Quitter

Over the past week I have been talking myself into quitting. I’m not a quitter. I hate quitting. Because to me, quitting = failure. And I am scared of failure more than anything ever. You know what though, it’s a personal issue and it doesn’t transfer to other people, because it’s not like I see people quitting things and think they’re failures, so I don’t know what it is. I just have really high, possibly unrealistic standards for myself. So while I go around telling people that they should quit things that make them crazy, I keep on with the crazy making in my own life because I don’t want to be a failure.

One time in college I took a class called differential equations. And if you ever have to take a class with a name like differential equations, I highly recommend doing it at a community college if you can. For one thing, you can make a C and when it transfers to your college of choice, it’s pass/fail and doesn’t effect your grade point average. I had been burned previously by teachers with accents I couldn’t understand, so I chose a Dr. Wilson for my differential equations class – thinking he’d be better suited for my understanding that a Dr. Chen or Dr. Too-many consonant-and-not-enough-vowels would. Well, Dr. Wilson sucked and for the record he also had an accent, but it was Austrailian or something. He sucked hard. He sucked so hard that even as I struggled through the course, I was headed for an F, not a D or a C, but an F. I had to do what’s called a Q-drop. Where Q=quit. And I felt like I was walking around with a giant Q on my forehead for the next week or so.

Well, as it turns out, Dr. Wilson HAD sucked so hard that out of a class of 24 people. 19 Q-dropped. 19! 79% of the people in that room had decided that this guy sucked so hard at teaching that rather than sludge through and teach themselves and make it out the other side, they’d consider the money spent on tuition as a lesson learned and try again with someone else. And of the ones left? Half made Ds or Fs, which in my major would have meant I had to take it over again anyway. I had made the right decision, but at the time it felt horrible.

And that’s what I’m doing right now. I am deciding not to take the home inspectors test. I have been looking over the practice stuff I have, and it is just too detailed and too code-specific for me to adequately study for the test and pass by the 18th. What was originally the optimal answer to my problems has become a much less sensible choice. So I'm giving up. I quit.

Work is Busy, Life is Busy

Last night I looked in the hanging pots (where we planted the tomatoes upside down and the seeds for chives and dill on top) and we have sprouts!! I'll have pictures on Monday. But here's one to tide you over of him doings some planting.

I put off studying for and taking my home inspection test for so long, that I have 3 weeks to study and take the test. And if I don't pass that time, I have 10 days to try again. So my brain will be in home inspection land for the next few weeks.

I have been thinking of not doing it at all, because of the whole insurance for it will be more than the income I make off of it thing, but if I get my license and let it be inactive, then when I do need it, in case of a lay off or something, I can find the insurance and it's full speed ahead (except that whole pesky housing market is down crap.)

In the interest of full disclosure the reason I started looking into it to begin with was because I thought I wanted to work from home, I thought I wanted to have Landon with me and just take him to mother's day out or something when I did an inspection. And I'm not really sure that's true anymore.

Half the problem was my job. I honestly hated my job. More than anything else, more than leaving Landon at day care, I hated my job. Seriously, cried tears of joy when I walked out into the parking lot on my last day. And now I have a new job. And I'm not doing what I want to be doing here, right now, but I have hope and my manager knows this and my manager is a good person and is doing everything he can to make sure my next assignment matches my skills. And even in this situation where I don't like what I'm doing, I am at least at a company that doesn't make me want to vomit when I walk in the doors.

The other problem was that I didn't think I wanted Landon in day care. But, now? Landon is thriving in day care. He is learning so much, and not just academic stuff, but he's learning about having friends. And talking to people. Things he wasn't going to be able to learn at home with me and things he didn't learn by going to a baby-sitter with only two other kids. And I just don't see how I could possibly pull him out of that.

Finally, I now make what I thought I might make per hour doing the inspections. And I don't have the responsibility of finding the work. I have a guaranteed 40 hour week, I park my car and walk in and the work is here. I don't have to hunt for it. If I could work a 20 hour week and make what I made now, hunting for the work wouldn't be a problem, but if I have to still work a 40 hour week AND hunt for the jobs, it would mean more like a 60 hour week. And that's not at all what I thought I was going for when I started this adventure. All of this of course also is based on budget we have now, which includes the debt we have, and if I can eliminate most of our debt, I can take a pay cut and we'd be fine. So this isn't an end all be all reason, it's revisitable.

