It doesn’t seem like there have been too many developing stories this week from our Texas adventure. Here are a few highlights.

  • Lauren has been really sick for a week. Coughing like I’ve never ever heard before. But I think it’s going away just in time for her trip back to Minneapolis this week to see baby niece Annika Rosok.
  • Baxter and I got really lost in the woods today while hiking in a drizzly rain. The mud led to trails being dissolved and we wound up surrounded by at least a dozen deer in the middle of a thick forest. It was actually kinda frightening having five or six bucks surrounding us. But it’s like I told Baxter, there are only two things you need to know about deer: you’re safer outside of a car rather than inside a car when around deer, and they are delicious if prepared properly. So stay calm and fight them off with your barking.
  • Baxter has been unfortunately running into lots of bad things to eat lately. Yesterday he found a cleanly severed mouse head on the sidewalk, and this morning he found a puddle of vomit on the sidewalk which he demanded to eat. After I said no, he attempted to scale a vertical brick wall to get to the puke from a new angle. There was video footage but it was corrupted! I really wanted to show the video of him climbing.
  • Baxter also got to attend the Austin Beagle Brigade Howl-o-Ween event yesterday at the dog park where dozens of beagles in costume were planned to parade around and amuse owners. As it turned out, lots of different breeds turned out and most beagles demanded their costumes be removed, so it wasn’t quite what we expected… still funny.
  • I went just 1-for-3 with a run and RBI on Tuesday in softball. I have continued to have the strangest luck; whenever I hit the ball hard it’s caught. When I get jammed and pop it up or ground it softly I get on base. But we won again last week to improve to 3-2.
  • Lauren’s U of T friends Jessica and Lindsay were in town this weekend, and we went out for dinner at the soul food restaurant Hoover’s, which made us all so uncomfortably full that plans to hit up the bars afterwards were thwarted. I will say, they had the best wings I’ve ever tasted in my life. Big, smoky, spicy, tender, and falling off the bone… for $6.99 well worth it. The chicken fried steak was good too, but the wings were well worth writing about. That was five straight W words, FYI. That reminds me of that old commercial, “take the time to taste the Welches” where they used six straight T words which I always found amusing.
  • Work has continued to be super busy. I never thought I would be able to adjust to such a fast-paced work environment after MB, but when there’s so much going on you just have no choice but to do it in the allotted time. After looking back, I discovered that MB had advertised my previous job as a “fast-paced work environment” which just couldn’t have been further from being anything remotely bordering anything close to truthful 98% of the time. Nevertheless, they have managed to keep me busy with contract work into November.
  • Lauren and I were pleased to learn we will be first-time godparents for tiny tot Colton Krogman when we return to South Dakota over Christmas. Hopefully we can plan things out accordingly.
  • Highs this week are expected to be in the 80s. I still don’t miss anything snow-related, but I am really missing cool/cold fall weather. I don’t think I ever griped too much about seasonably cold temperatures on my blog. The other morning when I woke up it was 37 degrees, which is as unheard of in Austin in November as 80-degree weather in Minnesota is in November. There were actual frost advisories!
  • Apparently I have 72 hours of PTO left to use or lose before December 19. I was never really clued in to how much PTO I get at this job but it’s obviously a ton. I have taken just two days off while working 87 days since June 30, and those days were spent flying back to MN and packing. A vacation day seems to be in order soon, perhaps around Thanksgiving.
  • Our company Christmas party is coming up Dec. 2 and the theme is casino night. Some of the prizes are quite elaborate including 60″ HD TVs and of course lots of golf stuff.
  • If anyone is in need of a golf-related Christmas present, leave a comment. I’ve already helped one former Valleyfair co-worker’s mother save over $400 on a set of irons for her husband’s Christmas present! This includes clubs, accessories, apparel, bags… basically anything but golf carts and caddies.
  • Tomorrow is Round 1 of the double-elimination company sim golf tournament. We installed a new simulator in a conference room where you use real clubs and hit a ball into a screen with a golf course projection. So far it has turned out to be impossibly difficult, even for our resident PGA Tour golfers. This gives me as good a chance as anyone.
  • I have absolutely learned my lesson from my days at MB.  After countless times getting in serious trouble over things I wrote and picture I posted, both innocently and very purposefully, I have yet to tell anyone at work about this blog. Maybe they have found it, but I haven’t advertised it in the slightest.

I guess that about covers things for now. Overall I am still happy with the move despite our distance from our closest friends and family. I think the best part has been the career change; I am just happier in general as a result. Austin was such a good fit for my skill-set; I guess Minneapolis is too saturated with graphic designers/web developers. Lauren of course hasn’t had the same luck; Twin Cities businesses were more well-suited to her career, but I’m pretty sure she’ll find something soon.