Thglimited - Heavy Industries

Here we are again.  The job hunt.  I am caught between selling the Brian M. Warner brand and selling myself short.  I can either feel excited about Mechanical Design Engineering or Commercial HVAC or Utilities Efficiency Engineering positions and wait impatiently for a response that will inevitably take anywhere between a month and six OR consider applying at Safeway–one of the underling companies of VONS, like the Pavilions that I worked for in college–or CVS/Wallgreens and rely on my crapjob resume work experience.

I have two resumes right now.  One is steeped in engineering jargon and talks up my project experience and the other glosses over engineering and outlines my customer service abilities.  I am sick of this.  I don’t want to get a meantime job because I want to be able to be honest with my employer and say that “I am looking to start my engineering career and I simply need an income in the mean time, thank you.”  But, I know that will spoil my already very, very limited chances.

Meanwhile, Athena and I have been model Americans in Oregon.  We may still be unemployed, but our homeless stint was short lived, thankfully.  We have been furnishing our apartment and we have proven time and time again to be great bargain hunters.   We haggled our bed down from ~1,200 to $499 and got it delivered.  We only had to spent one night on the floor.  We bought our towels and bedding, which all look and feel nice, and would keep us warm if the apartment wasn’t already efficiently heated.  We have energy efficient baseboard heaters.  They’re silent (except for some clicking of metal expansion and contraction).

We got our kitchen set up in bits and pieces.  It had the fridge, microwave, stove, sink, etc. of a standard apartment.  But we got a great deal on a pots and pan set.  We knew to avoid aluminum cookware because of its positive correlation to Alzheimer’s.  We got stainless steel instead.  It’s a bit thin, and I told Athena that it would heat and cool quickly which makes burning things and controlling temperature more difficult than cast iron and the stuff we were used to using.  This turned out to be favorable to Athena, so yay!  We got a Crock Pot, toaster, coffee maker, rice cooker, and an instant hot water kettle all for very agreeable prices.  So, we got our groceries and condiments and had our first couple meals, using the cardboard boxes everything came in as table space.

We are walking distance from a Dollar Tree store and Safeway.  We have been able to get a lot of what we need for cheap for a dollar.  AND with no sales tax, everything is exactly the price marked.  For all that I’ve spent, I have saved an additional 8%.

I’ve had a hard time enumerating all of the good things.  My only complaints are my allergies/cold this week and my joblessness.  But, the fresh Oregon air has done great things for my sinuses.  A walk outside clears me up quickly.  It’s fantastic.

Name a foreign food and we have it in walking distance or within a short drive.  Mmm.  Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Indian, Filipino, Japanese!  We discovered Shari’s too.  It’s an American diner open 24hrs.  They serve stuffed hashbrowns.  There are so many sushi places too.  It’s not a big thing in my book but Athena loves it.  There is a revolving sushi place though that was really cool.  I just need a job to be able to afford all of the yummy.  I want to try every little hole in the wall and discover all of the good eats.

There’s just one real hurdle left.