Anyway, all this to say that I've come to a place where I decided, it's a good back-up plan. It's something I've already spent a lot of time and money on and just giving up at this point isn't in my best interest, but that if I fail, I will know I tried and I can move on with my life. And if I pass, I'm still not sure I want to follow through on it, but at least I'll have it in my back pocket if I need it.

Anyway, fair warning, light posting here for the next few weeks. Probably a lot of pictures, which I'm sure the grandmothers won't mind a bit.

Welcome newbies...

I got featured on a Good Mom/Bad Mom this week for this post.

So now I have all this extra traffic, and like - nothing profound or funny or anything.

We went out to dinner and a movie Saturday night to celebrate my professionalismness. We saw What Happen in Vegas. It was cute. And predictable. But funny.

And otherwise we pretty much stayed home. Which was a nice change of pace from our normal running around craziness.

I put my Home Inspector stuff in a backpack to start carrying around with me, so that when I have down time, I can study. I'm going to make a study plan today. (Why yes I do have a plan to make plans.) So we can move forward on that front.

It’s the Final Countdown…

So, I have some boring updates to post about various things going on in our lives.

#1 – Mailbox guy appears to have been a Fig Newton of my imagination. Which is sad, but I kind of expected it.

#2 – I got permission to take the inspector test from TREC. So I just need to set aside 50,000 bazillion hours to study for it. My final absolute deadline is 11/18/08 – and I have three chances. My plan is to study for a month or so and then take it. And we’ll go from there. I have to make an 80% and then I have to find some E&O insurance. For this test, I will know my results immediately, so I will know if I need to go back home and study some more.

#3 – My PE results will be in any day now. (Historically it would have been last week, but due to the change in the test format, I’m going to say at least 2 more weeks.) There will be cake and cartwheels if the results are good. There will be tears and fit throwing and cursing if the results are bad. I do not wish to speculate.

#4 – I have lived in Texas for my entire life and never seen a live armadillo until Sunday when we took Landon to the park and this guy was just out wandering around in the park. He even stopped to pose for Clinton to take a picture.

#5 – I started this morning with the prospect of actually maybe getting to work early. And then my coke fell out of my lunch bag and hit the glidey thing that the passenger seat slides on and punctured the can on my way to drop off Landon. And I got showered with coke, so I had to go home and change and wipe the entire cab of my truck down. Nothing makes me later than being just a little bit early. This had better not be a sign of how this week is going to go.


#6 - I printed 223 pictures for Landon's scrapbook this weekend. I sorted them and stuffed them in the pages where they go. One day I'll go back and put them in nicely and maybe add some captions. If he's lucky.

Freaky Friday

Last night after dinner, we stripped Landon down to his diaper and socks. As usual. He refused to put on jammies. As usual. He disappeared from the kitchen for a minute or so. As usual. And when he returned, he demanded that we put on his water shoes. The pair that is still too big for him. Over his socks. We tried to explain the fashion faux pas he was trying to commit, but he just wasn't hearing it.

I mailed off my inspector application. Plan # 5697 Is moving forward.

Loose Ends

****This post has been edited to remove some of its original content****

Remember our leak?

We got our income tax return and we got it fixed!

We now have only 487 more projects on our list of things we intend to one day maybe get around to, if we happen to have enough money to do it list. Friday I meet with a sprinkler guy and a fence guy, and then on the 8th I meet with the brick mailbox guy. We are well on our way to 484. Yea! (I know that there will be 5 million more items added before then, but let me dare to dream.)

