at work than some other time on my own time. But today I was putting my assistant's hours into an excel spreadsheet to send off to accounting and it occurred to me that I'm definitely on the clock while tallying someone ELSE's hours so clearly we should all just do eachother's hours. ;)

   Anyone else have any interesting thoughts on the metaphysics of hours?



Vaguely Related Picture of the Day

And here is the aforementioned Elyse, my assistant, inspecting a hive today like a boss!

Day 2 - Friday, August 28th - As often the case things were a bit slow getting started. This first day it rained much of the day, though I don't think that effected much. Some of the members of the beekeeping class assembled briefly to sort things out but it was generally understood we would start the next day. Fortunately we did go out and open some beehives to get an idea of what we'd be dealing with, which was nice because last year we didn't get around to actually opening any beehives until several days in.



   A major highlight was that evening, as we're sitting in the flashlight-light after dinner, my phone rang, my phone from home. It was a (530) area code, which is the Davis (Nor Cal) area where I went to school. I sometimes get wrong number calls from that area code since my phone is also still (530). Anyway I almost didn't answer it, thinking it was likely another wrong number and would cost me over a dollar a minute, but decided "who was that" would bother me too much if I didn't pick it up.
   As it turns out it was UC Davis itself. I had applied for a job as the head beekeeper basically, managing the beehives belonging to the honeybee research lab there. They were calling me back for an interview!!!
   "So let's see, you're about seven hours south of here aren't you" she said, referring to where I live in California.
   "hahaha oh no I'm about 6,000 miles away at the present moment -- I'm in the middle of Guinea." Anyway, reception wasn't great, there was a lot of "what was that again?" so it was agreed that a phone interview probably wouldn't work where I was, but she said they could wait until I get back for an interview. I tried to say I'd drove up when I got back but I don't think that got through, reception was really bad.
   Anyway, this development made me really excited.



Day 3 - Saturday, August 29th - I never set an alarm clock the whole time I was there, relying on roosters crowing and voices outside reaching a certain level. Typically around 4am the rain would pour down with a roar (see also: aluminum roof), around 5am the first call to prayer would warble out through the darkness. I always love to hear the meuzzen, though I wouldn't savor the idea of having to get out of bed and pray every morning at 5. Sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 I'd get out of bed and have breakfast of a piece of fresh baguette. They tried to ply me with butter, mayonaise, or honey but I liked to just tear off as much of the baguette as I wanted and sit on the veranda eating it with no further adieu. At first I tried to drink the accompanying nescafe but after a few days I realized I was barely drinking any of it and switched to tea. At some point Kamera (the driver) would turn on the land cruiser to warm up the engine and I'd jump up to go plug my phone in to the car charger, like a chicken seeing chicken feed being tossed out. If the car was at all dirty Kamera would also start cleaning it at this time, truly he takes his charge of the vehicle seriously.
   Finally at, I really don't know what time, about an hour and a half later maybe, we would begin every day when a critical mass of people had arrived, the African way of doing things. (:
   A portable generator had been acquired and positioned just outside out building and it would be turned on at this time, and as always people would flock to the power plugs like pigeons on bread crumbs to charge their phones.



   That evening there was an important soccer match being televised between two European teams, which Kamera in particular wanted to watch, so in the evening Damba, Kamera & I went to the karafou (crossroads), where for a few thousand francs a person (ie less than a dollar) we were admitted into a little room that I guess would be the Doumba cinema -- it had benches set up so we could all watch this small TV that was affixed to the wall and had the game on (powered by a generator just outside). There were at least a dozen men in there to watch the game. I wasn't so into the game, even soccer (the One True Team Sport) I can't really get into unless it's the world cup (and national honor is therefore at stake), but it was an interesting cultural experience watching it in this rudimentary fashion.



Much Later - Sept 14th - Despite the initial assurance they'd wait to interview me for the bee lab job, which I confirmed later in the week by email, and had then emailed them again a few days before my return to my states expressing my eagerness to come up there to interview ... upon my arrival in the states I received an email saying they had filled the position. Broke my little heart, as the job would have been absolutely perfect. ):

   So this guy Greg I work with... I don't really mind that he's crotchety and sometimes speaks to me quite rudely and disrespectfully, I don't even mind terribly that he thinks he's my boss when he's not --I have a pretty thick skin-- but what is driving me absolutely insane is that he has many extremely erroneous ideas about proper beekeeping that he absolutely insists we adhere to (because he knows better because he's been beekeeping for "fifty years".

