Talking While I'm Talking Talkers

There are of course those close talkers, invading your personal space. There are low talkers, from whom the rest of us are trying to pry out words. There are unfortunately the loud talkers, having no indoor voices or concept of volume. But probably the most frustrating kind of disfunctional talker would be the talking while I'm talking talkers.

Now if you've been following the thread of my blog, you may recall I am a substitute teacher. And I'm not talking about kids talking while I'm talking. I'm talking about adults trying to finish my sentences. Have you encountered those odd creatures who will not let you complete your sentence? It's like a perpetual game for them to help fill in the blanks of the talker. Guess what... it's annoying.... especially if I am dispensing information like I do at my information booth job. If you want the freaking answers, listen and stop playing games....

Do Your Damn Research

So I seem to rant about jobs on this wondrous blog of mine.... This time I am amazed how people over the Thanksgiving Weekend can come to Vail, Colorado with no clue of what to do. I guess as a traveler, I am a little bit more prepared when I go on vacation, I get excited about where I am going and do a little homework. Is it that visitors to Vail come from such amazingly dynamic places with so much to do that Vail is outright boring for them so they must come to the info booth for me to plan their trip? When I travel, I don't expect someone to figure out my vacation for me; I have interests that hopefully correspond with the destination I have chosen, and from there perhaps I might inquire about specific options - hiking trails, camping spots, local pubs. But for someone who doesn't have any interests and for that matter has no idea of their destination, I have little patience and struggle helping them.

Case in point, I just had a man come into the info center wondering what there is to do in Vail . Hmmmm, let me see.... there's skiing & snowboarding of course, a scenic free gondola ride up the mountain, world-reknown shopping, eating, apres-skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling... None of these activities seemed to be striking a chord with him so I interject, sir, it's basically a winter resort town, hoping this will shed some light on where he is. In a continued effort to figure out how to help him better as my lengthy speech before didn't get us anywhere, I inquire, how long will you be here? A mere one or two hours he tells me. Are you expletive kidding me? Get out of here, go downtown, grab a drink and be done with it already. Walk the heated cobblestone streets of Vail and let me alone!

And then his cousin (figuratively speaking) comes in, Indian I believe.... same questions and I now realize that in their language there must be a large amount of literature printed out for them to help them get around in this world of ours. They could barely get their heads around Vail..... This time I give them exactly what they should do.... take the gondola up the mountain out of Lionshead, then hop on the bus to Vail Village, look around, again, have a drink and chill out, you are on vacation.

I must know though, how on earth does someone like this go to a big city or even a smallish city? We are talking about Vail, Colorado, downtown Vail Village maybe 4 blocks by 4 blocks, very safe I may add, no need to worry about getting jumped so go explore! I guess the note that strikes hardest is that travelers somewhere along the way have lost their desire to get lost in back streets and instead want everything figured out for them. Lazy travelers I say. I for one enjoy figuring it out on my own, you should have seen me in Panama City. I guess this lazy traveler notion isn't new... Edward Abbey so sadly spoke of it as "wheelchair tourism", referring to how national parks were radically accommodating those who wanted to snap a shot barely getting out of their car, like fast food scenery. I say, Go back to your cities and stay there.....

Modern Age Competitors

So my nature of being a substitute teacher, I have extra time to play on my computer. I have found the joys of playing online backgammon though I have found people's game ethics to suck! If a competitor is losing, they just click, End Game, and that's that. Loser and quitter! You wouldn't let your friend sitting opposite you quit a game just because he or she were losing but because of the nameless faceless quality of some gaming sites, there's no accountability. I sit through games of backgammon, getting creamed and not liking it but what's the good of quitting. If you think that backgammon, is just luck (and to a large degree it is), then play something with more skill involved. Don't bag out if you are getting beat, have more integrity than that or don't play. And more importantly, let me enjoy a win every now and again instead of quitting.....

Job Relativity

When one job is so irrating, suddenly other jobs become walks in the parks! After subbing a bit in the school district, returning to my night job of waitressing, becomes effortless, almost a welcoming change.

For someone who enjoys her quiet time, perhaps I should reconsider my job choices - working with students as a substitute teacher, serving food at a restaurant, and working at an information center, where YES, people ask the dumbest questions. Is it a pre-requesite to leave all your smart brain cells at home before coming on vacation? Well, pre-req or not, many people do, sorry to report.

It's easy to mumble under your breath now, wow, she needs a vacation perhaps. But 1 out of 3 visitors manage to show their love for asking ridiculous questions. Example, nice lady comes in and asks if our ice skating arena is Olympic size... just curious. I am unable to find any sizing statistics for her, not even on the ice rink's official web site, but I offer to call. No that's ok.... whatever! Next joe that comes in, remember it's November now, and he and his family are here to mountain bike. Innocently enough, may I ask, before leaving home, did you think about where you are going and what you can do on November 3rd in Vail? Hotel guests, these are great questions for your concierge, keep it in house please. Or better yet think about where you are going.

Alright, I'm tired of bitching about these people and perhaps I was just as annoying when I was a tour guide. I hope I wasn't though, I tried not to be. I will admit I brought people to information booths and let them ask their dumb questions. So in a round about way, I suppose I angered the information booth gods, and now it is my time to deal should I say with the silly questions. Stupid question karma has returned to me.....

Guest Teaching Experiences

My oh my, was I as precocious as some students are these days? I have lately been a guest teacher at schools in the Eagle County School District. I wouldn't treat any guest the way they often treat me. Suffice it to say, subbing is hard! God bless the teachers who do this every day.

