How many are thinking of leaving California? (Monterey, Bishop: mortgage, how much)

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by Humanoid

Sell or walk away? And where are you thinking about moving?

Sold it. We're pretty much set on the Denver area but we're not going to go until we're financially prepared. If my wife could someone get a job there from here, that would be great, but we're probably going to need some decent cash in the bank before heading out.

[Humanoid]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

Sold it. We're pretty much set on the Denver area but we're not going to go until we're financially prepared. If my wife could someone get a job there from here, that would be great, but we're probably going to need some decent cash in the bank before heading out.

I visited Denver for a bit when I moved back out here and it was pretty nice. It has a similar problem to California for us though, where the natural setting is very nice but most of the man made stuff is pretty ugly (although its a bit better than Southern CA). The rocky mountains are awesome though. Driving through them was the best part of our trip back.

We've thought about Fort Collins, CO. But haven't had time to visit yet.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by Humanoid

I visited Denver for a bit when I moved back out here and it was pretty nice. It has a similar problem to California for us though, where the natural setting is very nice but most of the man made stuff is pretty ugly (although its a bit better than Southern CA). The rocky mountains are awesome though. Driving through them was the best part of our trip back.

We've thought about Fort Collins, CO. But haven't had time to visit yet.

Yeah Denver is a lot like SoCal but with everything dialed back several notches. The traffic is nothing compared to SoCal and there isn't the feeling of constantly being crowded we get here. We don't want to make the mistake a lot of Californians make and move to some small city of 50,000 and find out it lacks the shopping, dining, and entertainment we're used to. Denver is a big city and has all that goes with that, (4 pro sports teams, major restaurant and retail chains, ethnic restaurants, etc) but without being the cluster**ck SoCal has become. We like the you can be on the outer edge of the suburbs where its nice and quiet, yet be in downtown in half an hour either by car or commuter rail. We've made 4 trips there so far and like it more each time.

[MtnSurfer]

We just moved 'Back' to CA after living in CO for several years. We were there long enough to enjoy the beautiful Rocky Mountains with our three children. And yes there are many advatages to living there over CA. Lets face it, Californians are leaving by the thousands - secondary migration. And many of the nicer states do not appreciate the big influx of Californians. But hey CA was invaded first by the entire world.

The bottom line we have come to realize is that no place is perfect, but rather a separate set of pros/cons. When you move somewhere else you are just trading one set for another. So the main question really is will the pros outweigh the cons for you? If you think the answer is yes then go! Really, life is an adventure. No need to bag excessively on CA though on your way out as you may in fact be back some day.

We lived in CO long enough to realize that although nice we wanted to get back to the West Coast. However we knew that we had no desire to live in SoCal again. It was to us a concrete jungle. Our first choice was Monterey beacuse this was our favorite section of the CA coast. And it worked out for us. Sure the cost of living is high here. But there are so many other pros that its worth it. Remeber that CA is a huge state with a lot of diverse landscape, culture and opportunity.

Lets face it, CA has a lot of the best and worst parts of our nation. If you can enjoy the the best and not become entangled in the worst it really is a great place to live.

Just out of curiosity where do you think you will go? Have you evaluated the new negatives and do you think you will be ok with those over the long haul? Do you mind living far from your family? If your answer is 'this shouldn't be a problem' then why not give it a go. CO has a thriving areospace industry (mainly Denver, Colorado Springs). Getting a clearance is important out there and a value in this economy. There are other software opportunites out there as well. I am still getting contacted by recruiters to come back to CO to work. But we don't plan to return although some of our family has migrated from CA to CO 'they say' for good.

Derek

[MtnSurfer]

Originally Posted by EscapeCalifornia

Yeah Denver is a lot like SoCal but with everything dialed back several notches. The traffic is nothing compared to SoCal and there isn't the feeling of constantly being crowded we get here... We like the you can be on the outer edge of the suburbs where its nice and quiet, yet be in downtown in half an hour either by car or commuter rail. We've made 4 trips there so far and like it more each time.

I think that is the key to living in Denver. There some some really nice burbs on the outskirts of the city. We lived in Colorado Springs and drove to Denver a lot to visit family and thru on our way to RMNP. If we had stayed in CO we probably would have moved just outside Denver a little closer to the mtns and away from the busiest parts. Louisville, Superior, Golden and Longmont are all nice. Just don't get a job in downtown and try that commute. Traffic can be nasty during rush hour. There are enough companies fortunately outside downtown to make that possible.

We spent a lot of time in RMNP hiking and enjoying the outdoors. So the closer to the park and Rockies the better. But the funny part we discovered is a lot of ppl live close to the Mtns but never really go out and enjoy them. A lot of folks hibernate for the Winter. Of course they go to work, shopping, gym, etc... Just not up in to the wild. But I guess that is one of the things that keeps it beautiful. Here is a shot I took with my kids in Aspen in the Fall which isn't as quite as cold:



Here is Dream Lake from a Winter hike up in RMNP. And no one was at the lake that AM.



