The Agrinautica

   A Week Ago: I hung out with Chief Justice Khan of the Judicial Horde Supreme Court of the student government of Mount San Antonio College down at Laguna Beach last Sunday, because you know, us Chief Justices gotta stick together (Rehnqvist couldn't make it, said he wasn't feeling well. pff).


The 70s House
   Sometime midweek we got a call for an abandoned house in Nellie Gail (where rich people who don't feel like they need to be walled in live). Technician Ryan went out there. The rest of us were cleaning the garage I think. Then he called in for "every available technician" to come back him up, so we all piled out there.
   We arrive on scene and there are three raging colonies. Like each one of these would have been massive on its own. When we were done Ryan's truck was completely full with 10 of the five gallon buckets full of honey & comb, and there was more in the other trucks. We pull 4-500 pounds of honey out of those things altogether.
   How'd these colonies get so big? Well the house has been abandoned since the 70s. Or rather, it was owned but I think its rich owner forgot that he owned this little house. This little house had like 10 bedrooms, including one that was definitely only for the servant (it only opened to the kitchen).
   So inside the place was all 70sed out. But not just any 70s but rich people 70s. It was like something out of Austen Powers, with huge fancy completely obsolete TVs and radios, and a whole crapload of surveillance cameras that were all huge.
   Place hadn't been visited by its owner in forever. There were fish living in the pool. Squatters and pillagers had apparently already given the house a shake-down. Everything of value had been removed. Someone had hacked the lock to the master bedroom to submission. There was however one part of the house that all these years still retained its secrets -- the garage remains solidly locked. Considering the awesomeness of the rest of the house and the thoroughness with which its been scoured for things of value, the garage really piques the curiousity. There are two abandoned cars in front of the garage.
   Whats weird though is when I hear abandoned (or type it) I picture these things being all rusty and overgrown, graphitied and open to the elements. But its more like a normal house just stopped being used for thirty years. No broken windows, no graphiti. Cars looked completely fine except all tires were completely flat. Ryan drank a coca-cola he found in the refridgerator (which still reeked of food that had long since gone terribly bad since the refridgerator was no longer operating)
   Man I wish I'd taken pictures. One of us is going back on Monday to check on the bees. I hope its whomever I'm runnin around with so I can take some pictures.


Return to Wild Rivers
   So I've been meaning to go back to Wild Rivers with Alexis the Frenchman. Last two weekends I had plans that fell through on account of not being able to get ahold of anyone on the inside to get me $14 discount tickets.
   Finally I got forrest441 (Jeff Whetstone) to volunteer to get me the employee discount tickets, but more importantly, this caused me to deal with the will-call people down in Admissions. Jeff hadn't communicated the will-call to them yet but "its okay, we remember your brother" (my little brother worked as a cashier at WR).
   So me and the Frenchman show up. When we get to will-call we're still not on the will-call list. The Admissions supervisor who happened to be in the kiosk without even looking up told the 14 yr-old attendroid who was attending to us just to print us two tickets. So she printed two tickets and gave them to us and we were in... for free!

   My friend Hannah was supervising today. Or rather being a supervisor-in-training, or a "semivisor" as I like to call the position. Its the highest my WR career led me. When I met Hannah she was just a wee "ride attendant," and now she's on her way to live my supervising dreams for me.
   Shortly I encountered ultravisor Randy Jostlin (sp on that last name?), who gave Alexis and I free wristbands to the stronger wavepool where one can go boogie-boarding. What was really odd was that just as I was talking to Randy about my bee busting job, a bee landed on my hand. It was like magic or something.
   And so everything was going awesome and for once I felt like Wild Rivers was actually treating me well rather than raining weaksauce upon me. But I should have known the day was going too well, when we returned to my krismobile, my keys had disappeared!!
   Now this was quite odd since I DIDN'T lose the money or ticket stubs in my pocket. I dove to the bottem of "Blizzard Bazooka Bowls" but didn't find them down there, and Jeff (forrest441) let me swim around in the stronger wavepool with goggles to look for them but no luck.
   And I didn't recognize nearly any of the current deep guards or even some of the supervisors!! I've been gone too long. /=


Picture of the Day

Now that my flickr account is all full up I'm very reluctant to add new things.. d=

   Continuing the Emosnail Prehistory series...

