Lewisville update

 At Lewisville today, we received some of our missing can light housings and put them in so that the women’s bathroom and the entrance hall are now fully lit. All we have left are the men’s bathroom and the bathroom vestibule, at least as far as I can tell. I put up an odd type of sconce and put in the other key switch for the bathroom. It still only works to toggle the power on and off regardless of which way it is turned, but I didn’t see another way to do it and Big John apparently gave it his stamp of approval. I wished I could have talked to him about it, though. It was a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make the key switch work the way I thought it should, even though in the end I decided it was impossible.

My weekend started out lousy with most of my Saturday spent on Rimworld. In the evening I went to visit my cousin Greg to see his woodworking shop. The furniture he built was awe-inspiring, and he also cut my wood so that I could continue with my project (after almost six months). Sunday, I spent most of the day on that project, an end table. I learned a lot from working on the end table. First, I discovered that I had been using my random orbit sander in all the wrong ways.

Snapchat and holiness

 I talked to Josh about Snapchat today, how it worked and what kind of content was typically seen on it. It sounds like the new Facebook, which people use to draw attention to themselves. However, it definitely appealed to me to have a ten-second clip of whatever I am working on archived for posterity (i.e. older me). I might look into creating a private account like that, but for now I will use the classic form of journaling, a blog (er… close enough).

Today was possibly my last day at the Lewisville Community Center, at least for a while. We got all the lights working that we had available to us. I did some rewiring of the can lights and installed some whips that will give power to some window blinds by pushing cables through holes that I made yesterday from just above the window up into the soffit and tying them into junction boxes. It was a good day of work.

I’ve been thinking about my future career a lot, as I tend to do when a change approaches. Also, a guy at work who does the data asked me about how I changed careers. Anyway, I have been thinking that I would like to try being a residential electrician. It would be good experience for side jobs, and it would also give me a way to help people. On the other hand, I am more interested in the controls branch of electrical work, which is more the opposite direction. And finally, my interest in programming has been rekindled for no apparent reason. I have yet to actually write any code this year, but I plan to begin as soon as I finish writing.

Also, last night I started reading The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul. One passage of the Bible that has haunted me for several years and particularly recently is the scene where Isaiah sees God in the temple and cries “Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). The book addresses this passage in the context of holiness. Examining holiness more closely in this book has elucidated a few mysteries I have pondered about the nature of God.

Relocation

 I’ve been thinking about relocating. For several years now it has been my plan to move to Virginia someday. Today I decided to investigate how to define that plan in more detail. First, I thought about my criteria. I want to be at a reasonable distance from my parents—ninety minutes is sort of my ideal, but I think I could handle up to four hours. I would want to live in a city, or rather on the outskirts of a city, at least as large as Burlington but preferably larger. This would help employment opportunities, meeting people, and general accessibility to goods and services. Ideally, I would have decent access to a larger city as well—within two hours. I wouldn’t want to live in a huge city though, especially not one known for its traffic like Richmond or DC. Neither would I want to live at or near the coast. The housing prices should be reasonable, hopefully similar to what is around here if not cheaper. I would need to find a good local church, but that’s a more advanced step. It might help me narrow down options, though.

With these criteria in mind, I examined Virginia and found it lacking. My recent thoughts have been of Roanoke and Danville, but it turns out that the latter is smaller than Burlington which probably eliminates it. Roanoke is smaller than I expected at 100k and a metropolitan area of 300k—about the size of Greensboro. It’s about 2 hours away from Burlington, which is a bit further than ideal. Also less than ideal is that the nearest large city is Richmond, over 2 hours away. Charlottesville seems like my other option. It’s over three hours from home, but has easy access to Richmond and DC, and makes New England a much more driveable vacation possibility. I enjoyed visiting Charlottesville, and I think I would enjoy living there.

While I have two decent options, I realized that North Carolina is actually much more ideal. If I move half an hour to the east or so, I could potentially work anywhere in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. If I move 30-45 minutes to the west, I could work in the Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem area. Both of these areas have populations of over a million, which easily surpasses my Virginia options. Even Charlotte might have more potential than them.