Also - Chaos? Is a teen club. The spray paint sign has been replaced with this - uh, I can't get a picture, so this is a representation of the vinyl sign:
And since I posted about the side of beef, I've gotten a lot more searches about what's in a side. So here's our list:

Ground Beef - 49 (+22 given away)
T-Bone - 32
Round Steak - 28
Cutlets - 35
Sirloin - 10
Chuck Roast - 4
Short ribs - 10
Beef Ribs - 1
Flank - 1
Fajita - 1

Ground beef is in 2 lb packages. All our steaks are cut at 3/4 inch. The round is half a round and it's cut at 1/2 inch and run through the tenderizer (think chicken fried steak). Cutlets are part of some other roast - they're set up to be like chicken fried steak as well and packaged in sets of 2. Chuck Roasts are between 4 and 5 lbs, short ribs are in 2 lb packages.

Here's the thing though. 32 T-bones? Doubtful. Very doubtful. No ribeyes? Weird how about half our T-bones are the size and shape of ribeyes. Yeah, they're mislabeled - so we estimate that actually it's 16 of each. It should also be noted, that I had them turn a bazillion pounds of what could have been roasts into gound beef. I just don't have a hankering for roast more than about 4 times a year. And that sirloin number? 1 sirloin is actually like 4 sirloins. I can't find a picture and unwrapping meat to just take a pictures seems dumb - what with the invitation for freezer burn. But you know when you order something and it says top sirloin. Well apparently there's like 2 or 3 other sirloin parts. And 1 of ours contains all of those parts. Seriously - we cooked 1 sirloin and it would have fed 4 adults. We opted not to get the whole brisket, because the butcher said it's better to buy a brisket on it's own where you can inspect it individually, so we got the flank and fajita and the rest went to ground beef.

Anyway - see how full our freezer still is?
Please ignore the bacon, our cow did not come with that bacon, lest you be upset when you buy your side of beef and it does not come with bacon.

And we've already taken out a chuck roast, 12 or 13 pkgs of ground beef (we have given a few more away), 1 sirloin, 4 ribeyes, 2 T-bones, 5 or so sets of cutlets, and 1 round steak. That's from memory, it's probably not accurate.




Notes for next year:

1. T-bones should be separated into filet mignon and NY strip. They are seriously huge, and separating them will be better for cooking as well.


2. Steaks (ribeyes, filet mignon, and NY strip) can probably be wrapped as pairs instead of singles.


3. Sirloins, maybe we need half in each package (to feed 2, instead of 4).



4. We need more coolers for the pick up day and we need to be in the truck or without extra people.



5. We need a partner in purchase. I tried to get into the logistics of it, but it turned into a big math word problem. And while I have a great affinity for them, I suspect I am among the few and far between. But the bottom lines is that we want to buy a hog in about 6 months and we just don't have the freezer room for both animals to overlap.


I did finally register to take the PE exam, the price went up this year, but I guess it had to happen sooner or later. I am on track with my study plan, and I actually feel a little bit better about it this time than I did the first 2 times. I have changed my approach, and despite my other blog being the most boringest blog ever, it is helping me stay on task and study what I said I would when I said I would.


ANNNNNNND finally - TREC and I are at peace now, I am just waiting for my new education evaluation letter, and then I can apply. However, since I only have 6 months to take the test once my application is accepted, I am going to wait until just after my PE exam to turn it in, that way I can begin studying for that test after the PE and hopefully be ready to take it by the time they process my application.

Like I don't have enough to do

I started a new most boring blog ever.

It's to help me prepare for the Civil PE exam. 99.9% of you will not be interested, but I do occasionally get someone who finds my blog by searching for civil PE or some thing like that, so maybe they'll find it. It doesn't really matter, it's a study tool and an accountability tool for me more than anything.

I also finally heard back from TREC. They tried to not give me credit for 2 of the classes I took. So I called and it's pretty much fixed, except the fax machine won't send them what I need it to, so i tried to scan it and email it to see if they'd take it that way. But because they took so long to respond, I will be waiting until after the PE exam to study for and take the inspector exam. I have changed the timeline accordingly.

This always happens

I've got nothing.



I have a bunch of posts pre-written. They're wonder killer posts. Things I have wondered, and spent a little time researching or thinking about and I wrote a post. But then I second guess myself and don't post them, because, do you really care how I feel about organic foods? Are you wondering what humidity setting to use on your fruit and veggie drawers in your fridge, or am I the only person who didn't know what settings they should be on? Do you care what the six sides to a conversation are?