   I had been in the United States for about a month when we got a Swedish exchange student in the summer of 1997 (Tony). I'd be in the United States for 13 months before I'd leave again to spend a year in Sweden. But first, I'd have freshman year (9th grade) at Mission Viejo HS.
   Back then the world was new and Alberto still dressed and acted preppy (fig. 1). Because of this lamesauce requirement that you be in a physical education class both semesters freshman year, I did cross-country & track, along with Tony and the Australian exchange student, Chris Kemp. I ran the 100 and the 200 in track (and high jump). Once after I'd finished my events and drank a liter of pepsi, the coach came up to me and said they needed another runner for the 4x400 relay. I groaned but did it. They ran frosh/soph, JV and Varsity all at the same time and I passed the varsity runner I ran against. I think coach said I ran the fastest 400 of the relay and "I think you're gonna be running 400s now!" 400s are the most painful track distance there is (along with 800), since you're running flat out for an entire lap. Fortunately I managed to avoid this fate and never again ran a 400 during a meet.
   The ladies all swooned over Tony with his Tony looks and his Swedish accent. A similar level of swooning went on over Chris Kemp. Back then I could still put on the Irish accent if I wanted to (whereas now I have no control over it), so just for kicks I kept this one cheerleader, Cheyenne (sp?), convinced I was an Irish exchange student. She ended up asking me to homecoming (well her friend did while she stood next to her and smiled politely). Unfortunately I was already going with a Brazilian exchange student.
   At my first Model UN conference I represented the United Kingdom. The first note I got passed, after my first speech, read "nice accent, wakes things up," followed later by "I hope thats not your real accent, then I'd feel embarressed." Yeah about that.
   Later on in the year a met a girl in committee named Nidia Gonzalez, who sent me a note after I spoke saying I sounded like a used car salesman. She called me like an hour after I got home from that conference and I was like "uhh... so whats new?" But then the next day she joined a cult-like group of "reborn christians" that kept her brainwashed for the next four or five years. Eventually she'd recover and become a bitter atheist, and we're still pretty good friends.

   That summer I started working as a lifeguard at Wild Rivers even though I hate swimming. Despite being one of the first few people to finish the lifeguarding class (accomplishing all the CPR and other skills trainings on the first try) I was given the lowest of the five ranks that existed at the time, "Island Guard," because the instructor didn't like me. On the first day of work I got promoted to "Shallow Guard." Promotions would later prove to be completely arbitrary, depending on who was in front of them at the time the needed to fill a higher position, essentially. I think thats still how they promote people to supervisor.

   And then I left for Sweden.


Picture of the Day

   More relevant to previous posts than this one, I got this image from google.earth (special thanks to rote for bringing it to my attention). In this picture you see the abandoned wild animal park I'm always talking about, as well as Wild Rivers, and the Verizon Wireless Amphatheatre (formerly Irvine Meadows) I mentioned the other day. One can hear concerts at the amphatheatre very well from the top of the Wild Rivers towers.
   Note also the hills behind the amphatheatre in which Mike got lost the other day. The road in the upper right hand corner is the Laguna Canyon Rd (the 133), and I've never seen that resevoir before.
   See also: the map of the area, and a rough picture of Kilkenny. Basically the latter will just give you an idea of the greenness. Nearly all those green squares are cow paddies. I lived in the lower right hand corner. The river is the River Nore.

   In Other News: citizene updated recently and when that happens one should take notice. Absinthe.

Previously on Emosnail
   Year Ago Today: All Your Vampire Slaying Needs - fun with warehouses
   Previously in the Prehistory Series: Ireland - Kilkenny, 1997

   As evidenced by that previous entry, I'm clearly losing my sanity. In fact, I determined just how far from sanity I am. Here are the results

emosnail-incomple-oystercracker-_amandalauren-fienduntildeath-__war_room__-sanity¹

   As you can see, not only am I relatively far from sanity (random ljs are usually four or five "hops" apart, as opposed to six in this case), but only incomple connects me to sanity.


