Tracks, Kamloops, BC

I Love My Job...

If you don't laugh out loud after you read this you are in a coma! This is even funnier when you realize it's real! Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy. Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 on FM dial in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won. Hi Sue, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all . Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi. Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch.So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut. So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job."

Jobs

The Coolest Jobs Ever:

1. The person who rolls out the red carpet for movie premiers.
2. Gift wrapper in the mall at Christmas time – think of all the weird things people buy for other people.
3. Cartoonist – to bad I’m not clever .
4. Human Statistics – who wouldn’t want to find out all the strange things people do and then to find out that more than 3 people like to wear red and pink at the same time!
5. Witness Relocation Story / Life Creator – being responsible for the background stories of other peoples’ “new” lives! How cool would that be!!

Worst Jobs I can think of:

1. Photo technician – I wouldn’t want to find out how many people try to print hinky pictures.
2. Potato Chip Quality Control – those people that stand on the conveyor belt and make sure that there aren’t any burnt potato chips going into the bag.
3. Journalist on the Bottom of the Totem Poll For Stories – I don’t even want to think about the pathetic stories those people are responsible for. Like stories on two headed fish…J
4. High School Math Teacher – How many kids actually want to be in Math 10?
5. Actor on a low budget film – A) They hired you because you’re not good enough to act with Brad Pitt. B) They expect you to do your scene in 1 take because the budget got blown on the make-up instead of the film. C) No one will buy the movie therefore you won’t get any money, which means you’d probably end up working the job you got before that…sorting other people’s junk at Value Village.

Google

Take a few seconds to do this, it will give you a chuckle.

1. go to www.google.com
2. click on "maps"
3. click on "get directions"
4. type "New York" in the first box (the "from" box)
5. type "London" in the second box (the "to" box)
6. click on "get directions"
7. scroll down to step #24

Friends

I love a good email. Especially when they come from your friends and they just happen to be all over the world. Janice (who’s last name also happens to be Wiens) is currently in Australia. She’s working with YWAM Perth doing a Surfing DTS. She’s awesome. Just when I think she may have drowned or got eaten by a shark, she emails me to let me know she’s alive and still having the time of her life. Ashley (who sings and is basically comparable to only the greatest singers of our time) is in Nairobi, Kenya. She is singing with the Continental Singers. They travel all over the United States singing and dancing for Christ. She just got to meet her sponsor child (something many of us will not the opportunity to do). I miss them a lot, but they always have the habit of sending emails just at the right time. Here is a picture of us that last time we were all together.

I'm kind of proud of it...

I know some people can do this way better, but I just learned how to today! I'm very proud of this:

Renting Sucks!

I hate it when the major appliances break! Not only is our dryer now 50 years old and you have to lift the door to make it shut, the drain for the washer got plugged! Somehow a HUGE pile of lint got down the drain and clogged it up. SO: now our clothes sit in 3 inches of water after the half rinse cycle and they smell like dirty clothes. The dryer takes 2 cycles to dry and they don’t even smell clean when you pull them out! I hate renting!

I didn't write this, however it's so funny, I hope that it makes you laugh.

For you men, you may want to think twice about asking a woman what took them so long in the restroom.

When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied.

Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall.

You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter.

The dispenser for the modern "seat covers" (invented by someone's mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there were one, but there isn't - - so you carefully, but quickly, drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume "The Stance."

In this position your aging, toneless thigh muscles begin to shake. You'd love to sit down, but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold "The Stance."

To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the EMPTY toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mom's voice saying, "Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!" Your thighs shake more. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your purse. That would have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible; it is still smaller than your thumbnail.

Someone pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn't work. The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet.

"OCCUPIED!" you scream, as you reach for the door dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether and slide down directly on the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course.

You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late. Your bare bottom has touched the seat. You made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you're certain, her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly dear, "You just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get."

By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose that somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too. At that point, you give up.

You are soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.

Now, you can't figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them.

A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it into the woman's hand and tell her warmly, “Here, you just might need this."

As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men's restroom. Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?"

This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restroom (REST??? - You've got to be kidding!!). It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked question about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It's so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse and hand you Kleenex under the door.

Summer is almost here and it’s time to look forward to another Mexico trip. This will be my 4^th time traveling down to with my church to build houses in Tijuana, Mexico.

Myself and 38 other people will be driving down to Mexico this August to build homes for those who can’t afford to build themselves. Partnering with Mexico Caravan Ministries, we are aiming to build 12 homes this summer. The structures are usually 12’ x 12’ or 12’ x 16’ (the size of a small garden shed). Splitting into 3 separate work teams, it generally takes about 4-5 hours to build one house, starting with cutting the wood to pounding the last tack into the roof. Since power tools are not available, we cut it all the 2x4’s by hand! The houses were designed after the average Mexican home.

Although building homes is the main reason for the trip, our team is also able to experience amazing things along the way. We drive in three 15 passenger vans for a total of 5 full days with major stops in Bandon (Oregon), Anahim (California) and San Francisco. In the past we’ve gone to places like New Port Beach, Huntington Beach, 6-Flags, and Disneyland. Last year we had the privilege of touring the largest Buddhist temple in the Western Hemisphere. At almost every stop are we able to share about our trip and why we’re doing what we’re doing!

We’ve had many adventures over the years, from a broken thumb to a fire extinguisher exploding in our van in the middle of the Freeway. Our trips have gone smoothly because of the people praying for us. I ask that you pray from my mom and I while we’re gone as well as that our team this year would grow to become Servants of Christ.

Welcome to My Blog

I hope that those of you who might read this aren't thinking that I might post things that matter, or that I'm going to write about deep issues. This is for the people that I don't get to see all the time to keep up with what me and my family are doing why out in the boodocks of Kamloops, BC. I hope that you post your comments and that you find it entertaining if anything.