   During swarming season every hive should be checked at least once every sixteen days to look for and destroy any queen cells they are making in preparation to swarm ... he refuses to do this and when he's around (which fortunately isn't always -- I didn't see him at all last week, but he's been haunting me all day every day so far this week) he keeps us busy with dumb stuff so I can't get the real work (such as checking on swarm cells) done. He continued to insist its "not swarming season" even after we caught two swarms in one day!
   Two weeks ago he declared we were going to start pulling honey. "uh okay" I thought, I hadn't seen anything that was ready to be pulled out of the hives but surely he'd find that out himself right? NO! I was horrified to find he just merrily proceeded (with me unhappily in tow) to pull out half full and less than half full frames of honey out of hive after hive. I reminded him that honey is not complete, and the water content is too high, until it is capped, but he brushed that off ("that's only if there's moisture in the air lad!") and I noted that the honey isn't going anywhere, and if we waited until it was full we'd spend the same amount of time harvesting it for twice as much product, but that similarly had no effect on him. I even tried "Trevor said X" to which he'd respond "Well Trevor's wrong." And he's far far too headstrong to just tell him "no we're not doing that" (read on for tales of what ensues!)
   So I talked to Trevor, the farm owner and our boss, and Trevor talked to Greg (this is the next morning), and told him not to extract (technically, Trevor told me it was my call, but I don't know what he told Greg), so instead Greg insisted we spend the next two days throwing supers (additional hive boxes) on top of hives. I'm .... not sure why we did this. That's something you do if the honey is coming in faster than you have time to go take it off, or some hives are about full up but not others and you want to do them all at once ... AND in America we put the new box on top of the stack, so they finish the one they were working on but move up. In Australia they lift up the old box (which presumably is full or will be by the time they have time to take it off) and put the new box under it, and the bees start on the new box before finishing off the old box. Greg insisted that, of course, I was an idiot and did it wrong with the boxes I did the American way, and that all the boxes be done the Australian way. This I just chalked up to maybe being an Australian thing but later I was talking to Trevor (who does know a fair thing or two about bees) and Trevor was like "why'd you guys do that? now they're really not going to finish that half finished honey in the top box for a long time" ("yes!")...
   So anyway, basically, Trevor told him not to do any more extracting so Greg turned around and wasted several more days of my life on completely counterproductive supering. Then he disappeared for a week because he seems to hate inspecting hives and there was nothing else useless to do, so I was able to catch up somewhat on the inspections. There were still some more to do THIS week.... but come Monday morning I find out that Greg is rip roaring to go with more extractions.
   ALSO on the subject of extractions, the times I've worked in the extracting shed with Greg we've turned out a hive every ten minutes (and a dismal 7 liters per hive) -- the time I worked in the extracting shed myself I turned out a hive every 12 minutes (and neglected to note the volume but I reckon it was at least twice as much per hive since I only pulled frames that were actually full). Surely you don't need to be an MBA to see that if twice as many man hours are worked for only a 20% increase in productivity.... someone's time is being god damn wasted. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
   Greg insists that all extracting be done the same day it's pulled out of the hives (or else "it'll get cold" bloody bullshit DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE ARE???) so we were both in the extracting shed until 11pm yesterday and the day before (when, again, one of us could have not been there and productivity would have been very marginally reduced). AND, when the chain uncapper inevitably fails to uncap some of a frame, you use a "scratcher" to quickly scratch off the cappings -- but he insists it only be used to scoop under the caps to lift them off. He says "its like taking the lid off a jar!" but see the thing is, nicking the tops of the caps with the scratcher is like using a can opener to open a can whereas scooping under the caps with metal prongs that are a siginificant portion of the width of the entire cell is more akin to trying to open a can by hacking it in half with an axe. Siginificant damage is done to the combs, and it takes much much longer. He also insists on loading the extractor (a centrifuge) with the tops of the frames at the center. We agreed that cells are angled slightly upward, but where we disagreed when it came to an argument was that he insisted (as usual, quite rudely, calling me an idiot and saying I wouldn't understand because of something-no-doubt-very-derisive-I-couldn't-make-out) the centrifical force pulls things inward. Obviously I could have demonstrated how centrifical force works but at that point I just dropped it because it was getting far too unprofessional and stupid for me.

