When did Rufus meet Bill and Ted for the first time?

I am trying to understand this whole thing from Rufus' perspective.

He comes to Circle K and a moment later, future Bill and Ted arrive from the past, and Rufus somehow knows to expect this to happen. Now, Rufus has not met these versions of Bill and Ted yet, but they have met Rufus already - how is he going to talk with them as if they have already met and talked and all that, when this is the first time Rufus ever sees them? Does Rufus have to ACT like he knows them already, or how does he pull this off? They should be (and are) almost complete strangers to him! Yet he acts as if he has met them before.

So how does it all work, and do the future Bill and Ted not realize this is the first time they're seeing _THIS_ version of Rufus (although technically, it's not -really- the first time, since their past selves have already seen him), or.. 'sharing the first time-seeing' with their past selves, or .. agh, my brain.

As a sidenote: why do the clouds react so powerfully to the time machine (in the Circle K-scene), and does this ALWAYS happen every time they use the phone booth (could change history drastically if clouds are manipulated.. weather and all, you know, plus people seeing it would react and that would create a butterfly-effect)? If not, then why not, and why does it happen in the Circle K-scene?

A smaller sidenote: Why does Rufus' phone booth move vertically a little bit just before it lands? It doesn't seem to make any sense, is there a reason for it? Effects department screwed up?