after exausting my emt job options in el paso, I went to san antonio texas to look for ems jobs. I had rented a car last week thursday drove to san antonio and started searching that friday. I also looked around at apartments. San antonio isn't all that bad and I wouldn't mind living there. At least there's more stuff to do out there.
While I was staying at the hotel, I looked in the phone book under "ambulance companies" There were at least ten in there and there was no way I could apply to them all in one day. So I wrote all of them down and applied to four of them. One of them either moved or went out of business so I was down to three. One company told me that they would call me back by monday if they decided if they want to hire me (I think that one is a lost cause because it's now monday). Another one took a copy of all of my documents and told me to call them back for an interview once I have my CPR cerftication (it just expired). The last one called me a few hours after I left them my resume to let me know that they got it and that they would contact me when they start hiring (I think that was nice of them).
I'm going to CPR class this saturday and I'm going to head back to san antonio monday and stay for 3 days to apply to the rest of the ambulance companies. Instead of renting a car I'm going to ride my motorcyle out there. This is more risker because I don't do any riding trips in the winter time. The good thing is that since I drove out there I know what the road conditions are like. My main enemy is that darn uncomfortble seat, my fingertips freezing, and crosswinds.
Seat-I still have that seat gel. I just bought a memory foam pillow. I'm going to take the foam and the gel and do a poor man's seat modification. It's cheap and ghetto but it makes no sense in buying a $100-$200 "good" seat cushion if I'm not going to be able to ride my bike after the end of feburary anyway. All I'll spend here is 40 dollars. I think this will help me be able to ride allot longer between stops.
Fingertips freezing-I brought a pair of windsheilds for the hands about a month ago. They mount on top of the mirrors and they were a god send. I have a pair of cold weather motorcycle gloves they keep the rest of my hand nice and warm except for my fingertips. The wind cut right through them. Then my finger tips become painfully cold then they go numb and then when I stop riding I'm in agony until my fingers warm up again. With the hand windsheilds I still feel the cold in my fingertips but it's indirect cold rather then the wind blowing directly on them.
This is only a problem if I have to ride my bike early in the morning which I avoid except for national guard drills. Then I have no choice. When I drove to san antonio it took me about 8 hours. Since I'm now going to go back via motorcycle I'm going to add 4 hours to that time, so I'm going to leave at 4:00 in the morning so I'm going to have to deal with the cold for a few hours. I also brought those hand warmers and I tested them today by putting them inside my gloves. They worked a little bit too well and my hands started sweating. But I was going 60mph and not 70-80mph so the test wasn't exactly under the same testing conditions. At least I know that they work.
Crosswinds- those darn crosswinds! I hate them and they tire me out if they continue for too long. At least they have signs warning you of them. Another main issue is those wind gusts. As long as they blow in a constent direction I can handle them for awhile. But when the wind blows like a confused person who don't know where they want to go, now we have problems. I'm considering buying a windsheild and bikes and babes helped me pick one that does the job, and looks go on my bike and it's under $100. I don't think I'll buy it right now. But when things are better finaincally I will buy it.
The Cold- This is only a problem in the morning. The only parts of me that get's cold easily is my torso and finger tips. But that's a problem that's easily solved. I have so much gore-tex and cold weather gear I can use from my miliary issued stuff. The problem is not to dress up too warmly.
Since this trip is a little more risky I went over my life insurance policy to make sure everything is up to date. Along with all of my tools I inculded emergency contact infomation and my unit infomation just in case the worst happens. The only thing that would prevent me from riding for this trip is extreme weather conditions. I don't think that's going to happen, but I made a rental car reservation just in case. If everything turns out well I can cancel it.
After I apply to all of the ems jobs that I can, I'll either find out if I'm going to get a job right a way or I'll have to wait and see. If the latter happens I wait until around augest. If nobody calls me then I'd try to go back in active duty army