vegaspilgrim goes to Albuquerque (Santa Fe, Rio Rancho: real estate, travel, salary)

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by ziaAirmac

In deference to your anguish, I've decided I'm not going to tell you about the batch of green chile I roasted this morning on my back porch from straight out of my garden.

...whoops.

That might be one of my absolute favorite things about ABQ living (among the 3,492 others) - the autumn green chile roastings. The smells that permeate the air are the smells of just wonderful things.

You are cruel zia, very cruel...

[desert sun]

Vegaspilgrim--- about the gangsta type people you see here, I think it has something to do with not being from here, its like when I went to Jackson,MS and saw all the thugs hanging out around my hotel,they made me feel a little un-easy, if I were from Jackson It probably wouldnt bother me just like the people here dont really bother me, its just that its a different type enviroment.

[Tim Rankin]

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. Vegas, why did you have to post those pics? As some c-d'ers may know, I just moved back east about 3 mos. ago, and viewing them has crystalized how completed and utterly NM & Albuquerque has sunk into me [to borrow Zia's phrase, per EP].

And all this talk about NM food is just killing me. At work, I have to eat at a cafeteria, and instead of ordering posole, carne adovada and deep-fried chiles, I am despondently subsisting on cardboard meatloaf, gooey casseroles and old hot dogs.

[vegaspilgrim]

Thanks for the nice and helpful comments everyone. Just out of curiosity, is it cloudy in Albuquerque right now? Here in Denver it was sunny all day yesterday and this morning, now it's gloomy with some thunderstorm action earlier. The weird thing I've noticed, whenever I'm in Denver and it's sunny, I think, "yeah... I'll just move right back here." But then when it's cloudy here I'm thinking, "nahh... this is depressing, I should go to ABQ!"

If you liked my photos when I get a chance in the next few days I have a few to post on the rural NM and Santa Fe forums, I'll post the link when I get to it. I thought the east side of the Sandias was incredibly beautiful and I snapped a bunch there.

Unfortunately I have to jump on a plane in a few hours to go back to "helLA" I'm honestly not sure whether or not I made a mistake by choosing USC. But classes start again on Monday, so what's done is done. Once I'm down there, far from both the mountain west, maybe I'll be able to think more clearly about this whole trip. I think the number one thing right now that's keeping me from pressing the ignition button on Albuquerque is family. But then again, I don't know how big a deal that is, maybe that's all in my head; my family is not exactly some closely knit warm, fuzzy, all-American family either. My sister just left to go to a college back east, so now my parents are officially empty nesters. Especially my dad, I have a feeling he is going to get really lonely. Other than them, I have a very old grandmother who's increasingly losing her mind, and a bunch of relatives who even though they live in Denver I only see once every other year or so. I don't really have any friends in Denver anymore anyway; everybody from high school has gone their separate ways, except for the crowd who went to CU. Truth is, for the most part, even in Denver, I'm a stranger in my own hometown. I think a lot of people, not just me, not just my family, but everybody is very uncertain as to the future right now.

Another thing going through my mind is when I looked at the Robert Half accounting jobs index last week; you take their suggested salary levels based on type of firm, type of position, and years of experience, and then you multiply it by an index depending on the city. Albuquerque is 88. The only western cities lower than that were Boise-- 86, and Spokane-- 82. Omaha is 94, Kansas City is 97, Denver is 102.5. Phoenix is 106. Tucson is 101 (which I find a little hard to believe, but that's what the booklet said). Salt Lake City is 100. Los Angeles is 125, Chicago is 123, and New York is 141. Now I am NOT saying that I am turning down Albuquerque just because of a 15% lower salary (and if those numbers are to be trusted, the pay for an equivalent job would be 15% lower than Denver). However, it is a factor to throw into the equation. EnjoyEP and I were talking about this a while back, and I totally agree with his reasoning that money isn't everything. However, how do I know that just because I take a lower paying job in Albuquerque that means I'll actually be working any less and be less stressed out? How do I know I still wouldn't be working 60 hour work weeks, just as much stress there, only less pay at the end of the month? As I explained earlier, the cost of living difference between DEN and ABQ for me, renting an apartment, is not really big enough to be a definitive issue. And there is no guarrantee that Albuquerque will continue to be a low cost city in the future; up until just a few years ago Phoenix was one of the cheapest cities in the nation, and now it has SKYROCKETED from where it was just 5 years ago. Ditto for Las Vegas (in fact, desirable parts of Las Vegas are approaching California-level prices). And Tucson. All it takes is some speculating Californians to "discover" Albuquerque as the next hot spot, drive up an artificially inflated real estate boom, and the affordability could be ruined forever. So all I'm saying is that the difference in pay is one factor to throw into the equation. But if I think I really would be happier in Albuquerque I would sacrifice it.

Likewise, there's always the possibility of starting out in Denver for a few years, and then move/transfer to Albuquerque a little bit down the road. I also see that as a high possibility. But then again I could also start off in Albuquerque right off the bat. I think other than family and emotional ties, I don't really love Denver in general all that much any more. If I wasn't already from Denver, I probably would have rule out Denver for one reason or another a long time ago. But I'm not sure if I can actually pinpoint another city that I can unequivocally say is better. I tolerate Denver a lot more than Phoenix (at least during this half of the year), and I like Denver a lot more than LA, and I think I'd rather live in Denver than anywhere north or east. Then there's Albuquerque, which seems like a tempting alternative option...

[desert sun]

I would say just move wherever you want, try something different again and if you dont like it move to Denver,afterall we're all going to die and anything we do isnt going to mean anything, so live life up

[ABQConvict]

You are concerned because you were flipped-off by a Hispanic teenager? No offense but that sounds a bit over sensitive. I live a few blocks from where that incident occured and I have never come even remotely close to any 'gangster problems'.

