last day in NY
So I saw Jenn last night, we went out to Hoshi Sushi in Stony Brook for some nummies..... mmmm I love me some sushi. At least Ohio has a good sushi place or I'd be very upset. We split some good rolls and gabbed for a long time, catching up on allll the things we've missed while we've been busy. We calculated that we've known each other for almost 11 years now, that's RIDICULOUS haha. Unfortunately she is moving to California in the summer and I don't know when she'll be back--- hell, I don't even know when /I'll/ be back--- I'm not sure when I'll get to see her again. :/ But I got to see her and that's what matters. After sitting around talking for a few hours, she invited me back to see her mom and Gabby, so we drove back there and chilled there for awhile. Gabby is so freakin cute, she's this little Cocker who just loooooves everybody and wiggles her entire body when she's happy! So yeah, we all talked for awhile and I showed them pictures of MY doggie, who I will be seeing TOMORROW.... along with Slinky and Sean of course. It's been wayyyyy too long and I don't like being away from my boys for so much time!
I'm glad I was able to "make the rounds" in NY and see so many of my people, but I'm sad that I only got to see them once (with the exception of my Aunt Donna, who I saw twice), and that I have NO clue when the next time will be. All those rumors about the December breaks not really being "breaks" makes me worried. I really thought I'd be able to come back for a bit and see everyone again at the end of the year, but now I'm not so sure WHAT is going on. Could it really be a year before I see my everyone again?
Well... nothing is really stopping anyone from coming out to visit, it's just the fact that I'm going to either be working or on call on 98% of the weekends, so visiting will be limited. Plus I'm sure with gas prices rising, plane tickets won't be cheap either. And I know it's asking a lot for people to drop a hundred and some odd dollars on a plane ticket for only a couple days where they may not even see me the entire time. So I don't really expect anyone to make it out this year (unless Erin gets accepted to Oklahoma for grad school and stops by on the way on her drive out there). I guess I'll cross my fingers for December to be a REAL honest-to-goodness break and maybe I'll get back for a few days. If not, I'll see everyone in approximately 1 year. :P
Things are going really well for Sean at good ol' Hugh White Honda! The GM told him that they want to move him to flat-rate come the end of summer (faster than the last guy they moved to flat rate) and they want to get his name in the computer system so he can start taking Honda tests. Once he takes 80% of them (and there ARE a lot), they'll send him away to school to become a Honda-certified tech!! :) SO proud of him! The GM told him that out of all the people, he was "least worried" about Sean getting his job done each day. Un/Fortunately, the GM also hired the guy from detailing internally as a daytime oil-change tech and is moving Sean back to night time hours (3-11 pm). This is good because it's better for Bentley, who will only be in his crate for shorter amounts of time (and we're going to eventually try him outside of the crate anyway). This is bad because Sean and I will be on completely opposite schedules--- me on days and him on nights. So basically I'll wake up and he'll be sleeping, and he'll come home and I'll be sleeping. Weekends he's off, but I'll be doing things for work. It's really best for the pubby so I'm not too depressed about it, but it's still a little sad anyway because I will definitely miss eating dinner with him (though I probably would be coming home later than the normal dinnertime most nights). Sean says the GM is getting pressure "from above" to put him on flat rate now, but he thinks that putting someone on flat rate before they're really ready would be a disaster... so he's going to wait a bit more so Sean can learn more (he's also always learned more new things at night), and then switch him over. Flat rate, for you dealership-virgins, is basically not getting paid by the hour really but by the job, and each job is worth a certain amount of hours. Say one particular procedure is worth 3 hours, and you do it in like 1 1/2, you still get paid for the full 3 hours AND you have the rest of the remaining time to do more jobs. So basically you can get paid for more than 8 hours a day, if you're efficient and fast and know what you're doing. And your hourly pay starts off at something decent but increases as you get better, so some techs can make like $25-30+/hr. So say you pull 10 hours at $25/hr, that's like $250 in one day, times 5 days, times 4 weeks, et al.... well you do the math. It's pretty sweet. And naturally the more senior techs get paid more by the hour, and they're fast so they can pull more hours a day. It's a dealership form of production income, I suppose. So I'm really happy for him because he's on the right track to getting back on his feet and he's raring to start taking those tests so he can get sent away for schooling. That'll give him something to do while I'm working my tail off, haha.