   So the other day he was merrily packing away half full frames of honey and I was kind of feeling irresponsible for not standing up to him -- after all Trevor has been quite clear that I have his permission to insist things be done right. So that day when we got to the extracting shed I tried to put my foot down on both the scratcher and extractor issues ... and on the scratcher issue it came down to him saying "just do it as I say, alright?" and me saying "well. No. Trevor has given me clear instructions to do as I see fit." To which he responded "Well I'm going to have to talk to Trevor then" (in a "I'm going to have you fired" kind of way. And on that subject I've talked to Trevor about having Greg fired but we can't because he's the trustee of some land Trevor wants to buy so we can't completely blow him off) ... and then he didn't let go of the scratcher for a long time.
   Now, who should walk in a few hours later but Trevor himself. And what should Trevor happen to say to me, as I'm painstakingly misusing the scratcher in the manner Greg thinks it should? Trevor says "Kris why don't you use the scratcher the right way??" to which I responded with a grin "I'd love to Trevor!" and what happens next but Greg about flies across the room and bellows at me "NO! I TOLD you not to do that! If I see you doing that again I'll have you replaced with a Vietnamese person who by the way would be much faster at that then you!" And there followed another argument in which Trevor and I together tried to get Greg to relent but he wouldn't. At least I feel a lot less bad about not being able to turn him around when I see that even Trevor can't. Trevor then engaged Greg in a more thorough debate about the nature of centrifical force, this time there WERE physical demonstrations (and Trevor saying "now Greg, I called up the manufacturer of this bloody thing, and HE said the tops go outward!). Greg was very obstinant even in the face of mounting demonstrative evidence but I was shocked to find he actually DID give in and start loading the extractor the correct way

   To save us all from more unnecessary extracting, Trevor has instructed me to inform Greg no new drum to put the honey in is coming tomorrow, though really it probably is. I was hoping Greg would disappear without extracting to do (which he seems to strangely love.) but looks like Greg is rip roaring to help me install new queen bees tomorrow (or as he'd probably think of it, have me help him install new queens).

   This afternoon Trevor called me to say the queens were in and I should pick them up (and that there was no honey drum), and Trevor and I agreed I'd proceed to the "Moorepark" farm to install them. I relay this to Greg, who's there with me at the extracting shed hoping for a honey drum, and Greg vetoes Moorepark and says we'll go to "606" (another property in the opposite direction) to install the queens. I forget what his reasoning was but as usual he was entirely unimpressed that his boss had just told us to go somewhere else.
   So I get the queens and catch up to Greg, who has already killed three queens to replace them and is working on a fourth. He thrusts a frame at me with a queen on it and instructs me to kill her so we can replace her. Now I'm really not entirely confident that replacing these queens will help anything, but there was nothing for it short of calling into question (or making it apparent that I call into question) the entirely of Greg's "beekeeping" skills, so I crushed her between my fingers and tossed her into the shrubs.
   "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?? ARE YOU AN IDIOT???"
   "Uh, I killed the queen and tossed her away from the hive... what part of that do you object to"
   "NO!! You put her back in the hive so the bees know she's dead and accept the new one"
   "...uh, what. Greg, there's no 'dead queen bee pheromone,' a dead queen bee smells like any other bee and they still smell HER so they don't think she'd dead. It's not like bees see her dead and go tell eachother"
   "Well how do you explain swarming with your queen smell theory?" -Greg
   "uh, what??" I was seriously at a loss as to how to respond to that because it's not really related.
   But seriously, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. They... see and/or smell the dead queen and therefore look for a new queen? That's ass backwards.


