Good News

Ok, where to start?
For the last couple weeks I've spent my evenings and weekends working on my truck, which is my primary go to work transportation.
I finally got the motor in and running.
This was on the first key turn:



My little brother Tom turned the key. He was a big part in this operation.

When I was fifteen, my dad gave me my first car.
It was his go to work vehicle, a 1963 Ford Falcon.
He had just burned up the motor in it.
When I asked him how I was supposed to drive a car with no motor, he told me that he had located one, and all I had to do was take it out of the other Falcon that had been abandoned at our motel and put it in my car.
I told him that I wasn't sure how I'd accomplish that, and he said that I shouldn't worry, my little brother Tom, twelve years old at the time, would help me.
We lived in a rural area and our neighbor, who lived in the farmhouse next to us, was a mechanic and owned a gas station/garage at the nearest intersection. It was across the bean field from our house.
We used to hang out there a lot, as we didn't have video games, and the assortment of characters who came and went were among the most interesting fellows I've ever met in real life.
Harvey, our neighbor, liked to drink (as they say) and many a time, when his hand started shaking while turning a screw or placing a part, he would turn and ask one of us to go to the coke machine and get him a beer.
We learned a lot from Harvey, not all of it useful.
So Tom and I spent the summer of 1967 removing (you learn a lot that way) a motor from one car and putting it in the other.
Well here it is over forty years later and we were doing it again.
Tom is more the wrench than I am, He does a lot of charity work in his garage.
But I'm no slouch at it either.
I won't boor you with the details of the clever way I silenced that exhaust leak you hear in the video, but Tom was impressed.
It involved a soup can, but not in the standard way you might imagine.

So I drove it in to work today.
I work in Toledo about 48 miles from home. Hold that thought.

I recently argued that I should be in charge of a large capital project involving a robot installation tied to our injection molding machines.
I got my way and I have the project.
In reviewing the plans developed by an outside firm that had quoted the cell, I called a meeting to review what I intended to do, which was to modify those plans slightly and bring the work in house.
During the team meeting (trying to get others, the molding department included, to buy in to my concept), I had an idea I hadn't thought of previously and mentioned it. Another engineer on the team said that if I did that, could I do this? And I said that I thought we could.
We removed about $100k or more from the project, increased productivity and reduced complexity.
I have the go ahead today to proceed.

Yesterday, I was offered, and accepted, the position of Automation Engineer at a startup satellite facility our company is opening.
This new plant has commitments from a large auto company that will cause it to quadruple in size in the next couple years.

It is an exciting opportunity for me, and is an answer to prayer on a number of fronts.
I had decided to stay with this company for the last few months because I felt led to by my "spiritual compass". I felt led of the Lord to do so, despite the many frustrations I was still experiencing here and which upper management and I were in discussions to alleviate.
This is the payoff for that decision.

And it takes 52 daily miles, round trip, off my odometer.
It is the equivalent to a substantial raise.
I will finish my projects at my current facility and still be involved to some degree, at least in the short term, while starting up the new place.

And best of all, Scherie is now almost six moths seizure free.
This means she can legally drive and look for work again.

God is great, but He's also good.