zimmers in texas

From meryl

Finally we have got our own phone and our number is (512) 4945904. I booked in for my first haricut but I really dont like it so I will have to keep searching for a hairdresser I like. Then I suppose we will have to find the doctor, dentist, physio etc. We are still having problems with our pay and until that is set up we can't set up our deductions which means any health or pharmaceuticals etc would cost a fortune. We are also still having problems with our bank so I wouldn't recommend the Bank of America to anyone at this stage.

The main road running through this picture is South Congress and if you keep following it over the river for about a km you will run into our apartment. Austin is famous for the one and a half million bats that fly in every night and sleep under the South Congress bridge.

We have found a shop that sells vegemite but it is so expensive I think we will just have to ration our jar. They have a web site and you can buy all those things like weetbix, arnott's biscuits, vita weets and of course emu oil and eucalyptus soap.

People at work are really interested in Australia and it is great to talk to them. Today I was asked if I had a boomerang and had I ever thrown one. The expectation was that kids were given them like frisbees, someone has missed a huge marketing opportunity. Everyone wants to visit Australia so we may have a run on American visits when we do go home. Sometimes it is hard to describe ourway of life and customs. Try explaining things like the "tall poppy syndrome", or why we don't give change of 1,2 or 3 cents and why we talk in kilos but weigh new babies in pounds and ounces.

I have been given a project at work- setting up a web site. Can you believe that, they must be really desperate. We had a team meeting on Friday and it turns out I am the only Maximus employee that has been hired by the project. Everyone else is a consultant bar one and he is a Maximus employee seconded from another project.

Today is the first day the weather has not been in the high nineties and it is only the second day of summer. Yes summer started on 21st June not 1st. It will be a mild 78 degrees today. I think we might be in for a hot summer with a bit of rain. At least we are not getting the floods like Houston is although we do plan to drive down to Houston and Galverston for a weekend soon, so lets hope it stops flooding.
Today we did a tour of the Capitol Building (see photo). Unfortunately I cut the top off the Angel of Liberty who sits on the top and is 16foot tall. It is a pretty impressive building with pictures of all the Governors of Texas including of course George W.

Glenn attempted the written driver's test on Friday and he passed so now he has to go to The Department of Public Safety early on Monday (7am) and wait in a queue to do the practical. I will attempt the written on Tuesday night but I am not sure that they will allow me as I don't have a Social Security number yet. When I rang they said I needed it but the web site says I can just sign an affidavit so we will see.

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY TO DANIEL for Tuesday

From Meryl

Just when we think we understand what we are doing we find something new that we have to do. We are still trying to buy a car but to insure the car we have to have a Texan driver's license. We also found we need to have social security numbers to get paid so we went to the Texas Dept of Public Protection to start the process for our driver's license. It is just like Australia where you have to do the written test and the go out with the State Trooper to do the practical test. We may try to sit the test next week if we study hard this weekend. We visited the Social Security Administration office on Friday. They are only open from 9 to 4 Monday to Friday and they have 24 interviewing bays. The public contact area is just about as big as the whole Inala office. We got there at about 20 to 4 on Friday and left about 40 minutes later. Glen's records matched with the Department of Homeland Security so his was processed straight away and he should get his card in the mail in the next 2 weeks. Mine, of course did not match so it will be about 4 weeks. We also applied for Texas ID cards and they should arrive in about 2 or 3 weeks. For such an "advanced" nation they sure do take a long time to process anything.




View from Meryl's window at work included. Shows part of the 'very complicated' freeway network that is all through Austin. Appears to be a much smaller city than Brisbane with about 10 times the traffic

The pool below. A great place for sitting with a beer in hand and watching the people be energetic below.







View to the north - day and night.