Today - Return to Wild Rivers
   Today was an employee party at Wild Rivers, where after being employed for six years I am NOT currently an employee. I'll probably come back at some point though to make this my seventh season, after all with 93 rescues I just HAVE to try to break 100 now.
   My parents tried to convince me I should shave off the mohawk before I showed up there if I ever wanted to work there again, but thing is, I've been waiting to show up there with a mohawk for like four years.
   It was really nice to see everyone again. Nearly everyone who was a deep guard last year is a supervisor now. I've worked there four years longer than most of the current supervisors had when they were supervisored - wish I could've found my "unpromotable" shirt this evening.
   Supervisor forrest441 showed up wearign a $60 shirt and someone called him metrosexual. Also supervisor Hethr kept calling out "hand check!"s in the warming pool² every five minutes. It was a bit unnecessary considering that I don't think thats really gonna stop anyone - she seemed to just enjoy doing hand checks.


¹Source: http://www.petekrawczyk.com/lj_connect/
²Its a "warming pool" and not a "spa" because it only gets lukewarm, and not a "jacuzzi" because that's a brand name.


Related
   Pictures: of Wild Rivers - Featuring forrest441 himself, and pictures from the wild animal park before Wild Rivers was built on its ruins.
   Year Ago Today: Violations - getting violated by parking tickets twice in one day, and talking to Wild Rivers Operations Director Kevin Kopeny (which I did today as well)

   Yesterday I worked for five hours, didn't get a break, and spent three hours at "bombay blasters," a place where you have to stand constantly, without even room to pace back and forth, and get constantly splashed.. as this was the last three hours of the park it was way cold. Finally I got to go home twenty minutes early since I didn't get my halfhour break. And I bet they only paid me until 19:30 cause they only pay in 15 minute increments.
   I actually told deepguard Stephanie "Guacamole" Gamache to "bite me" when she told me to rotate faster. That was very therepeutic. Then as I was leaving she was like "why do you get to go home early?" and I was like "because I just spent the last three hours at bombay, and never got a break" to which she replied "well life's not fair" yea well I never said it was biatch, you just asked me why I was going home early. Speaking of deepguards and how they are all climbing over eachother trying to act more important, apparently Barret had some kind of list of the supervisors ranked from his favorite to least favorite, and then Gamache was like "I bet Stacy in the office and I are your least favorites" at which point the other deep guards looked at her and were like "uhhh, you're not a supervisor Stephanie." Neither is Stacy the Office Wench for that matter. But it just goes to show, these people are so delusional they actually forget they're not supervisors. I take some pleasure in knowing that a number of them will be endlessly passed up for promotion as I was.

   I just discovered Suzanne's (your_evenstar) previous journal still exists.. if you want to see my thoughts on the highlights of that um go here. Heehee I know Kristy would tell me this entry is going to make me full of myself.

   Don's going off to prison for a bit apparently. Whoa and reading the comments to that entry Timo says his house got raided based entirely on things he wrote in his LJ. Thats for sucks. But yea just wanted to officially offer condolences over Don's fate. Let me say also that his lj has always been my favorite to read, because I think he has a healthy disdain for LJ and therefore doesn't ramble about crap but writes to the point about real things.. except when he's been emo about Vanessa (=

( quizes from Suzanne's easyjournal )

   Yesterday there was some famous surfer at Wild Rivers. Some people were very riled up about it. One Sunny Garcia, anyone heard of him? I saw him.. he had lots of tattoos.

   Last night there was totally thunder and lightning and rain. I loved it no end. No really. I want to live somewhere where they get thunder and lightning every day.
   Some random kids from Las Vegas hung out with us at diedrichs. There was Joe the guy who got jessie all drugged up and boned her, and man he kept peeling in and out of the parking lot no end.. everyone was terrified he'd smash into their cars or a building, and generally found it very unfavorable behavior. Then there was Joe's girlfriend Allison, who he surely was cheating on when he boned Jessie; and there was this big cuban guy.
   When I got there I was like hmm.. something seems different.. its unusually pleasant... omg Mike the Horrible Human isn't here!! He later showed up and I gave him some of my steel reserve because he asked and I do what I can even for my sworn enemies. I'm twice as rightious as thou art. He had shaven off his mohawk to throw off the cops, so now he looks skinhead core. I think I'll try to put him in an awkward situation with some black gangstas.


