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Weinhart's rootbeer is indeed available, I found it at several stores and ended up talking to the manager trying to find out of that meant that they would have access to the beer-beer as well, but alas, no one distributes the beer itself here.
Sadly, my brain didn't bother to remember WHERE I found it, so I'll keep an eye and and try to append useful information.
I don't know brands on jerky, but I'm slowly trying every gas station, grocery store, and walgreen's local-made jerky, and, well.. some are good, some aren't. The point, though, is that even if your brand isn't here, I bet you can find a decent approximation.
Everyone else answered your other questions to the point that I have nothing to add..
Regarding Hi-Country Beef Jerky, I haven't seen any around here but looks like you can order it online - Hi-Country Specialty Foods Online Store - (http://www.hicountry.com/store/index.php - broken link).
quick additions to the comprehensive answers you've gotten thus far ---
i think there is crime everywhere. with this said, i think that the crime in abq. is intolerable. the Only place i would live anymore is in the far northeast heights. i lived downtown, nob hill and washington/lomas area and really enjoyed these areas. however, over the last 10 years, the whole city has become crime ridden. i think that many people are tolerant of a lot of "crime" like grafitti, property vandelism, car breakins, non-home-invasion burglary.... my friend moved to a "good" northeast heights neighborhood and started the conversation with how much safer they feel in their safe crime free neighborhood and then started talking about a rash of car burglaries. she didn't see the inconsistency because of the tolerance and "acceptance" of non-violent crimes.
with all of this said, because of family and all of the family friendly things (like the botanic garden and museums) we were seriously considering a move back to abq. (we live outside of santa fe now). the past 10 years has seen an Explosion in house prices. you won't be able to touch anything you want on the east side of albuquerque in a non-ghetto neighborhood for under 300K and about 375K would provide you with a lot more options.
politically -- abq. is all over the board. there are areas where non-leftists are not welcome. however, overall, i think that you can be whereever you want with whatever political leanings you have w/o a problem. of course, i'm looking through the lens of santa fe where non-hippies are pariahs. people living in abq. may not find it as politically tolerant as i remember it.
That's a little stretched! I could easily point you to a lot of homes outside the Far NE Heights where crime would be considered low for Albuquerque. All 3 bedroom+/2 bath/2 Car Garage for less than $250k
- Commute time : What are commute times like? I currently spend 3 hours a day commuting, and it is getting very, very old. I would like to get back to only having to commute for 30 minutes each way at max.
I don't get this statement. You want to move to another state to avoid a long commute? Why not move closer to your job?
The "commute" in ABQ (as in Chicago) is as long as you want to make it. If you can walk or bike to your place of employment (as many people do, myself included) you don't have to worry about it. I sometimes take a longer way to work and home to get more exercise. It's good for you.
I don't get this statement. You want to move to another state to avoid a long commute? Why not move closer to your job?
Because I want to stay away from Chicago, and when I moved up here, I didn't know what places would be good or bad. I did find a very nice community and haven't had any problems there. However, as one moves closer to Chicago (and into Cook County), rent becomes very expensive. So there is a cost of living factor here.
Another issue that some people have brought up is biking. That is one item I forgot to mention. When I visited my college town in Montana (~30,000 people), I saw more dedicated bike paths along the roads in that small town than I've seen in all of Chicagoland. It's rare to even see bike racks outside of train stations. From what others have mentioned, it sounds like ABQ is fairly bike friendly.
I also like to hear that navigating ABQ is also pretty easy. I can get lost in a paper bag with only one exit!
Regarding Hi-Country Beef Jerky, I haven't seen any around here but looks like you can order it online - Hi-Country Specialty Foods Online Store - (http://www.hicountry.com/store/index.php - broken link).
That's what I've generally been doing. I just ordered some Hi-Country beef jerky yesterday. Fortunately, shipping jerky is much cheaper than trying to ship bottles of root beer. I've tried other brands of beef jerky, but they just don't do it for me. I once tried some Obertos, and I think I never finished the bag.
Good to hear that someone has seen Henry Weinhard's Root Beer in NM. Thanks for the confirmation.
Schools will get canceled out here for tiny amounts of snow, yet by 11:00am, you wouldn't even know it snowed.
Good to hear that the snow disappears pretty quickly. Does New Mexico ever shorten school days due to heat? Probably the most ridiculous thing I've seen the Illinois school system do was when (on a Friday), they scheduled the next Monday to be half a day because it "might" get hot that Monday. It never got that hot. I road a bike in the middle of day, dressed in black and didn't break a sweat. But I've seen quite a few cases in Illinois where school will be canceled due to snow or an ice storm, but generally it happens when it dumps a bunch of snow quickly.
Oddly enough, when I grew up in Montana, we had snow days about...never. Just must have been much more used to dealing with snow to not require snow days. I even asked some under-20 kids how many snow days they've seen. The answer: none.
You have a side business, renewable energy? solar? If so you might find the locality of Sandia & Los Alamos a benefit then. I've seen used solar panels go through the government auctions here, along with a lot of stuff you might be able to use.
My side business is in computer software, actually, but I'm looking at options where I can apply this knowledge to the RE industry. One case I've seen is with programable thermostat. There is even an iPhone app for the Ecobee thermostat.
One thing that would be constructive in RE is a company selling a combined swamp cooler and heater thermostat for homes in mountain regions that use swamps (or swamps and A/C depending on the conditions). I have yet to see a swamp cooler controller with anything better than 1980 technology and any bells and whistles to save energy.
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Commuting and biking.
