Flat tire

Today was my week day off from the dealership (since I will have to work saturdays). This morning it was a beautiful 60 degrees in the morning, definitely not like GA! Karen and I ran some errands and then she went to school for office hours. I decided to dust off the road bike and head east towards the big wind mill power generators that we can see in the distance.

The roads here are so straight, once I got on the main road I didn't turn until I decided to turn around. That point was determined by a flat front tire, I swapped in my spare tire tube and then headed back to the townhouse. I didn't want to get stuck further out if I got another flat!

As for work, my training is officially over and I will be on the sales floor tomorrow. I decided to go the custom route on business cards, see below. Let me know if you are looking for a car!!! I can help out on Mazda, BMW, Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Chevy vehicles.

Peoria trip

We decided to go explore Peoria, IL on Saturday. It is about 40 minutes northwest of Bloomington, not too bad of a drive. We drove around and weren't too impressed with what we saw. We found our way down to the river front, but it wasn't all that great. Basically a sidewalk along the river and a couple restaurants. Perhaps we were spoiled by what they have in Savannah, GA.

We did eat at an Old Chicago Pizza and Beer restaurant. They had a nice appetizer plate that we split, it included cheesy garlic bread, pepperoni rolls and Italian nachos. The nachos were pasta chips with cheese, pepperoni and Italian sausage. Very good...



Work calls for us tomorrow morning...

first week at work

Not too much to report tonight, but thought I would make a post anyway. I've been at the dealership everyday this week, sitting in the training room Monday - Thursday. Today we rearranged most of the cars on the lot and I was given the keys to a few vehicles to test drive so I can become more informed on the products.

Next week, the training will wrap up and I'll start working on my brand certification. Each brand has their own online training process, so I'll be taking it one at a time. Since I'll be working on Saturdays (probably the best day to sell), I will try to really enjoy tomorrow!

Karen's classes start on Tuesday, she's been working hard to get everything ready to go! We went to a picnic last night with all of her coworkers, they really are a nice group of people. Now, if I could just get some of them to come buy a car from me...

Sunday night

It's Sunday night, tonight's snack is yellow watermelon... yes, you read that right, a yellow watermelon. We tried growing some a year or two ago and they didn't work out. We saw some halves for sale at the store and decided to give it a try. It tastes good, but when it is cut up and in a bowl, it messes with your brain. It looks like pineapple, but tastes like watermelon.

We had a nice weekend, we went to the house of one of Karen's coworkers last night and had a good time talking with people. This morning we went to church and then went to the "third Sunday market." It was kind of a cross between an antique, arts/crafts, farmers market and a flea market. There was a little something there for everyone, I saw a few traffic signs that would look good in a garage.

I had promised some more pictures of the town house... here is the front room, which has our dining room table, Karen's desk and our washer/dryer. The townhouse came with a washer/dryer so we decided to save some future moving effort by leaving them in the front room. I didn't really want to have to wrestle them out from the basement.


Speaking of the basement, did I mention it is full? Here are two shots of the basement:



In other news, I've been out and about looking for a job. I dropped off resumes at the local engineering firms and residential design build firms. As expected, I received a lot of "were not hiring but we will keep your info on file" responses. One design/build place did call me and I interviewed with them last week. We had a great discussion but the job wouldn't involve any design, it would be pricing and sales. I considered it, but in the end, I couldn't get past the hours, the pay and the fact that I wouldn't be doing any design. During the peak 8 months, the hours would be M-F 7 to 7 and Saturday 7 to 3. In the off season they go down to a normal 40hr week. That worked out to working 60% more hours for 33% less pay.

With the limited number of companies where my LA background would be helpful, I have been looking at other job opportunites. I haven't seen too much that I seemed qualified for, so out of curiosity, I went to one of the local car dealers to fill out an application. After finishing the forms, I ended up interviewing with a couple of the managers. The following day, the HR people called looking for some more info and they asked me to take an online personality test. Friday they called and offered me a sales position. I start training tomorrow morning, we'll see how it goes...

Drivers Licenses

We are officially Illinois residents now, we acquired our IL drivers licenses this morning. We had been putting the task off for a while, as out of state drivers are required to take the written exam. Karen out did me on the test, getting a 100%. I missed one question, due to over thinking it. Oh well. Next stop, license plates!

Welcome to the Corn Crib

Our real estate agent invited us to go to a baseball game last night with him and his wife. The city of normal has a Frontier League team called the Normal Cornbelters and they play in a brand new facility called, of course, the Corn Crib. This season, the team record is 32 W - 41 L.



We had awesome first baseline seats right behind the dugout. There were dark clouds around the crib, but the rain held off until the 8th inning. We decided to leave due to the rain and the fact that the Cornbelters were up 4 to 2. I opened the paper this morning to see that the Lake Erie Crushers tied it up in the 9th and the game ended up going 13 innings, resulting in a loss for the Cornbelters. We had a good time and will definitely be heading back for another game.

Here is a bad camera phone picture from our seats. Our small digital camera has died, we need to buy another so I don't have to keep posting these bad pictures!

Outdoor theatre

Karen figured out that the Bloomington Park and Rec department does a couple theatrical performances each summer in an outdoor theatre. Even better for us, since I'm jobless, the performances are free. We went last night to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The cast was a mixture of kids and adults, probably 90% teens and under. The show was OK, but you have to keep in mind that I've never been a huge fan of musicals. However, I did enjoy watching a show outside on a beautiful summer evening.

So far, the weather hasn't been as hot and humid as it was in Athens. We've been here for almost 2 weeks and have only seen it rain once and there has always been a nice breeze. I'm sure I'll be cursing that breeze once winter time comes.


Here's a poor camera phone picture of the bandstand where they do the performances. Considering the fact that it was outside, they still had a lot of lighting and wireless mics on a lot of the actors.

pedal time

Karen had meetings at ISU today, so I had some time to run some errands on my bike. I've been wanting to explore the Constitution Trail, a bicycle and pedestrain path that goes North/South and East/West through town. It was very nice to be able to ride from one end of town to the other without having to ride on any major roads! We can ride from the townhouse to the ISU campus without getting on any major roads... now I need to get Karen a bike!

For those of you who are curious, here is a link to a map: http://www.normal.org/Files/trailmap.pdf

I had a couple revelations:

1. This area isn't as flat as I thought, there are a lot of slight ups and downs, but still not the big hills like Athens.

2. I didn't realize how bicycle unfriendly Athens was, until now.

TV over the fire place...

Who says you need a new flat screen tv in order to put it over the fire place? Our clunky crt tv fits just fine over the firplace in the town house. The cable guy was a little surprised that there weren't rca inputs on the back of the tv, so we've had to route it through the vcr. Old school technology here at our house. Perhaps this is the time for me to get a new tv???


I'll post more pictures of the townhouse soon, please note that we had nothing to do with the paint color selection.

Did someone say corn?

We went to the farmers market on Saturday in downtown Bloomington and had to try some of the local corn. What can I say, seeing all that corn while we were driving up made me hungry. This one was called "Peaches and cream" and was very tasty. There is another farmers market tuesday night in Normal, we might visit it to see what they have to offer there.


Here is a picture of the loaded moving truck, needless to say, it was packed to the roof. I wasn't too thrilled when we pulled up and saw the rusted out car next door, but all of the other cars in the parking lot are much nicer. I guess we should plan on having a winter 'beater' car too once winter rolls around. It is going to be hard to watch our cars rust away.


I dropped off a few resumes this afternoon at an engineering firm and a couple design/build companies. I'll make another round of deliveries tomorrow.