My life up to now. Part 5: If you could move anywhere in the US, where would you go?

After school, we asked ourselves, "If we could move anywhere in the US, where would we go?". We lived in Louisiana at the time and both had family there. We kept hearing story after story about Austin being a hot-bed for independent film. Plus, Austin was much closer to home than Los Angeles so we set our sights on Texas. Packing the car with everything we owned, we set off on our next adventure to make movies! We arrived in Austin in 1997 with no jobs and no place to live - a huge leap of faith that would eventually pay but not for over a decade later.

Shortly after our move to Austin, Robin and I found out we were pregnant. Life throws some crazy curveballs doesn't it? Crewing for low budget indies wasn't paying the bills and money was running out. With a kid on the way times got really scary. One day while sitting in my Austin behind rent apartment, my phone rang. It was one of my long time friends from Louisiana. He called to tell me that NewTek, the company that made the Video Toaster and Lightwave 3D had moved to Texas. San Antonio to be exact. I was thrilled! That was the magical place that I only read about in magazines. That's the company that was so pivotal in my life! He then told me that he was traveling to San Antonio to go to some kind of training to become a NewTek authorized dealer and asked if I wanted to come along! Do I!?!?!? OF COURSE! In my mind, I was the best animator ever! I had full intentions of showing off my uber skills to them. I started working on my demo reel immediately in hopes they would hire me to mop their floors. I knew if I could land a full time job with NewTek, I could support Robin and my new baby.