   I swear there could totally be a daily half hour tv show about the adventures of the diedrichs crew.


   Sean Wallitch and I were discussing The Pirate Movie ( more on that... )

   Today was pretty crazy at work.. it was just really crowded. I made three rescues before noon. That brings my total to 70 rescues.
   We were overstaffed so I was able to come home at 15:00 instead of 18:00. I promptly swam fifty laps and then bollocksed about for a bit. Now I'm off to Diedrichs and then the hardware store... and then prolly diedrichs again.

   I wish more of the Diedrichs crew had ljs, instead of silly melos. The two that do have ljs I've added links to their accounts of last night in my entry, so if you read before they were there you could uh check that out.

   Freakin I'm getting really bothered with having had 7 minutes to pack for the summer. I'm getting way tired of the same five or so shirts that I brought. I also forgot my watch, which I really wish I had at work, and my "deep jacket," so that everyone at work would tremble in awe as I walked by and they realized I was totally a deep guard heehee. But no really its nice having a jacket and I AM getting tired of "oh you're a deep guard?"

RESCUES:
today:         3
this season: 4
career:       70

   Today was an insurance audit at work.. not to be confused with the lameass state audit last week. I made a really minor rescue while a staged rescue for the audit was going on in the same wavepool.. I didn't think anything of it but later the auditor and Nikki hunted me down and asked me probing questions about it.. I thought I was hella in trouble but then it turned out the auditor was very impressed because it was exactly simultenious with the audit rescue and usually all the guards are totally distracted by the audit rescue I guess.


   Yesterday I had the day off and didna do anything really. Over dinner though we established that when me dad was exactly my age, the summer HE was 21, he was working on a farm in Norway and three months away from meeting me mum. Scary. I wish I were working on a farm in Norway.
   Also they mentioned that my mom's most significant ex-boyfriend is now a doctor and climbed mount everest last may. Crazy.


   Tonight there were hella people at Diedrichs. It was pretty cool, even though we didn't go anywhere else like we usually do. One guy who isn't usually there was like "why are there like 800 people here??" hehe. And Briana and Carissa totally showed up, which was for awesome cause I haven't seen Carissa in more than a year. Too bad they were both like stoned out of their minds. And a certain someone whom I won't name on account of the extreme illegality of their actions had recently knocked off a pharmecy apparently and had every perscription drug anyone could ever want. What a crazy kid.


   What a suprise:

Russia -
Once a worldwide superpower, its days of power are
now gone. Barely able to sustain itself, it
was once feared, lauded and powerful.


Positives:
Powerful History.
Nuclear-Capable (Barely).
Militaristic.

Negatives:
Poor.
Alcoholic.
Stereotyped and Badly Represented.



Which Country of the World are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

   Having complained about the diedrichs lifestyle in my last post, I must say last night was more pleasant than I expected. We totally rocked out at Diedrichs to 80s music Crispy was blasting from his car.. and I swear if I ever get some kind of musical talent and become famous, more than one of my music videos is just gonna be Crispy rocking out. He was wearing his girlfriend Abby's clothes. It was too funny.
   Then we ended up at Top of the World. There were like a dozen of us. We just kicked around there till the sprinklers came on and then we fled. Returning to Diedrichs for the free Pizza Hut (from Taco Bell), these two other guys I've never seen before emerged from the opposite corner of the parking lot on cue for food.. psha on that! So I just relieved them of one pizza and some breadsticks. Later Mike the Horrible Human showed up and asked me how much food I had.. when I said I only had one pizza he made some sarcastic remark that ended in "fuck you!" and left. Obviously he thought I was lying.. awwww I hope I hurt his widdle feelings. Ass.
   I now have a leather jacket, a rather antique looking visor-cap and someone's blanket in my car. I think the blanket belongs to Laney and the other stuff belongs to Matt Christie. On that note Laney broke up with me* yesterday because I was talking to this girl Sarah who showed up. I was heartbroken. But "its cool we can still be friends."
   Suzanne is "addicted to the Diedrichs Kids"


   Just got back from Wild Rivers. Couldn go swimming because they were in the middle of a state audit. I learned that Aquatics Director Kevin Kopeny hasn't been around because "he's still at that court case." I of course have no knowledge of a court case.. they like to keep these things hush hush. I hope they get good and sued. ::Shakes fist::


   I totally crave a sandwich.


