Pretty Good Day
As I was saying way too late last night, Thursday was a pretty good day for me. Three things in particular stand out:
1. Lula
Lula, the 1990 Dodge Dynasty we inherited from Granny, has been making a loud, persistent clacking noise for a while now. When we were in Colorado several weeks ago, Dad said he thought it was probably the lifters (or "tappets"), and if we didn't get the problem fixed right away, it could ruin the engine. That kind of repair would run something like $400-$600, according to someone who knows more about cars than I do (which, unfortunately, is almost everyone). Somebody else thought that the problem might be as simple as a serpentine belt that needed to be replaced. That's a $100 job we could have done the next time we take Lula to get the oil changed. Or it could be something completely different. Either way, we haven't been driving her much lately.
So, having the day off, I took Lula in to the shop yesterday. I got there just after 8:00, as the guy I spoke to on the phone recommended. I dropped off the keys, gave them my cell number, and headed off toward Library Square just a couple of blocks away. When my phone hadn't rung by 10:15, I headed back to the shop. When I came in, I was told that my car hadn't even been looked at yet. The owner of the shop overheard our discussion and offered to look at it right then. So, about 20 minutes later he emerged from the repair floor with a diagnosis and an estimate. Good news: the noise appeared to have nothing to do with the engine itself, which meant no expensive valve job. Huzzah! Using a stethoscope, they isolated the noise to the water pump area. Replacing the water pump, he said, should eliminate the problem. His estimate for parts and labor was just over $185. That's doable—not right now, but we can save up for that pretty quickly.
2. Substitute Teaching
On my way back from the shop, I stopped off at the district office to get registered to substitute again this school year. When I walked into the office, Pam, the district coordinator recognized me—and remembered my name. When I expressed my surprise, she said, "You really made an impression on some of those schools." That was really gratifying to hear. Maybe I've got a future in this business after all.
Re-registering for the year was really simple, and Pam verified which schools had me listed for substituting. She handed me some new materials for the year, including the pay schedule. And that's where the other piece of good news came in: "These numbers are wrong," she said. It seems that the Jordan school district raised their substitute pay rates over the summer, so the Granite district is matching the increase. End result, if it passes the board meeting review next week: an extra $15+ per day for the upcoming school year. That puts the hourly rate on par with what I make as QA Manager at the call center at night.
3. Champions
At last night's meeting of the OGC, I got to play a new character for the first time. We decided several weeks ago to start a new campaign to accommodate everyone's hectic summer schedules. There would be no long, multipart adventures, no complicated story arcs. There would just be simple adventures for whoever happened to be there that week. And whoever felt like GMing (or whoever could come up with an adventure on short notice) would run the week's adventure.
Unfortunately, I've been the one to miss most of the gaming sessions this summer. So while I've GMed an adventure in what we refer to as "The Floating Campaign", I've never played my her. Until last night. His name is Onyx, and he's something like an Earth elemental. He projects blasts of stone that have various effects. That's right, my hero's main offensive power is that he throws rocks. He was a lot of fun to play. I can't wait until I get to show off the power nobody in the group has seen yet: he transforms to living stone and goes from energy projector to brick!
And that's my pretty good Thursday. I hope you all have a pretty good day, too, loyal readers.
1. Lula
Lula, the 1990 Dodge Dynasty we inherited from Granny, has been making a loud, persistent clacking noise for a while now. When we were in Colorado several weeks ago, Dad said he thought it was probably the lifters (or "tappets"), and if we didn't get the problem fixed right away, it could ruin the engine. That kind of repair would run something like $400-$600, according to someone who knows more about cars than I do (which, unfortunately, is almost everyone). Somebody else thought that the problem might be as simple as a serpentine belt that needed to be replaced. That's a $100 job we could have done the next time we take Lula to get the oil changed. Or it could be something completely different. Either way, we haven't been driving her much lately.
So, having the day off, I took Lula in to the shop yesterday. I got there just after 8:00, as the guy I spoke to on the phone recommended. I dropped off the keys, gave them my cell number, and headed off toward Library Square just a couple of blocks away. When my phone hadn't rung by 10:15, I headed back to the shop. When I came in, I was told that my car hadn't even been looked at yet. The owner of the shop overheard our discussion and offered to look at it right then. So, about 20 minutes later he emerged from the repair floor with a diagnosis and an estimate. Good news: the noise appeared to have nothing to do with the engine itself, which meant no expensive valve job. Huzzah! Using a stethoscope, they isolated the noise to the water pump area. Replacing the water pump, he said, should eliminate the problem. His estimate for parts and labor was just over $185. That's doable—not right now, but we can save up for that pretty quickly.
2. Substitute Teaching
On my way back from the shop, I stopped off at the district office to get registered to substitute again this school year. When I walked into the office, Pam, the district coordinator recognized me—and remembered my name. When I expressed my surprise, she said, "You really made an impression on some of those schools." That was really gratifying to hear. Maybe I've got a future in this business after all.
Re-registering for the year was really simple, and Pam verified which schools had me listed for substituting. She handed me some new materials for the year, including the pay schedule. And that's where the other piece of good news came in: "These numbers are wrong," she said. It seems that the Jordan school district raised their substitute pay rates over the summer, so the Granite district is matching the increase. End result, if it passes the board meeting review next week: an extra $15+ per day for the upcoming school year. That puts the hourly rate on par with what I make as QA Manager at the call center at night.
3. Champions
At last night's meeting of the OGC, I got to play a new character for the first time. We decided several weeks ago to start a new campaign to accommodate everyone's hectic summer schedules. There would be no long, multipart adventures, no complicated story arcs. There would just be simple adventures for whoever happened to be there that week. And whoever felt like GMing (or whoever could come up with an adventure on short notice) would run the week's adventure.
Unfortunately, I've been the one to miss most of the gaming sessions this summer. So while I've GMed an adventure in what we refer to as "The Floating Campaign", I've never played my her. Until last night. His name is Onyx, and he's something like an Earth elemental. He projects blasts of stone that have various effects. That's right, my hero's main offensive power is that he throws rocks. He was a lot of fun to play. I can't wait until I get to show off the power nobody in the group has seen yet: he transforms to living stone and goes from energy projector to brick!
And that's my pretty good Thursday. I hope you all have a pretty good day, too, loyal readers.
posted by Michael at
9:54 AM
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