   So here's the question of the moment. Tomorrow I'll apparently be hanging out with Greg again and this requeening situation is likely come up again. I am strongly inclined to once again make a stand and come hell or high water refuse to place any dead queen bees back in any hives. As a professional beekeeper I know with certainly that it is contrary to all accepted industry practices and will lead to the bees thinking they still have their old queen and thus not accepting the new queen.
   I anticipate Greg having an absolute kiniption if I refuse to do it his way, which may not be solved until one of us actually walks off the field, but on this matter Greg is very very wrong, and our boss has on a number of occasions made it clear he wants me to steer us in the direction of industry best management practices and call Greg on his bullshit -- though causing ole Greg to have a meltdown seems also not entirely desireable.

   Thoughts, advice?


And here's an unrelated picture of an upside-down jellyfish, which would probably be a more pleasant work companion.

   So this old guy Greg I work with. I've given basic descriptions of him several times so I'll spare you more than "old crochety set-in-his-ways beekeeper."

   At the end of the day Friday he said nothing about what we were going to do on Monday, so I assumed he'd get in touch with me if he wanted to meet me somewhere. Anyway, and again, he's not my boss, so I'm not going to hunt down his validation before I start my day if I haven't heard otherwise.
   And talking to Trevor (the farm owner) on Saturday, we agreed that Greg was pulling too many half-full frames of honey off and really we ought to be supering (adding additional boxes onto) the hives rather than trying to extract half full frames. Trevor said when he talked to Greg he'd tell him not to come in this week since we're not doing the extracting.

   And so I went about my day on Monday without any word from Greg and that was fine by me.
   BUT. It turns out he was there. He... GET THIS ... assumed I'd assume we were going to meet at Bucca to continue extracting there and so he went there and waited there FOR THREE HOURS, and then, AND THEN my dear reader, he proceeded to the honey extracting shed and WAITED THERE FOR THREE MORE HOURS. Keep in mind the extracting shed is a five minute drive from the home farm, where he could have been guaranteed of finding someone who knew where I was (that and I think if you rub a lamp or something Trevor will appear).
   IS your mind blown as much as mine was when I heard how he spent his day? Trevor called me this morning at 6:20 and briefly related it. Apparently his reaction when Greg told him was "There's no way you're that stupid???"

   But anyway, the call at 6:20 was to inform me that Greg was expecting to meet me at Bucca at 0700 to super or extract.. or something. Trevor basically left it up to my discretion. Which because Greg is an overbearing ass and I don't have the heart to boss around a guy who's like three times my age (okay maybe not quite), means that its still probably going to be whatever Greg thinks we should do.
   And keep in mind Bucca is like 30 ks away on small country roads and I still had to load up the truck. So I got to Bucca at 0800 and, as expected, Greg was PISSY.
   So my day was filled with fun interactions like:
Greg: do you know where the queen in that hive is?
Me: No, that's why I'm going through it (the hive was missing the "queen excluder which would ordinarily keep her in the bottom box)
Greg: She's going to be in the top box, always the top box (which I had placed on the ground while going through the bottom box)
Me: I've found 3 out of 3 queens in a row in bottom boxes
Greg: She might end up on the ground too you know
Me: Then I'll see her on the ground
Greg: She'll have a circular cluster of bees around her
Me: Yes. I know.
Greg: Well you just said you didn't know. Do you know or don't you???
Me: What did I say I didn't know?
Greg: Where the queen is.
Me: I don't know which BOX she's in.
(She turned out to indeed be in the bottom box. I don't know where he's getting this "always the top box" thing)

   Or my favourite interaction of the day:
[I begin to open a hive on the trailer we did half of on Friday]
Greg: "Are you on drugs?? We already did that hive on Friday!"
Me: "I don't remember which end we started on"
Greg: "Well isn't it written in your little book" (Trevor has gotten on Greg's case about not taking any notes, now there's a notepad of notes, to which he's disparagingly referring)
Me: "You were holding the notebook all day, it doesn't say anything about what was done." (PWN)

   And anyway, there were lots more unnecessary pissy and caustic comments from ole Greg all day. Anything I did which wasn't exactly how he thinks it should be done was stupid and crazy, apparently. Meanwhile, might I note, that somehow, despite being a beekeeper for "50 years" he doesn't know to load an extractor (centrifuge) with the tops of frames facing outward (thus pulling the honey "up" and out -- he insists on loading them the opposite way, resulting in longer extraction times and more exploded frames), nor some other things which to me seem fairly basic.

