A year ago Oppos may recall a couple of posts I made; they were about a job I applied for, was offered, and ultimately turned down. Well, I decided to keep on the lookout but not to shift so dramatically from what I’ve been doing. 6 months after I turned down the other job, another firm posted a job of the same title as mine and an old co-worker(different department, an acquaintance) gave me the in. 2 months later I was offered the job and in 10 days I start. I’ve liked a lot of the things about my current job but at the end of the day; my boss drove me nuts.

My boss’ boss though? Very good guy with an EQ like Einsteins IQ. Also a bit of a gear head but we didn’t talk shop as much as we should have quite honestly. He knows I have a Porsche 911 and that my daughter and I like playing legos.

What did I find on my desk from him earlier this week as a going away gift? One of the best Lego sets out there as far as I’m concerned.

Here’s to a new opportunity with a new boss and new challenges, and new things to learn.

18 months ago my department hired a new #2 in the org chart. And #2 really runs the day to day- #1 is mostly working on organization wide stuff.

I’m not crazy about the new #2. Don’t get me wrong, he is fine but I’ve had some rough spots with my job and he isn’t helping. He isn’t results oriented, he’s task oriented- he loves it when people do stuff; effective or ineffective- who cares, they did stuff! It results in a department driven to do stuff and less focused on results. And we have no shortage of stuff we could do. I’m always baffled that I’m the only one talking priority and ROI.

As a result, I’ve been applying to jobs. But I’m doing so with a healthy dose of caution and patience. Only jobs I truly want. I’m going to take a 25% pay hit no matter what but my wife and I could get by pretty happily if I took a 66% pay cut so my wife is hesitant but I’m not- we’ve scraped by in the past and the positions I’m applying for aren’t scraping- they just aren’t high paying. If I can be happier, even if it means less money, that’s fine.

I haven’t gotten much response on applications but today I lined up a phone interview. It feels like a weight was lifted even though it’s just a first step.

The job though is one that in the past I have described to others as a “dream job”. I didn’t think I’d ever get a shot at it as although I have an advanced degree; but it’s not the usual requirement for the position(usually list under “preferred” in addition to the degree I don’t have). It’s a Perfect fit for my personality and my interests.

But even if I don’t get this one; getting this phone interview makes it feel like I can probably get other interest as I look around.

In the ultimate stroke of irony- my job has improved in the past 3 months more than at any time lately but I like the idea of having options.

Wish me luck Oppo.

About 2 months ago I posted about a first interview on what is close to a dream job for me. Flash forward and I have now gone through a second Zoom interview and a 5 hour in person deluge of meetings including a presentation. I’m supposed to hear on their final decision this week.

The potential new job was always expected to be a cut in pay but I won’t know how much if/when I get the offer. It’s been really stressful because there’s a chance, albeit a small one, where they offer below my floor and I end up having to decline. I hope, and my wife pretty strongly believes, that they’ll find the middle ground with me but it’s still stressful.

It’s a less impressive job on paper but it would be more fulfilling. And it would actually offer me some flexibility to explore other things. My current job is 45-50 hours per week and I feel like I’m failing because I should be doing 55. This one is 35-40.

So with the extra 5-10 hours I can invest in life or professional development, or even follow up on some contract work I was offered in the past. But before I make all those plans I need an acceptable offer and to get through a really awkward month.

I said it last time I posted about my job search and I’ll say it again. Wish me luck oppo. Thanks for listening to my rambling on life.

My daughter; a sweet, kind, funny, bright 7 year old; approaches life in a certain way. She sits back, watches, learns and once she figures it out she joins in. She almost never jumps into something. I’ve heard it’s a bit of a conundrum more common with only children. But our daughter is also very good at lots of things once she takes the leap.

Some things can be executed pretty well with this approach- when we got her a 7 foot basketball hoop she knew the basics and only had a few real doozies before she started getting close and then making baskets. The sky is the limit on basketball skill but she could feel like she was doing it almost from the get-go. And that first glint of independent success was its own reward.

Some things in life aren’t learned by watching though, not even remotely; and downhill skiing is high on the list. We started taking our daughter skiing maybe 2 years ago- first with her in between our legs and holding our poles; then out front holding our poles; and most recently with her in a climbing harness and with some tethers we could pull if she started losing control. We’ve done lots of bunny hill time but never gotten her to completely ski without some nearby/holding/helping, until yesterday. Things got really strained a month ago when we called it a day on our first run at a really popular local hill that just overwhelmed her. But we went back out again 2 weeks later and my wife used her magic to get our daughter going again with some confidence and fun and patience.

We went out again and skied a bunch yesterday and our daughter was almost never pulling on the harness on the long shallow greens and bunny hills; in that territory she just didn’t really need it.

