A Day in the Life

So I'm headed home, I guess. Townes is heading into the shop tomorrow, hopefully to resolve the brake issues once and for all.

But I figured in the meantime I'd give you a basic rundown.

This job was in Kansas, which means crossing a time zone. 9:30AM start, 3 hour drive (figure 4 for the time zone). So that meant getting up at 3 AM to get out at 4 AM to give myself an hour cushion (I ALWAYS allow a cushion, and always "plan" to arrive 30 minutes early, as sometimes I need that 30 minutes to find the site. Even when I don't, it's still nice to have a couple of minutes to collect myself).

Coming into town wound up being an adventure. The brakes, as I mentioned, are bad (read: nearly nonexistent), and it was pouring rain. I came upon the stoplight, which has a warning signal when it's about to turn to encourage highway traffic to slow down. When I passed it, no warning light. But it turned yellow with very little time for me to stop, and an almost certainty I would be running through the red light. And since there were cars on the cross street, this could be bad. Thinking quickly, I slowed as much as I could and pulled a hard right, making the turn with no trouble. Still, I was a bit shaken up by the near miss.

So I arrived at the site, a hotel that's about ready to open. My job (ostensibly) was to install the router. I walked in, was directed to the switch room, patch panels were in place, but...no switches. I called in and it looked like the internal IT was behind schedule. I helped the managers find the switches, but because I don't know the setup or internal network, there was nothing I could do except sign the router over to the manager and check out. Relatively easy assignment.

So I decided to try to pick one up in Dalhart that's been sitting there. I submitted an offer, the ticket was pulled. Not rejected, pulled (I get a notice if it is rejected or reassigned). This means the buyer didn't like my offer. Ah, well, you win some, you lose some.

So, headed back before noon with a good paycheck for the day. Which is pretty good; I'm going to need it for the brake work. Hoping that I'm back to normal by Monday.