Spy Sappin' Mah Sentry

So today I'm pretty bored, and am looking into things I can do to further myself professionally and personally. Specifically, becoming a Professional Engineer and possibly obtaining a Master's Degree.

The first requires that I take and pass an eight hour exam (the FE) which qualifies me as an Engineer In Training. Afterward, I have to work for four years under a Professional Engineer and then take another eight hour exam (the PE) in order to actually become certified. Basically what this means is that I'd be able to sign stuff as a professional and be completely certified to work directly with the public as a full blown engineer. I'd also gain the title, so I'd be Mr. Keith Philo Eng. or something like that. Pretty awesome, huh?

As far as my Master's goes, it's all about finding the time to do it and the school to attend. I'd like to get into online courses - it's a lot easier to deal with most of the time when you don't have to get off of working an eight hour day, driving an hour, spending two hours in a classroom, then driving home. I'm just beginning to do research on the schools that I would like to attend, and I'm not entirely sure what kind of degree I'd be shooting for. The obvious choice would be some kind of M.Eng in Electrical or Computer Engineering disciplines. Engineering Master's degrees generally include a lot of research, but they have plenty of coursework similar to what I'm used to rather than being almost purely reading/researching. Systems Engineering is also fairly appealing, as the majority of jobs out there have to do with this broad area (it's what I do now, generally).

Anyway, yesterday went fairly swimmingly as far as days go. I got off work at about one in the afternoon and headed to get a new tire to replace the doughnut spare on my car. It turned out that when the guy said on Saturday that they had a replacement tire exactly like my others, he was completely and utterly wrong; there's a national backup on orders for that particular tire, apparently. They gave me a cheaper one that would work, which was fine with me, since I only had to drop $80 or so on it. It sadly took them two hours to replace the tire, which resulted in me almost missing my appointment with my car/renter's insurance lady. The shop gave me a ride to the Barnes & Noble I was meeting her at, so I arrived only about three or four minutes late and got all that sorted out. Afterward, she was nice enough to give me a ride back to the dealership, where my car was completely finished. I paid the money and rolled out.

Recently my car and stupidity have cost me a lot. I paid $45 for roadside a week ago, $30 for being let into my apartment after locking my keys inside, and $82 for this. The old tire wasn't really in the condition to be plugged - something big and metal had gotten lodged in it and broke off, so it looked like a big staple was stuck in the tire. No wonder it went flat. Anyway, my car's completely fixed and now I can go on the interstate again! No more sticking to under 50 mph for me.