Granted, the posts which get me the most attention, both on the blog and in real life (because clearly, this is fake life) are the tomato soup one, which I wrote because I had nothing else to write about. And the buying half a cow, which I honestly didn't think would get that much attention. So I guess I'm not the best judge as to what you want to hear about.



My assumption has always been that the majority of you are only really here for pictures. And I tried to get more pictures of Landon last night, but my camera died. My problem used to be running out of space on the memory stick, now I have a bigger memory stick and the problem is that I don't charge the camera often enough.



No big things going on this week, nothing worthy of it's own entire post, so here's a condensed version of what's going on in my life.

• One of my projects is wrapping up this week - for the most part. Which means my other project is wondering where the hell I am.


• I still have not heard from TREC re: my Education Evaluation. They say on the website that calling will only slow the process down. But I want to call. They cashed my check.


• I saw a sign on the side of the road this morning, a white sign with black spray paint. All it said was "chaos." I need to know what that sign is about.


• Since cutting down (not cutting out, but cutting down) on carbs. I have lost enough weight to get one notch tighter on my belt.


• I don't think the lady that wanted my treadmill still wants it. She has not emailed me back yet.


• We sold a couple lots we own in East Texas. Which is quite a relief, even though all the proceeds from that sale are pretty much already spent.


• There's a poster in my office about safety. It lists all the normal safety things - tripping hazards (file cabinet drawers), personal protection (hard hats), driving safety (don't use cell phones or PDAs while driving), etc. But the first thing on the list? Armadillo Awareness. I don't even know what that means.


• There are also posters up of people in some kind of shrubery maze with binoculars looking at an icon for the company intranet in the corner of the poster. I don't know what that's about either.


• This is a long post for me to have said it was about nothing.

Weekend Update with Kevin Nealon

Friday morning we got up and went to B&W Meat Co. to order our side of beef. I went in and asked to talk to someone about a side, some guy came up and he was explaining to me how it worked and what the difference between "heavy beef" and "baby beef" was. (Baby beef is just smaller, go figure.) We went with the Heavy beef, mainly because the size of the ribeyes on the baby beef was so small. But also because my calculations told me that the heavy beef would fill our freezer, while the baby beef would probably not.

About 5 minutes into this guy's schpeel, the head butcher came in to ask what I wanted exactly and he took over for the first guy. He was concerned that I had wanted to take the beef right then because his truck hadn't come in. He was also concerned that I didn't want 20 roasts, but instead wanted it all in ground beef. Ok, not all, but I only wanted about 4 roasts. At the end, he asked if I wanted to pay then or when I picked it up. I told him I'd pay then.

So he went back and weighed a side - I don't think this was the side we got, because it weighed 410 lbs. When you buy a side, you pay for the hanging weight. You are supposed to lose about 30-35% of that weight to fat and bone. You are supposed to be able to store roughly 30-32 lbs of meat in 1 cu ft of space. A 410lb hanging weight should have translated to 287 lbs, which should have taken a little over 9.5 cu ft. We have an 11 cu ft freezer. It should have all fit in our freezer.

When we got home with it on Saturday, we filled the deep freeze, and the freezer on the fridge outside, and we put a few things in the freezer inside. And we had 22 two pound packages of ground beef left over. Ok, fine we could have probably stuck a few in where we put a few bones in for Scarlett and Fiona, but we already had 49 package of ground beef in the freezer, so we opted to keep some of the bones for the dogs over keeping an excessive amount of ground beef. It was beef that we needed to give away, or it was going to go bad. We called people we thought might want it, some were out of town, some were not really interested. After several failed attempts at giving it away by phone - we decided this was probably not the most effective way to get rid of it, we gave up and Clint and Shane loaded it up in a cooler in the car, and just headed out to drop by on people we know in the neighborhood and ask them if they wanted it. He did manage to give it all away in just 2 stops, which was a relief.

Our only slight complaint? We thought we didn't get any ribeyes. Because they mislabeled them, and it looks like we have 32 T-bones. We estimate 16 each, but you can actually tell from the size of the package which ones are T-bones and which ones are Ribeyes.