   Fortunately Trevor knows enough about bees to already be aware of the incorrectness of Gregs opinions on extractor loading and other things. And I guess when he talked to Trevor after the day I "didn't show up" he tried to claim I didn't entirely know what _I_ was doing, to which Trevor apparently responded "I don't know Greg I think he's doing everything exactly the way it ought to be done" or something similarly entirely positive.
   And I feel less bad about not having the chutzpah to put Greg in his place because Trevor basically said that he himself had been unable to completely corral Greg and tell him to just absent himself for a week.
   And here's the real unfortunate part. I mentioned that, you know, at this point I'd rather just not work with Greg, he gets in the way with his incorrect ways of doing things and on days like this is quite unpleasant to work with. To which Trevor ruefully admitted that here's the thing -- Greg is the trustee of the estate the Bucca farms belong to, and we've already invested a lot of money into the farms there under the assumption we'll buy it when that becomes possible ... so we can't just completely blow Greg off and/or fire him

   So I might have an awesome boss but it looks like I might also have a relatively permanent thorn in my side.


   Also I found out that there was another relatively recent former beekeeper -- "the kiwi," whom I've only ever heard the vaguest references to thus far -- who apparently only lasted two days or so. He's the one who almost caused me not to take this job because he had reported into the bee grapevine that Trevor was "an asshole," and I heard that through the pipeline when I was still looking for a job (and thus ended up working for that real asshole WHO STILL HASN'T PAID ME...) . So I'm very curious to hear Trevor's side of THAT story.


   And in conclusion, today sucked. Now here's an unre--- well actually somewhat related picture!

   Okay this got out of order for a moment. It should go Chapter 2: On A Farm, followed by Intermission II, and then Welcome to the Bundaberg Gulag! which takes place Tuesday of last week.

   At this moment it is Sunday evening, which means I'm shockingly up-to-date!


Chapter 3: Almost Tropical

   Wednesday morning at 06:30 Paul, one of the two (?) young indian gentlemen working on the farm, picked me up from the hostel in Bundaberg. He took me to the house I'd be staying at, which I heretofore hadn't seen.
   I learned it was in a little "town" (village? suburb? hamlet? Suburban hamlet?) called Ankh-Morpork Moorpark. about fifteen minutes from the "home farm." And what's more, I was only now told that I'd be living about 150 yards from the beach!! It's literally right around the corner!
   I'd be sharing the downstairs of this small house with the other Indian fellow, Sam. Aaand... I was shocked by the abject squalor of the place. Everything was filthy, there were beer bottles everywhere, the entire kitchen counter was covered in dirty dishes... it was even worse than any dorm room I'd seen in college I think!
   Both the Indian fellows I believe are students at a local agricultural college? Or were? And were and/or are "sponsored" by Trevor (the farm owner)...? They seem to do various projects around the farm, for example Sam's been setting up some irrigation pipes and I think Paul has been doing insecticide spraying?


(the nearby beach as seen at 5am on Thursday morning)

   Next it was time to meet the bees and their interim beekeeper! Paul and I proceeded to the home farm, where Trevor gave me a smoker and other necessary beekeeping equipment, and then Paul drove me to the "Bucca" fields ... which are about 30 kms away!