Over a well earned cookie I convinced her to ditch the tethers and give the bunny hill a shot all on her own. And she didn’t just ski down the bunny hill. She drew S’es in the snow all the way down. As she did more runs and got more comfortable she narrowed them out and went a little quicker. She went up the tow rope and back down on her own for an hour. I got choked up a couple of times. I’ve always told her I’m not necessarily proud of you for being good at something- I’m very proud of you for trying hard and getting back up after failing and working at getting better. And yesterday she conquered a big fear of hers- overcame more than a couple of failures; and it had a huge reward, she skied til she was exhausted. It was incredible.

Well almost 3 months to the day after I applied for a job; I received a job offer. I had been keeping my eye out for similar opportunities to this one for a few years and have thought the type of position could be a possible dream job. But in the end I declined.

As a person married for over a decade, I make few(or no) life decisions without my wife. And my wife and I had talked very little about this life change pre-offer because it’s a bit of a loaded conversation. Lots of moving pieces. But before I even got a chance to talk to my wife, at her recommendation; I laid out the pros, the cons, and some unknowns on my own. By the time I was done writing the list, something was apparent to me- the job wasn’t right. I mean the position is one I think I’d really enjoy with the right employer, and in the right time but this one had some warning signs and as much as I’m not particularly motivated by pay, it wasn’t clear to me that we could easily make our lives fit to the pay of this new job.

The first challenge was that I wasn’t sure how I’d get along with my boss. He tried to “pitch” me before their offer on taking the job and it was almost worrying in it’s lack of clarity about what success looked like in his mind- but also it sounded like he had some specific expectations. Lots of back and forth on two sides. He seemed nice but I’ve found over time that I resonate with some bosses and don’t with others and he just seemed like someone I’d struggle to work with. In our 3-4 conversations I wasn’t sure what the relationship would look like and it would have been a job with a lot of collaboration so I would have noticed this day in and day out I think.

The second was perceived opportunity for longevity. If I leave my current employer of 4 years it’s going to be for somewhere I can be there for at least as long and preferably longer. This reason is harder to explain but I started foreseeing it as a job with a honeymoon, “isn’t this great” phase, and a different long term outlook. They’ve strugggled to keep people at this organization in these roles long term from what I gathered.

The third was pay. Pay really wasn’t the deciding factor but it also didn’t let me hedge my concerns for points #1 and #2 above, which if they had been in my range, it might have. Tough to say. We had one kind of awkward, tough conversation about pay and I felt like they hid the ball a little and I think they thought I was being difficult. What struck me in the end is that the position didn’t have a range- it had a number and that’s very different than when I’ve hired in the past- because obviously someone with the minimum experience might get paid less than someone with, oh I don’t know, 8 years of experience. They disagreed; they were going to pay whoever wanted the job the same amount. I dunno; I suspect this plays a part in why they can’t retain people.

Anyways the good news is that my current job hasn’t been as hard(mentally) lately. And saying “no” to this pending 3 month question lifted mental barriers in some ways. So back to the grind. With any luck I’ll continue to get in a groove at my current job and be able to stick around for a few more years. Generally speaking I like the people and the work on good days so it’s just a matter of trying everyday to do the things I like.

I got lots of good vibes from people here on Oppo when I posted before, so thank you all.

As some of you may recall, my wife’s 9 year old Ford C-Max hit what should have been an easily fixable issue with a failed ABS unit- instead the necessary part was on infinite back order and a used unit proved not to work with our local indy who gave us a discount on the attempt. But the real deciding factor on my wife getting a new car was the topic ever arising in the first place. Once the words were uttered she never really budged from the idea. The only thing that remotely shook her decision was that she has had her hopes set on an ID Buzz but as I pointed out to her; us buying in the first 1-2 years is a serious long shot and it doesn’t exist in the USA.

I posted about our car shopping and despite all your suggestions, the RAV4 hybrid was the winner- it’s known reliability, gas mileage, and space are really hard to argue with for the price. With a RAV4 hybrid on order, the question of what to do about her C-Max accelerated. The Toyota sales person said any car that isn’t drivable is automatically deducted pretty substantially, and told us if caravana or car max would give us decent money to go that route. A quick estimated purchase price at Carmax came back at $6,800(not ideal but acceptable given the work needed) but my wife went through the process and came up with $8,300. Who knows what she checked different than me but obviously we made an appointment with her estimate. We were prepared for them to negotiate down to near 6,800 in person.

Bare in mind; the work once it can be done on the car will cost $1,600. It also had some very light rust along the front quarter panel behind the front wheel at the bottom on one side.