While there on Friday, we also bought a couple sausage links, a pound of pan breakfast sausage and a section of premarinated fajitas - mainly just to see how their stuff was. One sausage was garlic beef hot. It has a great flavor and then in knocked you on your butt with the hot, seriously hot, the kind of hot you feed your friends only to see if they can handle it. The other sausage was beef and pork mild - so good, and had just enough of a kick to it. The pan sausage? Well, let's just say that when I clear some room in the freezer? We'll be going back, and we won't be buying Jimmy Dean anymore. And the most surprising? The fajitas? They were not salty like most premarinated fajitas are. They were really good too.

What sucks? It's a 45 minute drive to get there.

(I did write something up about buying a side of beef for those of you interested, but I'll have to post it later this week, since it's not on this computer.)

We also found some time on Sunday to take Landon to the neighborhood park. He's all about the rock climbing wall, not so much about the slide. We didn't get to try any swings though. And I didn't have my camera on me, but we'll try again next weekend.

Oh, and write this down as historic. We took Christmas decorations down before Valentine's day. I don't think that's ever happened before. Speaking of which, we bought some new stuff this year, and decided that silver will probably never happen on our tree. And to make everything fit in our storage boxes I removed the things that we will likely never use. So I have a kit to fully decorate a tree with silver, clear, and pearly glass balls (they all have silver hanging things). Silver beads, 2 stocking hangers, 2 red and white stockings (traditional), and a country-ish looking tree skirt with a hobo looking Santa on it. It's cute stuff, the ornaments may have been used all of once, if that. If anyone knows of anyone who wants it, I will give it to them. Or I need an idea of who I could donate it to. All a person would need is a tree and lights.

Oh, and The Plan, is moving along. I mailed off my Education Evaluation to TREC this weekend.

A Side

I took my report writing test on Saturday. It took like 5 minutes. It was awesome. I got my certificate. I am currently gathering the stuff I need to mail in to get my education evaluated, so they will allow me to apply, so they will allow me to take the test. I have a hopeful deadline, but I don't want to say it outloud - for the jinxing factor and all that.

Landon's 15 month Dr. Appointment was on Friday. He's 25 lbs 5 ozs (between 50% and 75%). His head is 48.5 cm around (75-90%). And he's 29 inches tall (5%). Average weight, big headed, and short.

We spent some time over the weekend contemplating a side of beef. We bought a side of beef last year. From my current research I think maybe paid too much for it. But we also learned some things. That will help us with our purchase this year. Last year's guy is no longer in business, so we were forced to look at other places, and learn the difference between grassfed and grainfed. On Saturday I went to HEB to buy some Ribeyes. I bought select ribeyes (very lean, very tough, twice what we paid per pound for the stuff in our freezer.) We had prime or choice (I can't remember) in our freezer, had I bought those it would have been 3-4 times as much. For ground beef last week I paid per pound what we paid per pound for the side. These two facts alone have cemented us in the fact that we will be buying a side of beef. I was about to do a little beef buying primer, but figured maybe that's another post.

Also, we're thinking of buying a pig in August.

Today I begin studying for my 3rd round of the PE exam.

I have lots of work to do this week, so you will no doubt be treated to more pictures than anything else. And Christmas pictures at that. I still haven't scanned this year's Santa picture, but maybe I'll get to do that too. I will wonder kill on beef next week.

Buzz Kill

So, like a year and a half ago I posted a very sad post, and then left everyone hanging.

I'm ok. I really am. I didn't mean to make it sound like I wasn't, or like I STILL wasn't. I mean obviously I write things when they happen, and then I had a week off of work and it all kind of snowballed into me leaving a post, and I've never turned off comments before, but I really didn't want to talk about it at that point.

So to answer your burning questions.

I will be taking the PE again in April. I'll probably spend the next few days ironing out a study plan. As much as I'd like to believe that I'll be ready for it even if I don't do anything because I might have passed if I wasn't sick, I'm just not sure. So studying it is.

I have purchased the 8 hour Report writing class and will be taking that test and applying for that license within the next month.

Landon had a great Christmas. He got too many toys that make too much noise, and he loved every minute of it. We put more than half his toys up, and will pull them out and "shop" in a couple months.

