L.O.Y.O. - Live only you once.

I have been wanting to sell my truck and purchase a Jeep for a while. The lack of four wheel drive has been driving me crazy every time it snows. Not that I have anywhere I need to be; I just want to get out and drive in the snow. My brother purchased a Cherokee XJ last week and it was the motivation I needed to finally decide to make the switch.

I found a 2000 Jeep Cherokee on Facebook marketplace on Saturday that looked like it was in good condition but was overheating. I thought it was something I could fix myself so my dad, a friend, and I made the hour and a half drive to go look at it.

When I got there, I quickly realized the Jeep needed way more work than I was willing to put into it. There were several issues in addition to the overheating issue.

On the way home, I thought I might as well look to see if there was any other Jeeps listed in the area. I found one that was listed back at home, but after contacting the guy, I learned that it was at his girlfriend’s house, which was on the way home. We went to look at it, knowing that it was overpriced.

When we got there, the starter had gone bad on it and so I was not able to hear it run. After looking at it carefully, my dad and I were able to negotiate them down from $5,500 to $3,500! I tried not to show my excitement and eagerly paid her. That night, at 9pm, I started working on replacing the battery and starter. I got it fixed in just over an hour.

Over the past few days, I have been doing some light off roading and having a blast! Here are a few photos.

I got back yesterday from our 17th annual Father-Son camping trip. We all had a lot of fun!

The power went out this morning so I had to go to Panera to work. It was my first day at my new job. It was a great day!

I want to share what The LORD has done in my life over the last few days.

For the past few months, I have been struggling to know where to go with my career. I taught myself Laravel and the TALL stack and I was doing some freelance work. My mom kept suggesting that I get a job working for someone who could mentor me.

We were discussing my options (going to school, freelancing, or applying for a junior web developer job) on Thursday night after I got back from my job at the church. These conversations were a regular occurrence. We prayed about it that night.

On Friday around 1 pm, I got a text from my cousin. It was a screenshot of an email he had gotten from Jacob Bennett. It read

Hey,

Was looking to talk to your brother Luke but haven’t been able to find a way to get in touch with him. It’s regarding a possible position to work in Laravel at our company https://wilbergroup.com in Illinois, remote position of course. I’ve been watching some of the things he’s been working on, https://sublimeblogs.com/ for example and think he would make a great junior developer! Haven’t had any luck finding him but stumbled across your email and thought maybe you could either forward this to him or send me his email so I can contact him directly.

Thanks for any help!

Jake Bennett

I immediately called my cousin and asked him to forward me the email. I email Jake and told him I was interested and gave him my phone number. He called me a little while later. He asked me a few questions and I walked him through Sublime Blogs.

Jake said he had been trying to get in contact with me for the past 10 days but he could not find any contact information. (That is something I will need to add to my website.)

I had an interview with him and his supervisor on Monday. It was a hour and a half and it went very well. They asked me a lot of personal questions and not very many technical ones.

Later that day, Jake texted me and we setup a time that afternoon for the technical interview. He sent me some of the PHP classes he had written and asked me to read through it and explain what the code did.

That evening I had an offer in my inbox. This is what my parents and I had been praying about and so I immediately accepted, with the understanding I would need to wrap up other projects.

It is amazing how God works! The best part about this job is that my supervisors are Christians. I get to work under like-minded people. I’m very excited to start part-time on the 16th and then move to full-time next month.

It so encouraging when God answers your prayers so clearly!

“🤔 Modern times summed up in 25 seconds from the Arther PBS show. https://youtu.be/iHrZRJR4igQ” - Zorn