Everyone was afraid of Magellan. There were rumors that they were going to fire everybody in the IT department. I started looking for another job. The tool that we used to do our programming was called Obsydian and it was owned by a company called Synon, Inc. There were very few people in the country who knew Obsydian and in the 2 years I had worked at HAI, I had become something of an expert. So, I called Synon and asked them if they would like to hire me. I had heard they were looking for teachers.
To make a long story short, I interviewed and was hired. For the next nine months, I worked for Synon as an instructor. Every sunday night I flew out to somewhere in the US and every Friday night I flew back. I have a magnet on my refrigerator at home of most of the states and cities I travelled to. It was great fun to see the country. I went places I had never been before. The class I taught was about 4 1/2 days long and it was the same every time, so I got pretty good at it. The job was great and I really loved it. But after a few months, I really got tired of the travelling. It turned out that it was not good to leave David alone in the apartment for five days at a time. I was still very heavy and it was a struggle to get to the airport and stay in hotels and eat out all of the time.
It lasted for nine months and then I said, enough. I called a friend of mine who had also left HAI and went to work at American Express in Salt Lake. I asked him if they had any openings. They did. I interviewed and was hired and once again, I changed jobs. This time I went to work for American Express. We worked out near the airport which wasn’t too bad since I lived in Sandy. I continued to program in the same language that I had been teaching. I lasted at American Express for almost 1 1/2 years.
Dad