Crazy Work Week

So here is what has happened this week.

On Tues. I was riding with a co-worker (Chris) in our delivery truck. We were heading north on I-35. A light started flashing on the dashboard, so I looked up what it meant in the manual. It said that the light meant that there may be a problem with the emission controls system. So we called our boss (Kelly) and he said not to worry about it; just keep going. A couple miles later we hear a loud pop, like a blown tire, so we pulled off at the next exit. After looking at the truck, there was no blown tire. After calling Kelly again, we decided to take it to Pete's (where we get our maintenance done) to see what was up. While we were heading back south on 35, the light on the dash went off and the truck appeared to be running fine, so after talking to Kelly again, we decided to try and get our deliveries done first. So we turned around, again, and headed north. We didn't get more than a couple miles when we heard a rapid clicking noise like a baseball card in bicycle tire spokes. Now we knew this was not going to be a good situation. As we were pulling off at the next exit ramp, I saw white smoke coming from the engine, which sat directly under where we were sitting. Then I saw a lot of white smoke. About halfway up the ramp I saw some black smoke, and then the engine died. After coasting off to the side, we got out to see what was going on. The engine was on fire! There were flames shooting out from behind the cab, where the engine was. I called 911 and Chris got out the fire extinguisher. He was able to put out most of the fire. If there was anything left on fire it died before the fire department got there. But wow, what an adrenaline rush that was!

We had to get towed to Pete's. The fire singed the underside of the cab (fortunately there is some sort of fireguard) and melted the fan. There was oil everywhere.

To continue my week... The next day (Wed.) since we were down a truck, Kelly and I went to the Lowes in Altoona (next to Des Moines) to borrow one of their trucks. He dropped me off and I picked up the truck to drive it back to Ames. After I got back into town I stopped to fuel it up. Then I left for Pete's to pick up the cart and tools from the broken truck. On my way a DOT officer pulled me over to do a routine inspection. They do this to commercial vehicles just to check paperwork and such. Well what I didn't know (nor did my boss) was that the trucks need a class D2 chauffeur license. It is longer than our trucks and thus weighs more requiring the license. So I got a rather expensive citation and couldn't drive the truck back. So another guy came out to drive the truck back to the store and I took his car.

After I got back I found out that Lowes will pay for the citation, yay God! I also went to the drivers license place today and passed the written test to get the chauffeur license (after I failed it the day before). When I pass the road test I will have a class D2 chauffeur license and can drive all sorts of fun new vehicles :-)

I think the thing I saw from all this is God confirming my decision a few days earlier to set some specific time to looking for and applying to computer engineering jobs and not just being lackadaisical towards it.

This post has been long I know but one more thing.

We closed on the building for the Rock. In a matter of months God has blessed a bunch of college student and recent grads (both of whom have little money) with a building to call home! Its amazing how we were able to raise the money for the downpayment, $86,000 in all. That just the surface too. We had to get site approval from the city, deal with old underground fuel tanks (the environmental city codes don't like that), and so much other things like that, but God worked through all of it and in amazingly fast time.

We had a demolition party, taking down a wall and tearing drywall off another wall. Hopefully picture will be up soon on www.z37.org.

coming soon...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. It seems like I have been really busy lately. Some quick updates:
We are scheduled to close on the building for the Rock tomorrow! A Demolition party is schedule for tomorrow night :-)
When I can, I will tell you a really exciting story from today. To give you a little teaser, I got to call 911 for the first time ever. Not to worry, though. I am not hurt in any way, nor was anyone else involved hurt.

Last weekend into MY weekend

Friday
After work I hung out with my roommates and had dinner. It was good to actually spend some time with them. We are all fairly busy and surprisingly do not get to spend some quality time with one another too much throughout the week. Afterwords a bunch of us went to Bali Satay because our friends band, the Lone Strangers were playing there. It was so refreshing to go out and have fun with friends. It felt like I hadn't done that with Ames people in so long.

Sat.
I had to work this weekend, so I had to be a party pooper and go to bed early on Friday and wake up bright and early Sat. Work wasn't too bad. I only had to work the normal 8 hour shift (we have a small crew on the weekend and it can get rather hectic sometimes). After work, I went to the church to do some drywalling with Michael, Tiff, and Cliff. We are finishing the upstairs area in the church to give us a conference room and some offices. I love doing that manual labor type of work. It is so rewarding when you are done with it, even if it is somewhat trying while you are doing it :) We worked til 9:30ish and went back to my (and Cliff's) place to watch Ladder 49 with some other people that came over.

Sunday
Sunday was a long day at work. We were swamped. I ended up working from 8-7. It was hard to stay positive and joyful around 5:30/6 when you should be done but more people want things delivered to them and are getting upset about it. But I got through it drained but feeling good that I'm now on my days off! I had lifegroup (a small group with our church to share the good, bad, and ugly in life with some close friends) with Cliff and Michael. Even though I was exhausted from work I was so glad that we got together. It was our first one of the summer and it was much needed! It is so good for the soul to share the deeper things going on in life with other men that are in the same battle trying to live a life for God in a world that is not exactly encouraging that life.

Now it is monday and I am on my weekend! No work til Wednesday. :-)

Memorial weekend

This weekend was a fun filled trip back to my Lockport roots. I got to spend a good amount of time with my close family and I even got to visit with some extended family that I never see. It was a weekend of family time with parties on sat, sun, and mon. I really enjoyed it. I haven't had a chance to spend time with my immediate family in a while. It was quite relaxing! I also got to see Jackie, Amy and Niki! I missed my favorite people from Willow who are spending summer in chicago :-) I will have to try and plan another trip out there before the summer ends.

Yesterday was our church softball leagues 2nd game, facing St. Paul Lutheran. It was a defensive showdown. The game went Mark Buehrle style speed and couldn't have lasted more than an hour. We had a couple breakout innings though and won 13-1. I played 4 innings at rover and was 2 for 2 with 2 singles and 2 runs scored. That puts us at a 2-0 record. Next week is a bye week so our next game will be June 14 where we will be facing Evangelical Free Church (E-Free) II.