In other news... I ran yesterday, 3 miles because I was kind of cutting it close to when my mom comes home and I knew she wanted to go to Costco. She's been having bitchy carpal tunnel so I needed to go with and help her lift things. She's gonna get the surgery, where they go into the palm of her hand and cut this ligament (transverse carpal) that'll release pressure on the median nerve. Crazy. At least it'll help her feel better cos she wakes up in the middle of the night from the pain.
My computer for some reason is being ridiculously slow and the fan is going nonstop. I'm gonna end this entry and figure out what the hell is going on.
I'm glad I was able to "make the rounds" in NY and see so many of my people, but I'm sad that I only got to see them once (with the exception of my Aunt Donna, who I saw twice), and that I have NO clue when the next time will be. All those rumors about the December breaks not really being "breaks" makes me worried. I really thought I'd be able to come back for a bit and see everyone again at the end of the year, but now I'm not so sure WHAT is going on. Could it really be a year before I see my everyone again?
Well... nothing is really stopping anyone from coming out to visit, it's just the fact that I'm going to either be working or on call on 98% of the weekends, so visiting will be limited. Plus I'm sure with gas prices rising, plane tickets won't be cheap either. And I know it's asking a lot for people to drop a hundred and some odd dollars on a plane ticket for only a couple days where they may not even see me the entire time. So I don't really expect anyone to make it out this year (unless Erin gets accepted to Oklahoma for grad school and stops by on the way on her drive out there). I guess I'll cross my fingers for December to be a REAL honest-to-goodness break and maybe I'll get back for a few days. If not, I'll see everyone in approximately 1 year. :P
Things are going really well for Sean at good ol' Hugh White Honda! The GM told him that they want to move him to flat-rate come the end of summer (faster than the last guy they moved to flat rate) and they want to get his name in the computer system so he can start taking Honda tests. Once he takes 80% of them (and there ARE a lot), they'll send him away to school to become a Honda-certified tech!! :) SO proud of him! The GM told him that out of all the people, he was "least worried" about Sean getting his job done each day. Un/Fortunately, the GM also hired the guy from detailing internally as a daytime oil-change tech and is moving Sean back to night time hours (3-11 pm). This is good because it's better for Bentley, who will only be in his crate for shorter amounts of time (and we're going to eventually try him outside of the crate anyway). This is bad because Sean and I will be on completely opposite schedules--- me on days and him on nights. So basically I'll wake up and he'll be sleeping, and he'll come home and I'll be sleeping. Weekends he's off, but I'll be doing things for work. It's really best for the pubby so I'm not too depressed about it, but it's still a little sad anyway because I will definitely miss eating dinner with him (though I probably would be coming home later than the normal dinnertime most nights). Sean says the GM is getting pressure "from above" to put him on flat rate now, but he thinks that putting someone on flat rate before they're really ready would be a disaster... so he's going to wait a bit more so Sean can learn more (he's also always learned more new things at night), and then switch him over. Flat rate, for you dealership-virgins, is basically not getting paid by the hour really but by the job, and each job is worth a certain amount of hours. Say one particular procedure is worth 3 hours, and you do it in like 1 1/2, you still get paid for the full 3 hours AND you have the rest of the remaining time to do more jobs. So basically you can get paid for more than 8 hours a day, if you're efficient and fast and know what you're doing. And your hourly pay starts off at something decent but increases as you get better, so some techs can make like $25-30+/hr. So say you pull 10 hours at $25/hr, that's like $250 in one day, times 5 days, times 4 weeks, et al.... well you do the math. It's pretty sweet. And naturally the more senior techs get paid more by the hour, and they're fast so they can pull more hours a day. It's a dealership form of production income, I suppose. So I'm really happy for him because he's on the right track to getting back on his feet and he's raring to start taking those tests so he can get sent away for schooling. That'll give him something to do while I'm working my tail off, haha.
In other news... I ran yesterday, 3 miles because I was kind of cutting it close to when my mom comes home and I knew she wanted to go to Costco. She's been having bitchy carpal tunnel so I needed to go with and help her lift things. She's gonna get the surgery, where they go into the palm of her hand and cut this ligament (transverse carpal) that'll release pressure on the median nerve. Crazy. At least it'll help her feel better cos she wakes up in the middle of the night from the pain.
My computer for some reason is being ridiculously slow and the fan is going nonstop. I'm gonna end this entry and figure out what the hell is going on.