While an actual employment would weight any decisions heavily, at the moment that’s not really a factor. Actually, I take that back, since I could conceivably move either direction in NC while staying employed at my current company. The problem with that is my lease. Money would also become an issue quickly if my salary doesn’t increase sufficiently. Also, if I’m going to do student teaching in the near future, I would prefer to do it at BCA. Even so, I think I will look into it just to get a feel for the possibilities and perhaps set up a tentative goal.

33 Years Old

This is it—the big 33. I’ve been anticipating it for… six years or so? The reason: Jesus began his ministry at the age of 33. I would also like to begin my “life’s work” at this point. Expecting it to happen, and comparing myself to Jesus in this way, is presumptuous. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong, though, especially if it motivates me to persevere.

Last year I swore off fanfiction and video games. I made it to around this time of year and before diving back into video games. I’m pretty sure I didn’t last nearly this long with the fanfiction. For some reason, though, I can’t find any fanfiction that holds my attention anymore, and video games are only slightly more interesting. During the week I only have about three hours of free time, so it’s not difficult to fill that up. I do cleaning, woodworking, and lately I’ve started playing tennis. I was playing guitar for a while, but the other activities have mostly replaced that. I also talk to Jared and I’ve watched some TV with him, but none of it was riveting.

I’ve established some good habits, like preparing my food for the week. I do a decent job of passing the time in a productive manner. My biggest vices nowadays are shopping and eating, especially eating at Sheetz. My plan for avoiding this is to tell myself when I go to the grocery store that I can buy anything that I can take to work as long as I don’t go to Sheetz. It’s warm enough now that I don’t need to ride with the others to avoid the cold, so I can just stay at the jobsite for lunch. I’m starting this plan tomorrow.

Shopping is mostly related to my other pastimes, especially woodworking. I’m justifying it by saying that it’s an investment and an incentive to spend time productively. There may come a time soon that I will need to be more frugal, though. I may end up student teaching in the fall after all, and I might have to take a class in the summer as well, which would be expensive.

I’m going to spend time studying the Bible and praying. I also want to look for service opportunities. That’s my plan for 33. Let’s see how well it goes.

Using my time

I wanted to write consistently at least twice a week, but I have found that I have very little time during the week. Compared to my first two weeks of work, my new job site cuts down on my free time considerably. I lose at least an hour and a half to the commute, and I’m also more tired because of the increased physical demands. If I brought my laptop then I could write in the car, but I’m not going to leave a thousand-dollar laptop in a location where it could so easily be stolen.

For the past two weeks I wake up at 4:45, get ready, and go to work without any down time. By the time I get home and take a shower, it’s about 5 PM. I might play a bit of KoL or guitar before dinner. After dinner I talk to Mom or play games, KoL, or guitar. About 8:30, I get ready for bed. I might read a little, but my lights are typically out by 9. I generally spend about an hour on KoL and 30-45 minutes on guitar, which I think is reasonable. That leaves between 60-90 minutes (depending on the family activity of the night) which I waste on other things and which could probably be spent more productively. Oh yeah, I was also watching electrician videos, but I watched all the basic videos and now I’m struggling to find topics that seem relevant.

What other goals do I want to pursue? I want to improve on my calisthenics, but an extensive session of push-ups, l-sits, and handstands only takes about 5 minutes per session and I wouldn’t do more than three sessions a day. In other words, it’s not even worth scheduling, but I do need to start doing it. In my current situation, I’m around a lot of Spanish-speakers, and I even ride to work next to one. It’s a perfect opportunity to improve my Spanish, so I should figure out a way to work on that. Maybe go back to that grammar website and finish it off with about 10 minutes a day, and then alternate between reading and watching TV for another 20 minutes. Sounds good. I also want to work on my knowledge as an electrician, but I’m not sure how to do that. It’s a research topic for a weekend, I guess.

Another research topic, though not necessarily for the weekend, is something that I can do during the commute that doesn’t require a whole lot of concentration. Rubik’s cube is one idea, but I’m not going to do it for more than twenty minutes, and I would be inviting ridicule for sure. If I find an interesting book then I might be able to make that work, but I feel that at the moment I don’t have access to any, and a Spanish book would definitely take too much concentration. Spanish grammar is a possibility, and I could do vocab flashcards too if I made them in the evening.

Once I move out, I plan to do cooking on the weekends. The weekend will also involve laundry, cleaning, and probably grocery shopping for the week (in the early morning). I’ll update my budget too, and hopefully play tennis with Jared. I’ll try to find something social to do once that becomes more of a possibility. Then again, if I start spending all day at church again, that will probably fill up my schedule.