NonSoccerMom had her baby on the 27th. The Modernish Father is very proud. I bet you didn't think babies came bigger than Landon...she beat him by 2 ozs.

The seeds that were sprouting from Landon's pumpkin at halloween, have grown into plants. With flowers. Proof once again that if I neglect a plant, it will flourish.

I'll do what I can about posting some pictures this week.

And so it begins. Again.

TREC wrote me back. TREC confirmed my suspicions. TREC directed me to Champions who has my last class that I need. I will be taking an 8 hour correspondence course on report writing. I will be purchasing said class on Thursday and doing it in my spare time until finished. I will then go into their school to have my homework graded and take the final for the class.

I will then send in my education evaluation paperwork.

I will then receive confirmation that I will be approved to take the test.

I will study for the test.

I will take the test and score at least 80%.

I will be a professional inspector.

I have adjusted the side bar plan accordingly.

PE results are in.

Don't ask.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

So, out of curiosity, I looked up the TREC inspector's page again today. They changed the rules again. They made them actually easier. I have sent an email to the TREC people to ask about my situation. But it looks like 1 of 2 things will happen. I will either be eligible to take the test to be a professional inspector without the need of a sponsor with what I have already done or I will have to take 1 8-hour class on report writing and THEN I will be eligible to take the test to be a professional inspector without the need of a sponsor.

So while I will still need to scrape up some money to pay for liability and E&O insurance, I will not have to pay someone in order to work for them. YAY!!

Impasse

I have hesitated about telling you what’s going on because I have not made a single decision about what my next step will be. GAH! But, this will be as it stands now, with all my rambling thoughts.

Part, the first. In the contract that I was asked to sign to be sponsored, he states that he wants a large sum of money up front. He wants a monthly “maintenance” fee. And he wants a per report stipend for reviewing my work. (He would also pay me an hourly wage to do the reports, so basically, I give him an hour for free for each report.) Plus I have to carry my own Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance. All told, to start working for him, I have to come up with roughly $4000 – I’m not really concerned with the monthly maintenance fee or the per report fee; that money will come with the money he will pay me for the reports I write. It’s the up front fee and the E&O insurance premium. I do not have $4000. Period.

I can probably scrape together enough for the insurance, but I certainly don’t have the up front fee he wants. I do not know if he’ll finance it, but it’s something else to ask him. Although I feel like a doofus when I ask for what I consider to be special favors. “Hey, I know you’re making everyone else do this, but I was thinking maybe you’d let me…not. Or let me do it some other way, which is not what you want, you know, BUHCUZ I’M SPESHUL.” Needless to say, I’m not a special conditions asking type person.

Part, the second. He also has a non-compete clause. Which, if I were to work on windstorm inspections with my dad, I’m not sure if that falls in the same category as competing, but it’s not something I’m willing to give up. So that’s another thing to ask him.

Part, the third. In a 2 hour “interview,” he said both “I’m 78 years old and I’m looking to retire, so what I think would be ideal is that if I can train you, I will then eventually be able to hand the keys over to you and the business will be yours.” And not 10 minutes later he said “My house sits on 5 lots, a few of which back up to [This busy road right out front of where his office is now]. What I’d like to do is build a house on one lot and sell it, and then build an office for the business on another lot.” So is he reitiring “soon”? Or not? Knowing what I know about him (based on the 3 classes I’ve taken from him) I’d bet money that he’ll die before he retires.

Part, the fourth. Also in the contract, he wants me to join a couple organizations. Which have membership fees, so that’s even more money. Although it’s somewhat delayed, because I would start as an apprentice and am not required to join the organizations until I’m at the second tier.

So here’s where I need to decide where to go from here. I am still waiting on my PE results – historically we’re looking at late December, or early January. I do not have high hopes for that, mostly because I was so sick before the test, and I know I did not do the best I possibly could have if I hadn’t been queasy the entire day. So…to do: wait.

