It took me four days to get from NY to CA. I traveled due south first, to see someone I had met while working in the ESB. I spent a day there in South Carolina, met her family, and then started heading west. I stopped when I needed to, and had a pretty uneventful time. I was just zipping along in my Celica, listening to the radio, playing some cassettes; I was heading to my new home!

    I arrived at the new place on Saturday, March 7th, 1987. I remember it as a Saturday because my ex-brother-in-law had flown back to NY to visit his father, who was not well, and so I was met by his wife. She told me that she and some of her friends were going down into Mexico on Sunday and would I like to go. Two days in and I’m sitting at a restaurant with a view of the ocean, eating Puerto Nuevo style lobster and drinking margaritas Not too shabby.

    I had some money saved, but I obviously couldn’t live here forever on it, so I started thinking about a job. My ex-brother-in-law was teaching tennis, and there was a young lady student of his who was a financial planner. We had met, and she knew I was a computer programmer. She told me there was someone she had done business with, and she knew he worked at a computer company. So she said she would speak to him.

    Eventually, I went to meet him. It was a company that provided software and support for financial institutions. We spoke for a while and he set up a time for me to come back and take a test.

    There have been some tests I have taken in my life that I actually enjoyed and this one qualified. It had to do with performing multiple, nested, logical operations. I love that kind of brain-teasing, logical stuff. I was told they never let you know the results, but I was pretty sure I aced it.

    A couple of days later, they contacted me. I had asked for a lot less than what I was making in NY, but I figured my expenses were going to be a lot less. In any event, they offered me $3,000 more than what I asked for, so I guess I did all right.

    And so, on Monday, April 6th, 1987, less than a month by a day since getting here, I started my new job. I had said to myself, “Jim, give it six months. If you can’t make it here, at least you can say you lived in San Diego for six months”. I beat it by five months plus!

    Here's another “mini” fork, kinda. We were sitting in our new house, celebrating my new job, getting pretty drunk and, out of the blue, my ex-brother-in-law says, “Jim, why don’t you shave off your mustache? New place, new job, new look. Go for it!” I don’t know how it happened, probably the alcohol, but I did it. My upper lip hadn’t seen the light of day since around 1970. A short but pretty good fork, I would say.