I think I've found my dream city...

[abqsunport]

Great Post dpgtfc. Awesome Questions.

You will probably want to drop ATT for your cell--the coverage isn't that great. I would Say Verizon, T Mobile, or Alltel have the best coverage. I use Verizon and think the coverage is fine--thought the prices tend to be a bit higher.

School systems are better by cluster. Stay in the La Cueva, El Dorado, Sandia, or Cibola High School Clusters and you will be just fine.

Best of luck with your decisions and such!

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by abqsunport

Great Post dpgtfc. Awesome Questions.

You will probably want to drop ATT for your cell--the coverage isn't that great. I would Say Verizon, T Mobile, or Alltel have the best coverage. I use Verizon and think the coverage is fine--thought the prices tend to be a bit higher.

School systems are better by cluster. Stay in the La Cueva, El Dorado, Sandia, or Cibola High School Clusters and you will be just fine.

Best of luck with your decisions and such!

Well, I just got a note in my recent Alltel bill....Verizon and Alltel are merging.

I'm not carried away with the idea, but I guess it means that the coverage will be even better than it is now. I have been able to get cell service in every area other than Sipapu (Vadito), but I knew that before I went.

[ABQConvict]

Originally Posted by dpgtfc

It would be, anyway, if there were a beach nearby, and it snowed less

Less than statistically insignificant? Seriously, the average of 11 in./year (which in the last decade has been more like 6 inches) actually sticks around for a total of 24 hours. If you sleep until 9 or 10am, you may never see any snow at all.

Originally Posted by dpgtfc

How is the education systems out there?

Popularly underrated. It has its problems but the average opinion is that your child will graduate without the ability to spell their own name properly. Take the critics with a grain of salt. There are some excellent private schools if that is your thing.

Originally Posted by dpgtfc

Are there a lot of parks? I notice the nearest lake seems to be 50 miles north, but what about river parks? Are there sections cut off for swimming / boating, etc, or is it mostly commercial? What about water parks?

Do you mean city parks or state/national parks? There are plenty of both. Water resources are obviously limited. The best "lake" for boating is Elephant Butte, a couple of hours south of Albuquerque. Most others are muddy ponds by most reckonings. If water sports are a priority for you, New Mexico would be a poor choice. If you like fishing, it can be pretty good to excellent, though. For whitewater there are some excellent options but they are few and far between. There is nothing commercial about the river(s) in New Mexico. The largest river, the Rio Grande, is barely navigable by canoe no matter how thick the blue line on the map.

Originally Posted by dpgtfc

addendum: Neither my wife or I speak fluent spanish, in fact we only know about 30 words or so and very little grammar or structure. Needless to say, she is worried about moving to the south and having to have the requirements of speaking it for her job as a Physical Therapist. Anybody know if such requirements are widespread or non-existant?

The Medical field is one of the few areas where some knowledge of Spanish is a neccesity in New Mexico (construction and culinary fields are the others). However, there are resources for getting medical professionals up to speed with medical specific Spanish skills. I doubt it is a pre-qualification for most jobs but it couldn't hurt to do a bit of study beforehand so she can claim some knowledge of Spanish on her resume.

ABQConvict

[ABQConvict]

Sorry about the consecutive posts, but I wanted to extend my statement on city schools with an anecdote.

I am friends with two couples who have three kids who just graduated from Highland H.S. and Valley H.S. Both schools are considered in the lower tier (though not the absolute worst in the city.) The kids were able to participate in band, track and field, football, JROTC and other activities and one of them is going to Columbia, one to UC Berkeley and one to West Point.

Your kid's education is what they make of it moreso than the school's reputation.

ABQConvict

[GuyOutWest]

ATT Wireless signal is pretty good here. We've used ATT for over 7 years, 2 of those years have been here, with very little, to no issues.
I think there are existing threads here about school systems etc.
If wind is your friend, I would look at Rio Rancho for a place to live.
We live out there, and it is windy a lot, but we also work 15 hours a day, so we aren't home to deal with it much. lol
Anyway, good luck in your search.
Guy

[rybert]

Originally Posted by ABQConvict

Sorry about the consecutive posts, but I wanted to extend my statement on city schools with an anecdote.

I am friends with two couples who have three kids who just graduated from Highland H.S. and Valley H.S. Both schools are considered in the lower tier (though not the absolute worst in the city.) The kids were able to participate in band, track and field, football, JROTC and other activities and one of them is going to Columbia, one to UC Berkeley and one to West Point.

