Bobbing and Weaving

Things are holding fairly neutral at the Little Lair In The Barrio this week, so this should be a fairly simple and potentially brief update on the state of the lair and the inhabitants therein.

Still nothing major happening on the job front at the moment, although I did get a call this week that surprised the hell out of me. Remember that temp job I did, and how the location manager at that site submitted my resume (with my blessing) to a more local branch that was looking for someone, and how I never heard back from this location and had essentially written them off?

Guess who called on Tuesday. G'wan, guess.

We set an appointment for an interview for Wednesday, and off I went. It was the typical interview stuff -- about me, about my past, and my plans and hopes for my future. It seemed to go well, and the boss was pretty impressed that I was more than willing to not only figure out a bus schedule to get to work, but to do so that would have me arriving early and ready to go.

I found out that this company doesn't pay for an employee's DOT physical exam, and when the time came to renew, it was the employee's financial responsibility. Guess who's physical expired on Monday? Aw, g'wan, take a stab in the dark.

Anyway, things seemed fairly promising, and I will need to send off an email to let this guy know that I'm still available and quite interested in the position, and that I have a current medical card and am ready to go.

I had the physical done on Friday, and I am quite pleased that it didn't cost as much as I was fearing it would. And, as it was pouring down assloads of rain and I didn't much care to stand at the bus stop and get drenched, I opted to fire up the truck and take the chance that it not only would get me there, but would get me home again. Now, on Thursday, before we went shopping, we put the fuel injector cleaner in the tank and topped it off with some good gas from a place I'd been to many times before without incident. The ride up went fine, with only small hesitations. Coming home, the start of the trip was a tad dicey, but smoothed out as I got closer to home.

I passed the physical, by the way, in case you didn't infer that from the fact I have a valid medical card again.

Keeping the positive vibes going, we opted to take an even riskier gambit, and have me go to the laundromat to wash the clothes we hadn't been able to do a proper wash job on in a couple of months now. Since there was no bus that would put me anywhere close, I had to drive. The truck actually seemed to be performing better -- nice and smooth on the ride up, only a few hiccups on acceleration on the way home, and for the first time since the breakdown I could get the engine over 3000 rpm. I'm still kind of fuzzy on the reasoning that it only acts up after it's been run for a while and everything has warmed up. You would think that if it were bad gas it would have been constant once the vehicle was started. I don't know if warming things up affects the injectors all that much, either. So, I'm leaning either toward a bad sensor or problems with the catalytic converter. We may not have to scrap it after all.

So, with any luck, I can stop bitching about my lack of a job, and begin a new chapter where I incessantly bitch and complain about my new job.

Let's hope so, anyway. The latter is better for my pocketbook.