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Mar. 12th, 2004 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usernamenumberWe're moving to San Diego.
There. I said it.
Now, here's why: Last week during my trip to DC, which I posted about earlier, I got to talk to my boss. Talking to my boss is not a rare event, but you have to understand that of this particular discussion I was absolutely scared stiff. I seem to have a knack for overthinking things and working myself up into a huge tizzy over stuff that is simply, well, not that big a deal. I decided to do exactly what I told Lizbeth I would not do: spill my guts and basically tell Randy (my boss, not my brother), "A few months ago you called me and asked me if I would be willing to move to SoCal, but since then every time we've talked you've dropped hints about how nice it would be if we went to DC. In the week or so since we last talked I've managed to get myself so worked up about this that I half-believe Red Hat must be silently hemorrhaging money over the lack of a DC instructor and the future of the company now hinges on me making the right decision".
...or something to that effect. Anyway, Randy responded in the absolute best way possible. He laughed. He laughed and said that I was indeed getting way too worked up over this and that there was no "right" answer. San Diego and DC are both fine. The reason he'd been hinting about DC was simply because it's an important place that needs to be covered and it's therefore his job to ask. He said I should take it as a compliment that I was offered such an important location, but the bottom line is that there's more to life than work and we should go where we'll be happy. No hard feelings and no brownie points lost.
Despite this A-OK from the boss, I was still undecided. I did have a lovely time that first weekend in DC, though as the week went on the romance faded. And my dad as much as said that he considered the East Coast culturally superior to the West Coast and that I should be adventurous instead of coming back to familiar ground. It's good to hear advice like that from one's dad (the adventure part, not necessarily the cultural superiority part) and unadventurous is not something I wanted to be. I tried pointing out the number of places that we've lived in the past 2 years, but he countered that though we've indeed lived in several places recently, we haven't lived in any of them. And, what can I say? It's true. We moved to Florida expecting it to be a temporary thing and so we never really got involved in anything. Now, a lot of that is also because I was gone for 3-5 weeks at a time but just today, as we were looking for a place to recycle 7 months worth of boxes and newspapers, we came upon this gorgeous park. Sprawling dissiduous trees with spanish moss like spider webs all over. Beautiful. We dropped our boxes off, paused to look at the lake for a while and left, never to return. I want to live somewhere. I want to be part of a community, to get to know a town, to have a place that I know I''ll still be in a year from now... and I also want to quit flying so damn often.
The conclusion I've reached is that I'd simply rather do all that in San Diego than DC. DC has all kinds of fantastic museums and stirring monuments. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, though I'd never have expected to. But most of the things I was enjoying about DC were things one enjoys on a visit, not from living there. I like the way San Diego looks. I like the way it feels. I like the weather a heck of a lot better than what I've been told I can expect in DC. The two are about equal in terms of expense and Red Hat says that either is fine with them.
Ok, so we're going to San Diego. Any doubts I had were done away with when I mentioned the decision to co-workers. The New York guy half-seriously offered to trade with me and another congratulated me on getting "the coveted San Diego spot". When I talked to my boss's boss, who does the scheduling, and ran it by him just to make absolutely sure that everyone was cool with this, he simply glanced at his magic spreadsheet and told me I was now scheduled to teach my first class in the San Diego center on the 29th.
So the question then becomes "when" and the inescapable answer, "now". This is for a few reasons:
1) There is currently a need for someone in SoCal. If I don't take the opportunity, it might not be there later.
2) Lizbeth needs a job. One that actually pays money this time would be just swell. We wouldn't want to stay past when our lease is up but our lease is up in six months. That means any job she got would have to be for 6 months and no more, which most places won't hire for. Wherever she's going to work, she needs to be there nowish.
3) She's already got an interview lined up in SD.
4) Because of a new project I'm involved with at Red Hat, I'm going to be working from home this week and the next two weeks and my work is such that as long as I have net access in the evenings I'm fine. That makes this the best opportunity for a cross-country roadtrip I'm going to get.
Thus, tomorrow AM a moving truck will show up for our stuff. Tomorrow afternoon we start driving, heading out of town by way of the Dali museum we've been meaning to see we first arrived here. We should hit SoCal sometime mid-week. Sorry for the late notice, but we've been on the edge of this decision for so long that when we finally decided to do it, we decided to just *do* it and be done with it. In classic B+E style, not only are we just finishing up the packing now (1am, Saturday morning), but we didn't even start packing in earnest until last night and have only the vaguest idea of what route we're going to take as of this writing. And dad says I'm not being adventurous. Feh. =:)
We got the apartment people to let us pay what we owe for breaking the lease in bimonthly payments, which makes it bearable if we stay with the Stephens-Dolls for a while. Yes, some of you have expressed annoyance at us for even considering staying with parents, but deal. =:P Seriously, having a place where we can apartment-hunt with zero expenses is a good thing. During this time we are going to not only pay off the apartment fees, but all outstanding loans from parents and maybe even our car (with everything else going into savings). That's worth a minor hit to the ego. Plus this is not an open-ended stay like last time. I have income and it looks likely that Lizbeth will as well. We should have no problem getting a place once the current landlords have been given their pound of flesh.
Ok. My head hurts and I have a date with Yahoo Maps before I can go to bed.
Now you know, knowing is half the battle, getting the hell out of here is the other half. G'night.
There. I said it.
