April Update

I've been lazy...again. Seems I haven't updated in a while. Well...lots has happened since March 19.

For starters, I moved at the end of March (March 29 to be exact) to my new apartment in lovely Manteno, IL. See previous post for rudimentary pictures of this the apartment I ended up picking and other details. I like Manteno - it's just difficult moving my live out of the area I grew up in. Granted, I'm used to being a "gypsy" having lived in Norman, OK for 5.5 years and then having my family move to Iowa, thus creating a new "home." But...it's still weird. And of course it's the little things that make it seem harder than it should be. Like finding a new dry cleaner. Who ever thought that would be difficult? I sure didn't. At least my current workplace (Mokena, IL) is about equidistant from my current apartment and the previous one. Except now instead of driving on interstate for 90% of the drive (I-294 and I-80), I now take a 2-lane country road for the majority of my commute (to be exact, US-45 from Manteno to Frankfort, then I cut down Steger Road for like 2 blocks to Wolf Rd., then north on Wolf to my branch in Mokena). So, it's a change that I'm having to get used to as well. I'm still not comfortable with the whole concept of passing with the possibility of oncoming traffic - but I'm sure I'll get over it. I've already made a few choice maneuvers.

Other than my living arrangements, I officially started my new job on April 1 even though my day-to-day activities haven't changed. I'm still the Asst. Manager of the Wolf Rd. branch of Great Lakes Bank in every way except how I'm paid. Human Resources calls me the manager of the Manteno branch of Great Lakes Bank and pays me accordingly even though that branch doesn't even exist yet. Not a bad deal in all honestly. I've also been conducting interviews and attempting to hire my staff. No luck so far (well, actually we had a hire-and-fire but that story is for another time) so I'm just taking the whole thing one step at a time.

I'm having car problems again. On Saturday, my car started to make what I can only describe as a funny noise when I went to pick up our lunch. The noise didn't go away even though everything else was working fine. If it weren't for the noise, I wouldn't have known that anything was wrong. So...I took it to a few people to look at and they were stumped. Luckily my cousin Tim has a good working relationship with the owner of Ranshell's Complete Car Care in Chicago (I know what you're thinking but it's really not that far...it's about as far south in Chicago as you can get) so he and his girlfriend took it there yesterday. They think it's the "pressure plate," which I'm told has something to do with the clutch/transmission. So...Mr. Jack Bletta the Black Jetta needs a new clutch. Considering I just had the clutch replaced about 2 years ago I was a bit shocked but if it's what he needs then it's what he needs. Plus I think I'm getting a real good price for the whole thing and nothing is wrong with the engine (the really expensive part of the car) so all in all I feel pretty good about the whole thing. The car is, after all, going to be eight years old next month.

Finally, I just want to say how moved I am by everything that is going on surrounding Pope John Paul II's death. While I, like many others, disagreed with some (but not all) of his conservative policies, he was a great man and his life story (even before becoming pope) is moving. I'm absolutely certain there will be a movie about him, at least on TV. I'm planning on going to a memorial mass for him at my church in South Holland. I figure since I can't be in Rome, I can at least pay my respects here.