Hey, another update. Go me. Well, I've got some really sort of great news and thought I'd share it with you, give y'all an update of how things are going so far.

The job interview yesterday (Monday) went great! I didn't find out whether or not I got the job, probably won't for at least a few weeks, but it could not have gone better. The personnel lady was very impressed with my skills and background and the Communications manager was very impressed with me as well. At least, that's the reading I got from her. I had to take a typing test and had to type at least 35 WPM with no more than 5 mistakes. I typed 73 WPM and had no errors. Yay! After talking with Kathy, the personnel lady, for about an hour, I then went to the communications building and spoke with Ginger (the spice girl!) and took another couple of vocal tests. Basically, speaking over a radio and talking on the phone.

What kind of job is it? Oh, I forgot to tell you. It's for an E 9-1-1 operator/dispatcher for the county. The communications building is really cool and everyone there is so friggin' nice. We didn't really want to come back. The kids loved it. They've never really seen a lot of cows and horses in real life, so every time we passed a field of either animal, they'd point and start shouting, "Cows! Cows!" or "Horses! Horses!". MonkeyBoy was even trying to moo at them. The day wasn't all sunshine and roses though.

My mother-in-law (heretofore referred to as Grumpy), upon finding out where the job was located, became rather surly. The first day she found out about it, she spent the whole day giving everyone the silent treatment and crying. Even my father-in-law thought that she was being childish and told us that he thought this would be a good thing for us. The next day, she was much better, but yesterday, things were bad. She was up early, probably couldn't sleep because she was all worried about us driving up there and never coming back or something. She was cranky and frowny and just was not too pleasant to be around.

I had rented a mini-van because it's about 150+ miles to Bartow and I didn't want to subject our beaters to that kind of long haul unless we were going there to stay. Unfortunately, due to credit problems and stuff, we don't really have any major credit cards. So, in order to get the car, I had to take 2 pay stubs and they needed to verify my employment and where we lived. Of course, on the reference sheet, I put my mother-in-law and sister-in-law as references to prove where we lived. When the guy from Enterprise called the house, however, my mother-in-law wouldn't answer the phone. I know she had the phone because she rudely snatched it off the table, scattering my reservation papers and directions everywhere, and was carrying it around with her. I just have the feeling that, when it rang and came up as "Enterprise Car Rental" or whatever, that she just wouldn't answer it. Bitch. He called 3 or 4 times and she never answered the phone.

Luckily, the wife came through. While he called to verify my employment, she went and started digging through the car for something with our name and this address on it. Lo and behold, she finds the fax that GEICO sent us proving that we had insurance for when she had her little "accident" a few months ago. And, right at the top, under the very official looking GEICO logo, was our names and the address where we're living right now. Problem solved, we went and got the van, loaded up and headed north. Other than that, it was a great day.

So, even though I have to wait nearly a month for an answer about the job, I think I have it. The communication manager even said that she thought I'd be really good at the job and that my experience at TAG (believe it or not) was a big help to me. Go figger. Unfortunately, we were much later getting everything done interview-wise to really get to take much of a look around at homes. We drove through a couple of shopping centers and the wife raided the realty guide dispensers and we headed back about 6 PM loaded with about 8 big ole newsprint magazines. She spent almost the entire ride back sifting through them, looking for a place to live. She's found a few that we're both very interested in, but they're a bit out of our price range. We'll need to see if we can either find a financing company that will give us financing, even though our credit is worse than shit, or find a mobile home community that won't do a credit check on us to let us live there. We'll just have to wait and see.

Well, that's about it for this entry. Y'all keep your fingers crossed for us and wish us luck. We could really use it. Take care and I'll see you next time.

Da 'Bear

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