Now, here's why: Last week during my trip to DC, which I posted about earlier, I got to talk to my boss. Talking to my boss is not a rare event, but you have to understand that of this particular discussion I was absolutely scared stiff. I seem to have a knack for overthinking things and working myself up into a huge tizzy over stuff that is simply, well, not that big a deal. I decided to do exactly what I told Lizbeth I would not do: spill my guts and basically tell Randy (my boss, not my brother), "A few months ago you called me and asked me if I would be willing to move to SoCal, but since then every time we've talked you've dropped hints about how nice it would be if we went to DC. In the week or so since we last talked I've managed to get myself so worked up about this that I half-believe Red Hat must be silently hemorrhaging money over the lack of a DC instructor and the future of the company now hinges on me making the right decision".
...or something to that effect. Anyway, Randy responded in the absolute best way possible. He laughed. He laughed and said that I was indeed getting way too worked up over this and that there was no "right" answer. San Diego and DC are both fine. The reason he'd been hinting about DC was simply because it's an important place that needs to be covered and it's therefore his job to ask. He said I should take it as a compliment that I was offered such an important location, but the bottom line is that there's more to life than work and we should go where we'll be happy. No hard feelings and no brownie points lost.
Despite this A-OK from the boss, I was still undecided. I did have a lovely time that first weekend in DC, though as the week went on the romance faded. And my dad as much as said that he considered the East Coast culturally superior to the West Coast and that I should be adventurous instead of coming back to familiar ground. It's good to hear advice like that from one's dad (the adventure part, not necessarily the cultural superiority part) and unadventurous is not something I wanted to be. I tried pointing out the number of places that we've lived in the past 2 years, but he countered that though we've indeed lived in several places recently, we haven't lived in any of them. And, what can I say? It's true. We moved to Florida expecting it to be a temporary thing and so we never really got involved in anything. Now, a lot of that is also because I was gone for 3-5 weeks at a time but just today, as we were looking for a place to recycle 7 months worth of boxes and newspapers, we came upon this gorgeous park. Sprawling dissiduous trees with spanish moss like spider webs all over. Beautiful. We dropped our boxes off, paused to look at the lake for a while and left, never to return. I want to live somewhere. I want to be part of a community, to get to know a town, to have a place that I know I''ll still be in a year from now... and I also want to quit flying so damn often.
The conclusion I've reached is that I'd simply rather do all that in San Diego than DC. DC has all kinds of fantastic museums and stirring monuments. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, though I'd never have expected to. But most of the things I was enjoying about DC were things one enjoys on a visit, not from living there. I like the way San Diego looks. I like the way it feels. I like the weather a heck of a lot better than what I've been told I can expect in DC. The two are about equal in terms of expense and Red Hat says that either is fine with them.
Ok, so we're going to San Diego. Any doubts I had were done away with when I mentioned the decision to co-workers. The New York guy half-seriously offered to trade with me and another congratulated me on getting "the coveted San Diego spot". When I talked to my boss's boss, who does the scheduling, and ran it by him just to make absolutely sure that everyone was cool with this, he simply glanced at his magic spreadsheet and told me I was now scheduled to teach my first class in the San Diego center on the 29th.
So the question then becomes "when" and the inescapable answer, "now". This is for a few reasons:
1) There is currently a need for someone in SoCal. If I don't take the opportunity, it might not be there later.
2) Lizbeth needs a job. One that actually pays money this time would be just swell. We wouldn't want to stay past when our lease is up but our lease is up in six months. That means any job she got would have to be for 6 months and no more, which most places won't hire for. Wherever she's going to work, she needs to be there nowish.
3) She's already got an interview lined up in SD.
4) Because of a new project I'm involved with at Red Hat, I'm going to be working from home this week and the next two weeks and my work is such that as long as I have net access in the evenings I'm fine. That makes this the best opportunity for a cross-country roadtrip I'm going to get.
Thus, tomorrow AM a moving truck will show up for our stuff. Tomorrow afternoon we start driving, heading out of town by way of the Dali museum we've been meaning to see we first arrived here. We should hit SoCal sometime mid-week. Sorry for the late notice, but we've been on the edge of this decision for so long that when we finally decided to do it, we decided to just *do* it and be done with it. In classic B+E style, not only are we just finishing up the packing now (1am, Saturday morning), but we didn't even start packing in earnest until last night and have only the vaguest idea of what route we're going to take as of this writing. And dad says I'm not being adventurous. Feh. =:)
We got the apartment people to let us pay what we owe for breaking the lease in bimonthly payments, which makes it bearable if we stay with the Stephens-Dolls for a while. Yes, some of you have expressed annoyance at us for even considering staying with parents, but deal. =:P Seriously, having a place where we can apartment-hunt with zero expenses is a good thing. During this time we are going to not only pay off the apartment fees, but all outstanding loans from parents and maybe even our car (with everything else going into savings). That's worth a minor hit to the ego. Plus this is not an open-ended stay like last time. I have income and it looks likely that Lizbeth will as well. We should have no problem getting a place once the current landlords have been given their pound of flesh.
Ok. My head hurts and I have a date with Yahoo Maps before I can go to bed.
Now you know, knowing is half the battle, getting the hell out of here is the other half. G'night.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-13 02:59 am (UTC)Ahem.
Let Ileah and I know when you get in and if you need any help moving things, even though we are now /hell and gone/ from Jamul. Seriously, if we went any farther north we'd been in Riverside. But! I seriously want to see you guys again, too.
If you're busy getting settled though, that's cool too. I'm patient. :)
typical
Date: 2004-03-14 10:53 pm (UTC)Good luck, and enjoy the trip out. I'm glad you made a decision that you feel good about, and that there are not likely to be negative repercussions.
And I have to agree with you about the free place to stay. Why did I stay with my parents every summer during college? Feel no shame, ain't nothing wrong with it.