There’s a guy here at work that is also eligible to sponsor people as inspectors. Last time I spoke to him I felt like he didn’t really want to sponsor people (which I can understand, it’s a liability) and was also discussing the possibility that due to the new rules where an inspector has to carry E&O insurance, and being that it’s so expensive and this is not his day job, that he was considering doing inspections as a PE instead of as a TREC inspector. I need to set up a time to talk to him anyway, whether he’ll sponsor me or not. I want his opinion on whether this whole large sum of money up front for sponsorship business is a normal thing. So…to do: get second opinion.

I do have questions for the first sponsor guy, but before I ask them, I want the second opinion, so I’m tabling that.

My other option is to complete the 300 hours I have remaining. But, because they changed the rules so drastically, almost no one can become an inspector without a sponsor, and almost no one is willing to sponsor people. So no one is taking those classes, and they aren’t making, per the conversation with the possible sponsor who teaches said classes. There are other options out there, take home courses and such. I will have to repeat some of the hours, but it’s actually cheaper than the sponsorship with this guy. But then I also lose out on the field experience. This is a harder decision to make than it seems. It’s cheaper, yes. But, the hands on experience may well be worth the extra money. Also that I might inherit a business out of the deal thing could be a huge bonus. This is also a tabled decision until I talk to the other inspector.

A large part of me is just of the opinion that I wait to get my PE. When I do, I can do the windstorm inspections with my dad. And maybe I can do some of the other work he’s been turning away, because he doesn’t have time for it. Maybe that will work out to a way for me to work from home. Because, honestly? That’s the ultimate prize. That’s what all this crap has been about.

I’m ending this now, because my brain has melted from all the pontificating.

Not Yet

So, my meeting with my sponsor went...uh...went...interesting...I guess. I'm still not ready to talk about it.





I'm going to need some more time to process it. There are things in the contract I was asked to sign, that I'm not sure 1) I can do and 2) I want to do and 3) are necessary to accomplish my goal.





I have at least 2 more people I need to talk to. If nothing else, I need to talk to another possible sponsor, what kind of idiot would I be to agree to do something on this guy's terms, if I haven't even seen if those are "normal" terms for the situation. The other thing is that one of the clauses concerns me, so I need to talk to someone about that, but I don't want to go into that right now either.





We are 85% complete* with Christmas shopping. And we finally bought Landon the crane that goes on the back of his truck with his birthday money. He didn't think it should be attached at first, but decided it was ok. I also discovered last night that it can also be used as a tow truck (of which I have no pictures). That crane is awesome.

But use it with caution, and as always do not use heavy machinery while under the influence.

* this number is an estimation, no actual numbers were crunched.

Bullets

• I took 10,000 pictures this weekend and have none with me, because I emptied my camera onto the laptop.

• Landon has a spot of ringworm. It’s healing now that I’m administering Lotrimin that did not expire in January of 2006.

• I was asked what toys are safe for buying. And I found a few resources. There’s this one and this one. Toys R Us has a list you can get from the service desk (here it is online) but it’s not user friendly – it doesn’t have pictures and you can’t just order stuff directly from it. So the deal is that, while there are resources out there, they suck – but beware if you complain too much, they will make you design the next website or list.

• I’m meeting with my potential sponsor on Friday. He’s very excited about me, he’s optimistic about my potential and my goals, including the one where I want to work part time and still make enough money.

Plan #5697

Wow, I was totally ready to change the side bar stuff and rework my whole plan.

But looking at it, it’s probably about the same.

I called my contact last night because it has been two weeks and I hadn’t heard anything from him. He said he didn’t get my email, so I’ll send it again. But I asked him over the phone if he would consider sponsoring me and he said yes!

So I will work under him for a minimum of 1 year and 200 inspections and then I can apply to be a professional inspector and work for myself. Or I may end up loving working for him and stick with him. I assume at some point I will go actually talk to him about the details of how he sponsors people. And what it would mean for him to sponsor me.

But YEA!

This opportunity to work for him is actually really a blessing. When the rules changed I wrote a pro/con sheet (I'm a nerd) about continuing to pursue the education vs. having him sponsor me (him specifically, because I didn’t know anyone else who could). It couldn’t have come out more pro for him than it did.

Pop!

My bubble …it has been burst.

And I just…I can’t think of any words

There are no words right now. None. Well, there’s one word.

Craptastic.

There are also other words, but since my Grandma reads this blog, I’m not going to use them.

