Any one leaving FLA? (Hialeah, Estero: unemployment, transfer to, live)

Ken E · 01-15-2011, 01:11 PM

Those sunsets are terrible up that way!

ChrisA70 · 01-15-2011, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken E

Those sunsets are terrible up that way!

Yeah, only FL has sunsets.... According to some. LOL

The sky looked like fire this night... The pic I took doesn't do justice for it.

Here is one I took a week ago down here in Estero...

Sunny-Days-in-Florida · 01-15-2011, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisA70

Yeah, only FL has sunsets.... According to some. LOL

I wish you well Chris no matter what you do but do not become a Florida hater like so many others. Florida did nothing wrong to you that I am aware of.

You did live in Florida for 17 years afterall and if you did not enjoy any of it I am sure you would have left a long time ago.

The sun only shines most the time in Florida and 1/4 of the time in the NE.

Remain positive and you will be much happier once you get back to Mass.

ChrisA70 · 01-15-2011, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunny-Days90

I wish you well Chris no matter what you do but do not become a Florida hater like so many others. Florida did nothing wrong to you that I am aware of.

You did live in Florida for 17 years afterall and if you did not enjoy any of it I am sure you would have left a long time ago.

The sun only shines most the time in Florida and 1/4 of the time in the NE.

Remain positive and you will be much happier once you get back to Mass.

Nah, not a FL hater. Never was, a summer heat hater I am for sure. I am one of those weirdo's who loves cloudy days. 50/50 year round is good for me. I get tired of constant sun. Yes, strange.... There is a LOT I have enjoyed here. I am sure when I retire we will be here again. I just want to live the rest of my "younger years" up there. I want my daughter to go to school up there from middle through high school. It's not FL chasing me away. I do have times I get mad at FL for some things, but my reason for leaving is mostly weather.

SandmanSand · 01-15-2011, 03:11 PM

I thought about driving to St. Mary's, or Kingsland today.

worldlyman · 01-15-2011, 08:22 PM

Why did I leave Florida? It's kind of a story.

I grew up in Florida. We moved down there from the NW part of the Hoosier State when I was 9. It was quite different from the Chicagoland area where I spent the first decade of my life. I went to middle school in Clearwater.

For the most part, my childhood in the Pinellas County area of Florida was very good and memorable.

Dad got a job in Houston, and that's where we moved to in the great Summer of 1982.

I felt more of a "fit" in Houston as a teen. Much more international, had a greater cornucopia of things than the Tampa Bay area from the get go. Houston is so much more open socially than Clearwater (so clique-oriented). On the flip side, life has always been more tranquil in Clearwater.

Generally, my dad's side is in Houston while my mom's side is in Florida and Indy. I basically lived my life in both Houston and Clearwater (apart from four years in Southern California). Folks have been long-divorced now.

After leaving SoCal, I returned to Clearwater in 2006 due to changes with the grandparents' status and their house. My mom asked me to look after the house and my mentally-challenged aunt since I was in transition from SoCal anyway.

In mid-2006 I got a job right away at a great Clearwater hospital that's been a big part of my life (it would be my 3rd stint there). And my wife was supposed to follow me to Clearwater in early 2007. But she and my mom had serious issues, so my wife went to stay with her sister in Houston instead.

I had a decent job at the hospital and my mom fixed up grandparents' house really nice. It's paid off...all I had to do was pay the utilities and the insurance...and DirecTV. Not bad at all. So I had a tough call to make.

Return to Houston or stay in Florida, regardless of what my wife decided?

Needless to say, it was VERY hard to leave Clearwater. I liked staying at the house, nice quiet neighborhood, driving down to Indian Rocks Beach to clear my thoughts, or hanging out with my cousin and friends in St. Pete...or driving auntie down to Checker's for her fries. It seemed so settled. NO RENT or MORTGAGE.

But my wife never saw the advantages of the Florida situation (she acts like it's a big deal to pay utilities and the monthly insurance). She was too wound up over my mom. Two strong-willed women with their own way of looking at things. But when you're married, you're married, right? I made the decision to return to Houston.

I was lucky I found my hospital job in Houston right away. But I didn't really like living with my in-laws. Too many people in a house isn't nice in the long term.

The rub is that I heard certain things at the Clearwater hospital really went south from a duty standpoint. So I may have wound up quitting anyway.

While I had a house to stay in for as long as I wanted in Clearwater...what's there for jobs and opportunities compared to Houston? Working at Publlix or selling souvenirs? Commuting to Tampa was out of the question. But when rent or mortgage isn't hanging over your head...maybe working at Publix wouldn't be bad. (Then there's the benefits...)

In Houston, at least, there's multitudes of opportunities...and we probably have a chance to find our own place here. While I liked my certain knick-knacks down in Pinellas County...I have to say the Houston area is WAY MORE diverse and entertaining but indeed more of a challenge to live in. Yeah, for the most part I do love it here in Houston.

Once I establish my new career though and become more readily mobile, I might have thoughts of going back to the grandparents' house in Clearwater. You can't beat living in a paid-off home that the family may very well pass on, eh? Could always get my Houston-fix-n-kix once a month or so (it would hard to give up those late night neon Asian cafes here).

I left Florida because of my wife's change of heart and inability to see eye-to-eye with my mom (it's not like they had to live together...my mom lives way on the southern end of Pinellas County!). While my auntie likes my wife, it would remain to be seen how they get along in a permanent domestic environment. I still chuckle to this day at the DIRECTLY corresponding pros and cons of both Houston and Clearwater as far as possible personal situations.