But it was otherwise in good shape. The best comp(but not with broken brakes) I could find had the same miles and was for sale for $11,200.

Carmax looked the car over, test drove it, took a few pictures of the rust. And within 75 minutes we had a check for $8,300. So between some rust remediation, and the ABS unit, those are some thin margins.

Anyways, if you have a car to offload, CarMax is a decent consideration. They paid us about what we really could have hoped to get for the car. Now everyday we pray to get our RAV4 allotment. 2 weeks in and no word yet.

The best part of my wife springing for a new car—- I feel like she’ll be open to me asking to do the same in a year or two. Do I want a Corolla GR? Yes, yes I do.

I honestly can’t fathom how our country has gotten to a point where a vaccine is deemed political so that someone asks that posts about them be put alongside content about elections.

It’s a medical procedure vetted by the fda, to decrease deaths related to a hopefully once in a lifetime pandemic. Let’s get them, and celebrate each person getting back to normal safely.

Deep down I’m thinking this is a late in the game April Fool’s joke but that seems too hopeful.

Quickjacks arrived last Sunday and I got them mostly setup that day but finished up yesterday.

These things are beasts when they show up; each one weighs 75 pounds and the boxes are awkward to carry. It appeared that one of the bleeder screws wasn’t snug when it shipped so one of them was covered in a fine mist of hydraulic fluid upon arrival.

The setup procedure wasn’t bad; bleeding didn’t take long. I used plumbing tape instead of the thread seal stuff they provide.

I realized pretty quickly that for a 911, there is a good direction to lift and a less ideal direction. Once at full height it’s not an issue but as it’s lifting you can see the weight distribution is a little off IF the quickjacks are facing one direction instead of the other. I suspect most cars won’t be this way and at full height it’s not noticeable.

But once that was sorted they are really stable, really fast to get placed and fast to raise and lower. I need to figure out how to store best including possibly some hangers in the brick of my garage.

Watch out world, I’m going to be wrenching like crazy now.

Some mixed emotions coming out of today…

We were out playing some soccer as a family and my wife says “what’s that flaking off my car”. I was wincing before she got to it- my wife’s 2013 Ford C-Max, with 80,000 miles, which spent the first 4 years of its life in Oregon and the last 4 in Minnesota has the start of some rocker rust. Jesus, if there is one thing I don’t like about Minnesota, it’s how hard it is on cars. I’ve been thinking she should get a Ford maverick maybe now I can convince her…

Second noteworthy thing to come from the day is that I got my results confirming I am positive for Covid. My daughter got exposed at school two weeks ago. 3-4 days before she was set to return, last Thursday, she and I both got symptoms. We both got rapid tests, hers was positive, mine was negative. She bounced back in 2-3 days and I slogged through the last week in misery and so I got a PCR test in the mail. Results came in as we were getting up from the dinner table. Honestly, I’m glad to know the reason I’ve felt like crap. I was planning to get my booster the day my symptoms hit guess I got a kind of a booster. I worked from home through the whole week(albeit somewhat slowly) because of the negative, now I wish I had asserted myself.

Finally, I’ve been de-tiki-ing our basement whenever I don’t feel like death. When we move into our house the basement had a pseudo thatched roof, and funky ceiling, and funky wall paper. I’ve slowly tried to take the tiki out for some time but 2 weeks ago I just hit my limit and cut the pseudo roof out and started scraping walls and ceiling. It’s been so much god awful work. We’ve suffered terrible mission drift. But the end is starting to get in sight.

Thanks for listening. Happy thanksgiving.

@texturedsoyprotein hopefully not long. Maybe people don’t venture out on the sidewalks there, but around here, something like this would be a big middle finger to the handful of kids on most blocks who scooter/bike/run the sidewalks and the dozens of walkers and runners I see going by every day. This is the kind of thing where one person doing it isn’t so bad but if even 10-20% do it; it ruins the whole system. I sure don’t want my 6 year old forced to go around cars into the street more than she has to.

@ranwhenparked it’s probably the only reason this person is able to drive with the trailer(for now); their trailers are light.

@HammerheadFistpunch scamps are light trailers; I think even their fifth wheel version is 3000-3500 pounds.

@krustywantout given the miles, the manual, and the neat color; this seems like a good purchase. The lack of sport seats is a shame but everything else is good.

This is a funny post to write, and I’ll explain why I feel that way in a second.

But here is the news; Mini is having trouble keeping up with demand so they are halting sales of manual transmissions.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/mini-manual-transmission-supplier-issues/amp/

The reason I find this post funny to write is that I don’t know that anyone noticed Mini making this decision, outside of a handful of auto journalists who Mini probably contacted to publish the news, and why would they? I think it’s a shame to write that; the Cooper and Cooper S are close to being competitive and I love that the brand keeps some inkling of automotive enjoyment in their roots. But the truth is that I think since Mini’s North American launch almost 20 years ago their relevance has faded. The JCW GP from last year was cool but in my mind a bit of a missed opportunity.

