Starting over in Cleveland, OH

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

Primanti yinz is Lame.  Also Melt sucks.  Fight me.  
 

the real food is in the ethnic neighborhoods.  Pupuserias, Taquerias, middle eastern markets with kebab grills, hole in the wall bbq joints, greasy spoon diners, Asiatown, little poland.  That's the real Cleveland food experience.  

Seconded.  I've been to melt enough times to last me the rest of my life. 

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

In preparation of going "to the city" I ground my coffee with an ax then brewed in the bored out cylinder of an old European motorcycle and served in a vessel braided from the beard hair of a pasty white full stack JavaScript developer. I will wear my favorite outfit to venture outside of the suburbs, I can send the outfit to your Po Box if you want to match.

Congrats!  All I can add is....

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

Agreed!  There were some fantastic places like that in Baltimore. My wife and I became vegetarians about 3 months ago so that'll make things a bit trickier but I'm sure we'll still find plenty of awesome food (and we still eat dairy, eggs, and sometimes fish/shellfish)

These online classes kinda suck - as in taking them fully online results in little knowledge retained, no professor to interact with, but they look good on a resume. So I find myself zipping through my college courses as quickly as possible so I can later spend time on an online course where I actually learn stuff. 
 

I've had a bunch of phone interviews for jobs this week so that's good. All of them have ended with the person being very happy with me and recommending me to their hiring manager for a second interview - and the hiring manager almost never gets in touch with me. So annoying. I do have a second interview for an IT help desk position tomorrow. I can tell it's the worst of all these offers by a long shot - lowest wages, the phone interview was only 7 minutes, and they don't have very good reviews on Glassdoor - but if I have to start there to get some help desk experience then so be it. Then from there I can figure out exactly what direction I want to go in IT, build some experience, and start climbing that ladder. 

Good luck! I moved out of NE Ohio in 1997 after growing up and living there a few years past college. My folks still live there except for snowbird season. You can do a lot worse than Ohio. 

Had to say goodbye to my awesome challenge racecar today, but it was for a good cause - he's going to finish building this car with his 16 year old son and they're going to enter it in the $2000 challenge. So they got a really great deal on a fun car!

Some solidly good news - I just accepted a job offer!

I applied for I think quite literally every single entry-level IT position in the Cleveland Area and got about 6-7 phone interviews out of it.  This was the first one to send me an offer and I accepted - someone might send me another offer in a few days but this is the position I wanted.  The pay is on the lower end of the scale but they do a lot of training and promoting from within and the IT manager that interviewed me mentioned several times that they had promoted IT Help Desk people to Junior Systems Administrator, which is the direction I'm looking at going.  

Spectacular!  

In reply to infinitenexus :

The big trip starts Sunday 28th.  

Sebring, Fl to Cleveland Heights, OH  I presume this is your intended route.  

I have done that trip departing Jacksonville many times.  It is a great, easy trip.   I have posted the map so that GRMers along the route can chime in.  There is pretty good support along this route.  

Some points of note:
All smooth and un-difficult terrain until you get to Virginia where you will experience a large uphill climb.  This might tax the loaded Prius but it will still do fine.  Slow wins the day.  There will be many slow trucks too.  In West Virginia the road becomes a toll road.  All this toll road is heavy ups, downs, turns.  Again, slow wins the day.  Be mindful that you might be closing in on slow trucks very quickly.  Plan for it.  Try not to ride your brakes.  On a Prius, the gear selector for B equals braking or engine braking.  While moving, you can slide the shifter to B and this generally "downshifts" the cvt trans.  Could be handy through this stretch, only because you have a trailer too.  I have taken my Prius w/o trailer on this route and never used the B gear. 

When you are on this toll section in WV, there are very few exits and very few places to stop so just know that when entering.  If the weather is especially rough and it is late, this might be a good time to shut down for the night and tackle that stretch in the morning.  Make note of Wytheville, VA as a good point to continue forward or stop for the night.  The absolute last would be Princeton, WV where the toll road starts.  It is then about 90 miles or 1.5 hours to Charleston WV where the toll road stops

The toll is only $4 for car plus $5 for trailer.  They accept the popular east coast EZ-Pass if you have that or cash. 

After the toll road, you are back to gentle terrain and smooth sailing.  

infinitenexus said:

In reply to John Welsh :

From what I understand, the simple act of washing off the underside of the car after driving on salt can reduce rust. I guess another bonus is that most of the underside of the Prius is covered in plastic. 

Plastic is your enemy, here.

The salt is also quite intrusive.  It gets all over the inside of the engine bay.  It gets into places in the body that you can't access without a plasma cutter or angle grinder.

