After two weeks of luxurious high life with my parents (good food, desserts-a-plenty, all the sleep you want and almost unlimited projects for entertainment) I set out for CO. It is springtime, and with the season comes chores - lots and lots of chores, and they usually involve digging, pushing, pulling, and/or lot's of walking. More on that in a minute.
I decided to come to CO for a week, to do work on my property; preparing the field and fencing for lease, and, as it turns out, a fews days of stuff for my former company. Great! And swapping cars with my parents meant I'd cut the fuel costs in half! Everything was going great - I was even going to make the Monday racquetball game, until I reached the western edge of Kansas. There, at mile marker 1 on I-70W, the transmission gave out. Poof, gone - no gear grip whatsoever! Fortunately, my parents subscribe to a roadside assistance plan, so I was able to get that # and call for a tow-truck. I had some fun taking pictures of trucks driving by the stranded car from my waiting spot down in the ditch next to the interstate.
After 30 mintues on the phone (it seems the roadside assistance people don't have many registered repair shops in west Kansas/east Colorado), and 60 miles back the other way, I would up in Colby Kansas. Turns out the car shop owner has a buddy who is in the business of used car sales and rental, so I got a rental car, and drove the rest of the way to Boulder that night. ON the good side, the delay made it so my drive was timed just right to have the sun setting directly in front of me. I got a decent picture of the scene through the windshield:
No rest for weary - today I got up and dove out to my place for a full day of farm work. Dig out those culvert junctions, string up that hot-wire, mow down the half acre of waist-high grass with a push mower! I capped the day off with a phone interview for a Senior Optical Design Engineer position with a company near Portland, OR, from a side street, on the cell phone, in a rental car, in dirty farm work clothes, after eating sinner from Sonic in about 10 minutes. All in a day's work!
Finally, I am camping out in a nearby State Park ($24/night! - outrageous!, but there is Wi-Fi here!), tired, sleepy, a little hungry, but still there is a smile on my face, go figure!
3 comments:
New tranny?? Ouch! Were you impressed with the Oregon company?
Oregon? That's on the wrong side of the country, Mike! Boston is where it's at! :) Well, I suppose I hope the job interview went well. Glad you got lots of work done. Andrea and I moved all our stuff this past weekend, so we too have had a rough weekend - though we were lucky not to have car trouble... anyway, will chat soon! Good luck w/ all the stuff you're up to!
Hey Sancho -
Glad to see Chapter 2! Hope all goes well.
Oregon (or pronounced Orygun for you Easterners). I spent several years out there and know some folks if you need an opinion.
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