This bobble head isn't a saint

I've been waiting for the diaspora of resumes I sent out to catch the attention of some HR person who will contact me for an interview. Meanwhile, I decided to make the best of my unplanned vacation and seize a bit of the essence of summer before it was over. I went to the beach.

I am still on an early morning schedule, so when I arrived, I walked to a desolate section of the beach and picked a spot near the dunes. I truly dislike getting sand blown into my face as I read while collecting the rays, turning every fifteen minutes like a rotisserie chicken. So, I set up a wind break and started to read. I figure that a few turns of the roast chi--, I mean, switching sides passed when I decided to go for a quick swim to cool off.

By now, my desolate section of beach was no longer desolate, as several sunbathers had chosen to set up like an expanding wave from my wind break. As I started to head to the ocean, I realized that many of these sunbathers were women. Which was not so unusual. What struck me as unusual was that more than a dozen of these females were topless.

It was a monumental task to keep my head from swiveling left and right like a bobble head. I know it's poor etiquette to stare, but what caused so many of them to form up around me? I was unable to focus on the book I was reading after I returned from my short swim. I mean, I'm a man, not a saint.

Anyway, after about an hour of trying to keep my eyes on the pages of the book only to find them straying to my sunbathing neighbors, I gave up and headed back to the car. Nothing a cold shower couldn't fix. Now, it's time to head off to class.

Losing helps you focus

After a weekend of mulling over my options, I started looking for work again in the classifieds. According to the Times, unemployment rates have declined this past month. A pity that the offers I saw in the paper weren't really looking for an Electrical Engineer.

The briefest flash of thought that I would have to move to another part of the country to find work crossed my mind and was immediately squashed. I couldn't imagine anywhere else I would want to live, despite my travels as a field technician in one of my previous work "experiences". Sounds silly, but that is where the reality lies.

I went to class today, and bumped into a friend and fellow student that works at the job I recently stopped working at. He told me how surprised he was that I had just left in the middle of the day last week. I told him that when they let me go, I wasn't in a mood to say goodbye to anybody.

As we continued to converse, he asked me if I knew why I was let go. I told him what my suspicions were. I gave him my reasons to back those suspicions. By this point, I had largely gotten over my disappointment over another opportunity that wasn't, so I wasn't even angry.

I then observed that I had only worked there a mere ten weeks, and hadn't developed an attachment enough to feel even slighted. He had a chuckle over this and told me that he had done things similar but hadn't gotten the same treatment I received. Which confirmed my suspicions about what I had been thinking.

He asked me if I had worked any place for less time. It took me a long time to think of another job where I stayed for less time, and that was a summer job I had when I was sixteen. That one only lasted a month. I simply didn't want to spend my summer confined to a desk.

It's just such a surprise to me that, despite the number of different positions that I have held, there have been so few that I have been working for such short periods of time. What's more interesting to me is the fact that I learned so much during that short period of time.

I think that it also helped focus me on what I want to be doing for my future. And no, it isn't to become a photographer. Though that might become a much more serious side job that will supplement my income. Imagine that, losing this job helped me gain more focus in my life.

Imagine a life without ups and downs.

Ah, what would life be if all things were happy and cheery, with not one iota of distress or strife in it? I can only wish that I were in a position to tell you. Today, that bright future I was looking forward to has suffered yet another setback.

I was let go by the company I just started working for. I'm certainly disappointed, but when they called me into the meeting, I knew that it was going to happen. The vice president of my division was quietly sitting there, and the only other witness was the HR person. One glance at the vice president, and I knew. I could even tell by his clearly agitated state that it was happening even before he started saying one word.

Ah well. I wasn't entirely enthused about the material I was working on from the start anyway. To be brutally honest, I wished they had let me go a week ago, so that I wouldn't have paid my tuition for this semester. Since I did pay it, I'm broke, and I don't have any contingency plans to pay the bills at the end of the month.