New year, new job

To continue from my last post, I ended up finding a Honda Civic '11 at a dealer in Graham as soon as he put it on the market. I went down to look at it, found it good, and bought it less than a week later. The price was a little lower than I was expecting to pay, especially after my first excursion. The car looks really nice and has a reasonable number of miles on it. I've had it for nearly two months and I've only gone through one tank of gas.

I was supposed to do student teaching this semester, but there was an early deadline that I was not aware of until too late. Hence, I needed to find a job. I've been wanting to try my hand at a trade for a while. Of course getting into software development is much more lucrative, but I haven't had any success in that area yet. So my dad's friend got me set up with a job as an electrician's apprentice (outside of union circles, this is apparently known as a electrician's helper's helper). Tuesday was my first day, and aside from the mud, I rather enjoyed it. We mostly dug trenches and put conduits in these trenches. On Wednesday I didn't do much of anything except watch work being done, so that was less fun. On Thursday I was in a similarly spectating mode, but I did do a few things--maybe forty-five minutes' worth of easy work altogether. Hopefully I'll get to a point where I can do more very soon.

One unfortunate part of this new job is that everyone goes out to eat. I did it too, but then I had a terrible stomach ache yesterday which we attribute to something I ate from a restaurant. So I'm going to need to take my own lunch, but there won't be a microwave, so whatever it is I will have to eat it cold. Mom makes a curried chickpea salad, which is decent but not something I want to eat often. Thus I need to figure out some meals that I will enjoy eating that do not need to be heated. That's goal for the new year, but I need to do it quickly.

Another consequence of not doing my student teaching this semester is that I no longer feel justified in staying with my parents. So I've started looking for a new place to live. Fortunately, my brother's circumstances also changed recently so that he too is looking for a new place. Unfortunately, our finances are a bit sketchy at the moment--he doesn't have enough money for a deposit and I don't have much of an income history. His situation could be remedied easily, but my income may be unsatisfactory for three more months. Ideally, I would stay with my parents for that time, but according to my brother the best time to get a new apartment is between December and March, and plus I'm not sure that he can live where he is now for three more months. Some of these worries are presumptive, so it could be that we can move in soon after all.

I worked some more on the compost bin and I now have the frame more or less put together. The wire is giving me a headache, though. I was planning to work on it today since it's supposed to be fairly warm without rain, but I'm not sure yet if I will feel like it.

Since I don't have to think about school all the time any more, I need to make some goals for the new year. I want to improve my skill in playing guitar. I got new guitar strings for Christmas and they sound so much better. For a couple months, I think I should devote a little time to learning electrician work. I want to read decent books again--I have very little patience for most fanfiction nowadays. I want to keep up this journal, though I think every day will be excessive when I'm working full-time away from a computer. I want to go back to working on calisthenics, and I might do aerobic exercises later. Then of course there is cooking, and I might make an attempt at having a social life if the impact of COVID-19 ever diminishes. That's probably a decent number of goals for now, and tomorrow I will try to quantify them and set objectives and/or deadlines.

Car shopping - the first foray

 We went to look at some cars yesterday. The first one was an ‘11 Nissan Sentra. It was in great condition, drove well, and felt comfortable. The dealer was extremely nice, and there was a good warranty on it. The miles were low. However, the price was high for the market value, and there wasn’t much space in the backseats. I don’t plan to have people in my backseats often if at all, but I also don’t want to feel uncomfortable if the day came where people needed to be in my backseats. So, while I haven’t ruled out that car or the Sentra, I’m going to look elsewhere for now.

We looked at a ’14 Hyundai Sonata, which I had considered last time as well. The seats felt uncomfortable and cheap, and the outside was in bad condition. As a result, I mostly ruled out that car. I drove an ‘11 Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, but the Civic needed some adjustment because it was vibrating pretty heavily, and the Corolla needed a tune-up because the engine was missing. It also had a lot of miles on it. Still, until I drove them, both cars seemed really nice. I would like to buy one of those two.

I’m still struggling to get the schedule programming back on course. I failed to set it up yesterday, so I didn’t start out with exercising like I had hoped. I’ve also wasted some time on Kingdom of Loathing, mostly planning.