digitaldiscipline ◾ ◾ "Official" Press Release.

Greetings from the sweltering swampland.

This may not be perfectly new news to everyone, but:

I'm moving to Tampa [and, yes, bringing/inducing Kim along with me ;-)]. I've been hired by Coca-Cola Enterprises [not the purveyors of the cola syrup, but their bottling & distribution subsidiary] to do instructional design, and begin on 6 July. I'm going to be generating online training materials for CCE's call-center personnel, and this is a chance for me to get back into wordsmithing as a vocation, as well as learn some new skills and software things. Plus, all the Coke products a guy can drink (I see a LOT of bottled water and Sprite in my future, because, frankly, I'm a Pepsi guy, and that ain't gonna change *laugh*).

For those of you not in the immediate loop, this was an instance where networking among friends (read: justifiable, benevolent nepotism *grin*) bore fruit; my boss-to-be is a friend of ours, Angela, whom I originally met here in New Orleans at one of the online-freak get-togethers in 1999. She's also been talking up Tampa/St. Pete as a cool place to live, and after touring the area on Friday and Saturday, I can definitely see it becoming "home." Not as overwhelmingly large as New York, much more happening (economically and otherwise) than New Orleans, and just an overall good sense from the town.

Included in said touring was a whirlwind perusal of a half dozen homes - some good, some bad, some ugly - in and around an historic neighborhood just north of downtown Tampa called Seminole Heights. My commute would literally take me past Busch Gardens every day, so there's definitely some opportunity for Kim to get back into the animal field without having to make a long trek, and that was a really big bonus (there's also the Lowry Park Zoo nearby, too).

For my next trick. . . buying a house before Alan Greenspan wiggles his ears and makes interest rates jump. I've been put in touch with a really good realtor, and she is doing some legwork to follow up on the most promising prospects, as well as chasing down a place that we checked out yesterday a block and a half from the place Angel and her husband are closing on in two weeks. *crosses fingers*

Our lease here in New Orleans is going to be done at the end of July - Angel has graciously offered the "guest quarters" of their new home as a base of operations until we find a place of our own, so I'll be hauling my bare essentials [read: clothes and computer, natch] down at the end of June, with Kim to follow later on.

I'll be giving notice at my office on Monday; fortunately, a contingency plan has been laid, and the boss has been talking about scaling back operations preparatory to closing up shop in a year or two anyhow. Two years was a long enough run as World's Ugliest Secretary; it feels good to be making positive moves towards a more rewarding future (I'm only a contractor to start, but the new skills and experience, should we not be made a permanent part of CCE's operations, ought to prove useful down the road in any event).

So, that's the big news. It's exciting, and we're both a little nervous about the Next Big Step here, but it's in a good way, more of a "this is going to be really cool" thing than being overwhelmed by trepidation and "what do we do next?" kind of thing.

Now, I need to do something about my squishy midsection - if nothing else, Tampa locals seem to be, on the whole, in a hell of a lot better shape than the New Orleans ones. *laugh*