washer back up, and a call from Bentonville

So continues the story of the broken $1000 washing machine:

My wife gave me her strong opinion that she would order the part new, but then caught herself, backtracked and said she trusts my judgment, whatever I order, because this is my project. All well and nice, but I couldn't very well order the used part now, on the off chance that it may go bad sometime in the next 10 years, making me wrong about something that she was right about. I'm sure she meant what she said about trusting me, and that she wouldn't say "I told you so," if that actually happened, but still...

Anyway, the new part came today, and after I got home from work, I put the washing machine back together. I ran a test load, and no water ended up on the floor. I am happy. I wonder how much it would have cost to have someone come out and look at it (I wonder how much I saved). I guess I'll never know.

In other news...

So I got a call out of the blue from a guy at a very large retail chain who happens to headquarter in Bentonville, Arkansas yesterday (think King of Retail). He ran across my resume somewhere, and wanted to know if I would be able to work during the hours of 6am to 6pm if they were to offer me a job. Apparently, they have had too many people go through the interview process, only to turn the job down because they can't work the hours needed (maybe they all are in school or something). I said yes, and we set up a longer, more involved call for today.

So he calls me back today, and lays out a really cool job scenario: they are the Unix Administration team for this large (understatement) corporation, and they support the Unix systems that run the whole business. He wants to interview me for a member of that support team. It would be first line support (internal customers, obviously). He said that his people get poached all the time to manage other areas in the IT part of this major corporation, because of the awesome stuff they learn on this team. Sounds compelling. But because of my level of education and experience with Unix (or lack thereof on both counts), they would only be able to offer me $13 per hour. That's $4 less than I make now, and it doesn't go very far with a wife and 4 kids.

It killed me to do it, but I had to tell him that I wouldn't be able to live on that salary, so I shouldn't waste his time any further. Then I cried. No, I didn't really cry, but the more I look back on it, I want to a little bit. He said I was the only person outside his local area that he was even calling about the job. I feel really flattered for even getting the call. I am having faith that when the right time comes, I will get the right job in the right place.

That's a real nice washer you got there. It'd be a real shame if anything happened to it...

The picture here isn't of me nor is it an avatar of mine. I ran across it today on the internet, and it gave me a good laugh. Let me tell you the story:

So the washing machine decided to dump a few gallons of water on the floor today. Awesome.

We already had a packed schedule for today and tomorrow, and now we have water on the laminate flooring soaking into the dirty clothes piled in front of the washing machine. And I had to leave the house within an hour. So I googled "how to open a kenmore oasis," and got some basic instructions to remove the fasteners at the back of the machine, and then the whole top will flip up towards the front.

On my model, apparently, there was a little more to do. Several wires had to be unplugged from the main circuit board, and there was still the grounding wire running from the top part to the lower part of the machine, which wasn't allowing the top to flip up. And that is how I had to leave it while I went to my church meeting. When I got home, I continued to take the machine apart, and was able to remove the offending green grounding wire. After that. the whole top part, including the hose connections, and the part where the electrical plug wire attaches to the machine, easily lifted off the bottom part of the washer. Weird.

So then, to make a long story short, I was able to lay the bottom part of the machine on its side, and see where water was dripping from. It was one of the 2 pumps (the larger of the two) that pump water to various places. The more expensive of the two pumps, apparently. I found a metal part inside it, which had apparently punched a hole in the side of the pump, allowing water to leak out. It also broke off one of the impeller blades inside the pump, and may have royally messed up the pump motor shaft (It feels a bit loosey-goosey, but I don't know what it's supposed to feel like in the first place). The sticker on the side of the pump says, among other things Part No. W10049390, and also made in Italy.

So I googled the part, and find it on a few places, including eBay. The part looks to be around $70.00. But one of the places I see has it for $51.75. The domain name of the place is (yes, in all caps), PICKMRAPPLIANCE.COM. a domain name in all caps for no apparent reason alone is enough to scare me off. There was no picture of the part, which was another reason for me to not trust the site. Then there was the slogan on the website: "PICKMRAPPLIANCE--YOUR PARTS SPECIALIZE." Okay, so I imagine there are plenty of honest e-store proprietors who happen to have some language other than English as their first language. But then I really notice the picture of the person on the website.

It was if he was saying,"That's a real nice washing machine you got there. It'd be a real shame if anything were to happen to it." I almost want to buy from this website just to see what I get from them.