Battery acid does a body good.

I've finished about a week and a half of my first electrical class. We cover the basics like electrons are negative, protons are positive. Ohhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhhh. Exciting stuff. It's not really that bad. In fact, I enjoy the electrical side of things, so far. We've soldered a couple of jumper wires and made a logic probe (has a tiny LED light in it that glows red for positive and green for negative, logically). It all reminds me of a time long, long ago....

In KY they have a program called Governor's Scholars. It's basically a 5-week dork camp for high school juniors. It's crazy to think there was such an abundance of kids that WANTED to study stuff for the summer. I was one of the chosen dorks in my day. Each kid got to pick a major to focus on studying while we lived on a college campus during the summer. My major was physical science. Besides taking home extra weight from the cafeteria food and numerous shirts that screamed "I AM A DORK!", I made a little burglar alarm. I soldered all the bits and pieces together and programmed a tiny chip to send a loud signal to a speaker whenever the light on sensor got too low. Super dorky. That summer is what drove me to start studying engineering in college. Electrical engineering specifically. So now I sit in my electrical class loving every minute of it. Everything comes full circle.

My new teacher is great. Each one of the teachers has been drastically different from the previous one. This guy specializes in alternative fuels. He rides a bike to work. I find it amazingly ironic that a guy that teaches automotive service for a job doesn't drive a car to work. Anyone else? Kinda like me going from not owning a car to seeking to repair them for as living. Good textbook irony here. The guy also has the driest sense of humor. I often have a hard time catching his jokes. Sometimes I can't even tell when he's joking. Like the instance when he asked a kid who shaved his head over the weekend if he did it because he had lice. Who asks someone that? Was he serious? God only knows.....

I quit my job at the corporate tire service place this week. I made a point to tell my manager when I started that I couldn't work more than 35 hours a week because I'm in school full time. As the schedule came out my hours were creeping up higher and higher. Then one of the other guys quit and my hours jumped some more. And the manager was looking for more and more business. And I was leaving 2 hours late from work. And I wasn't getting breaks. And I was the only one scheduled to close (how does that work....me, by myself, as the only tech on staff for 2 hours a night....you know my experience level...). So I walked in and told the manager that I can't work 50 hours a week and go to school. School comes first. With no sympathy or willingness to change the schedule, he said he can't turn business away, and that was that. Out the door I went. I miss the work, but not some dumbass redneck of a boss that views his employees as a slave to getting his bonus check. I'll find a better job. Anyone know a good shop in Portland that's in need of an entry level shop helper?

ps. Battery acid is seriously not a good thing, in case you didn't know. ;)