In fact, the only real physical altercation I ever had in New Mexico was with a guy in a lime-green striped IZOD shirt. This was downtown in early Spring, 1991. The fight was instigated by a disagreement on George H. W. Bush's leadership qualities. Alcohol was certainly involved.

ABQConvict

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by ABQConvict

You are concerned because you were flipped-off by a Hispanic teenager? No offense but that sounds a bit over sensitive. I live a few blocks from where that incident occured and I have never come even remotely close to any 'gangster problems'.

In fact, the only real physical altercation I ever had in New Mexico was with a guy in a lime-green striped IZOD shirt. This was downtown in early Spring, 1991. The fight was instigated by a disagreement on George H. W. Bush's leadership qualities. Alcohol was certainly involved.

ABQConvict

No, I'm not concerned about that incident at all. That isn't keeping me back from choosing Albuquerque. It's not even close. I simply related that just to note that not everybody in Albuquerque is totally nice and friendly as some posters here claim. I think this whole country is getting progressively worse, and it's not really a big city or small city thing; it's all of them. I just think it's a myth that you escape urban problems just because you're living in a smaller city; it's not necessarily true.

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by vegaspilgrim

I simply related that just to note that not everybody in Albuquerque is totally nice and friendly as some posters here claim.

Vegas - With respect, who here has claimed that everyone 100% in Albuquerque is "totally nice and friendly"????

Sometimes I struggle to understand the dynamics of this forum. I know I for one am largely upbeat about ABQ on this forum because, as worldly as I am (my wife has lived in several Asian nations as well as being American, her mother is a Mexican national, her US relatives are in El Paso and Denver, etc., etc., etc.) ABQ really has made an overall enormously positive impression on me and my life circumstances.

However, often times people here (I think that aren't really seeing everything written by me or paying attention) then accuse me of saying "nothing but fluff and positives" about ABQ when - if they were in reality - would see that anything couldn't be farther from the truth. I guess I just assume people's perspectives, when speaking about a city of just-shy-of-1-million-metro...would realize that yes, of course there are some unfriendly folks in a city that size.

I don't know vegas...even those here that feel as positive and upbeat about ABQ and have had years more of experience in ABQ (and still love it as much) as I do...I still haven't seen anyone claim here that nearly "everyone" or 100% of folks are always nice, positive, and upbeat.

In any city of any size in the world...throughout time...there will be some jerks.

[vegaspilgrim]

Originally Posted by EnjoyEP

Vegas - With respect, who here has claimed that everyone 100% in Albuquerque is "totally nice and friendly"????

What started this whole tangent was when ziaArmac asked me about the people, which I originally didn't say anything about one way or the other. Sorry if it sounds like I'm setting up some kind of straw man argument here, but my point was I believed that you and several others prior to my trip made some claims about how nice people are in Albuquerque, and all I'm trying to say is what you just said:

In any city of any size in the world...throughout time...there will be some jerks.

That's precisely my point. I didn't stick around long enough to start making friends with anybody in town, but I was there long enough to know that there's both some friendly and helpful people (like when we pulled over to the side of the dirt road in the forest on the other side of the Sandias, someone came up and asked if we were okay), and some losers. Just like every other place. And most people are just normal, in the middle. I see the "people factor" as neither a reason to nor a reason not to live in Albuquerque; it just is what it is.

One of the great things about going to ASU for four years was meeting people my age from all different sorts of regions all over the country. I had friends and acquaintances from Phoenix, Tucson, rural Arizona, suburban southern California, Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, Olympia, northern Idaho, Salt Lake City, Dallas, rural northern Texas, San Antonio, Houston, Kansas City, Fargo, Omaha, Minneapolis, Chicago, all three major cities in Ohio, Detroit suburbs, small towns in Michigan, northeast Pennsylvania, some small towns in Wisconsin whose French-sounding names I couldn't even spell, upstate New York, New York City, Long Island, Boston, northern Virginia, Oklahoma.... I could go on and on forever, and I also knew a few people from Albuquerque and a few people from Las Cruces. Of the times I've been in Albuquerque, and the people I know from Albuquerque, I wouldn't say as a whole they are really any better or worse, any different from any other city around the country.

Interestingly, with your airport waiting room analogy... when I was at LAX waiting for my flight to Denver, I walked around and found a flight departing to Albuquerque. The people there didn't strike me as too different. In fact, the most distinctive group of "airport people" I've seen time after time again from my experiences in airports is the Texans-- the Dallas and Houston crowds can be spotted a million miles away. Or maybe it's just their accents and the fact that Texans tend to talk loud. I can see a whole lot of ways how Albuquerque is different-- and a lot of that may have to do with the unique way society as a whole is blended-- but on a one-on-one, individual basis, I'm just not seeing it.

[vegaspilgrim]

Let's change to conversation to something more, ...... fun. One thing I noticed about Albuquerque that I thought was super cool was a somewhat frequent science, or "pop science" theme going on. Outer space/ science/ aircraft/ atomic bombs/ aliens. I noticed at least several locations of what looked to me to be a really cool local coffee chain, Satellite Coffee. What an incredible business idea! And then there's the Flying Star Cafe. And the atomic museum. And a bunch of science related stuff not just in Albuquerque, but the state of New Mexico as a whole. Los Alamos, White Sands Missile Range, Sandia National Laboratories. On my earlier road trip this summer we stopped at the Very Large Array on hwy 60 west of Socorro. This I find to be very fun and interesting. Anybody else noticed this?