Common Sense If You Are Moving to Nova

[normie]

My brother's family lived in Los Alamos and then moved here about 5 years ago. They love it, although my sister in law says the trees here can make her feel claustrophobic. You don't have the wide open expanses of NM here, that's for sure.

The first year they were here they were pretty active with a club made up of people from NM. Most of the states have groups of people who get together for BBQs and that sort of thing. Then they got active in a chorale group, which took up most of their free time. But getting back to the New Mexico club, I think she found out about it through Richardson's office. They do things like meet at the July 4th Parade to cheer on the Los Alamos high school band, etc.

Do you know what area you'll be living in yet?

[ajzjmsmom]

Originally Posted by normie

My brother's family lived in Los Alamos and then moved here about 5 years ago. They love it, although my sister in law says the trees here can make her feel claustrophobic. You don't have the wide open expanses of NM here, that's for sure.

The first year they were here they were pretty active with a club made up of people from NM. Most of the states have groups of people who get together for BBQs and that sort of thing. Then they got active in a chorale group, which took up most of their free time. But getting back to the New Mexico club, I think she found out about it through Richardson's office. They do things like meet at the July 4th Parade to cheer on the Los Alamos high school band, etc.

Do you know what area you'll be living in yet?

I am wanting to be close enough that DH can use the metro to get to work but he has friends that live in Lake Ridge and wants to live there. I keep telling him the commute is crazy and he keeps saying he knows. I would prefer to be close to the end of the orange or blue line but we will see. We would prefer to get a 6 month detail there before we move so we can have time to get a feel for the different areas. We know we will be renting for at least the first 2 yrs while we decide how the area will work for us.

I don't think I will be like your sister-in-law, while the open spaces are okay I much prefer the trees. I was so amazed when we were there in '07 how many trees and how much vegatation there was in the area. I couldn't believe that you had these cities with all these trees. I am alittle apprehensive about the traffic, when we were there in '07 we were on detail so the gov't paid for it all and we stayed in Pentagon City so I walked everywhere I needed to go and if we did drive the car hubby drove. I am sure I will get used to it. I figure I will pretty much stay in the town I live in during the week and if hubby wants to explore on the weekends he can drive.

Somedays I want to tell him to go ahead and put in for the job in June of this year but our 15 yr old has asked for one more year here since we have moved twice since 2004. He of course is girl crazy and I keep telling him there are prettier girls there than here but he hasn't given in yet. Hubby wants to wait since there is supposed to be some movement in his branch of gov't over the next 6 months or so and see who goes where and who leaves DC. So we will deal with another 8 months or so of NM and the heat. I am from S Texas so I am hoping I will acclimate pretty quickly to the humidity in NOVA since I come from an area much hotter and about as humid.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by normie

Being respectful is not the same thing as being a door mat! Life here in Virginia can be very aggressive, especially in the business world. But it is quite possible to be aggressive and respectful at the same time--and if you can master this skill you will bloom in Virginia.

I like this point. Don't kid yourself that life here is mellow. Well, it is in a lot of ways. But I'd call life here aggressive.

People come here to make money, to network, to push their careers ahead. When that's your goal, you're going to be aggressive. Just look at rush hour traffic. But it doesn't bother me like aggression in other places. Maybe it's that people are aggressive but not angry? They're aggressive but they do it with a certain style?

[Caladium]

A little update: Mr. Detroit finally, finally got a job and moved out. Woo hoo! I'm happy for him and even happier for everyone else around here because we all got really tired of his beer cans in the street. I can't believe it took so long or that his brother put up with him for so long.

It makes you think. The reason I'm posting this is to warn anyone thinking of coming out here without a job. Nova has a lot of job openings for tech workers or people with specific skills. But this is not a good place to move if you just have a high school degree, you don't have any particular skills and you want to find a job after you get here. Do yourself a favor and get a job offer before you move here.

Originally Posted by Caladium

Interesting list. I found I generally agreed. Not sure I agreed with the one about the weather changing, I can usually base my plans on the forecast. But I definitely agree with point #1. We have that problem going on with a guy who just moved into my neighborhood.

Pardon me while I vent, but since the topic came up.... This guy is always complaining about how he's not making a bunch of close friends. Well too bad, he brought this problem on himself. But it's a shame he doesn't realize this.

First of all, his idea of having close friends is he wants people who will stand around in the street on a Friday night, drinking beer and throwing the beer cans in the street. That's just not what people in my neighborhood like to do for fun, in fact seeing all these beer cans in the street is making his neighbors hate him. Maybe that's what he did in his old neighborhood but that's not what we do here. Some people tried to be friendly, but I guess he didn't think they were "cool" enough for him. So guess what now people aren't friendly anymore.

What's the story on this guy? He lived in Detroit but got into some money problems. So he came out to Nova where he is now mooching off his brother. The brother is a nice guy but Mr. Detroit seems to think the way to make friends is to endlessly yammer about how much better life was in Detroit.

He doesn't like the lack of unions in Nova. He doesn't like how girls wear pink jackets (wussy, in his opinion). He hates recycle bins and makes fun of people when they wheel them out on trash day. (In Detroit the cool people just throw things in a trash can, apparently.) He hates how people drive here (we're too slow and we stop for stop signs.)

Worst of all, he hates foreign cars and was actually caught trying to get the kids to key the foreign cars parked in the street. Apparently that's cool behavior in Detroit, but it's not cool here!

We had a block party, and he tried to start trash talking between people who live in Reston and people who live in Herndon. I guess feuding about which community is better is funny in Detroit. It did not go over well at the party.

When he first moved in we gave that guy a chance. But he didn't even try to learn about how we do things in Nova or to give the area a chance. So now we're not giving him a chance. Now all he talks about is how he hates it here and he can't wait to go back to Detroit. It was interesting at first but now I'm sick of hearing it. Frankly I hope he goes back there soon.