ShopDreamUp AI ArtDreamUp
Deviation Actions
So I got a new car Tuesday, and so far it feels great!
Just in case any of you didn't see my last journal, about a month ago I made a rookie mistake and got in a car accident. Thankfully there was only damage to my car and my pride. My 2003 Civc Hybrid (that I called Golfball from the hail damage) was on its last leg, so it wouldn't have made sense to repair...
I wanted to wait till the summer to start shopping, but my parents insisted I get a car sooner. So my dad and I went to a car show to see what's available, do some research, and do some test drives over my spring break.
It was a hard choice, but I decided on a.... Subaru Impreza 5 door
And so far I love it! It feels very solid with handling and acceleration, even with the all wheel drive the gas mileage is just 1-2 mpg less than the other fwd only cars I was looking at, and it comes with some pretty neat safety features like the ability to stop itself in certain conditions to prevent a collision if it senses the driver hasn't applied the brakes.
Of course I need to teach myself what the fancy safety features can and can't do and definitely not get over dependent on them.
I'd like to eventually add some lightweight aftermarket wheels in black as well as plastidip the chrome trim black to so the outside secondary color contrasts with the white body and compliments the mostly black interior.
Just in case any of you didn't see my last journal, about a month ago I made a rookie mistake and got in a car accident. Thankfully there was only damage to my car and my pride. My 2003 Civc Hybrid (that I called Golfball from the hail damage) was on its last leg, so it wouldn't have made sense to repair...
I wanted to wait till the summer to start shopping, but my parents insisted I get a car sooner. So my dad and I went to a car show to see what's available, do some research, and do some test drives over my spring break.
It was a hard choice, but I decided on a.... Subaru Impreza 5 door
And so far I love it! It feels very solid with handling and acceleration, even with the all wheel drive the gas mileage is just 1-2 mpg less than the other fwd only cars I was looking at, and it comes with some pretty neat safety features like the ability to stop itself in certain conditions to prevent a collision if it senses the driver hasn't applied the brakes.
Of course I need to teach myself what the fancy safety features can and can't do and definitely not get over dependent on them.
I'd like to eventually add some lightweight aftermarket wheels in black as well as plastidip the chrome trim black to so the outside secondary color contrasts with the white body and compliments the mostly black interior.
Synaptic Fragments
A view of how my Alien-Hybrid imagination stumbles through this existence via rough sketches and ideas.
$2/month
I'm now ACI certified! (updates and such) 9/4/23
So I now have an ACI Concrete Field Testing Technician- Grade 1 certification! What does that mean? Concrete things (...and better pay), hooray! It's one of those things I need to get for my job to show I know what problems to look for and how to perform the various tests on concrete before it gets placed in a structure. It's just one of a bunch certifications I need like soils, rebar, welding, etc. Life stuff: Mainly been busy with the new job and moving to a new state and such. So far it's been alright, no regrets, stress and anxiety have been stable. Art stuff: Still been moving at a snail's pace with a variety of works in different states. It's mainly been trying to find the time and energy to do more stuff. I'm just trying to figure out how to improve the overall speed and quality of the process... Hope things have been going well for everyone else too. There may be long periods where I'm "quiet", but I am still here in the background. I'm more than happy to make time
Major Life Changes. 4/10/23
I have finally been offered a job that will hopefully lead me on a happier and more fulfilling career path! For those of you that don't know or remember, for the last five years I've been working in a factory near my home town in East Tennessee as one of their inventory monitors. There are things I like about the job, but I feel need to move on to be happy. My new job will be as a field technician for a construction and engineering consulting firm in near the Raleigh North Carolina. It's much closer to my bro already living in the area. The job also sounds like it could more easily lead me into a career more closely related to my academic background in engineering then Environmental Studies (Geology). Apparently I need a Geologist In Training certification and five years of related experience to to even take the Professional Geologist exams. Right now my energy and stress levels are all over the place with suddenly putting my life in a new direction. Art stuff: I have been
Updates and such... 11/28/22
Here's just a simple update to say hello to you all and that I'm still around. For the most part not too much has changed on my end. Work is still taking up most of my time and energy. I know I mentioned a while ago how they still had me working several 12 hour shifts for days at a time. Thankfully the amount of overtime I'm doing has gone down. Job hunting stuff: Still aggravatingly no progress on that front. I really am stuck on what I should do differently. I'm not interested, or qualified for the various open positions on my current work. I also feel like I don't want to invest more of myself into the company. Stuff like LinkedIn and various job boards have given me mixed results (about as successful as asking for a job here). Most of the in person stuff I can think of have not really been feasible with my schedule. Art stuff: Really it's been just a struggle of when I have energy, I don't have the time. Then when I have the time, I don't have the energy or focus. There
Life (or lack of) updates. 3-1-22
I know it's been awhile. Work has been consuming most of my time and energy. In some ways it's improved with much needed changes in management, them finally agreeing to hiring more people for our group, and actually acknowledging that I'm human! In other ways it's still gotten worse... there's still 3 of us for what should be a 7 person team, recently I've been working at least 4 weeks straight with no weekends, and several of those weeks I have been working back to back 12 hour shifts for up to a week at a time! I really am not exaggerating that either... Job hunting stuff... Progress on some fronts... and some I'm still trying to hold onto my fragile self esteem while getting rejected and dehumanized over things I have no control over. Art stuff... Horribly slow. Mainly just from not having time or the energy. Although there are few things I'm slowly progressing on. I'm mostly doing some simple things to at least have something to show. Anyways, I hope you all are
© 2017 - 2024 manaista
Comments6
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Hey, I've got a Subaru, too! 
(OK, so it's a 2003 Subaru Forester that came cheap, but still, these babies are built to last!)
(OK, so it's a 2003 Subaru Forester that came cheap, but still, these babies are built to last!)