My main disappointment is the way Mini has let their main mid-level enthusiast model, the Cooper S, stagnate. Even the VW GTI which some have complained hasn’t seen much in terms of engine performance increase in ten years has gotten a whole second faster in its 0-60 time. But the Cooper S hasn’t improved a smidge in 0-60 in the last decade. Whether it’s a relevant measure I leave to you all but I do think it’s illustrative if a lack of product evolution.

The Veloster N, the Civic SI, the GTI, the Elantra N; they all don’t just offer more; when you consider cost they do so by a wide margin. And I know Mini has never been the value option but it seems like the gap has gotten wider.

I welcome the 4 door version; I welcome the clubman’s weird wagon body or the high riding countryman; I will tolerate the British Union Jack antics; but I just think it’d be great if mini could find a way to be more cost competitive and the only way to do that would be to update their cars slightly while maintaining prices. Last years skunk works JCW GP shouldn’t have been a one off- it should have been a roadmap for trickle down. Until they do some updating, even enthusiasts one of the last manual transmission stalwarts will remain somewhat irrelevant to enthusiasts.

@ash78 it’s just a regular hybrid- plug in would be a challenge for us at times to take full advantage. It still gets a combined 39 estimated mpg and fuelly shows people getting 36-39. It has a gas/electric motor up front and a small motor out back to provide AWD.

It’s a bigger car than in the past I think and more aggressive looking. I like it, it’s nice, tons of room, should be reliable.

@bbg2d I’m on two sides of the fence- in my mind that car has a lot more life left in it once fixed. But if my wife wants to get a new car after 5 years- that’s fine.

As some of you may recall, my wife’s 9 year old Ford C-Max hit what should have been an easily fixable issue with a failed ABS unit- instead the necessary part was on infinite back order and a used unit proved not to work with our local indy who gave us a discount on the attempt. But the real deciding factor on my wife getting a new car was the topic ever arising in the first place. Once the words were uttered she never really budged from the idea. The only thing that remotely shook her decision was that she has had her hopes set on an ID Buzz but as I pointed out to her; us buying in the first 1-2 years is a serious long shot and it doesn’t exist in the USA.

I posted about our car shopping and despite all your suggestions, the RAV4 hybrid was the winner- it’s known reliability, gas mileage, and space are really hard to argue with for the price. With a RAV4 hybrid on order, the question of what to do about her C-Max accelerated. The Toyota sales person said any car that isn’t drivable is automatically deducted pretty substantially, and told us if caravana or car max would give us decent money to go that route. A quick estimated purchase price at Carmax came back at $6,800(not ideal but acceptable given the work needed) but my wife went through the process and came up with $8,300. Who knows what she checked different than me but obviously we made an appointment with her estimate. We were prepared for them to negotiate down to near 6,800 in person.

Bare in mind; the work once it can be done on the car will cost $1,600. It also had some very light rust along the front quarter panel behind the front wheel at the bottom on one side.

But it was otherwise in good shape. The best comp(but not with broken brakes) I could find had the same miles and was for sale for $11,200.

Carmax looked the car over, test drove it, took a few pictures of the rust. And within 75 minutes we had a check for $8,300. So between some rust remediation, and the ABS unit, those are some thin margins.

Anyways, if you have a car to offload, CarMax is a decent consideration. They paid us about what we really could have hoped to get for the car. Now everyday we pray to get our RAV4 allotment. 2 weeks in and no word yet.

The best part of my wife springing for a new car—- I feel like she’ll be open to me asking to do the same in a year or two. Do I want a Corolla GR? Yes, yes I do.

@Highlander Minneapolis is likely ducking it tonight and I’m thankful. Hope anyone west of the cities stays safe.

@KngT it baffles me that the truck with 230 miles of range starts at $40k; and it’s a bit lower spec but it’s not your traditional work truck based on videos/pictures. I think it’d be livable for lots of people. I’m also pretty surprised at how quickly the price can shoot up on the configuration.

I wonder how many of the 200k reservations are people who consider their purchase as being contingent on the $7500 tax incentive that’s going to run out soon.

@Taylor-Martin I like a lot of what Kia and Hyundai have on offer but the headlight/grille integration that the Elantra and Tucson uses is my least favorite element of car design right now. I find it really off putting. The new sportage is about as funky as I can get on board with. But there is a lot to like about the other models and what they have to offer and how they look.