   Greg arrived there around the same time as us (it was around 0900 by now, not sure where all the time had gone). Now, the farms had formerly had a beekeeper, a Turkish fellow Trevor said was pretty good ... but then one day he was trying to pull on something with a pair of pliers... and whatever it was suddenly came loose... and his pliers met his face at high velocity ... and he ended up with a pliers handle through his eyeball d: Soooo he was out for awhile, and then when he finally did come back I guess it turns out he had brain damage, because he did some things which just didn't make sense.
   So then a little later Greg comes along, who's a retired beekeeper (with a bushy white beard!), and kind of crochety and set in his ways, which I think causes him to butt heads with Trevor a lot. For example he insists that "you should only ever work bees between 9 and 3! It's too cold for them otherwise!" (did I mention we're practically in the tropics (I think we're 85 nautical miles south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the official southern edge of "the tropics"), and he consequently only works from 9-3. I've never heard of such luxurious hours! I, on the other hand, work 0700 to 1700, and would start at 0600 if it meant I could get off at 1600 (but as I do not at this time believe it would, I'm not going to voluntarily work an 11 hour day).
   At first I feared he was going to be the classic crotchety nothing-you-do-is-right beekeeper and make my life a hell, but he turned out to be pretty alright. Come 15:00 on the first day though he departed, leaving his smoker behind, so I naturally put it on my truck ute when I left. The next morning he got there before I did and found his smoker missing, which got him a bit bent out of shape and he was kind of bristley for an hour or so before the soothing sting of bees calmed him down.
   He also, I would find, has a tendency not to try very hard to solve simple problems. Twice we ran out of things and he said "oh, well, Trevor didn't provide us enough! Trevor never provides us with enough. I guess we'll continue that when he does" ... whereas I simply ::gasp:: called Trevor and in the one case there were more queen excluders at the home farm for me to pick up and in the other he said he'd order more of the missing material.
   And in a bit of a baffling bit of behaviour, while we were going through one trailer of beehives, many had queen cages in them (the little cages used to introduce queen bees that have been received from the breeders into the hives), and he said to me "Trevor requeened these, don't go through the hives that have queen cages, but go through the ones that don't" ... as if Trevor would have magically known which hives needed new queens without going through them -- to my logic he either inspected them all or... is psychic. And on any account, hives with recently introduced queens still warrant inspection because the queen doesn't always take.
   So I can understand why Trevor isn't entirely pleased with Greg, and I get along with Greg alright and he does have some pretty good bee wisdom in many areas (he's been a beek for, I think he said "50 years"), but he's not the best for the job.
   And technically, Greg isn't in charge of me. In fact, I have express orders from Trevor to call Greg on any "bullshit" and insist we do things how I think is right (or as Trevor said, "yeah he tried the 'I've been doing this fifty years" shit on me too -- and I told him "bullshit -- you don't have any hives any more, so obviously what you were doing didn't work."). But in the interest in getting along alright with this obviously headstrong and salty old beek I'm going to go the most diplomatic route.



   And on the subject of Trevor, I had been filled with a bit of trepidation about this whole job because I had heard through the beekeeper grapevine awhile ago from "someone who had worked for him" that Trevor was "an asshole." So far, my initial description of him, as having the personality and appearance of famed irrepressible Aussie Steve Erwin still fits. He seems thoroughly friendly and laid back. He doesn't micromanage me at all, and seems to have great faith that I will do what is best. I'm not used to being treated this well!
   In addition to the pretty good pay, he's also providing me this accomodation for free, as well as the use of one of the 4wd landcruiser pickup trucks (utes).. so altogether I think the compensation package is pretty dang good.

   Sam, my housemate, has cleaned up his act a bit I think. I've noticed he's cleaned up a few areas and actually did all the dishes he'd heaped up the other day. As of this moment there are new dirty dishes piled over there but hey. I'm a bit concerned he may be an alcoholic and/or liable to drunk-drive himself to death though. The other day he had at least three beers and then hopped in his ute to drive way out to the Bucca farm at 21:30 to pick up Paul (who had JUST finished spraying over there?).


