Firsts

This was the first apartment complex I lived in after graduating from college. It was as close as I could get to the office building where I was hired to work in my first job as a professional.

The apartment was just okay, but it was close to the University of Dallas campus where I could safely ride my bicycle while it was still cool on early summer mornings before going to work. It was also within walking distance of Texas Stadium where I finally got to see Pink Floyd in concert for the first and only time. My office was a tiny, cramped space all the way down a hallway at the back of the building (leftmost window in the photo). The local fire marshal had problems with it because there was no back exit. That, and the weird-o business owner, convinced me to move on to better pastures six months after starting to work there.

On one morning commute my pickup truck hydroplaned at this railroad crossing on Ambassador Street and did a 180º just a few feet from the tracks. It wasn't the first time I had been driving a vehicle that hydroplaned on me, so I stayed calm and rode it out in silence. The truck didn't hit anything and it was early enough in the morning that there was no one else driving on the street to see it happen, so I just eased it back around and continued on my way to work, a little freaked out but not too severely. Not superstitious in any form or fashion, the incident still helped to convinc me it was high time to make some life changes.

The next job at a startup was much better and I stayed a couple of years working there until it was bought out, my boss was fired and the company reorganized. That's when I decided to try working for large corporations for a while. That worked out well for me and allowed me to learn a lot of stuff small startups could never afford to spend time and money training me for.