My brother-for-a-year, █████, had started a spring break job as a dishwasher at the legendary Babe's Chicken in ███████ to top up his pocket money. One day he asked me if I was interested in a weekend job. His boss, who also owned a successful country cooking restaurant in ██████, was assembling a crew to launch a Tex-Mex food stand at the brand-new Texas Motor Speedway, which was about to open that April. I was thrilled by the opportunity and accepted immediately.
My parents had gifted me a portable Sony multiband world radio to take with me for my ten-month stay as an exchange student in Texas. It was a cute idea: something that would allow me to tune into German-language shortwave broadcasts if I ever felt homesick. In reality, I never used it for that purpose. But the radio nerd in me was thrilled to have even more frequency bands to explore than on my trusty bedside radio back home. Instead of using it to stay connected with Germany, I mainly used it to dicover exciting new FM stations I could pick up in North Texas.