I sat on this for a day thinking it would be easier to write about and it’s just, it’s not.

It’s not easier. I should be used to it by now, because the cycle of my life is that I come up with a plan, a plan that has worked for 100s of other people, a plan I’m very excited about, I begin to implement that plan, and the universe takes a giant crap on my head. I brush the poop off and I reorganize my plan and I keep trying, I morph my plan until it only vaguely resembles my original plan and yet, I still am not making any headway.

Maybe that’s why I’m so hesitant to try new things, I figure it’s not going to work out for me anyway, why try. But this one was important to me and this one was a real plan and I thought I was done.

Remember my ethical dilemma? No, not the dead animal one, the early certificate one. If I hadn't been so ethical, I wouldn't be dealing with this right now. All I had left to do was paperwork and a test and they changed the rules on me 1 day after my last requirement was complete, but before I had a chance to apply. If I had taken that stupid early certificate and applied when I got it, I'd be on my way. But I didn't, I didn't think it was ethical. And NOW it's going to cost me a lot of money.

Hey, guess what though, I never learn. I have a NEW plan.

Actually I have 2 plans, 3 if you count the one where I plan to win the lotto. One of the 2 depends heavily on the willingness of a 3rd party. So once I contact him and get the “No Way.” Or the “Okay.” I will unveil my new plan. Plan #5697.

In which I become a thief

The remnants of tropical storm Erin headed through Houston last Thursday. We got about an hour or so of rain out at my office, but not too terribly much. I had class on Thursday evening, and while I heard about some flooding in East Houston, nothing said that HCC might cancel the classes. So I went ahead and went into town.

I got to the building, parked on the 5th floor like I always do.

I went down to the 1st floor and out the front to get dinner. Just like I always do.

The security guard said “Good Night!” to me like he always does.

I came back in and the security guard had me sign in, like he always does…(why? I don’t know, because when I leave I don’t pass him again.)

And THEN he tells me that HCC is closed. And in my damsel in distress mode, I made a big deal out of it because a) I have no money to pay the parking garage guy and I need a validation sticker and b) I was thinking on the ride over how I wish I could just go home and it turns out I could have – but instead opted for a 2 hour pointless side trip.

The way this building works is that they can shut the elevators down so you can leave via any floor of the parking garage, but you cannot get up to any offices with out a badge. They shut it down like that every day at 7pm, but also are able to do that, if say…an office closes for the day.

So he lets me up to the 7th floor anyway – doesn’t seem like a very secure thing for him to do, but maybe he recognizes me. Except if he recognizes me, why then does he tell me “Good Night!” every time I walk through to get something eat if he knows I’m coming back. He’s right, there’s no one up there, and there’s a sign that says they’ve closed the campus. Except if I hadn’t made a huge deal to the security guard about it, I never would have seen the sign and they didn’t bother to broadcast that news on anything.

And then I turned criminal.

I had no money. No cash, the parking garage only takes cash. I hadn’t been paid – payday was the next day, my allowance fund was not even enough to bother finding an ATM.

I knew where the receptionist kept the parking validation stickers, and without so much as a backwards glance, I walked around her desk and opened the drawer. I looked to see if I could sign in and account for the sticker, like I always do – but there was no sign in sheet anywhere.

I assume HCC has to pay some amount of money for those stickers and I suppose, the guys in the parking garage might have bought my story if I hadn’t gotten one. But if HCC didn’t want me to steal a sticker, they should have called me and told me my class was canceled.

Tonight, in some morphed bit of reasoning, we are making up the missed class by having a field trip, during what should be tonight’s class. So somehow, a 4 hour class that we missed and a 4 hour class tonight (8 hours total) will all be made up for by a 4 hour field trip. I’m not arguing, I just want to know where the logic of 4+4=4 comes from.

Is this an ethics test?

Saturday's mail contained my completion certificate for the roofing systems class I'm currently enrolled in. A class which is still supposed to meet 6 more times. That certificate is all I need (in addition to what I already have) to contact the TREC board and get permission to take the inspector test. I can't wait to see if any of the other guys in the class decide they no longer have to come since they already have their certificate.