Job Uncertainty

My full-time job is coming to an end.  The company for which I have worked for the past two and a half years, Union Drilling, Inc., was purchased by another drilling company based in Houston.  Our division offices should stay relatively intact, but our Fort Worth corporate office will be closing.  I have unequivocally declined to move to Houston, so I have been notified that my last day will be December 31, 2012.  I'll get my regular year-end bonus, and I'll get a nice severance amount.  Between that, unemployment compensation, and modeling gigs, I shouldn't even feel any pain for at least three months, although I doubt that it will take me that long to find another job.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to getting some daytime modeling assignments in January, and maybe into February.  I've already talked to Ron at the Texas Academy of Figurative Art about a multi-week long pose.  While I don't look forward to the discomfort of such a long pose, I am excited about being a part of a long term project by a group of realist painters and artists.  The following is a drawing of me in a couple of 30-45 minute poses by a student at TAFA. 

If that level of detail can be achieved in such short poses, I'm excited to see what they can do with a long project.  Because the students at TAFA capture such detail, I'm using the prospect of modeling there as motivation to change my diet and exercise regimen.  I hope to lose at least fifteen pounds by the time this project starts, not that it will matter to the artists; they are happy to draw whatever body takes the stand.  But it will matter to me.  I'm anticipating some amazing work by Ron and these students, and I'd like to look my best for posterity...