Back from Margaritaville!

I'm back from Margaritaville with some very good news! I was very vague about my trip and only a few people knew about it at all. It wasn't a real vacation, it was a three-day working holiday. When I started a few months ago with Amtrack I knew that even thought the money was insanely good, it wouldn't last for long so I began doing some research on railroad jobs on railjobs.com and found one in Clewiston, Florida that sounded pretty good. So about a month ago I updated my resume and emailed it never thinking I'd be hearing back. Well, about two weeks ago I got a return email from the head of the railroad asking me if I was still interested. Hell yes I was interested! So the company flew me down to West Palm Beach over the weekend, paid for my rental car and put me up in a nice hotel near the offices... Pictured above is the engine yard...
Here's a picture looking north from the hotel... I haven't seen real palm trees in a very long time... But the last time I was someplace this tropical little brown guys speaking Spanish were desperately trying to kill me... But I don't think I'll have to worry about that now.
A little friend another guy who was down for the interview also and myself found on the verandah late Saturday night...
The Clewiston Inn... Where I stayed in a suite... It was built in 1938 and is on the National Register of Historic Buildings... Very Art-Deco, south Florida style, which I love...

Apartments across the road from the engine yard...

So I go down and have the interview... And I get the job! They do all the HR paperwork bullshit including my drug test and direct deposit authorization...

Pay is slightly less that what I'm making now, but this job with Amtrack was only for a finite time anyway. Full benefits, eye, dental, prescription...

And here's the kicker... The company is going to pay my moving expenses and put me up in an apartment rent free for up to four months until I can find a place of my own...

And I'll be doing what I should have been doing here in Durbin in the first place... Conductor then on to locomotive engineer by next April.

But here's the bad stuff... I have to be down there before the 16th of August. I'm sure glad I never unpacked anything. Something told me I shouldn't when I moved in here.

I'll be about an hour from West Palm Beach in the east and an hour from Ft. Myers in the west.

I'm moving to Margaritaville!

And I'm going to be an engineer!

Copyright 2006 Thomas J Wolfenden