vel's journaly thing

Take a virtual Garrod Farms trail ride! I took my camera with me on a ride I led earlier today and took a bunch of pictures along the way. The trails go through the Fremont Older Open Space Preserve in the hills of Saratoga, California. Silicon Valley was a bit hazy today, on some days it's much clearer. The vineyards are really pretty right now with all the leaves changing colors, though. Anyway enjoy the pictures! ^_^

http://photobucket.com/albums/v469/vel-chan/GF%20Trail%20Ride/?action=view&slideshow=true

(cross-posted to horse_lovers)

( picture of the horse I was riding in case you were curious )

My whole family got new cell phones today, but I'm not sure how I'll like mine. It's a flip phone, but it's a bit wider and longer (due to the antenna) than my old phone; that's what I really don't like about it because I carry my phone in my pocket. I don't know if this one is going to fit and it'll probably be uncomfortable. And now I have to learn how to use a whole different system and reprogram everything into the new phone. *cringe* I don't like change, I like to stick with what I know (when it comes to electronics at least, I'm not exactly technologically inclined). At least I'll still have my old phone number. I really do need a new phone because mine kept giving me problems, so this one had damn well work better than mine and be worth the effort.

I also had to get new riding boots on Saturday because mine freaking *broke* near the end of my shift. I knew the heels were detaching from the bottom for a while, but I decided to keep wearing them until they fell apart completely. Well it happened Saturday, so I had to run out and get a new pair so I'd have them to wear to work on Sunday. That turned out to be a really bad day to break in new boots because we were totally swamped with customers, and I ended up being on my feet and running around without any breaks from about 7am until 1pm. It totally sucked. As expected I now have quite a few blisters to tend to, and it's back to work for me this afternoon. Yay. Still, this is only my 3rd pair in 10 years of working at the stable, that's not bad.

I was at work today, getting ready to take out my trail ride, when the most disgusting thing happened. I was standing by the water trough when Raja, one of the horses, slipped in the puddle over the clogged drain and sent a TIDAL WAVE OF HORSE PISS flying straight into my face! UGH!!!!! I couldn't react in time to do anything except close my eyes and yell for someone to bring me paper towels. I wasn't about to open my eyes and get them full of pee, so I just stood there frozen and blind until one of the instructors brought me some towels. >_< SO. FREAKING. GROSS. And I had to go out on two rides after that smelling like piss.

I'm going to be out of town a bit this summer, so if any of you gals can sub any of these shifts for me, I'd really appreciate it! Please let me know.

Thursday, June 30, 3:30-7 (2 trail rides) thanks to Megan
Sunday, July 3, 7-3:30 (opening) Thanks Laura!
Tuesday, July 5, 3:30-7 (2 trail rides) thanks to Livy
Thursday, July 14, 3:30-7 (2 trail rides) thanks to Megan
Sunday, July 17, 7-3:30 (opening) Thanks Laura!

And yesterday I got pulled over for the first time! Why do I sound excited? It was just a new experience for me I guess. Don't worry, it was nothing serious. It was about 7:30am and I was on my way to work. I was going about 70 down the freeway like I usually do, then I noticed a cop following me (the kind with no lights on the top so it just looked like a normal car until it got up close). I was like "oh shit" and I slowed down to 65, but he didn't do anything. But I still thought something was up because he hovered behind me for a few minutes whereas usually a cop just blasts by me doing about 75-80 (I've often accidently been going 70 around/past them, and they've never done anything).

Anyway, he was still tailing me and by that time I was thinking "okay if you're going to pull me over just do it already, what's the deal?" *Finally* he decided to turn on his lights; I didn't want to pull off on the side of the freeway, so I got off at the nearest exit and pulled over on a regular street and he followed me there. So he came over and was totally nice about everything. He said good morning, where are you heading, yadda yadda.

You should probably know that my truck has an expired registration sticker; we just got it and we're still waiting for the DMV to send the new one in the mail, because we did register it when we bought it and it has an information tag saying so in the corner of the windshield. So I *have* been expecting to be pulled over because of that since it's very obviously out of date. Anyway, he says I pulled you over because it looks like you have an expired tag, and I tell him I know, we just got it, there's the registration in the window. He's like okay, gotcha, that's cool. He clearly sounded like he didn't have any intention to fine me for anything; no speeding ticket for me! But then he said "I also wanted to let you know that your tire seems to be really low; I don't want it to overheat and explode" and I'm like "What?!"