Your kid's education is what they make of it moreso than the school's reputation.

ABQConvict

x2

My wife graduated from HH... she loved it... and has since graduated at the top of gasp... a Texas University!

[dpgtfc]

Thanks for the informative and well thought out post!

Originally Posted by ABQConvict

Less than statistically insignificant? Seriously, the average of 11 in./year (which in the last decade has been more like 6 inches) actually sticks around for a total of 24 hours. If you sleep until 9 or 10am, you may never see any snow at all.

That works well for me. I hate driving in the snow, and have to deal with it regularly here. In fact a couple winters ago we had 16+ inches (varied over the city, some as high as 20) in one snowfall and it lasted a week. The city doesn't shut down much here even with record snow falls.

Popularly underrated. It has its problems but the average opinion is that your child will graduate without the ability to spell their own name properly. Take the critics with a grain of salt. There are some excellent private schools if that is your thing.

I'm not sure we will be able to afford private schools, though who knows. I agree about making their own education and I hope to instill curiosity and a desire for self learning from a very early age.

Do you mean city parks or state/national parks? There are plenty of both. Water resources are obviously limited. The best "lake" for boating is Elephant Butte, a couple of hours south of Albuquerque. Most others are muddy ponds by most reckonings. If water sports are a priority for you, New Mexico would be a poor choice. If you like fishing, it can be pretty good to excellent, though. For whitewater there are some excellent options but they are few and far between. There is nothing commercial about the river(s) in New Mexico. The largest river, the Rio Grande, is barely navigable by canoe no matter how thick the blue line on the map.

Either, but I prefer the big parks with trails, tennis courts, football fields, etc rather than the small parks with perhaps a exercise circuit and a swing set. Water sports aren't a huge priority. I don't own a boat or a seedo or anything. I do like swimming once in awhile, but pools are just fine with me. Water parks are good too, some slides, a wave pool, etc. Any of those?

The Medical field is one of the few areas where some knowledge of Spanish is a neccesity in New Mexico (construction and culinary fields are the others). However, there are resources for getting medical professionals up to speed with medical specific Spanish skills. I doubt it is a pre-qualification for most jobs but it couldn't hurt to do a bit of study beforehand so she can claim some knowledge of Spanish on her resume.

I'll let her know. We went to Cancun for our honeymoon and talked about taking some classes or learning a little bit each day. I personally like the idea of trying to take on another language and was actually sort of hoping to move to a city with a large Hispanic presence. Language is immersive and I would like my kids to be bilingual (or more). I know that is a very controversial view though. My wife is just worried that they will require her to be fluent, I think.

Oh, for what it is worth we are planning on driving there in August to do some peeking around. We want to visit and see the place in person before we commit to move there. Any suggested places to visit while we are there? Less tourist type places (though not ruled out), but more of a good ABQ experience. Good restaurants (by the way, I love things EXTREMELY spicy though the missus doesn't so much), somewhat inexpensive hotel ( I'm of the mind to spend a bit more money to have a nice place, but oppulence isn't necessary), neighborhoods to drive around, and anything else suggestion wise is greately appreciated.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by OutOfLosAngeles

How's Qwest DSL for speed? I'm enjoying 2Mbps out here in L.A., and hate to think about losing it.

SLOW. And I supposedly have the "fast" residential package. Ha. I'm on a Mac. Used to take less than 2 minutes to download whatever the latest software update was that Apple said I needed. The three I've had to do on the DSL connection here have taken 15-25 minutes. To be honest, though, it may not be the DSL, but rather the crappy modem they gave me. I might try upgrading the modem and see if that helps any. If not, I'm having Comcast come out and put in a business broadband connection.

[Towanda]

My Qwest DSL service up here in Santa Fe is extremely fast. As fast as my cable modem back in Kansas was. I have no complaints about Qwest at all so far.

[ziaAirmac]

Well, there's some differences between the various sites, but I'm getting around 5.4-5.7 Mbps download and 690-735 kbps upload using Qwest DSL and the broadband 'test your speed' sites. I was with Comcast, but I had a lot of modem issues and the available bandwidth seemed to vary greatly during the day. To be clear, I'm not sure whether my modem issues were related to my particular hardware or the ISP, but my friend has Comcast and still struggles with the daily speed variations.