I spent nearly 3 hours this morning taking endless hazmat tests, as I reported in the last post.  I was confident that whatever trick questions they might throw at me, I could pass the test.  But when?  How could I show up at the local driver's license department when the office that canceled my appointment was 65 miles away? Take a chance driving clear over there and get - nothing out of it?

I just decided to show up there. At the local one, screw driving 2 plus hours round trip.  They will accommodate me.  Why? Because it's just what was going to happen.  No good reason to believe that, but I showed up with documents in hand, the lady at the door opened it and asked me if I had an appointment? 

But before going in there I noticed only one vehicle in the parking lot.  I knew I at least had a chance at this.  No, I don't have an appointment.  Well tell me what you need then? I proceeded to tell her how my appointment had been canceled, that this driver's license is my livelihood and that I was under the impression that I could show up on standby?  

She ushered me in.  There was only one man sitting there and he had already filled out all of his paperwork, he was waiting them to start his CDL test - a thing I wouldn't have to take, thankfully.  She handed me a literal pile of paperwork and said this is going to take you some time to go through. She then showed me the ticket she had given me - it had a caveat: this ticket number will not necessarily mean you will be seen today - because I was standby.  

I got through 3 of the papers and the lady called my number!  Now mind you, this is a small office to begin with and they were only having ONE window open.  She yelled at me through her screens asking if I was still working on paperwork? Yes, I had to unfortunately reply as other people with appointments started coming in.  "It will be several minutes before I fill all of this out" - I replied to her and thought, at least that long if not longer.  It  was really a pile of paperwork with a lot of redundancy.  

After filling out that, going up to the window - she wasn't going to take anyone else until she was done with me oddly enough but thankfully - paying the price, getting my temporary license she said, "take computer 1".  Gag. I thought I had skated the Hazmat test. I had even paid for it, she had printed it out, gave me my temporary license!  Okaaaaaayyyy.  Good luck! she said.  She knew, many people go in there and fail that test.  They don't properly prepare themselves.  You don't study that manual, that is useless. You just take sample tests over and over and over and over until you get enough right that you are pretty certain you are going to pass.

But it intimidated me, I am not going to lie.  Passing that test means job or no job. They'll let you retake it, yes, but not the same day.  By the time I had gotten to the computer, many more people had come in, many had been turned away that also wanted to be on standby and several people were waiting outside.  Stroke of luck getting there when I did? I doubt it.  I felt that feel you get when the Lord is telling you to do something.  Now, that is, don't waste time.  I was going to wait until 1 pm, when they allegedly take their second round of standbys, but something in me said differently. Now, go now! 

The test has many trick questions.  And worded differently than the tests - multiple dozens of them, if not 100 plus - that I had taken online.  I sat there on several questions and reasoned in my mind what the answer should be.  Questions that I hadn't been asked in any of the sample tests I had taken, but thing I had encountered and figured, well, that should be the answer.  I guessed I had minimum 6 answers wrong and wondered if I would get enough questions right.  I'm serious that out of all of those sample tests, there were questions on the real test that were either not asked in the samples or worded completely differently and with multiple choice answers that were very close together in their wording.  

They really don't have to make this that difficult, do they?  I got to the last question, answered it and stopped to take a breather. I went through the test quickly, it usually takes me little time to finish tests, I either know the answer or I take an educated guess or I take a wild guess, but I won't waste a lot of time on any given question. I'll give it enough time to read it through a couple of time if necessary, reason with it in my mind, but it doesn't take long.  I can tell you that I was quite surprised when I looked at the results screen: 29 out of 30 correct!  

I really felt the Lord was in this today.  That's what I can say about that.  I did prepare myself, but I know how these tests are loaded with trick questions and very tough questions that you are staring at the 4 answers that you can pick and trying to decide which one is correct.  

Hazmat. The love and hate of it.  Love the pay, hate the endless stipulations, regulations and demands of it.  It's not quite over  yet.  I have to go get finger-printed tomorrow morning.  Hazmat is serious stuff to the feds.  You will have a federal background check done - every time.  And they will freshly fingerprint you - every single time.  It doesn't matter about work, there isn't any tomorrow, I had contacted the dispatcher - Sheila - and told her that I was going in tomorrow to get my fingerprints done. I've been off this long, I might as well take the extra day off and get this s*** over with. The plant is up and running, but they are having trouble making product.  I dunno why, but I'll guess it's weather related.  

The street was torn up up the street from my house - like 100 feet at most - fixing the watermain break there. That was very fast for them.  But it was pouring out a lot of water and these main breaks are undoubtedly a large part of why the water pressure is so low in the city.  

The city's grocery stores are barren.  Super 1? Nothing.  Vegetables gone, meat - gone.  Milk - gone. Eggs - gone.  It's all - gone.  Manager said come back in the morning.  No thanks, I was just looking for a bag of potatoes and green onions.  They didn't have either.  Every town's markets in this region are like this, it's going to take time for the supply chain to catch back up.  It's quite amazing, tho, how fast 200 jugs of milk go right out the door. That's due to social media. Someone says a store has it, everyone swarms the place and it's allllll goooooooone.  

I don't need milk.  I can live without eggs - tho I scored those yesterday.  I don't eat regular bread.  This was just mostly for the house hold here and yes, I have been reporting on the local sites who has what and if you want any, you better get your @$$ in your car and get down here immediately.  

I found out at the driver's license office why the county court building wasn't answering it's phones this morning (tax sale): they have no water.  How does that work? Cause the county jail is in that building as well.  It's up on the 5th floor I think.  Somewhere up there.  

The company that does the fingerprinting has finally opened up an office here in town. Last time I had to drive 30 miles to the nearest location. So, they made me an appointment for tomorrow morning, which is fine, let's get this done and over with!  

And the realtor just sent me a listing for 33 acres.  It's 88k asking price. That's actually quite good for land around here - but it's kind of high. The payments would probably be higher than what I would like to get into.  I'm going to go look at it tomorrow.  I just finally got home after running around half the day, I don't need to go out there right now. It's been on the market since last August, it's not likely going anywhere.