Most enthusiasts have cars that get parked in October or November and don't come out of hiding until after two or three good rains after they stop salting/brining.

Or motorcycles.  IIRC Ohio is the second largest sportbike market in the US.

Dead_Sled said:

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

Primanti yinz is Lame.  Also Melt sucks.  Fight me.  
 

the real food is in the ethnic neighborhoods.  Pupuserias, Taquerias, middle eastern markets with kebab grills, hole in the wall bbq joints, greasy spoon diners, Asiatown, little poland.  That's the real Cleveland food experience.  

Seconded.  I've been to melt enough times to last me the rest of my life. 

Given that most of their food is pure artery putty, that is logical on multiple levels.

Inspect the heck out of your Uhaul trailer.  Your biggest risk with Uhaul is the tires.  Inspect them and be sure they look to have even wear and no sidewall cracking.  The thing to know about Uhaul is they have a unique and proprietary bolt pattern.  This means a stolen Uhaul trailer wheel can not be added to someone's personal trailer.  This also means that any Uhaul wheel will work with another Uhaul.  However, Uhaul does not provide a spare tire to their trailers.  If you get a flat, they will have one of their service trucks meet you on the road side...but you'll wait.  Due to the proprietary nature, you can not buy a replacement wheel at WalMart or Tractor Supply, etc.  

Take some comfort in knowing that Uhaul generally uses their newest equipment as the one-way equipment and keeps the older equipment as "local" rental stock.    

John Welsh said:

The toll is only $4 for car plus $5 for trailer.  They accept the popular east coast EZ-Pass if you have that or cash. 

After the toll road, you are back to gentle terrain and smooth sailing.  

Only $4 but you have to pay it 3 times. 

In reply to EvanB (Forum Supporter) :

Could be true.  I quickly looked it up on line but my actual experience is I use the EZ-Pass and I have no idea what I paid/got billed.  

Congratulations on the new job, best of luck with the trip!

In reply to John Welsh :

When I went through in October paying cash it was $4 at each of the 3 booths along the route. 

In reply to John Welsh :

Thanks for all the tips!  It's a long drive for certain. We've made the Baltimore-Sebring trip probably a dozen times so we're pretty used to these long drives. Our plan is to leave early Sunday and just drive. I'll drive until roughly 1-2AM, then we'll take a nap and finish up, aiming to arrive at our new apartment Monday morning so we can move right in, clean up, and walk two blocks down the road to the kosher pizzeria for dinner. Then Tuesday I start my new job!  Very excite. 
 

I'm taking this week to make sure I get a week ahead in all of my online classes, and make lots of study material for the Security+ exam. I figure my wife can help me go over a bunch of flash cards over that long drive. 
 

I think the most interesting thing will be the weather change on that trip.  It's 82 degrees here in Sebring right now, and when we get to Cleveland it'll be in the 30s with snow on the ground.

In reply to infinitenexus :

Most of it melted last night.

Yaaaaaaaay

When you enter West Virginia you go through a tunnel.  Rather than try to make the road go over the hill/mountain, they put the road right through the hill/mountain.  The tunnel is probably just 2 miles long but you literally can come out of the tunnel in a different climate.  

In reply to John Welsh :

Same for crossing the watershed divide roughly around route 18.  Green on one side of hill and snow on the other side.

The lake makes it neat, too.  I live in Westpark (very close to the lake) and work in North Royalton (~20mi south, few hundred feet more elevation) and drive into or out of snow, or see a 10 degree temperature delta, depending on if the lake is warmer or colder than the weather.

I'm expecting the gravel driveway at The Batcave to be Elbonian-grade mud.  Thus the yaaaaaaaay.

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

Primanti yinz is Lame.  Also Melt sucks.  Fight me.  

Primanti's is "a thing" now, but you can add a giant slice of pizza to any meal for $1, and its pretty good. That makes it a good lunch spot for a group when you are hungry. The food is decent, but always better at 2am after hitting the bars. 

I had a tough time finding breakfast in Cleveland when I was there for the RnR Hall of Fame. Downtown was DEAD 10 years ago, we drove and drove to the suburbs to find a Friendly's that was open on a Sunday morning. Not sure why there are no Denny's or iHop or WaffleHouse restaurants, or even local diners that I could find. But they do have White Castle!  

Stampie (FS) said:

In reply to infinitenexus :

Just so you know, you've now been added to my list of people to contact in OH if I need some weird car related item picked up.

There's a very deep bench for that. 

Mndsm said:

Stampie (FS) said:

In reply to infinitenexus :

Just so you know, you've now been added to my list of people to contact in OH if I need some weird car related item picked up.

There's a very deep bench for that. 

Like Jayne Cobb, you gotta keep your options open.

I got yall on nc if you need