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Old 01-07-2012, 12:18 PM
 
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,705 posts, read 58,042,598 times
Reputation: 46172

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Army is a pretty good choice, Colorado, Not so good.

"Man-Up," and do the Marines, or Wyoming or Alaska (or Canada / northern / energy related)

From my experience... It will make you or break you. I have Colorado HS friends who went to AK oil pipeline in early 1970's.
Some were very smart (they retired pre age 40).
Others are on marriage #3-4 and still working oil field rigs / services as 'old men', living in motels, and reminiscing of how great HS was.
One went into AK fishing and just sold several million dollars of fishing boasts / contracts (+ has only been working 3month/yr for 30 yrs )

Military route about the same success rate... tho MORE earning / benefit potential if they used that time wisely. (get a high paying civilian edu, or retire an officer)

EITHER / ALL (good) choices will require discipline / purpose and A LOT of PAIN

I was a college drop-out (left BEFORE I got through registration)... look where it got me.... (I did just finish an advanced degree, but was always getting 'carded' looking for student discount as an antique student.) The profs were generally much younger than I.

DO get your act together and go for early earnings, BIG TIME. I left home at 15, and always had 2-3 jobs, so had equivalent of 15 - 20 yrs working experience by the time most of my friends were graduating and getting decent jobs. Consider apprenticing in a career that will not get outsourced (lineman / plumber / electrician). I just did a job, where the 'age-20-something' plumber fetched $90 / hr.

 
Old 01-07-2012, 12:24 PM
 
Location: Western Colorado
12,858 posts, read 16,870,986 times
Reputation: 33509
Oh to be 19 again...

Have fun and good luck.
 
Old 01-07-2012, 12:32 PM
 
Location: Canon City, Colorado
1,331 posts, read 5,082,894 times
Reputation: 689
I DO understand the "do it while you can" attitude but,....there is something to be said about my favorite saying....it is.....Pay Now, Play Later--- Play Now, Pay Later!! Think about it!!
 
Old 01-07-2012, 03:09 PM
 
40 posts, read 107,190 times
Reputation: 75
This could be the biggest mistake of your life...
But you should absolutely GO FOR IT!
You only live once, and being young is the best time to take chances like this. It could be the greatest decision you ever make. But if it ends up being a mistake it really wont be that big of a deal.
 
Old 01-07-2012, 04:20 PM
 
Location: Centennial State
399 posts, read 817,105 times
Reputation: 176
The luxury humans have is that sometimes they are able to learn from their mistakes. However that luxury comes at a price and it's not always a guarantee the price won't be your life if not others.

Hopefully the happiness the original poster is seeking does not come at the cost of others.
 
Old 01-08-2012, 08:00 PM
 
Location: N. Colorado
345 posts, read 914,026 times
Reputation: 286
I would save up money and come here for the Summer. Call it a vacation, do not cut ties, if you still live at home, tell our parents you are moving out etc. Come here for the Summer, see if you like it and can get a job etc. If you do not then you go back home having had a nice long vacation.
 
Old 01-09-2012, 08:25 AM
 
Location: Everywhere and Nowhere
14,129 posts, read 31,251,117 times
Reputation: 6920
I'd love to put the C-D grannies in a time machine and send them back to the 19th Century:

"I'm a 16 year old bored apprentice looking to ditch this podunk burg here in the Midwest and head West to Colorado and New Mexico to seek adventure. I have no job there and very little money. I've heard though the locals there don't take kindly to newcomers. Please tell me if I'm being too irresponsible. Regards, Christoper Carson.

P.S. Maybe I'll eventually join the military"

Go for it. You're only 19 once. If it doesn't work out, you'll be no worse off.
 
Old 01-09-2012, 09:05 AM
 
8,317 posts, read 29,471,711 times
Reputation: 9306
Quote:
Originally Posted by CAVA1990 View Post
I'd love to put the C-D grannies in a time machine and send them back to the 19th Century:

"I'm a 16 year old bored apprentice looking to ditch this podunk burg here in the Midwest and head West to Colorado and New Mexico to seek adventure. I have no job there and very little money. I've heard though the locals there don't take kindly to newcomers. Please tell me if I'm being too irresponsible. Regards, Christoper Carson.

P.S. Maybe I'll eventually join the military"

Go for it. You're only 19 once. If it doesn't work out, you'll be no worse off.
OK, here is the real history lesson from 1880: I'm a 16 year old bored apprentice looking to ditch this podunk burg here in the Midwest and head West to Colorado and New Mexico to seek adventure and make my fortune. When I get out West, I find out that everything is ridiculously expensive. I wind up sleeping in bedbug-infested tent hotels teaming with people just like me. Jobs can be had, but the hours are brutal (12 hours a day, at least 6 days a week). People live in tents, or a rooming house if they're lucky, but it takes most of my pay just to survive. The idea of the independent prospector making a big strike is about as rare as someone "beating the house" at the faro tables. The mining industry is controlled by Eastern and European capitalists--it's a high-capital industrial enterprise, and the people working for the "company" are treated no better, and often worse, than the workers in the sweatshops back East. Out here, life is cheap--if the rock dust from working in the mines doesn't kill you early, there are all kinds of diseases from typhoid to dysentery that will. Doctors are often nearly non-existent and most workers can't afford to see one if one is in town. I would love to make some money to go back East, but I never seem to get ahead. I'm little better than a slave here, but now I'm stuck. There are few women here other than the "soiled doves" working the "cribs." Many of them are not even pretty and many of them carry "the calamity" (venereal disease to the uninitiated--and how "Calamity Jane" got her name), but I frequent the "houses" because that is all the female companionship there is. I just hope their bouncers don't roll me again and take my whole month's wages like they did last time. God help me. Of course, a few people make it pretty well, but most of them brought a good "grubstake" with them and/or they are exceptionally talented entreprenuers. Or they are the "remittance men" (the old term for a "trust-funder") paid by their rich families to stay away from home.

That's the REAL Colorado history from back when, not the sanitized crap one reads in most history texts. If you're going to quote history, get it right. As for today, things are nowhere near as rough, but nor is Colorado some beautiful utopia for idealistic, but clueless teenagers to come to for fun and frolic.
 
Old 01-09-2012, 10:09 AM
 
Location: Western Colorado
12,858 posts, read 16,870,986 times
Reputation: 33509
OMG he's 19, it's 2012 NOT 1880. If he doesn't like it here or falls on his face in a few hours he can be back home.

Have fun kid, enjoy life while you're young.
 
Old 01-09-2012, 11:30 AM
 
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
6,288 posts, read 11,779,504 times
Reputation: 3369
I would encourage him to do it. There's a lot of young people in Colorado who are doing exactly the same thing and they are surviving and having experiences that you won't if you stay stuck in the same old rut that you're used to. Moving to Colorado with no job or prospects at 19 years old is not a mistake, it's an experience.
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