Shastika's Knees

I have this job. The job is merchandising. The next question people ask is, "What do you do?". I have a route and i go around to the stores on my route and unload the things they've ordered from the company i work for, separate it into the "you put it away" pile and the "Keep your mitts off the stuff i put away" pile. Once separated, I confirm shipment by making marks on an invoice and then pricing the stuff. For some things, I drop a pull date and a price.
What kinds of things? Things they sell you to eat, that maybe you enjoy eating, but probably shouldn't. Giant muffins, bakery goods, frozen deli items like sammiches and burritos and other fine comestibles. Things that are crunchy and salty, and things like cookies and crackers.
I also make sure that the people who buy this stuff don't end up with stale, old, moldy or just past-date things. Weirdly, that's probably my favorite thing to do, go around the store and find all the old stuff. In any job, there's always one weird aspect that you can take your perverse pleasure in.
It's brainless work. I don't mind it. Some days, ok, i growl a little at maybe the sales guy or how people are so lame they can't put things back where they find them.
I only work three days a week. Rough, eh? One day, i work strictly locally. The next work day, I have a fabulous route in Siskiyou county. My third day i head into the wilds of Tulelake and Merrill. The longest day is the Siskiyou route. I'm so lame i would quit if i didn't get to make that drive every week. I love driving the 97 south. Shastika is different every time. That sounds pretentious, except that there are three places one can easily confuse with each other. There's Mt. Shasta the mountain, Mt Shasta the city, and Shasta City. And Shasta Lake. And Lake Shastina. And the Shasta Nation. So I call the mountain by it's old name. I even descend into the weirdlands of McCloud, and I think that's my favorite stop. It's hot as hell, it's out of the way, the osculating whir of death along the 89 is nearly deafening, but the store is cool, the view is different and the people who work at that store are really nice and easygoing and we laugh and giggle at stuff.
So that's what I do right now. It may be different down the road. I could slip right into a job as a goldsmith's apprentice right this very second, but i'm alright so far with the merchandising deal.
By the way, when your in Lemuria, or the other far reaches of Northern Cal, and you stop into a convenience store for some chow, look for sammiches from the Whispering Pines distribution company. Those are DAMN GOOD. And I'm not saying that because i work for them, because i don't. I'm sayin it cos they're damn tasty as far as road food goes.

(PS yes i know osculating isn't a word. Tell mike over at SOS Forests. Its his word. )

The trip to the ovens of hell

This was a drive down to lovely (not. Still hate this place with all my being) Phoenix Arizona for a wedding. We drove. Through Nevada. Oh and fuck Las Vegas, by the way.

There's a highway in Nevada they call the lonliest road in the world. That was not the one we took (SR 95), but if the 95 is not the lonliest, then my mind boggles at what really is. We went through some of the most desolate land I've ever traveled through. Towns on the road teeter on ghost-town-ness. There are ruins all along the road, interspersed with trailer-park brothel compounds with empty parking lots. The land itself is gorgeous, though, and says "haha!" about us puny humans living on it and traveling through it.

I have some neat pictures from the trip, but until flickr helps me get my account merged i cant do diddly shit as far as showing them off goes.

criminy. All this crap merged and i can't access my flickr thing and there was this mess here with blogger and google and the damn router is crapping out.

But i'm back. Survived the evil monkey eating the C drive. Survived the road to the ovens of hell by way of desolation back in May. Surviving the weekly trip on the siskiyou route for the new job, and it is hot as fuck there. No titles available for some reason. I hate this shit.