In the two previous days my dad had made two 300 mile round-trips with the truck, and he had filled the tires with air just the day before. How in the hell could they be low?? The cop was very nice and gave me directions to the nearest gas station so I could fill them up long enough to get to work, then took off. I think he had been following me for so long so he could get a good look at the tires. Anyway I went to the gas station and got out and sure enough, one of the tires is freaking half deflated! So I get down and try to twist the top off the valve stem, and it's not coming off. Instead the whole *stem* is twisting around, and that is NOT supposed to happen. It was also hissing out air, also not supposed to happen. I finally got the top off and filled up the tire, then got up to the stable half an hour late. I had called my dad from the gas station, and he drove up to the stable to switch cars with me.

And then more excitement. After working for about three hours, I suddenly realized I had no idea where my cell phone was. Another first for me; I have *never* lost my phone before. I've always kept it in my pocket, but now it was just utterly gone. I retraced my every step all over the whole ranch trying to see if I dropped it somewhere, but with no luck. I called dad from the office and asked him to look in the truck for it; he couldn't find it. That really freaked me out, if it wasn't there I had no idea where else it could be. But later I called mom and she looked in the truck and found it immediately. *shakes head* I guess dad must be going blind or something. But at least I have my phone back. My truck is getting the tires fixed right now (after I had to wait an entire HOUR just to drop it off! and it's only going to take an hour to fix!), so hopefully I won't have anymore hassle like this for a loooong time.

So, today I turned 24! I spent most of the day at work. I took my new truck to the stable for the first time, so I'm sure it smells like horses now. For the most part the day was uneventful, which is always a good thing because usually if something happens it's a disaster. The only real event was in the morning when Sultan decided to attack Rusty while I was holding him, so Rusty leaped out of the way and made me jump backwards in a hurry to avoid getting run over. I screamed at Sultan at the top of my lungs for that one *l* Other than that, the day was fairly slow considering the gorgeous weather...it was warm and sunny and just beautiful, so I'm surprised we weren't very busy. But that was fine, less work for me. Good thing because I got two long birthday calls from mahkara and elkrum. I never spend any time on my cell phone at work, so all the girls were rather curious about why I was suddenly on my phone so much. llamalover06 actually snatched it so she could find out who was on the other end, which happened to be elkrum at the time. Then Liz stole it from her and apologized to him and gave it back to me *l* That was funny.

After work I took a nap because I'd been up since 6am, and later I went out with my family to dinner at the Outback and then to a movie. I got two presents, a DVD of Hunchback of Notre Dame (I'm trying to get my Disney collection on DVD, I still mostly have VHS) and Sonic Heroes for Game Cube (I love Sonic the Hedgehog games!). This Saturday will be my birthday party with my relatives (and if anyone else wants to come you're welcome to do so, though I don't know how much fun you'll have hanging out with my grandma and cousins and whoever else *l*), so I'll get more stuff then although I really don't deserve anything else considering my enormous present yesterday! So after dinner the movie we went to see was Robots; it's not fantastic or anything, but it is very cute and entertaining. I was really tired but I didn't fall asleep, so it must've been pretty good to keep me awake.

That's all for now! Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes! ^_^

You know what? This is my 10 year anniversary of working at Garrod Farms. TEN YEARS I've been at that place! That's almost half of my entire life! Wow.

Here are a few more horse pics I took for my class. I need to go in on Monday to print more or I'll never get the project done on time (holidays next Friday and Monday! that's a bad thing...I need more time in the photo lab). Any ugly little white specks are from my stupid scanner which refuses to get clean.

( more black and white horses )

Today we made our first prints in photography class. Oh man, it is soooooooo much easier than developing negatives! It's a bit time consuming, but it's super easy. It's also a lot more fun because you get to see the results right away. I almost didn't want to take more pictures because it means I'll have to develop more negatives :p But I have to take lots more; I already took a roll this afternoon after class, mostly of Megan working Jay. I wonder how those will come out...anyway, here are the two prints I did today:

( black and white horses )

At about ten to 6am this morning, I was awoken by a phone call from my dad. This was incredibly weird because he should have still been sound asleep at home. But he was calling to tell me that he was with mom in the emergency room at the hospital! She'd been having really bad chest/abdominal pain and they went to get it checked out. So as it turns out she has gallstones and will probably have to have her gall bladder removed. Anyway, dad called to let me know where they were, and to make sure I got up in time for work.

Work was nuts today. It was sunny but still really cold out, and although the mud is starting to dry somewhat, it's still really deep and sticky. What was crazy was this is the type of day we'd expect to be slow, but we had a giant rush of people. A group of 12, then 9, then 7 all came around the same time. We sent out every horse we could find and still didn't have enough, so people had to wait around. It was very weird. At least once the big rush was over things quieted down and there wasn't much of anything to do the rest of the day, but it was exhausting. My feet hurt from running around so much now.