§2: Return to Bundaberg!
   Saturday was just another workday. I called Trevor just after lunch though because I had just read the label on the pesticide he wants me to use to kill hive beetles, and it says it also kills bees. He said he thinks it will be okay though because the bees can't walk through it where its being placed (I'm still highly skeptical), but what's more, I'm really glad I called him, because he happened to say "hey feel free to knock off early today when you finish that" ... so I was out of there at 15:00, after a mere 8 hours of work! ...and I think I might have left my hive tool there in my glee to escape, which is a serious problem and I'll have to head over there bright and early tomorrow and try to find it...
   As fast as I could get home and get packed and changed I did so and was off to the teeming metropolis of Bundaberg! ...which is actually not even as far from the home farm as the Bucca farm is.
   And though at only 20 km away or so obviously I didn't need to stay there overnight in one of the many bad-review-receiving hostels, After not really seeing anyone other than Trevor, Greg, and Sam all week I craved a greater variety of company.
   So I checked in to the best reviewed hostel in town, the Grand Hotel Hostel, or Grand Hostel, or something like that (7.8 out of 10 stars on hostelz.com), and you know, it wasn't half bad! I had a nice little room with only two bunks in it (or rather one bunk, two beds), of which I was the only occupant. One door from the room opened out to the hall, and opposite it another door opened up to the balcony that wraps around the hostel. Everything was just so much cleaner and more respectable looking than the Cellblock had been. My only complaint is that the dining tables were all gross and covered with sticky bits of food every time I went in there. That and unfortunately the residents didn't really seem to be hanging out much, so I didn't end up meeting anyone. In contrast, the Cellblock, for all its many faults, at least the residents were always hanging out and talkative.
   Went out to the bars and clubs that evening. Its a funny little town because its small and agricultural and sleepy, but then its crawling with backpackers from all over, who come out of the woodwork on Sat night to party.

   Sunday was unfortunately dreary, drizzley and cold all day. Just my luck the one day this week to be like that would be my day off! I wouldn't have minded having my sweatshirt with me even, in the middle of the day. And isn't it supposed to be practically summer?? And Practically the tropics! d:
   For dinner Sat I had had a 300g rump steak for $10 or so. Roaming around for lunch on Sunday I came across a 300g rump steak for $6 that was just too good to pass up! And it really was a very good rump steak. But, throughout Australia, I've been noticing, a decent burger or sandwich, or anytihng decent that will fill you up, is typically going to run $13-$17... but you can often find a 200 - 300 gram rump steak special somewhere for $10 or so. "rump steak" is the cheapest cut, but it's still pretty decent, imo. But I'm practically getting tired of steak! Australia!
   For example in Sydney, the Irish pub across from my hostel had an Irish stew on the menu I often gazed at longingly, for $17 or so, but I could never justify ordering it when they had a $10 rump steak deal. Better cuts of steak run the $20-$30 range, which I think is what they'd go for in the States anyway? Whcih means they're proportionatly MUCH cheaper here, since other food that would be $8 in the states is $17 here.

   Did various shopping in Bundaberg and returned to Angst-Moorpark around 4ish.

   Ended my weekend adventures by going on a long two hour walk down the endless beach in front of my house and back. Started out with the setting sun and ended under the stars. At the far end I had the ocean to my left and a long lagoon to my right.
   On my way out there, it just so happened that as I passed the one point where a road comes up to the beach who should be driving up at that moment but my housemate, with a beer in his hand. He asked me why I didn't just drive down to whereever I was going (being as our vehicles are 4wd and I guess you're allowed to drive on the beach). I tried to explain that I wanted to walk on the beach, specifically, but I think we were on different wavelengths.
   Seeing him driving with one hand on the wheel and bottle of beer in the other felt ominously like one of those foreshadowing scenes in a movie...
   And its presently 22:00 and he hasn't returned home. I'm a bit concerned.


   In eight and a half hours or so I'm off to begin another week of work! I'm feeling a lot better about it than I did before I started, though I'm still waiting for "the other shoe to drop."

( More pictures of the beautiful beach, and also some of "Cellblock" )

   Had my last day of work at the Bee Caves today, at least for another six months or so. About ten hours from now I pick up whirled from the airport. (:


The Other End of Hiring
   I wear a wide variety of hats at work, and today it was the Human Resources Hat. We're starting to get into the busy season so it's time to hire some assistant technicians for the bee control business (and ideally someone competent enough to be trained at beekeeping as well).

   I posted a job on craigslist the other day, intentionally vague as per Dave's instructions, for "Field Technician." Within an hour we had 40 applicants, 24 hours later we had 107.

   I sifting through these today to identify the ones worth following through with. It was interesting to be on the other side of hiring, being as, like most people, I've been on the applicant side much much more.

   Looking through the apps, there were lots and lots of electricians for some reason. Also, I always felt kind of sad to see people in the apps who were in their fifties and seemed like they were clearly qualified to be doing something that pays better and is less labour intensive.