It's a moment like this, where I wish I had someone to lean on, that I notice the absence of someone significant in my life. Well, on Monday classes start, and I must start looking for a new job. Again.

Did these twenty four hours actually happen?

Yesterday morning, I watched the sun rise as I was driving home on the LIE after a long night out. It was a surreal feeling, my brain slightly fogged by exhaustion, staring at the brightening sky as I headed east. During those twenty four hours, I had found myself in a subway relay station, an attendee to witness two weddings, a guest at a wedding reception, dancing in a night club, and lastly there was a visit to a different type of club, which sported brass poles from ceiling to floor. With a little embarrassment thrown in as well.

It was a loooong twenty four hours that I had spent awake. I spent much of Saturday recovering from it all. I must be getting old, as I found it all quite tiring. A mere month of sleeping a full eight hours has made my body incapable of doing all the craziness I was used to during the past two semesters.

To start with, I spent the day working with the MTA as a contractor at one of their under construction relay stations. After spending eight hours in a concrete room in the stifling heat listening to the rumble of trains passing by, I can't imagine how the linesmen deal with it. Only eight hours and I was all done in.

To be honest, they'd probably be in the air conditioned section of the station, but I wasn't so lucky. They hadn't installed the HVAC system as of yet. After we ran the tests on the equipment there, I was happy to remove my reflective orange vest and hard hat and ride in an air conditioned car back home.

I wasn't allowed to take a picture of the relay room, but that is exactly what the room contains. Racks and racks of relays tied together with miles of cable. The most interesting part of the relay room was the huge eight foot by eight foot panel showing all the switch points that this portion of the subway line had with knobs that allowed you to redirect a subway train from one line to another.

Once I returned home, I took a shower, put on a suit and headed to a nearby church. I was only thirty minutes early, but it seemed that the ceremony had already begun! How was it possible that I could be late? I watched as the bride and groom exchanged their vows and realized that the bride had blond hair. I was at the wrong wedding! As I glanced at my watch, I wondered to myself if I had gone to the wrong church. I was beginning to panic. I got up and walked into the lobby, where I saw the groom I was expecting to get married that evening.

Boy was I relieved at that point. We had a laugh over what had happened and he told me that I hadn't missed the wedding. I found out that his ceremony was the second wedding being held at the church that day. Everything went without a hitch at this point. No guests of honor disappearing with last moment jitters either.

I joined the happy couple at their wedding reception and had some fun. I danced with the bride, as well as her bridesmaids. (At that point, I regretted just a bit that I had not taken those dancing classes like I had intended to a while ago.) As the reception came to a close, some of my friends and a few members of the bridal party decided to go for a night cap. I decided that this was a good time to seize a bit of fun before classes started again and joined them.

After a couple of hours, the club closed down, but we weren't ready to call it a night. It was at this point that someone suggested that we head into New York City and go to a strip club. This someone happened to be the maid of honor. Keep in mind that we were still in the attire we attended the wedding in.

I didn't get a choice about calling it a night at this point. I didn't take my car to the club and didn't want to pay for a cab ride home. You might say that is still a choice. I tried to dissuade them.

Of course, I was the only guy who wasn't interested in going. The real reason that I wasn't keen on going is because of how much money you throw away in a strip club. After attending a wedding (and giving a wedding gift), I wasn't in the right frame of mind to go. I mean I had witnessed that happy affirmation of two people who wanted to live together as one.

I even tried that line. It didn't go very well for me. The maid of honor told me to stop being a party pooper and told me that I wasn't the one getting married. That pretty much put an end to my attempts to get out of it. We piled into a car and headed into Manhattan.

We stayed there for a couple of hours before calling it a night. I was quite sober at this point. Both of the bridesmaids that came along had received several dances. The guys were far more interested in that for some reason. I can't imagine why.