Continuing, because of the size of Battle Mountain High School and in turn the amount of teachers employed, it is quite frequent that they need subs. So I often go to that school. There are pluses and minuses to subbing in high school and I am contemplating subbing more in the lower grades where there is a little more respect.

At the high school level, most of the teachers have a free period as their planning period. So it's quite nice to kick back and get paid during their planning time. Generally as a high school sub you also really aren't teaching. Well, at least I hope I'm not required to teach Physics, am I? Every now and again, there will be subject matter I see the students working on which I don't remember quite well. And that is the good thing, I am not expected to teach, I'm just a warm body. All in all, I just ask them to do according to the plans and then fight them tooth and nail for them to do it.

Perspective

A little persective in life can help one see things in a different light. Many of those trying to obtain Rockies tickets yesterday were quite frustrated in the failed system (myself included). To add perspective, my good friend Anne who lives in San Diego was witnessing a completely different frustrating and life-threatening situation - the raging fires of Southern California. Makes my little woe of "I can't get tickets" a little less important. May the winds shift and nature be kinder to those in California.

World Series Tickets

Trying to get World Series Tickets can be very frustrating. I have two computers trying to access the site and neither are working. Grrrrrrrr....

Snowstorm in October

A heck of a storm came through the Rockies today. It's that time of year where you can have 60-70 degree weather one day, and the next snow. It's what makes living in Colorado enjoyable, the erratic nature of the weather. And though the Vail Ski Resort isn't open yet, there's something about snow that brings out the little kid in all of us.

I had a bit of a scare today though. I was at my friend's house hanging out while our dogs were both outside playing. I guess my dog McCarthy got bored and decided to go out on an adventure. I was keeping an eye out for him most of the time, but at one instant, I looked out and no sign of the brown dog. I searched high and low, and ran in the back of the neighbor's apartment complex and was awkwardly alarmed by a couple in a hot tub enjoying the snow falling. Excuse me, have you seen a chocolate lab? Happy to be of service and seemingly not bothered by the disruption, yeah the brown dog came this way, but I'm not sure where he went.

I kept searching on foot and then realized, it's time for the car search. After removing endless amounts of snow off my car, off I went. I stopped at the park down the road, no sign... next bit of the route was on a surface road along I-70, should I be looking on the highway for stopped vehicles, police.... I couldn't think the worst. I quickly turned into a parking lot that is really close to our house and is home to Ace Hardware, Safeway and other shops. Lo and behold, behind the front counter of Ace Hardware, my brown dog McCarthy was safe and sound, sitting behind the counter soliciting biscuits. I should have known... he's a guy, he loves hardware stores and the treats they dispense.

Before I went out on my dog search, I had rounded up some kids in the neighborhood to keep an eye out for my dog. When I returned they were happy to see the prodigal dog (should I call him that if I was the one who had to convince him to return, he would have stayed all day behind the counter eating treats). Kaleb and Zach spent the next hour tackling McCarthy, playing monkey in the middle with him, trying to shoot the ball by him as McCarthy acted like a goalie. At one time I overheard Kaleb stating, "This is the best day ever! I'm going to write about this tomorrow." A big smile was plastered over my face. I hope I can be more kid-like and enjoy each moment like Kaleb and Zach were....

Biggest Day Of The Year For The Irish

A win is a win, finally.

I work on Saturdays, in the day at the Vail Information Center and at night at Billy's Island Grill. At the restaurant, we have some tvs in the bar area so I try to keep up on college football. This particular evening, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were playing a late game against UCLA, which I thought was being broadcasted on ABC. When myself and the other football gurus flicked furiously through the channels, we realized, the game was being televised by ESPN GamePlan, to which our restaurant had not subscribed. Probably for the best, we weren't expected to win. That's the nice thing about low expectations, you get happily surprised sometimes.

I tried to keep an eye out throughout the night for the game tickers during other football games that might show the score. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw 20-6 in the 4th quarter, Notre Dame on top of UCLA. I became a raging lunatic, promptly putting together an attack plan of how I would somehow watch the closing 4th quarter. I looked up in the phone book the number for a neighboring establishment, a sports bar which I thought must have the game on. Bingo, I was in luck. Next step, pawn off my two dining customers to another waiter, and oh yeah, somehow have my boss, also the owner, allow me to just take off in this frenzy. His first response, no way... second response, yes, if you can explain it to your customers. Now I probably couldn't sell water to someone in the Sahara Desert but expressing my compelling desire to watch this game was no problem. Off I went to watch the dramatic 4th quarter in which Notre Dame proudly won its first game, and only game to date of the season!

Iam highly indebted to my co-worker who took care of my customers and to the owner Billy who kindly allowed me to watch this victory....

Colorado River Fun

Nothing like a couple of days on the Colorado River to clear your mind... Friends and I rafted a section of the Colorado River in early October. While we didn't feel compelled to swim and jump as much as we would have during the summer, we had pretty decent weather. We faced a little bit of rain on our first day, but the second day we woke to beautiful blue skies, just what we wanted for our sojourn through the rapids that could potentially soak us!

I ran the river with a well-seasoned captain, Captain Dave! I barely got a drop of water on me, except for his intentional, let's-see-how-much-I-can-drench-her antics. It was good fun and after getting off the river, I headed to Moab, one of the fond places of my travels. While I am no longer a paid traveler, it's still in my blood, getting out there and exploring and the desert in the fall sure is nice.