Great dinner with great friends

The car that I rented is a brand new Mazda 6.  It only had a little over 300 miles on it when I rented it.  I have driven over 600 miles in three days.  I’ve now made three trips to San Antonio.  Then I had to drive from north Austin to south Austin (in rush hour) to pick up Marty for dinner.  We met our friend Brent at his place of work and we walked to Fogo de Chao for dinner.  It was really good and probably really expensive, but Brent paid for dinner.  It’s a place where they bring you cuts of meat to eat throughout dinner.  You can get a bunch of different steak cuts, ribs, chicken, and lamb.  This is in addition to a salad bar and extra sides for dinner.  It was great to spend time with both Marty and Brent.  After dinner Marty and I went back to his place and just hung out for about 45 minutes.  It was nice to just spend time with him.  Yeah, I miss him.  No news there.  I will probably stay with him next week when I have to come back down here for processing.

I filled out some paperwork today and signed a “signing agreement” which means as long as I provide all the paperwork needed, I will be hired by the district.  My salary will be about $6500 more a year than I’m making now, however, they will be taking out social security in addition to my TRS retirement.  But that also means that I can draw both when I retire.  So I’m not sure how much more I’ll really make, but I’ll plan on what I’m getting now and anything more will be extra.  I’m coming back to go through processing next Thursday where I’ll deal with more paperwork and figure out my benefits and such.  Then at some point I also have to go through new employee orientation.  Looks like I’ll be making several trips this summer. 

I looked into moving truck rentals and I think it should be doable to rent a large truck one way.  I just got to find a place to live first.  When I come back next week, I will make some appointments to view some properties and see if I can get something lined up for the first of August. 

This is going to be a whole new thing for me – to live in a big city.  Marty said it will be a culture shock.  I’m sure he’s right.  He thinks it will be good for me though.  I hope so.  This is going way beyond my comfort zone.  I’ve been living the small town life for a lot of years now. 

I’m exhausted so I’m going to go to bed.  It will be a busy day tomorrow and then we fly home on Sunday.  Then on Monday I have to tell my principal about my new job and work on a resignation letter.  I have so much to do and very little time to do it.