This particular club felt very different to me. The dancers weren't really interested in dancing very well on stage. They were only interested in relieving us of our cash, and they didn't try to hide that fact. There was no attempt to make us feel like we were valued. Or perhaps I only noticed it this time because I was sober. Something to ponder.

That pretty much was how the weekend went for me. I probably spent more on the night out afterwards than I spent on the gift I gave to the wedding couple. Pretty depressing to recount since I hadn't really planned on participating in any of the last bits, especially after having a full day to reflect on what had happened. I suppose you only live once.

Thinking too much into it

For the past two months, my car has experienced a serious loss in power (not to mention fun factor). The engine was straining hard on acceleration and it seemed as if it were starved for fuel as I stepped on the gas during acceleration. There was also a lurching hesitation from standing start that signaled that major repairs loomed in the near future. I was beginning to think that my car might be nearing its end of life sooner than I had originally planned when I bought the car.

On top of that, there was an error code (P0170) in the computer with vague explanation that the fuel management in bank one was out of range. According to the troubleshooting guide, this meant that fuel wasn't getting to three of the cylinders. It also mentioned that the mass airflow sensor (measures how much air is getting to the engine) might need cleaning.

Ironically, two months ago, I had changed out the transmission fluid and did an oil change as well. The transmission fluid was pitch black, so I knew that the previous owner hadn't changed it in a looooooong time. I had resolved to change it again at the end of the summer to flush out more of the black sludge that likely had built up on the bottom of the pan.

This coincidence led me to believe that I might have done something bad to the transmission. I also remember reading somewhere that adding too much oil into the engine could cause the cams to bog down. This resistance might be causing a situation that not enough fuel was getting into the cylinders. I checked the oil level and I saw that it was a quart too high.

This morning, I resolved to spend the day addressing the laundry list of possible reasons for my poor car's ailments. This list included:

• Replacing the fuel filter and air filter
• Cleaning the mass airflow sensor and throttle body
• Changing the transmission fluid
• Changing the oil
• Checking all of the hoses for loose conenctions.
  

I will say it again, things were not looking good. This was a lot of stuff to do. I decided that the hardest (and most dangerous) job would be the first thing I did. So, I began replacing the fuel filter. First item out of the engine would be the airbox and mass airflow sensor.

Something amazing and a bit funny immediately became apparent to me. I was stunned by it. Really. The hose between the mass airflow sensor and the throttle body had a huge gaping tear in it. I taped the hose up (Duct tape works wonders) and went for a drive. Gone were all of the symptoms! The fun I had in stomping on the gas pedal and having the entire car surge forward was back!

Tomorrow, I plan to place an order for a new hose and that should resolve it all. There's a lesson to be learned here. As an engineer, I try to encompass as much information as possible before addressing a problem, also known as overthinking the problem. If I had merely inspected all of the hosing, I would have seen the rip eventually. I console myself with the fact that I learned a new skill doing this, at the very least. Eventually, I will check off all of those items on that list, but it is no longer as urgent.

Practice swings

With the two facts that I am now working during the week full time and that I am not working at all on the weekends, I have devoted some of that free time to sharpening my photographic skillset in areas I don't often get to work in during weddings, sweet sixteens and mitzvahs. I've taken up sport photography.

In other words, I joined some friends who were practicing their skills on the softball field for their upcoming tournament championships. Since yesterday was a scorching ninety three degrees, I admit that my friends might have been a bit crazy. And I might have been a little bit off in the head as well, to stand out there in the sun taking pictures of them.

Anyway, here is one of the shots I took yesterday.


I was quite happy with the fact that I caught the ball still on the bat. I've got quite a few shots where many of the guys swung and only caught the follow through because I mistimed the arrival of the softball. Towards the end of their batting practice, I was quite proficient at catching the action mid-swing.

I've also got a nice sunburn to boot. Eventually, it'll be a suntan, until then, I am a bit uncomfortable. Oh the suffering we bear for our, *cough cough*, art. Next time, I'll bring suntan lotion. See? There was a silver lining....