Derek

[EscapeCalifornia]

Wow nice pictures. RMNP is one of those things that's on my list of things to do once I've been there long enough to handle the hike in the thin air.

[MtnSurfer]

Yeah,

Give yourself some time to aclimate to living at ~6000' first. That took me a while. Then drive up into RMNP to Bear Lake. It is literally ~100 yards from the parking lot. So many ppl go up there to see a beautiful mtn. lake without having to do a killer hike. And Dream Lake in the photo above is only ~ a 1 mile hike form there.

I eventually got used to it and found myself hiking above 10K'. Some hikes 'start' at 9K.

Derek

[Huckleberry3911948]

when you pry them from my dead cold fingers, not my raybands & hawaiian shirt, back off.
im stayin.

[Humanoid]

Those pictures make me miss the snow.....freakin' 90 degree weather in November here.

Just out of curiosity where do you think you will go? Have you evaluated the new negatives and do you think you will be ok with those over the long haul?

Not sure if you were asking me or EscapeCalifornia, but I'll answer regardless. Lately we've been thinking about the following areas:

Portland, OR
Raleigh, NC
Austin, TX
Fort Collins (or perhaps Denver), CO
Philly Suburbs

The next step is to visit the area that seems the best from a distance (Between the both of us we've been to most of these areas, but with the exception of PA not recently). Hopefully we'll have the time in the first half of next year to visit 1-2 of these places again.

We have evaluated the negatives, but there is really only one. Namely, that both of our families are mostly in California. We moved back to California after living on the east coast about 1.5 years ago, and at this point regret it. Most of the reasoning behind the move ended up being a miscalculation on our part. For one we really overestimated the strength of the California economy, we did not understand the extent of the craziness in California that happened while we were gone (left in 2001) until we returned.

Ignoring local economy and taxes I think we'd likely move to Portland, OR. Unfortunately the economy/tax situation in Portland isn't that much better than California.

[NVDave]

Originally Posted by sheri257

You're in the tech field and you're knocking Silicon Valley which is pretty mind boggling since I met the most intelligent and talented people there from all over the world. There's nothing average about Silicon Valley nor should there be. For crying out loud ... the personal computer was invented there ... which is why we're able to have this conversation in the first place.

I used to work in Silicon Valley as an engineer. Made a pretty fair wad of cash there. I don't regret my time there, but when circumstances allowed, I left.

Silicon Valley was certainly a pretty unique place from the late 70's through to 2002 or thereabouts, but now the costs of doing business in California, coupled with a shift in technology are going to move the future away from Silicon Valley in particular and California in general.

This is not unlike the cradle of the minicomputer revolution, which was located largely in the Massachusetts Route 128 area. The technology changed, the structure of business changed, the state's business climate changed and the minicomputer companies of Route 128 went out of business one by one.

The decentralized nature of the 'net, which Silicon Valley was responsible for creating, coupled with a contraction and re-location of venture capital to other regions of the country will reduce the importance of Silicon Valley. Take Intel as an example: when was the last time they built a fab in California, much less in Silicon Valley? I believe it was 1988. Many of Intel's latest ideas in the Pentium product line are coming out of Israel. They no longer locate new fabs in California due to capital costs and unreliable power. You can't have a fab line in an area with unreliable power. This will also chase large server-based companies out of the state as well. California is doing nothing to resolve these issues anytime soon, if ever.

Another sign: declining VC investment and deals. VC investments have not recovered to 2001 levels yet, and with the oncoming economic slowdown, coupled with the failure of investment banks and huge capital losses, I'd bet that venture investment in Silicon Valley will be declining for the next several years, as it will most everywhere. Increasing taxes in California will continue to cause new VC's to start up outside California in Nevada, Washington, Colorado, etc.

Is Silicon Valley an important place in tech? Yes, for the time being. But the signs are pretty clear - the last chapters are being written even now. It will continue to have plenty of jobs and neat things happening, but it probably will never recover its glory days of 1978 to 2000.

BTW -- the personal computer wasn't invented in Silicon Valley. Another poster mentioned the IBM 610, which is a contender. Any number of less expensive minicomputers (eg, the PDP-8 from DEC) can make a claim to being "personal" in that they fit on a desk and had a single user back in the 60's and early 70's.

If we want to point to a micro-processor based personal computer, I'd have to say that the MITS Altair 8800 was the first truly personal computer in 1974. This was the computer that ran the first version of BASIC written by this geeky kid named Bill Gates.

MITS was located in Alburquerque, NM.