It's not a huge city

1. Driving on the other side of the road is uncomfortable
2. You buy petrol in gallons
3. the road signs are in miles
4. all of the money notes are the same colour - you have to get them out of your wallet to count them
5. they still have 1 cent coins - ridiculous
6. the light and power swithes go up for "on" and down for "off"
7. beer cans are only 12 oz
8. beer cartons only hold 18 cans - of 'Lone Star' beer
9. water goes down the plug hole the other way
10. the toilet bowls are just wrong
11. you get paid twice a month - 24 times a year
12. Most people at our project start work at 8.00am ish and don't leave till after 7.00pm - so I'm told
13. There's no Cheds
14. tipping
15. a bottle of oj last for at least a week - probably due to a lack of Daniel rather than anything in Texas

Last weekend was the big moving day. We spent half of Saturday buying all the necessities to set up house. We kinda cheated because we did most of it at Target. We had to make 2 trips because the trolleys (carts) were not big enough. On Sunday we did all our grocery shopping at Whole Foods. This is mostly organic food so it is quite expensive but very nice. We stayed at the hotel on Sunday night as the gas could not be turned on until Monday at it is gas hot water.

We have a pidgeon nesting on our balcony so we have become quite familiar with the nesting behaviours of pidgeons. There are two of them and they roster a day and night each. Mum sits on the eggs at night and dad during the day. There are 2 eggs in the nest so we are keeping an eye on them, waiting for them to hatch.

That is how we fill in our nights as we don't have TV or internet access yet. We cant get the phone connected and internet access until 20th so it looks like a bit more pidgeon watching.
We tested the local cuisine on Wed night and tried a restaurant called Doc's. It is a converted garage and it was really crowded, especially since it was a Wed night but the food was good and cheap.

We have been learning lots at work and I went for a day out to our San Antonio office on Thursday to see what happens out there. The people I work with are great fun and they love to ask me to say things (mostly so they can laugh). I mentioned to one of the women that we were going to buy a car this weekend and she asked why I would wont a cow.

Part of my job is to write work instructions but they say they will have to send them in for translation before printing.

Today we had vegemite tasting day. The staff in my team kept asking me to bring some in to taste. They had not heard of it until I mentioned it in conversation last week and had to describe it. The reaction was pretty much as expected except one person said they didn't mind it.

Thursday was the big day. We had an orientation of the building, then a talk from HR, boy was that confusing. We have to pick our own individual benefits that we want deducted from our pay and of course we had no idea what they were talking about. Basically you can choose, within a limited scope, what health insurance, dental insureance, Flexible Spending Account, Disaiblity insurance, vision plan, life insurance, long term care coverage, legal services ( might need that one if Walmart catch us) EAP, Employee stock purchase plan, retirement plan,voluntary benefits. See what I mean it will take us a week to sort out what they are and then we have 30 days to choose otherwise we cant change it until December.
After that bemusing session we went to the bank for the 4th time. I knew it wasn't going to be easy. We go in there so often they know us straight away and the assistant manager looks after us. It seems to be all sorted now and we have a cheque account and a savings account and have even applied for a credit card.
After lunch we had our overview of the project training then we met our respective bosses and then got our passes. We have 24 hours 7 days a week access, sounds great. After this we did our privacy training and even had to complete a quiz after it to make sure we understood.
We went out to a really nice restaurant then home to our hotel. Half the staff are staying in this hotel which is a shame we didnt realise that before today as they all go home for the weekend.
Day 2 we met the Austin boss and she is really nice. She explained what was happening with the project and a bit more about our roles. Work seems like it will be really good. The people are all nice, probably because they cant understand us and they just smile and nod, and the work seems challenging.
At lunch time today we had the pleasure of getting the electricity turned on. That only took two and a half hours. Most people can do it over the phone but because we are not US citizens we had to take a copy of our lease, our passports and $200 and stand in a queue for two hours. It was like the worst Centrelink queue in a really poor area. They had a security guard to manage the crowd and he had to step in a couple of times. I could have done it for him but I didn't think it was my place so Glenn and I stood very quietly in line. We stood out like sore thumbs as we were wearing our work clothes and had shoes on and no visible tatoos. The lady at the desk was lovely though and we now have electricity.
Unfortunately we didn't get back to work until after 3 so it was a good start to our working week.
I am in the Policy and Procedure Team and Glenn is doing Quality Assurance. We both have enjoyed our days so far but have so much reading to do to get up to speed.