I wish the time spent in Sioux Falls would have been more successful. I am happy and grateful I was able to spend so much time with my brother and sister, but I had hoped my time job-hunting would have been more productive. The position I was pursuing heavily, Admissions Counselor at South Dakota State University was nothing but failure. I had done extensive research on the school and the area to bring to the man in charge of hiring a wealth of knowledge and show clearly my qualifications. I made a very special trip to meet with him. My brother, Dave, even lent me his car so I didn’t have to drive the van, who, at the time was hotter than hot because the A/C hasn’t been working. We talked for an hour and a half and that talk seemed productive. I was very pleased and excited. If we talked THAT long it must be a good sign! A downside to it (at the time): I learned he was not the man in charge of hiring, but the man doing the grunt-work for the man in charge of hiring. Wonderful. He was young too, younger than me. His supervisor (man in charge of hiring) was in Chicago at a conference. I thought for sure meeting in person would win me an interview.
It…did nothing. They passed on me anyway. This is how it went for a couple other colleges in the area.
I know that working for a casino for eight years has been a huge hindrance on obtaining a career in higher education. Not only that, but I’m looking at school I myself haven’t attended. Alumni are usually better candidates. That’s why I had hoped doing all this meeting and greeting to show, yes, I really do have exemplary experience in the positions available, would sway in my favor…eventually.
What kept me in Sioux Falls for as long as it did (two weeks) was Thelma. Last minute problems. They weren’t extensive either, just out of my realm of expertise. The biggest problem being she’s been trying to overheat on long trips. My parent’s house to Sioux Falls (7 1/2 hours) wound up taking over 9 because two hours from my destination she overheated and needed to cool down. I stopped every half hour for her to cool down. This could be an array of problems, but where to start was the thermostat. Trouble is, to replace the thermostat is a bit more painful than it should be and I failed when I tried. All it requires is draining the coolant, removing the housing, and replace the thermostat. For MY van however, the petcock on the radiator is so rusty when you try and turn it it flakes apart AND the housing is vertical instead of horizontal so ensuring the thermostat will stay in place when putting the cover back on is also a hurdle. It would cost $200 at a repair shop to do and I adamantly refuse to pay that amount. So I’m risking it! We’re heading out without replacing the thermostat! I have it, a gasket, and extra coolant though, just in case.
Thelma needed her air conditioning recharged as well. Because she’s so old it meant having to have a shop empty her of her R-12 freon. New vehicles have R-134a so all kits only offer that kind. R-12 is far more expensive so the fact that the shop was going to charge me $25 to remove it was odd because it’s essentially liquid gold. At the shop, after being treated very poorly for asking advice on how to fix a few things with the van and being given the price tag to that advice (only the advice too), I learned Thelma no longer had R-12 in her. She was already to go for a recharge and I didn’t have to pay any money to do it. Also, don’t bring your vehicles to T&A Auto Repair in Sioux Falls, SD. They’re not nice.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is very easy and much much MUCH cheaper to recharge your A/C yourself with a kit. Go to O’Reilly (or your auto shop of choice) and buy the kit. Mine was $34. I opted to get a small bottle as well (about $20) just in case the big one wasn’t enough (she had nothing in her after all!) and found I only needed the one bottle. It is so easy to do it’s ridiculous. Just connect your pump to the Low end of the A/C, turn the ignition, blast the A/C, shake the can, and release its contents. Took five minutes. Shops charge $300 for that. Seriously? Do it yourself. You can do it! I believe in you!
My sister Kim’s boyfriend Rico’s friend Tim (did you get all that? I didn’t put punctuation in on purpose to confuse…) fixed my left rear blinker that wasn’t working. Again, should have been simple, right? Change a bulb, maybe the pigtail, but no! With Thelma nothing is so easy! He rewired her! I gave it to him at 5:15pm and he called me at 11pm to tell me it was finished. My gosh! It was bound to have wiring issues down the road and I’m glad he got it figured out. I felt terrible because there is no owner’s manual or schematic of the wiring. Poor guy. I am so grateful to him; he took on a difficult task and did it with no complaints. He is truly a kind and wonderful man.
Dave installed the new stereo even altered the dash to fit it in. Trouble is, because Thelma is so old she doesn’t have a memory wire. Tim put in one, but I had to take it out because it kept shorting the fuse to the cigarette lighter and I need that for my cooler. It’s okay though, I’ll live without memory. 😛 Midnight, not a sound on the pavement, has the moon lost her memory? She is smiling alone…ahem, moving on…oh Cats…
Now that Thelma is reliably (hopefully?) mobile we leave at day break to the Badlands! The adventure begins! Resumes need to be printed!…oh shoot, that’s what I forgot to get, paper! Izzy, off to the store!
Happenstance with Izzy 