The Charm

Jay graduated law school in May of '06 and has consistently been searching and applying for jobs. Last fall we were offered a position in Phoenix, which we now think, in hindsight, we maybe should have accepted, maybe. But it's sooo far away...

In late July, Jay flew to MCG for an on-campus interview. Out of 200+ applicants, 10+ phone interviews, he was one of 3 in-person interviews. He thought it looked good, we were excited and tentatively looking online at Augusta. The VP for Legal Services (head attorney for the school, he would've been Jay's boss) said it all looked good but he'd let us know for sure in late July. MCG had a new president and he was doing an evaluation of all senior staff and the VP wanted to wait until the dust settled before hiring someone. So we wait for the last week of July, then the first week of August, then the second week... After waiting six weeks, I nagged Jay into sending an e-mail: we're looking at other opportunities, need to make plans, etc. So the VP calls Jay and says basically that during the evaluative process, they decided to eliminate the position Jay interviewed for, all due to budget cuts. What? It took 6 weeks to let us know? So disappointed.

Now what?

In the meantime, Jay applied for a job in August, had a phone interview in mid-September and they flew him out the next week (September 16-17) for an on-campus interview. During the phone interview, someone said, "Wow, you sound perfect for this job." But Tampa, what? Do we really want to be in Tampa? So he went down for the interview, they quickly started to referring to the job as Jay's and saying, "Well, we can have Jay do this or that, etc." And before he even left town, the senior attorney told him to keep the first week of November open for some big conference in DC. Holy Mole! Tampa!

And it's all happened so fast since then. Six days after he got home, we got the offer and accepted it the next day. I broke the news to my mom (seriously bawling over the phone; I never want to do that again.) and Jay broke it to his parents. We've been looking around online and ramped up our efforts to finish the work we've planned on this house. (Anyone want to buy a nice 4 bedroom, 2 bath cap cod in northern Kentucky? We've renovated both bathroom and it's got a new roof and paint throughout! No? Okay.)

So the plan, for right now, is for Jay to head down to start work November 8th, come back for Turkey Day. I'll keep the home fires burning, supervise the movers sometime during the week of Turkey Day and then we head back down with Jay the 29th, ready to sink our toes in the sand and avoid the snow and cold.

We got few visitors here in Northern KY; I expect we'll get a lot more visits from friends and family in Tampa. :)