Good news!

I have good news: my husband found a new job! He actually had another solid job interview last week, too, but couldn't pursue it because they want him to start so quickly. Isn't that a miracle, that he had two good job prospects in this economy?

I am so happy for him and hope that this job will be fulfilling and interesting for him. Since this is a public forum, I can't go into the reasons he decided to leave his old job, interesting as that might have been.

Dwaine had actually never written a letter to resign from a job position. Ever. He was a lifelong employee of Southwest Research Institute until they had a mass layoff in 2009. The letter he wrote to his current company was exceedingly gracious and carefully thought out, and a credit to his character.

This new job involves on-the-job training for something that Dwaine has never done before. I think the position is Computer Architecture? Some fancy, technical-sounding name like that. Apparently, not too many people do this kind of thing, whatever the heck it is. The person who was in the position before knew Dwaine from SwRI and felt he had all the right skills for the job, and apparently, everyone else agreed.

We also celebrated Dwaine's birthday recently! He picked out a restaurant and delighted in being all secretive about where we were going. He printed out something (a gift certificate, I later found) and quickly grabbed it off the printer with a great flourish before prying eyes could see. Austin got increasingly anxious as the hour to eat approached. A large part of his joy in life is in eating, you see. Quantity, not quality, is what he seeks. I think he actually got both when we finally discovered our secret destination.

It turned out the mystery restaurant was an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse downtown. Austin was so concerned that we were going to a high-end restaurant with paltry portions that he actually packed a mini-box of Corn Flakes in the car, which gave me quite a laugh at the end of the meal! In fact, I was ready to dare him to try to eat ]the Corn Flakes except that I was worried his stomach might explode.

Out of all of us, Austin got the most meat for his money. I am sure that he ate not ounces, but pounds of meat. Chicken, sausage, ribs, and lots and lots of beef, prepared many ways, with different marinades, wrapped in bacon, or crusted. He rolled out of the restaurant, occasionally moaning in discomfort and making other noises that caused us to give him a wide berth. 

I chose to eat from the "salad bar" because I knew I couldn't possibly do justice to all the meat selections, nor did I have any desire to try. I put the "salad bar" in quotes because it was another huge selection of foods, heavy on protein, to include smoked salmon, shrimp, mozzarrella balls, lobster bisque, and black beans. The salad bar was a part of everyone's meal, though only Dwaine tried a substantial portion. Austin was going for the meat all the way. I worry about that boy! He is capable of overstuffing himself, from the Bud Jones full-plate chicken fried steak to last night's meat bonanza. He's putting on the pounds, too. Not overweight, yet, but nearly there. Not a good place to start off college next year.

We then walked off at least 75 calories (i.e., 10% or less of the dinner tally, in some of our cases much less) by going down the River Walk near the Pearl Brewery to see the tail end of the bat exodus from under the bridge. I love that part of the River Walk, with its native plants and joggers and bikers. It is uncommercialized and has a completely different feel from the River Walk that usually swarms with tourists and locals, closer to the mall. We actually saw a crane catch and devour a crawdad out of a swampy bypass of river, on a recent outing there. (Did I blog about that? Just got a feeling of de ja vu.)

Dwaine's new adventure starts Aug. 29. My new adventure (career) started Sept. 28, 2010. It certainly feels weird to both be working new jobs! But that is the modern economy, it seems. There isn't any reward for working many years at the same company any more, and it seems like every job is much more precarious than it used to be.