   *psh Laney is totally Matt Morgan's gf. Pay attention.

   Went in to Wild Rivers today to do some swimming and see what was going on. Stacy the evil wench was working in the office so she wouldn't let me in.. made me go in the front entrance. For which I needed to get an ID made. But I'm happy to report that one need only show up in a Wild Rivers uniform to have an ID made there.. they didn't check with anyone else.. so if anyone wants to cause some trouble...
   But yea so Nikki who I have to deal with was busy... training a new supervisor.
   The bottem line is I ain't never getting promoted, and they totally know it. I can see it in the way the HR director avoids eye contact with me now... and of course the more overt signs like how everyone and their brother gets promoted over me.
   So I'm not a good swimmer.. I'm still one of the best employees they've ever had. They can bite me.


   Otherwise... hung out with Shasta in Laguna Beach for awhile Saturday, then proceeded to a show at Chain... back to Wild Rivers that morning for more swimming but instead they put me to work cause they needed people... then beach bonfire.. and a 40 and a half of steel reserve... it was good times.. then this morning (see above)... now I'm about to go to Diedrichs. Yea. Wild Rivers can bite me.


   Called Fish the other day... she is on tour with Warp Tour. Sucks that I can't randomly go on tour with people.. on account of not being a girl and all.. grawwr.

   Yesterday around 19:00 I went to the Diedrichs, nominally just going for a cup of coffee, but kinda knowing it would lead to other things (hehe isn't that what one's supposed to do after a date? "want to come up for coffee?"), and sure enough I ended up going to capo beach with the Diedrichs kids. And this time, I actually made it and it was all good. We had ourselves a bonfire. Lessee fully represented we had: Katie D'agistino, Laney, Crow (AKA "the Evil Ex" Chris, as regards your_evenstar anyway), the guy with the Steel Reserve & Flogging Molly shirts (we'll call him.. SRFM?), and a bunch of other people.
   At like 22:00, or maybe even earlier, the beach closed and the cops actually showed up, so we all skedaddled. We proceeded to this place called "Top of the World," in Mission Viejo. Its a park on top of a hill next to some water tanks, from where you can see like the whole city. We lurked about up there till like 1am.. well I left at 00:30 because I was cravin the in-n-out. I had two double-doubles mm.

   I bought guinness before we went to the beach of course. And while I was in the grocery store this lady asked me where the tonic water was, because I was wearing my IHOP hat and she therefore mistook me for a grocery store employee... apparently.


   They say people with psychological issues often develope them in college because of the stress. I think I'm developing some: I can't leave the house without a sharpie; and today I actually intend to go to the hardware store and buy some red light bulbs because I need my room to have red lighting. ::shurg::

   Speaking of which, I actually forgot one of the worst things about work the other day: I forgot both my cell phone AND my wallet. Now I can't bring the cell phone into work with me but it was just a bad omen and really odd because I NEVER forget it.
   I got my break about mid-day, when it still had pretty much TOTALLY SUCKED, and I hadn't even run into Shasta yet. So I'm hot and tired and unhappy and then I realize I don't have any money. I wanted to cry. Only, not. I found two dollars worth of nickles and dimes in my car, not even any quarters, and then set about begging for money from employees. I was going to ask Tony, the cool office girl, but I get there and Stacy the Evil Wench was there so I asked some dumb question and ran. Then I asked supervisor Pokey (Gumby's younger brother, no joke.), and another deepguard nearby overheard and gave me a dollar. <3 deepguards.


   I just learned today is Friday. I honestly totalyl thought today was like wednesday, and went through all of yesterday thinking it was like tuesday. I love summer.


   Survey: Am I a Bad Person because for the first time in my life I intend to not spend the 4th with my parents?


QUOTE OF THE DAY
   Laney - "Hey are you guys going to diedrichs tomarrow? Uh wait let me rephrase that: what time are you going to diedrichs tomarrow?"