   With so many applicants I didn't have time to give them much of a look, so had to find ways to rapidly skim through them.
   People who just attached a resume with no comment I'm not taking the time to open the document and investigate. A few people just emailed asking "I'm interested in this job how do I apply?" Uhh you just DO, dumbass. You think I have time to ask you to do the obvious?
   While the job doesn't require exquisite writing ability, the way I see it if they can't string together a few error free sentences to try to impress me, they are not someone I'd trust to do anything well.
   Had SEVERAL applications for male applicants coming from female named email addresses. This makes me picture some lardass sitting on his couch while his fed up girlfriend/wife says "I'm tired of you sitting on your ass all day I'm going to apply you to some jobs!!"
   A few had their job objective as "to use my skills as an electrician..." or "use my skills as a forklift driver..." or such. Sure write something specific that fits what you're applying to... but make sure you change it before you use that same app for somewhere else!!! Doesn't impress me very much that I know you really want to be a forklift (he seemed very qualified to drive forklifts though)
   One applicant mentioned he had several years of pest control experience, mentioned having the licenses our guys have, and even mentioned specifically that he had experience with bee calls ... needless to say we're definitely not hiring him. Yep. I asked the guys if he was one to follow up on and they all said no in unison. People who already learned somewhere else come in thinking they know how to run the place and give everyone a headache. We'd rather train our own people.

   As to who I did move to the "follow up on" pile, the magic words were "likes hard work" "totally fine with long hours" and "not afraid to get dirty." The "high score" if you will:

Labor intensive? Weekend shifts? Extended hours? This is exactly what I've been looking for! I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty and would enjoy some actual work as opposed to a desk job tucked away in some office. If what you posted was true, I'm excited!

I'm a hard worker looking for a job.

One is supposed to adjust the curves so the black on that label that I know is actually very black looks as black as it should in the picture right? I don't actually know how to do that.

   Haven't posted much because I've been working overtime for Obi-Wan this last week because our project has a deadline and I can't say no to $21.75 an hour.
   But yeah so for the last two weeks I've been working for the intellectual property firm Knobbe Marten Bears and Lizards LLC ("Knobbe" being pronounced "Kenobi," as in Obi-Wan). As usual, I was original bought on the office slave market for a week, got extended for a week, and then extended again (current end time is supposed to be next Wednesday). I can't tell you anything about what I'm working on except that I redact things (AKA delete, censor, obfuscate, etc) all day. And yes, the below is a picture of my palatial home away from home, cubicle 13-B-24. My name is "Temp 72" in some records, shortened to T-72.

   Otherwise life hasn't been completely dull. Last Saturday I went down to the Stone Brewery with Cambodia from my committee in New Orleans two weeks ago. On Monday I went out for drinks with my friend from HS Michelle (here she is in New Orleans two weeks ago (on the right)). On Wednesday evening the UCI MUN kids invited me to go to a Eurotrash party in Irvine, so I made an appearance there.

   In other news, what a week eh? Musharraf's party totally lost their election and he might get impeached now (but the good ole US of A is urging the opposition parties not to because we loove Mushie-Moosh. I'm hoping at least Chief Justice Chaundhry and the other Justices removed by Musharraf get reinstated); Castro retired from the presidency of Cuba; and Kosovo gave Serbia the finger.
   Also Obamarama is walloping Clinton in state after state, and Clinton is apparently continually trying out different vicious negative attacks to find one that sticks. I overhead someone the other day say they support Hillary because "my wife and I have always been Bill-Hillary supporters" -- which supports my sentiment of "Show me a Hillary supporter and I'll show you someone who mistakenly thinks they're voting for Bill again and is oblivious to the fact that there are major major differences."


Quote of the Day
Girl in front of me in French class turns around:
   "I'm getting Married!!"
   "How old are you?" -Me
   "17 ... but we've already been dating three years, which is longer than my parents were married so I figure we're good!" -Her
   "What do your relatives think?" -Someone else
   "Well, I'm not the niece that got pregnant BEFORE getting married, so I figure I'm good" -Her.
   "I think I agree with Kris' facial expression" - Someone else