One year ago today I sent this email to some of my friends and family. Because it was at a sensitive time and the new job was not yet final, I did not post it. One year later, I feel free to relate this story publically. Originally emailed 2005 Feb 20 17:35:18 UTC.

This is another non-web SPF. Please consider confidential until I give information more widely.

This morning the guy from Accent in Florida called. Got my voice mail at first. Wanted to finalize what we needed to to move forward. Brandy was on the bed still recovering from her back problem. Zuri was flying around the room. I considered going to another room where it would be more quiet, but I ended up staying there and I called back half an hour later. Got his voice mail. A few seconds later, he called back. Just as the phone was ringing, I saw some icing from Brandy’s birthday cake on the bed. So I scooped it up on one finger. Then I answered the Phone and said “Hello Pete” just as I licked the chocolate icing off my finger.

Then I got a sinking feeling. Brandy’s cake had not had chocolate icing. I quickly said, “Can you hold on a second Pete” and put him on hold. Brandy asked “What’s wrong????”. I said “That wasn’t chocolate!!!”. Yes, indeed, I’d scooped up a finger full of Zuri’s poop and shoved it in my mouth. Yum!

I spent a minute or so spitting out as much as I could and swigging some drinks to get the horrible taste out of my mouth. Then I got back to Pete… while both Brandy and I were still working to stifle our laughter. “That’s not chocolate!”

Anyway, long and short of it, I think we now have an agreement on how they will do relocation expenses. That’s on top of the verbal agreement on salary and other things we came to last week.

So, next steps are us finalizing the verbal agreements in writing. I’m writing up a summary of all our agreements this afternoon, which hopefully they will take and put into the formal offer and FedEx to me next week.

This is getting close to being a done deal. After everything is formally signed and legal and official, we’ll start the process of putting this house on the market and finding one down there. I’m looking at a potential start date of March 15th if the deal gets signed next week, but the first couple months I’d split my time down there and up here.

I’m hoping everything will be official by the end of next week.

Crossing my fingers!

I’ll of course send out a full announcement to the world, post on my blog, and all that sort of thing once things are fully official and legal.

Yesterday while Amy was with me at work after school, she told the story to a couple of people at work, so I figure the cat is out of the bag. Yes Pete, I accidentally ate bird poop while on the phone with you negotiating for the position down here. Oops. :-)